Created in early 1995, CraigsList was a local community classifieds and forums. Over the years, CraigsList has provided to the public an online trade, shopping, and information gathering environment free from distractions such as pop-ups, flashing banners, and other commercial advertisements. ARSSEN is a web application that utilizes CraigsList’s RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feed to implement a feature that addresses users’ time conservation, convenience, and search relevancy issues. Using PHP, this application has an email notification feature that notifies users of relevant postings according to the keyword phrases that they enter. This feature gives users the option of not having to search/browse for relevant postings and wait for updates. Other features include: a simple browsing page containing only the most recent posting taken from a portion of their RSS feed, a brief view so users are not overwhelmed with too much data, means to compare prices of items from CraigsList against prices of other popular online shopping websites, and better security in the form of logins or user accounts.

Cassandra is a system designed to connect people who have questions to people who are skilled in the question area. Cassandra improves upon other systems in this problem area by specifically lowering the burden placed on question answerers, improving the level of awareness of question status for the asker, and making the solutions available for third party searching and browsing. The system was designed with university students in large math and physics lectures in mind. These students have large and complex homework assignments each week that are often done with the assistance of other students. Though Cassandra can be generalized to other groups and communities, this population served as a fertile ground for an exploration of the expert finding and question answering problem area. The final system takes the form of a simple application that sits in the user’s system tray. Users ask questions, and have them routed intelligently to another available user with expertise in the question’s area. The system facilitates a discussion, records the dialogue for posterity, and operates a reward/recognition system to encourage positive contributions to the system.

This capstone demonstrates how business managers can improve the effectiveness of their business operations by using Information Technology and user-centered design principles. The client, Compuvest.com, is a small e-commerce company that specializes in selling computer hardware, systems, and electronics. This capstone documents efforts to improve the customer service Compuvest provides to its customers.The project group employed business analysis techniques and user-centered design methodologies to determine the source of Compuvest’s customer service problems. From their findings, the group developed a new customer service knowledge base and training system. This system used a modified version of MediaWiki running on a Windows XP box to collect training information and customer service procedures, email templates, and reference material.

FamilyVine is a multi-dimensional web application that incorporates aspects of three current technologies: social networking, genealogy, and picture organization. The social networking will be tied together using primarily genealogical ties. The initial HTML prototype of the site focused on the image sharing aspect of the site in order to give it some functionality. Improvements to the user interface were implemented through user evaluations. Future development faces technical challenges like integration of a chat program, creation of a family tree visualization with links to user profiles and, on the legal side, understanding and following personal privacy laws.

People are interested in learning to play guitar chords and use those chords to play their favorite songs. However, they might lose interest as they find learning to play either hard to grasp or, in some cases, even boring. Guitarolator is a tool that will visually represent chords and offer means to synchronize favorite songs with chords that need to be played and then provide beginners easy to understand ways to follow instructions.

Eight out of ten Internet users search for health information online; however, no standard exists for assessing the quality of such information. Prior work by Civan and Pratt (2004) proposes a model for assessing the quality of online health information based on four dimensions: content, reference, authorship, and publisher. In addition to these four indicators, we hypothesize that a fifth dimension, reader accessibility, has a significant impact on assessment of quality. As it relates to health information online, content refers to indicators of scientific rigor; reference refers to academic citation; authorship relates to the credentials of the author; publisher refers to the authority of the publisher; and reader accessibility refers to reader comprehension and site usability. To validate the model proposed by Civan and Pratt and test our hypothesis, we conducted a focus group, comparing the participants’ perceptions towards the four- and five-dimensional models. From our focus group findings we developed a medical and health information search engine prototype that provides a visualization to help users assess the quality of the search results.

Cellular telephones are becoming part of everyday life for most people. New features are being invented at an increasing rate and integrated with current phone applications, but a challenge that presents itself is how to incorporate them into a simple and user friendly interface. This project looks at current cell phone interfaces and how they can be simplified and made more intuitive and satisfying to the user. Five features were designed, one example of an improvement to the interface was placing a color coordinated border around the entire display to show whether or not the user could make a phone call.

iSeer is a web search visualization designed from users’ perspectives. From the user needs assessments a detailed users’ information searching behavior was obtained and several factors that affect users’ decisions process were identified. In the design process, several visualization interfaces were designed that help users to identify valuable factors, such as website categories, webpage sections titles, and to understand the relationship between online search engines, query terms and the resulting web pages. The result of this project, iSeer, also allows a more interactive experience with users. The ultimate goal of iSeer is to increase the efficiency of web searching by taking advantage of the human ability to process visual information intuitively and thus be able to identify accurate information faster.

