Welcome!

Welcome to our experiment! You will be helping us evaluate the Pad++ user interface tool. This program is called a "zooming" interface, and it uses a somewhat different approach than programs such as Netscape or Internet Explorer. Our purpose is to evaluate certain properties of this interface. If you are interested in the details of what properties we are investigating and of what we learned, we will be happy to share our results with you. Our final report will be ready on May 12, 1998. You may request this report by providing an address to us on the background survey form.

In this experiment, you will use Pad++ to locate information about the country Norway to answer a series of questions. Please remember that we are evaluating the Pad++ technology, not your knowledge about Norway or your reading comprehension. To this end, both the questions you are asked and the information you need to locate are extremely brief. You will not have to dig through a lengthy article to find the answer requested.

The Pad++ system has been instrumented to automatically collect data we need to evaluate the technology. You will also have the opportunity to provide your opinions at the end of the experiment. The source of these opinions will be kept anonymous in our report.

Instructions

Step 1: Sign the experimental consent form and fill out the background survey

Follow the instructions on the forms provided by the monitor. You do not need to provide your social security number on the consent form -- this is only a requirement for students who are getting credit for participating as an experimental subject.

Step 2: Training

Before doing the experiment, there is a brief exercise that will show you the key features of Pad++ that you will be using. We will use a brief presentation about sports teams to illustrate what you need to know for the experiment. The tasks you will be doing are:

1. Answer a question. The questions appear in a box on the bottom of the screen. Answer by using the mouse to move the cursor to the box, type in your answer, and hit a carriage return. The next question is displayed after the carriage return is entered.

2. Go to lower level page. To find out more details about a topic, move the cursor over the object (text or oval) you want to expand until you see a red box outlining the topic or oval you want to expand. When selecting on an oval, make sure the cursor points to white space: otherwise the red box will not appear. When you see the red box where you want it, single click the mouse.

3. Return to higher level page. Move the cursor to the red dot in the lower right corner and single click.

Now try these out by answering the questions that appear for the presentation about sports teams.

Step 3: Experiment

Now you are ready for the experiment itself. You will be asked a series of questions about Norway. Locate the requested information, type it into the box, and enter return, just as you did in the training exercise. The first two questions allow you a little more practice. Then you are presented with a series questions to answer for the experiment. When you have finished the experiment, ask the monitor to give you the post-experiment survey form.

Step 4: Fill out the post-experiment survey

Follow the instructions on the form provided by the monitor.