Visual Communication in CMC

Visual Communication in CMC

As technology grows and expands, many tools have invaded the computerized world that enhance communication skills. One of these tools is that of visual aid. As the world wide web has evolved to include most of it visual material, researchers have focused on studying and improving this particular area and its effects.

HCI

HCI – Human Computer Interaction is the area of study that focuses on how people, and in expand users, interact with computers. (Definition of Human-Computer Interaction, by Hewett, Baecker, et al available at: http://sigchi.org/cdg/cdg2.html#2_ 1, accessed on 03/03/08) This area of expertise includes other sciences, like computing, behavioral and psychological, design, etc. By the word interaction we mean how users manipulate both hardware and software of a computer or its peripherals. (Conference on Human factors in computing systems, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 22-27/04/2006, available at: http://www.chi2006.org/bestofchi.php, accessed on 03/03/08) HCI focuses on developing techniques and methodologies that aid in designing the most suitable interfaces for particular groups of people, producing formulas for evaluating and matching existing interfaces or even creating new innovating user interfaces. (“The future of human-computer interaction”, by John Canny University of California, Berkeley, 2006 p.32-38)In other words, HCI focuses on creating interfaces so simple, that even the most novice user can use without having any problems. Imagine a world where people with visual impairments could have a chance to use any interface possible. This doesn’t mean necessarily a computer, but varies from a mobile phone to the complicated cockpit of an airplane. (“Concept design for a low cost cockpit display”, available at http://www.disti.com/Company/Publications/CrossTalk_June2007.pdf, accessed on 03/03/08”)

New technologies – New ways of reading

As the world wide web started expanding and talking a specific form, it tended towards being a visual place for all its visitors. Gradually, the technologies that encompassed melted with the previous ones, creating new hybrids, same as it happens with technology generally. As the telephone gave its place to mobile telephony and infused with the idea of television, giving way to video calls and video conferencing, the same thing happened to the WWW, allowing it to take the shape it has nowadays: (“Mixing old technologies with new”, by Bertram Bruce, University of Illinois, US, available at: http://www.readingonline.org/electronic/jaal/Oct_Column.html, accessed on 03/03/08) A visual web, enhanced with sound, images, emoticons and etc. The first GUI was designed at Xerox PARC for the Apple Macintosh back in the 80’s. It resembled the environment of Windows pretty much as we know it nowadays, including folders for the directories, pieces of papers for the document files, drop down menus and a mouse pointer that moved freely on the screen. (“A History of the GUI”, by Jeremy Reimer, Published on May 05/05/2005, available at: http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/gui.ars/3, accessed on 03/03/08) This graphical environment evolved to the Windows as we know it today based on a series of methodologies and set of rules concerning usability and accessibility. These is a separate research field that is concerned with such issues today, that examines how the human brain works, how it reacts and in response how GUIs should be designed to maximize their effects. (“A brief History of GUI” by pRCarter, 2005, available at: http://cognitivevent.com/gui_history.html, accessed on 03/03/08)

Usability, Visibility, Accessibility

Usability is the measure of how a computerized product, either this being hardware or software, is easy to use and matches the needs of the people that use it. It is concerned with the quality of the product, its efficiency and effectiveness. (“About Usability”, available at: http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/usability_resources/about usability/, accessed on 03/03/08) It is widely accepted that graphics are used almost on any page of the WWW. When graphics are properly used, (color, images, animation, video, audio and their positions) can increase greatly the usability of a web page. (US Department of Health and Human Services, available at: http://www.usability.gov/pdfs/chapter14.pdf, accessed on 03/03/08) Accessibility is the research field that is concerned with how web pages should be constructed in order to be used by people with disabilities. Since the world wide web has become the most important tool of gathering knowledge nowadays it is fairly important that it should be constructed in such ways that it can provide its usefulness to people with disabilities too. Unfortunately, it is estimated by the World Wide Web Consortium (2001) that more of 90 percent of all websites are inaccessible to persons with disabilities, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, and cognitive disabilities. (“Introduction to Web Accessibility” available at: http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility.php, accessed on 03/03/08) Most of the bigger companies and organizations have constructed their web sites in certain ways to allow accessibility, but unfortunately this isn’t enough yet. In an era when information and knowledge is shared on the WWW, it is still prohibited to people with certain disabilities unfortunately.




References:


1. (“Definition of Human-Computer Interaction”, by Hewett, Baecker, Card, Carey, Gasen, Mantei, Perlman, Strong and Verplank, available at: http://sigchi.org/cdg/cdg2.html#2_1, accessed on 03/03/08)

2. (Conference on Human factors in computing systems, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 22-27/04/2006, available at: http://www.chi2006.org/bestofchi.php, accessed on 03/03/08)

3. (“The future of human-computer interaction”, by John Canny University of California, Berkeley,2006 p.32-38)

4 (“GL Studio Brings Realism to Aircraft Cockpit Simulator Displays
”,by Stults Kim, available at http://www.disti.com/Company/Publications/CrossTalk_June2007.pdf, accessed on 03/03/08”)

5. (“Mixing old technologies with new”, by Bertram Bruce, University of Illinois, US, available at: http://www.readingonline.org/electronic/jaal/Oct_Column.html, accessec on 03/03/08)

6.( “A History of the GUI”, by Jeremy Reimer, Published on May 05/05/2005, available at: http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/gui.ars/3, accessed on 03/03/08)

7.( “A brief History of GUI” by pRCarter, 2005, available at: http://cognitivevent.com/gui_history.html, accessed on 03/03/08)

8. (“About Usability”, available at: http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/usability_resources/about_usability/, accessed on 03/03/08)

9. (US Department of Health and Human Services, available at: http://www.usability.gov/pdfs/chapter14.pdf, accessed on 03/03/08)

10. (“Introduction to Web Accessibility” available at: http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility.php, accessed on 03/03/08)

Health Communication in CMC

1. Pioneering Community Health Online

The notion of electronic health started back in 1984, when Tom Grunder and his collegues in the school of Medicine at Western Reserve University, USA wanted to have constant communication with doctors from five different medical health centers. They developed a program called St Silicon’s Hospital and Information Dispensary, wich contained a bulletin board and an online physisician that could reply to peoples’ questions concerning health issues. A few years later this idea attracted sponsors and became one of the first FreeNet, a fully developed electronic community. These were the pioneers of electronic health, a notion that is developing ever since and has become a grat help for millions of both patients and doctors.