The Interactive Issue Reporting Log (IIRL) web application addresses one of the major issues with the help desks in many organizations: inefficient information sharing and knowledge transfer that disrupts the organizations productivity and workflow. A help desk focuses on providing the user a timely resolution to the user’s problem. In fields like healthcare, timely resolutions are more critical. At Dynacare Laboratories, a leading clinical lab in the Pacific Northwest, the established help desk is an email-based shift turnover system. It allows the Computer Operators, who take the initial help requests, to communicate any and all shift issues to the next operator coming on shift and to Tier 2 Support, who resolve any ongoing issues. Interviews with Computer Operators and Tier 2 Support indicate that with information exchanging hands several times, it is just as easy for a critical issue to fall through the cracks and be easily deleted from the inbox. The IIRL attempts to improve on the current process while providing the same core functionality as the current email-based system.

As technology is becoming a more permanent staple in today’s educational systems, the end users are faced with increasingly difficult tasks. While school districts continue to integrate new computers and software into the daily classroom settings, IT support is becoming an increasingly difficult challenge. This design project focuses on developing an efficient system for which school teachers can not only report their technology woes, but to also diagnose and resolve their own problems.

Various resources are available for bus information ranging from bus schedule books to websites; however, these resources do not offer mobile real-time information. LastBusHome.com is a program for the PocketPC that hopes to fulfill this information need. This program gives users real-time bus information when they are on the go. The needs assessment assisted in defining the implementation parameters: the design needed to be adaptive for commuters who use the same bus routes as well as users who use different routes and the program needed to be legible, simple and easy to use on the PocketPC. Features include color to indicate whether a bus was early or late; the ability to customize the routes that serve a stop to simplify the interface for busy stops; and an improved search algorithm to make it easier to find a stop.

Among the challenges that face today’s security practitioners is the task of analyzing monumental amounts of data and using it to make decisions. One overwhelming source of data is the Intrusion Detection System, or IDS. An IDS is a tool that assists security practitioners in the identification of intrusion attempts. The output from an IDS is typically in text format, and most interaction takes place in a command-line environment. This results in a high barrier to entry and a steep learning curve for prospective IDS users, as well as an unnecessarily high cognitive load for current IDS users. LITMUS is a web-based application that allows users to manage an IDS through a graphical interface. It allows users to search, filter, and sort through IDS alerts, as well as graph IDS data and manage IDS rules. The end result is a tool that is easier to use than a traditional command-line interface, and that helps users find patterns and trends in a way that would not be possible using text logs.

In the last ten years the world has seen the birth of the Internet. What was unusual only a short time in the past is now commonplace: instead of calling a friend to talk to them, instant messaging or email is used to communicate. People who don’t know each other but share the same interests participate in online communities to socialize. More interesting is when online communities are used to enhance offline communities. In many cases these online systems are used to organize meeting places or arrange hang-outs where friends can drop in and visit each other. However, there is no physical linkage between virtual destinations and physical ones. To locate a particular place takes a significant amount of research. This project addresses this issue by allowing people to virtually define real-life locations. Users can self-define any physical location on earth with the help of Phoogle, a PHP API to Google Maps. They are also able to disclose their location, allowing other people to see where they are. Additionally, users can search to find where other users in the system are currently located.

This capstone project seeks to create a single source of information for trade convention attendees. The system uses the social networking site model made popular by sites such as MySpace and Linkedln in order to allow both convention facilitators and attendees to connect with one another and share information. Through this system, users would be able to find and advertise conventions, locate fellow attendees, and be better prepared overall for the convention.

