Fitt's Law

http://srl.csdl.tamu.edu/courses/CHI2009/assignments/data/Fitts54-psychologyJournal.pdf
Commented on:
Josh Meyers
Cole Jones
Jared Wright

Paul M. Fitt's law is has been remarkably true for many different applications. The law, which models human movement, predicts the time it takes to reach a position. The target time to reach a target location is calculated by the following equation(formulated differently than presented in paper):

source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitt%27s_law

T: average time of movement

a: start/stop time of device

b: inherent speed of device

D: Distance from starting point to target

W: width of target

Overall, the law states that the time it takes to reach a target area is proportionate to the distance of width of the target. So, it would take the same amount of time, given the correct ratio, to reach a destination, if the target was a wide, but the distance of was long, or the target was narrow and the distance was short. This law has been proven to hold true to many things, and I think is pretty fascinating.

Harmful Things Considered....

Commented on:
Kevin Kwan
Jared Wright
Brad Twitty
Nicholas Harris
J. Chris Elgin
Brian Salato
Devin Mckaskle
John Zachary
Patrick Clay

1. Ethnography
http://srl.csdl.tamu.edu/courses/CHI2009/assignments/data/Harmful-Ethnography.pdf
In the paper "Ethnography is considered Harmful", various reasons are brought up against the usage of Ethnography. While the positives of ethnography and its importance was discussed in class, this paper discusses the change in its usage nowadays and its negative effects. I thought the paper presented some decent opinions on how ethnographies are used today. The author introduces some of the new methods of ethnography and presents arguments that it does not adequately perform the work it was originally intended. For example, the method that studies the place where people work does not "...reveal the 'lived work'." The authors also talk about the affect that new ethnography has on designs. The concerns they raised seem legit in their own view, such as understanding a different aspect of the world that influences design. (i.e. social and cultural aspects) Overall, it seems that they regard the new methods as not covering enough or missing some critical points that are related to design. in that case, I feel that it would be appropriate to add certain traits to the methods to improve their coverage area. By including the areas of concern, ethnography would no longer be harmful for design, as they would also include a broader area.

2.Usability Evaluation
http://srl.csdl.tamu.edu/courses/CHI2009/assignments/data/Harmful-greenberg.pdf
One of the most important factors of design we've studied this semester was usability evaluation. we've read our shares of books that emphasize on its importance as well as people who has taken advantage of it and succeeded. however, in this paper, arguments are presented against it and how its "harmful". While they do not deny the value of usability studies, the authors suggest that not all development situations should be subjected under such an evaluation. Personally, I think usability evaluation is a great method for designers and engineers to gauge their product and its effectiveness. Still, the potential misses that the paper said are possible is worth thinking about. The paper contemplated on the missed opportunities that the usability studies could cause for some products when they are tested prematurely. It can't be denied that usability evaluations are useful, but perhaps it'd be best if they aren't taken in the same context as they are now. They should still perform them, but also evaluate the results a little more carefully and considered the possibilities and not let everything be dictated by the outcomes.

3.Human-Centered Designs
http://srl.csdl.tamu.edu/courses/CHI2009/assignments/data/Harmful-norman.pdf
Don Norman! And i thought I was done with him after the last book, but alas, the class has brought us together again. In this paper, Don Norman talks about the dominance of human-centered designs, and its harmful effects on design overall. Norman offers an alternative, Activity-Centered design, and reasons why. After reading through this paper, I must say that his suggest method have some merits to them. He presents some examples such as writing tools and music instruments and how their designed for their specific activity and people were able to adapt to them and still perform great feats. While that may be true for certain things, I think that the rule is not universal. For some activities, people are willing to make the effort to adapt for whatever satisfaction or reward they gain. In some activities that are trivial, users would not be motivated to adapt for it.Norman argues that while HCD has its benefits, it also some some heavy weighing drawbacks. One of which is that a certain group of users might tend to make changes that benefit them only and not really involve other people. Overall, I thought it was an interesting read, but once again, I would evaluate its usage on a case by case basis. While its true that HCD does indeed have some things it needs to address, it is not necessarily deficient for certain objects while ACD also has its advantages for some things.

