Hui‐Ming Kuo, Sheue‐Ling Hwang and Eric Min‐Yang Wang
The purpose of this paper is to find a better B2C environment through collecting what information and supporting interfaces are provided on current B2C web sites. We build a…
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to find a better B2C environment through collecting what information and supporting interfaces are provided on current B2C web sites. We build a checklist based on the framework of B2C consumer behavior model and used it to evaluate current B2C web sites among three categories: purchasing process, types of products, and the source of web sites. The results indicated that poor information or supporting interface design was provided on web sites during the “evaluating and comparing” process. More information or supporting interface design was provided on the internet bookstore, less information or supporting interface design was provided on web sites that sell tickets and flowers. The local web sites provided more information or supporting interface design than international web sites. The results also showed that the difference is highly significant.
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Cheng‐Hua Wang and Sheue‐Ling Hwang
In this study, recovery factor was considered in the maintenance management model that integrates the quantitative method and qualitative concept. The model is developed to solve…
Abstract
In this study, recovery factor was considered in the maintenance management model that integrates the quantitative method and qualitative concept. The model is developed to solve the practical parameters in a maintenance management task, such as the number of maintenance personnel and maintenance cycle time. The stochastic model is applied to construct the relationships among maintenance cycle, maintenance personnel allocation, human recovery factor, and a system's tolerance time. In addition, a simulated experiment was conducted to find out the supplementary parameters such as individual latent human error, individual critical human error, recovery rate, and a system's tolerance time. Since system availability is the criterion of this maintenance management model, the final solution of this model provides a system availability reference table of the combination of the number of maintenance personnel and the maintenance cycle time. This system availability reference table is a practical tool for maintenance managers.
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Ying‐Lien Lee, Sheue‐Ling Hwang and Eric Min‐Yang Wang
The primary purpose of this paper is to present an integrated framework for user interface prototyping and evaluation for the development of information systems and to present…
Abstract
Purpose
The primary purpose of this paper is to present an integrated framework for user interface prototyping and evaluation for the development of information systems and to present architecture for evaluating generic applications.
Design/methodology/approach
The framework is constructed through combining two distinctive methods of prototyping and evaluation, statechart and goals, operators, methods, and selection rules. Relevant methods and architectures of the integrated framework are presented in unified modeling language when possible.
Findings
The importance of the usability of information systems is highlighted in this research. However, it still lacks an integrated framework for information system development and usability evaluation. This paper provides a framework that evaluation method is intertwined with user interface prototyping to shorten the time of development lifecycle. The architecture for evaluating generic applications is also invaluable for motion and time study and the procurement of vender‐provided systems.
Research limitations/implications
The user base of information systems is diverse and the requirements of these systems change over time. This paper provides a framework that helps managers and engineers smooth and shorten the development phases. For future works, an object‐oriented programming framework and a tool for evaluating generic applications will be developed.
Originality/value
This paper proposes a comprehensive framework for combining prototyping and evaluation, as well as architecture for the evaluation of generic applications. It shortens the development phases by using formal modeling for user interface construction and evaluation. It also provides means to evaluate candidate systems whose program logics cannot be accessed and modified. It also complements the models used in the framework by extending their practical and academic values.
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Li‐Chen Tsai, Sheue‐Ling Hwang and Kuo‐Hao Tang
Expert and novice readers tag documents with different descriptions; this study is intended to discover which readers would generate the most reliable and most representative sets…
Abstract
Purpose
Expert and novice readers tag documents with different descriptions; this study is intended to discover which readers would generate the most reliable and most representative sets of tags.
Design/methodology/approach
One group of experts and one group of novices were recruited. These two groups were asked to provide tags for document bookmarks in a Mozilla Firefox browser. In the experimental analysis we defined two measures – similarity and relevance – to describe the differences between the two groups.
Findings
Tags chosen by experts yielded better similarity and relevance values in all analyses. Tags chosen by the expert group had higher commonality in pairwise similarity analysis; moreover, the relevance analysis showed that tags chosen by experts reflected better understanding of the content.
Originality/value
Tagging behavior has become highly popular on the web, and its study has commercial merit. Tags from experts represent the structure behind the knowledge involved; expert representation may be vastly more helpful than novice representation for promoting understanding of content in an era characterized by an explosion of information.
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Chao‐Hsien Lin, Sheue‐Ling Hwang and Eric Min‐Yang Wang
This paper sets out to present a reappraisal on advanced planning and scheduling (APS) systems in industrial settings and propose an effective approach for APS implementation.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper sets out to present a reappraisal on advanced planning and scheduling (APS) systems in industrial settings and propose an effective approach for APS implementation.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study approach is adopted, and a research framework comprising human‐, technological‐, and organizational‐dimensions is developed to analyze the evidence database which includes business flows, system design documents, archival records, post‐system assessment, participant‐observation and semi‐structured interviews.
Findings
The findings indicate that real‐world production planning problems are ill‐defined, complex and dynamic. A post‐implementation evaluation reveals major pitfalls in the technology‐dominant approach, whose negative ramifications are usually overlooked. Besides, these APS implementation pitfalls are found to be attributable to the real‐world context, human factors and organizational aspects.
Research limitations/implications
Despite advances in information technology (IT) and computer modeling techniques, humans still play critical roles in the production‐planning processes – especially in a complex and dynamic manufacturing environment where incomplete, ambiguous, inconsistent and untimely data make automatic planning unrealistic. A rational human‐computer collaboration scheme under an effective organizational structure would be in a better position to take advantage of the IT.
Originality/value
This paper presents a humans‐technology‐organization‐framework of real planning systems, which is employed to analyze a case of APS implementation. Practical insights are extracted as a result of this field research, and a realist approach is proposed to cope with the problems and pitfalls of APS implementation in industrial settings.
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William P. Wagner and Michael L. Zubey
The purpose of this paper is to present various knowledge‐acquisition methods and to show how existing empirical research can be used for mapping between marketing problem domains…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present various knowledge‐acquisition methods and to show how existing empirical research can be used for mapping between marketing problem domains and knowledge acquisition techniques. The key to doing this is to create a taxonomy of marketing problem domains.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper combines a thorough literature review with prima facie conceptualization to map a generic problem domain, and thereby provide guidance in the choice of knowledge‐acquisition technique for developers of expert systems in the field of marketing.
Findings
Recent empirical research in the field of expert systems shows that certain knowledge‐acquisition techniques are significantly more efficient than others for the extraction of certain types of knowledge within specific problem domains. It is found that protocol analysis, while fairly commonly used, is relatively inefficient for analytic problems. In the synthetic problem domain, interviewing proves to perform better for simple problems and worse for more difficult‐to‐model synthetic domains.
Research limitations/implications
The findings suggest that it may be worth exploring some of the non‐traditional knowledge‐acquisition techniques when working on some types of applications. Further research could offer guidance in choosing the appropriate technique, with the aim of improving the quality, efficiency and development of the resulting system.
Practical implications
Designers of expert systems for marketing should consider interviewing and card sorting as the main means of knowledge acquisition for analytic problem domains, rather than protocol analysis as the main knowledge‐acquisition technique for analytic problem domains.
Originality/value
This paper is the first to suggest mapping between knowledge‐acquisition research and marketing problem domains.