Search engines do not contain a separate specific history for finding previous websites that they have been to from search engine results. The only way to find these websites that have been previously visited is through the internet browser history function. However, this contains much more information than needed and organized in a hard to read textual form.To address this problem, a needs assessment was conducted to see what the user would like to see in a system for a search engine history visualization. Interviews were performed to get this information. In the design phase, the interviewees’ needs were kept in mind and a prototype was created. After this phase, a task analysis was performed on several students to gain insight if the design fit the needs that were originally looked at and to see if the prototype needed improving.

Technology can be a catalyst for changing how and what is taught in schools by removing geographical barriers and closing the “digital divide”. The Digital Learning Commons (DLC) was founded in these core values and is using the power of technology to improve access to educational opportunities to students and educators in Washington State. Yet, how does one assess the impact of these resources on the students? Are there individual characteristics that determine how high school students’ use available and accessible technological resources? Is there a correlation between students’ use of these resources and their perceived impact on learning outcome?The goal of this research is to examine whether students’ individual characteristics influence their perception of Educational Technology, and if in turn these perceptions meditate learning outcomes. To explore the relationship between these variables, a sample size of no less than 200 high school students from various schools were recruited to participate in an online survey. The survey was used to collect data about the students’ personal and academic background, educational aspirations, and perception of educational technology. The responses were analyzed to evaluate the self-reported learning outcomes. Understanding these relationships is essential in designing and improving effective and powerful learning environments since technology is only effective if only its full potential is being realized by students.

The Tablet PC Interface Enhancement project addresses the user interface problems that are inherent with trying to combine pen and mouse based input systems. This problem is particularly visible with in Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system. Through initial research, design mockups, and needs assessments, a prototype was developed and usability evaluation was conducted. During this project three enhancements to pen based computing were identified: a new menuing system, enhanced file browsing, and a new form of quickly launching applications. The new menu system could also be applied to any system that uses menus and the enhanced browsing solution addressed users’ need to navigate a large number of files or folders with a reduced dependence on scrolling.

This project was to design an information system to help prospective four-year University students find information about these universities. A feasibility study was conducted to establish the fact that current information systems are inadequate and to learn about what types of information students are really looking for. Based on observed trends in the feasibility study a website was designed to address the inadequacies of current systems. Based on feedback from current college students, this system seems to fill the gaps of current systems.

Avanade’s Quality Assurance team has a vast virtual test environment that consists of many virtual machines which, over time, have become difficult to manage. The whole manual processes of finding virtual machines and checking a server’s resources for general virtual machines tasks have become tasks that waste time and are very repetitive. There is no tool yet that allows the Systems Engineers a way to get this information about their virtual test network until now. The VirtualServer DashBoard consolidates the information that users’ had the most difficult time accessing. This application was developed using VBScript to retrieve the information from servers and virtual machines and HTA for presentation purpose. The application is small with a limited amount of features but packs a big punch in regards to improving performance: this application has the potential to cut the user’s effort with tasks for Virtual Server in half. It optimizes the user’s time and allows them fast and easy access to information about their virtual network. It allows the user to minimize the steps needed to get this information by implementing a one click solution. This application has the major information needed as expressed in the needs assessment.

Many current firewall applications can’t display data in real-time. Those applications that can display data in real-time usually have prohibitive limitations: Command line tools are only capable of very basic visualizations of the data they present and tend to focus narrowly on a single problem; dedicated firewall suites can be very powerful and effective at communicating relevant information but are usually either not accessible remotely. Some dedicated firewall suites do make information available remotely through web-based interfaces, but those interfaces present historical, not real-time information.VisualFire is a firewall visualization tool that attempts to solve the problem of making firewall data available on the web in real-time. With the emergence of AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) as a web technology, displays of information in real-time (or nearly real-time) are becoming possible. Using AJAX in combination with other technologies like Python, Canvas, and HTML/CSS, VisualFire is a graphical, web-based firewall interface that can display data in real-time.

This capstone creates a library that will run using POSIX (Open Systems) functions to abstract voice and speakerphone modem operations for user applications. This project uses an extensible framework that allows a set of interfaces for applications to call without the developers needing to know how the modem commands for the end-user’s modem work, only the function or goal they wish to perform. This framework will also allow support for new modems in the future by allowing developers to create a new drivers for modems, inherit commands from other modems, then change or add any procedures the new modem has that is different from the generic modem standard. Support for a new modem is implemented simply by specifying how it is different from a generic modem.