The VoiceBot: A Voice Controlled Robot Arm

Brandi House, Jonathan Malkin, Jeff Bilmes
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Washington

Commented on:
Patrick Clay
Richard Russell
Sarah Gray

Problem:
Individuals with motor impairments such as paraplegia and spinal cord injuries may have difficulties with daily activities. Assistive technology exists to facilitate their actions and increase their abilities. One of the problems facing this technology is the control options of the technology. A solution that was developed was the spoken language and automatic speech recognition (ASR) system. However, it does not provide adequately for tasks that require smooth continuous control.

Solution:
By using the Vocal Joystick (VJ), a system was developed to use non-speech voice recognition to control a robot arm. Two experiments were carried out. First experiment was to manipulate a robot arm in 2-dimensions while the second experiment was to manipulate it in 3-D.
Three control models were used for the experiements:

- Forward Kinematic (FK) Model
- Inverse-Kinematic (IK) Model
- Hybrid Model

The forward kinematic model requires the use to control each joint angle explicitly. Advantage is that it is light on computation, but it requires more effort from the user. In the inverse kinematic model, the arm is used to position the end effector in the appropriate location. This model requires more computation but less work for the user. The hybrid model is a combination of the FK and the IK. In this model, the first two joints are controlled using IK and the last one is controlled directly.







Source: http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1520000/1518731/p183-house.pdf?key1=1518731&key2=8613211421&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=29176003&CFTOKEN=94010944

Experiment 1: Simulate Arm User Study
Objective: Feasibility and to support their hypothesis that the hybrid model would be the best choice.


Source: http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1520000/1518731/p183-house.pdf?key1=1518731&key2=8613211421&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=29176003&CFTOKEN=94010944


5 users were invited to test their system. The test had the users control a robot arm in 2D to move a ball along the ground to four locations. Users were given time to practice for as long as they want before the time trial was conducted. Four of the users had previous experience with VJ.

The results:

Source: http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1520000/1518731/p183-house.pdf?key1=1518731&key2=8613211421&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=29176003&CFTOKEN=94010944

Users had the most difficulty control the pitch. Overall, users generally preferred the inverse kinematic model, as it was the fastest in the trial for 3 users out of 5. The forward kinematic model was second, and the least favorite was the hybrid model. These results indicate that users would like prefer not to have to explicitly control each joint angle. With more practice though, users may be able to adapt to the forward kinematic model.

Experiment 2: Robotic Arm Control: The VoiceBot
The VoiceBot is a hobbyist robot that they converted to be controlled by the Vocal Joystick. The VoiceBot is controlled using two modes: position mode and orientation mode. The user can switch between these modes by using a “ck” sound.
In position mode, the arm moves according to three algorithms

- Forward Kinematics (FK)
- Inverse Kinematics - Cartesian
- Inverse Kinematics – Cylindrical


Source: http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1520000/1518731/p183-house.pdf?key1=1518731&key2=8613211421&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=29176003&CFTOKEN=94010944

In orientation mode, finer controls are allowed to manipulate the gripper.
In this experiment, 12 users were invited and their task was to use the robot arm and place 2 candies into a target spot. Each user was given two practice sessions and two time trails, each to complete the task with a different control method each. A short interview was conducted at the end.

Results:

Source: http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1520000/1518731/p183-house.pdf?key1=1518731&key2=8613211421&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=29176003&CFTOKEN=94010944


All users were able to complete the task given with both control methods. 75% of the users preferred the Inverse Kinematic controls as opposed to forward kinematics. Many users felt that IK was more intuitive, although it felt slower than FK and produced jerkier movements. One problem the users described was the discrete sound detection. It induced frustration for a few users as there was a large amount of false detections. Another problem was that the pitch control was a significant challenge for many users. Future attempts could try and refine the control methods and improve the sound detection.

Discussion/Conclusion:

The experiments proved the feasibility of this technology and future studies could benefit from better control methods and better equipment. The results presented are the first instance of a non-verbal voice-controlled robotic arm. Future research into this area can yield a greater system that can help individuals with motor impairments.