Following the succes of St Silicon’s Hospital and Information Dispensary many health organazations adopted this idea and started developing their own e-Health sets of sites that could help and benefit people. These were the foundation stones of nowadays electronic Health. In its very early stages the majority of e-Health sites included bulleting boards where the latest news of health care where provided, simple databases where patients could find answers to frequently asked questions, an online physician that could provide advice to visiting patients and bulleting boards for doctors that could discuss any subjects they saw fit.

Nowadays e-Health is a major aspect of Health Care, where electronic records of patients are kept in databases, offering e-medicine or telemedicine (online databases for patients where they can find out about any medical problem they are concerned with), consumer health Informatics, where patients and healthy visitors can be informed about medical topics, online support by doctors and virtual healthcare teams and more.


2. E-Medicine: New Initiatives, Increased Concernns

The services that e—Health can offer, are beyond any doubt, very helpful. They give the ability to people to have medical advice from any place and any time. Patients have their medical records online, allowing in this way better, faster and more spherical treatment. Along with the increasing services that e-Health has to offer came the potential problems and questions that rose, like: Should all kind of information be available to the public? How can we be sure about the quality of online Health? Is people safe with all their medixal records being stored at databases? All these questions have driven the Health community to take some drastic measures in order to safekeep and verify the quality of service provided by e-Health.

Many conferences and meetings are held annualy that decide about the future development of e-Health, the standards they should use, discussing and finding solutions to problems they face and generally deciding about the course of actions they take in a global level. These standards they produce and evaluate are taken into account by every health care organization, either being on a nation or international level, trying to ensure the quality of service e-Health is providing. Ethical issues are being discussed, for example if patients should have all these amounts of health-related information without any professional advisors to guide them.

However, since e-Health is a relatively recent healthcare practise, changes and decisions take quite some time to implement, since they have to be organized in a global level too. Goverments have to rise to the task to offer affordable ways for reasonable level of care. The existing healthcare processes and models in the following decades will be unable to come in terms with the growth of the population and its needs. Due to these reasons it is imparative to reconsider the way care services are offered and made available with every precaution it can be taken.



References:


· Pioneering Community Health Online

http://www.ids-healthcare.com/hospital_management/global/3.html UK Healthcare: NHS Direct, Real Time EHealth, Video Consultation, Store And Forward EHealth, Electronic Patient Record, Trauma Centres, etc

http://www.jmir.org/2006/1/e4
What Is e-Health: Perspectives on the Evolution of e-Health Research
By: David K Ahern, PhD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EHealth
General information about e-Health

http://www.healthyplace.com/
Community with mental health support

https://www.healthnet.com/
Leading Health care Company
https://www.hnfs.net/common/home/
Health Net federal services
https://www.mhn.com/home.do
MHN health net company

http://yourtotalhealth.ivillage.com/home
iVillage Health – Health care center, offering various health advices

http://www.oncochat.org/
Real time global support community for people touched by cancer. They do not offer medical advice/counseling, only psychological support.

http://www.tustison.com/IRC_Chat/index.shtml
Online Chat site about patients having Melanoma

http://pages.prodigy.net/replyasap/children/
Site providing support for children with cancer

http://www.acscsn.org/Forum/Discussion/summary.html
Network providing suuport for people with Cancer and cancer survivors



· E-Medicine: New Initiatives, Increased Concernns

http://www.siliconbridge.co.uk/art_future_ehealth.html
Looking to the Future - the Added Value of e-Health.
Published for the HFE Book ‘2050: A Health Odyssey: Thought provoking ideas for policy making’
Advantages and Disadvantages of e-Health and aspects of its development

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/2005/all_about/ehealth/index_en.htm
eEurope Conférence
Proceedings of conference 2005

http://www.ehealthconference2006.org/
eHealth 2006 High Level Conference and Exhibition
Proceedings of conference 2006

http://www.telemed.no/index.php?id=371622
Tromso Telemedicine and eHealth Conference 2007
Proceedings of conference 2007

http://www.e-healthconference.com/
e-Health 2008: Extending the Reach
Proceedings of conference2008

http://www.telehealth.net/articles/women_internet.html
Telehealth: Women’s internet behavior providing psychotherapy offline and online for cyber-infidelity.
By: Marlene M. Maheu, Ph.D, Director of Telehealth, California School of Professional Psychology, September, 1999

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/409828_2
Financing the Health Care Internet
From Health Affairs Proceedings - Health Aff 19(6):72-88, 2000, Project HOPE

http://www.who.int/ehscg/about/en/
eHealth Standardization and Coordination Group

http://www.e-health-insider.com/news/2032/electronic_staff_record_now_biggest_nhs_payroll_provider
Electronic staff record now biggest NHS payroll provider
By: E-health Media, 28 Jul 2006

http://www.ehealthinitiative.org/
eHealth Initiative Foundation Launches Collaborative Research Effort to Improve Drug Safety, By: Cary Conway