Browsing by Author "Kortum, Philip T."

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    A computational model of routine procedural memory
    (2009) Tamborello, Franklin Patrick, II; Byrne, Michael D.; Kortum, Philip T.; Lane, David M.; Autry, Lynette S.; Dannemiller, James L.; Napier, Albert H.
    Cooper and Shallice (2000) implemented a computational version of the Norman and Shallice's (1986) Contention Scheduling Model (CSM). The CSM is a hierarchically organized network of action schemas and goals. Botvinick and Plaut (2004) instead took a connectionist approach to modeling routine procedural behavior. They argued in favor of holistic, distributed representation of learned step co-occurrence associations. Two experiments found that people can adapt routine procedural behavior to changing circumstances quite readily and that other factors besides statistical co-occurrence can have influence on action selection. A CSM-inspired ACT-R model of the two experiments is the first to postdict differential error rates across multiple between-subjects conditions and trial types. Results from the behavioral and modeling studies favor a CSM-like theory of human routine procedural memory that uses discrete, hierarchically-organized goal and action representations that are adaptable to new but similar procedures.
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    Measuring the usability of home healthcare devices
    (2017-12-13) Gao, Mei; Kortum, Philip T.
    As the trend of home-delivered healthcare grows, the number of healthcare devices being utilized in the home setting also increases greatly, but the usability of these devices has not been examined systematically. Although usability testing is regarded as the standard practice of usability assessment, it may not be as cost-effective as alternative methods such as retrospective measures. This study collected data for healthcare devices from a usability test and a retrospective survey. Four measures including the ISO 9241-11 metrics of effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction (ISO, 1998), and the System Usability Scale (SUS, Brooke, 1996) scores were compared between methods. Despite the inconsistency in effectiveness and efficiency with the usability test, the retrospective survey generated assessments that differentiated between devices. Retrospective assessments may thus be useful for comparative evaluations of medical devices, but cannot substitute standard usability tests for collecting objective usability data.
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    Usability of New Electronic Voting Systems and Traditional Methods: Comparisons Between Sequential and Direct Access Electronic Voting Interfaces, Paper Ballots, Punch Cards, and Lever Machines
    (2008) Greene, Kristen K.; Byme, Michael D.; Kortum, Philip T.; Lane, David M.
    It has been assumed that new Direct-Recording Electronic voting machines (DREs) are superior to the older systems they are replacing, despite a lack of supporting research. The current studies contribute much-needed data on the usability of both older and newer voting systems. Study 1 compared a DRE with a sequential navigation model to paper ballots, punch cards, and lever machines; a DRE with a direct access navigation model was added in Study 2. Changing the navigation style from sequential to direct decreased voter satisfaction and greatly increased undervote errors and intentional abstentions. Premature ballot casting was seen with the direct DRE only. Across both studies, participants were neither faster nor less error-prone with the DREs than the older methods. Nonetheless, they found the sequential DRE significantly more satisfying, an interesting disassociation between preference and performance. Despite voter preferences, the assumption that DREs are superior may be unfounded.