Paper Reading #22: Vocabulary Navigation Made Easier

Comments:

Zach Henkel

Steven Hennessy

Reference Information:

Title: Vocabulary Navigation Made Easier

Authors: S. Nikolova, X. Ma, M. Tremaine, P. Cook

Presentation: IUI'10, February 7-10, 2010, Hong Kong, China

Related words in ViVA are displayed above the basic
hierarchy, e.g. tea and dessert are associated with food.

Summary: This paper discusses the development of ViVA, a visual interface that makes navigation easier when trying to find words. The challenge they are faced with is implementing such an interface that will help individuals with lexical disorders, such as aphasia. Majority of the past and current work on this area includes interfaces with some kind of hierarchy or category of words, which may lead to disorganization and long search trials.

ViVA is a visual vocabulary interface which allows a more  efficient way of finding words by modeling a "mental lexicon." ViVA will organize vocabulary based on contextual organizations. For example, if you are looking for the word milk, you can find it in the kitchen category. They based their development in an already existing vocabulary hierarchy called Lingraphica, and added the associative features.

They conducted a user study with sixteen individuals. They were provided with a set of missing words, and the users task was to find it. The roup was divided into two, one using a simpler hierarchical language, and the other using ViVA. The results show that there was great improvement in the user's experience with the interface.

Discussion: Reading about technology that aids people with disabilities is always appealing to me. It helps me see that technology is not just about making things simpler or more productive, but it is also there who really need their help. 

I had never heard about this condition before, but from the point of view of an English Second Language speaker I ca n tell that even for us, this kind of interface could work more efficiently than only a translation dictionary. This interface may aid in our thought process, thus learning new words and exercising our language skills.