TY - JOUR
T1 - Characterizing navigation in interactive learning environments
AU - Liang, Hai Ning
AU - Sedig, Kamran
N1 - Funding Information:
This research has been funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. The authors are very grateful to Parul Nanda for her comments on earlier drafts of this paper. The authors would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions that helped to improve the quality of this paper.
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - Interactive learning environments (ILEs) are increasingly used to support and enhance instruction and learning experiences. ILEs maintain and display information, allowing learners to interact with this information. One important method of interacting with information is navigation. Often, learners are required to navigate through the information space of an ILE, a process which can be quite difficult and cognitively exacting as the information space becomes very large and complex. Proper design can make this process less exacting and, at the same time, facilitate better learning of the information space. However, this is not easy to do, especially for ILEs. Frameworks can assist in the effective analysis and design of interactive environments. However, there is lack of conceptual frameworks for guiding the analysis and design of navigation in ILEs. This paper tries to address this issue by presenting a framework which can be used to characterize navigation within ILEs. To create this framework, this paper brings together research from various disciplines, such as human-computer interaction design, educational multimedia design, cognitive technologies and learning sciences. This framework prescribes a three-stage process for designing and analyzing navigation: 1. content structuring; 2. information navigation modeling; 3. interface presentation structuring. By bringing these three stages together, it is intended to provide a conceptual framework to assist and guide designers in the proper analysis and design of navigation in ILEs.
AB - Interactive learning environments (ILEs) are increasingly used to support and enhance instruction and learning experiences. ILEs maintain and display information, allowing learners to interact with this information. One important method of interacting with information is navigation. Often, learners are required to navigate through the information space of an ILE, a process which can be quite difficult and cognitively exacting as the information space becomes very large and complex. Proper design can make this process less exacting and, at the same time, facilitate better learning of the information space. However, this is not easy to do, especially for ILEs. Frameworks can assist in the effective analysis and design of interactive environments. However, there is lack of conceptual frameworks for guiding the analysis and design of navigation in ILEs. This paper tries to address this issue by presenting a framework which can be used to characterize navigation within ILEs. To create this framework, this paper brings together research from various disciplines, such as human-computer interaction design, educational multimedia design, cognitive technologies and learning sciences. This framework prescribes a three-stage process for designing and analyzing navigation: 1. content structuring; 2. information navigation modeling; 3. interface presentation structuring. By bringing these three stages together, it is intended to provide a conceptual framework to assist and guide designers in the proper analysis and design of navigation in ILEs.
KW - Design frameworks
KW - Human-computer interface design
KW - Interactive learning environments
KW - Navigation
KW - Navigation design
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=67650915238&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/10494820701610605
DO - 10.1080/10494820701610605
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:67650915238
SN - 1049-4820
VL - 17
SP - 53
EP - 75
JO - Interactive Learning Environments
JF - Interactive Learning Environments
IS - 1
ER -