Paper Reading #14: Chronicle

Comments:

Patrick Frith

Comment 2

Reference Information:

Title: Chronicle: Capture, Exploration, and Playback of Document Workflow Histories

Authors: T. Grossman, J. Matejka, G. Fitzmaurice

Presentation: (Conference Paper) USIT 2010/2009

Summary: Keeping track of operations carried out in a document is something that majority of User Interfaces do in today's technology. However, once the document is saved, there is not way to obtain that information. Chronicle is a software that supports "graphical document work flow exploration and playback." Basically it is able to store the history of the modifications done to a document, and save is as part of the document itself.

The authors discuss some related work that has been in done in the area, for example operation history and undo management, video summarization and browsing, as well as multimedia tutors however the aim of these kind of software is to aid the user not loose their information. However, Chronicle focuses on helping users understand the work flow that was applied to a certain document.

Chronicle. a) main Chronicle window, b)
the timeline, c) application/Playback window.

Chronicle was implemented in an imaging application. It allows the users to watch the video of the modifications done in the image. There are three main parts to the application: 1) The main Chronicle window which shows a hierarchy of modifications. All modifications that have been done in an image are condensed into seven steps. The user is able to select one and see seven modifications done in that one step, and so on. 2) On the bottom of the page, the user can see an interactive timeline where the user can fast-track through the history of the modifications; and 3) the main application window and on top of it the window that is playing the video.

The developers evaluated Chronicle by carrying out a short user study. They recruited eight participants that had at least three years of experience with image editing software. Participants were given a short introduction to the software, a walk-trough some activities in order to present and explained its functionality. They were then given 5 tasks to complete individually and they fill out a survey about their experience. The authors note that majority of the comments and ratings were positive.

Chronicle can be used for various settings such as team work collaboration support, as a learning or tutorial aid, and even for the user who wants to know how he got to his current state in the application. Some of the future they are considering involve memory consumption and managment as well as enhancement in display settings.

Discussion: I would like to see this kind of software implemented in different kind of applications, for example word documents, video editing, and others. A system like Chronicle could be very useful in the education environment, for teaching students how to use the software required for their courses. 

However, I think that privacy issues could be very easily raised from the use of this software. If unauthorized users have access to the complete process of developing a certain image, or solving a problem, they could very easily replicate that piece of work. I found it interesting how this was not mentioned in the paper at all. It might be because this software is not released yet, but it could definitively become an issue.

I think the user study they carried out could of provided better or more accurate results if participants would use this tool for an extended period of time, not only a couple of hours. Even though they treated their evaluation as a usability study,  I would consider it more like a measure of how easy it is to be introduced to the software.