GUI - Phooey!: The Case for Text Input

By: Max Kleek, Michael Bernsterin, David R. Karger, MIT CSAIL.
mc shraefel, Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton

Commented on:
Patrick Surber
Josh Meyers
Adam Griffin

Problem:
Conventional methods for information entry and retrieval do not provide the perfect package of easy data entry and efficient data retrieval.
2 methods:

free text entry - Easy entry, hard retrieval
Context capture - hard to input, easier retrieval.

Solution: Free text entry + context capture = JourKnow
Jourknow combines the free form text entry with context capture techniques to give users a fast and easy interface for input and output.
Jourknow takes free text input and breaks down the data into structures and entities and associates it with tags. Jourknow parses information and recognizes certain subjects such as meetings, dates and locations. All information inputted into Jourknow is called "codex".

Source: http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1300000/1294247/p193-vankleek.pdf?key1=1294247&key2=7952430421&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=32191449&CFTOKEN=93177194

Jourknow uses a simplified language called pidgin. It allows users to express things more naturally. It also uses a syntax based on notation3, which let users make statements to "express arbitrary structural properties and relationship among entities...".
Jourknow provides feedback on how expressions are interpreted so users can know if they need to explicitly alter any associations or to correct any parses. The program also contains filtering features that allow users to efficiently find data that they previously wrote. Jourknow associates contexts to notes that users have wrote. Contexts include pictures, videos and information describing the situation when they wrote the note. These contexts help the user recall the time when they first recorded the data. These contexts are chronologically organized and Jourknow also breaks down time into segments such as minutes, hours, days, or morning, afternoon and night.

Initial informal tests included 5 users and the general consent was positive. Users commented on the text-input interface. Opinions about the tagging functionality were split and some users desired the ability to be able to associate non-textual information items with notes.

Conclusion:
Information management was benefitted by the rich GUI interface and a good input interface is wasted if the trouble to retrieve the information outweighs it. The goal of Jourknow is to provide users with a GUI interface that'll facilitate information entry and retrieval. The paper described a design that minimizes the effort needed for text entry and their implementation of a system that meets their criteria.

The Inmates are Running the Asylum

Commented on:
John Zachery
Josh Meyers
Brian Salato

In Alan Cooper's "The Inmates are Running the Asylum", he talks about how the software engineers, the "inmates", are actually in control of how a software is designed and developed. While I was not totally aware of this situation, I do agree with him after reading his book. The ones who actually write the code inevitably have a great deal of leverage and say on how the program will turn out, and any other roles merely act as support and guidance to them. Cooper emphasizes on the difficulties users face when using today’s software and how they are ill-designed and therefore suffer from similar sub-par interaction interfaces. From cameras to planes, Cooper presents examples of how things are complicated when a computer is involved in the equation. He insisted that when something has a computer as part of this structure, it will ultimately act like a computer and have similar weaknesses. Cooper repeatedly states the importance of the role of a design engineer. A design engineer's main goal is to create a good interface with which the user can enjoy and improve their overall experience. A product’s development life cycle should include professional design engineers to layout a detailed plan before any code is written. I very much agree with this idea. Its true that writing programs are expensive, and having to rewrite something only adds to the amount of unnecessary costs. His analogy to movie making seemed to make sense. Even though each stage of development requires a different group of people, there doesn't necessarily have to be waste as the design team can begin working on the next project while the programmers get to work on their just-finished design. He proves that it is not the best idea to have the software engineers do the design work as that presents a conflict of interest. Good design may not be particular hard to come up with, but it’ll involve more work on the coders’ part and they may not be willing to put in that extra effort. Towards the second half of the book, I felt like this book became a why-you-should-hire-design-engineers guide for employers. Perhaps future software would be benefited if all managers and employers for software companies were to read his book. Overall, I enjoyed reading this book as it had some pretty interesting points, but I thought he tried a little too hard to push the design engineer’s importance and role onto his audiences.

Assessing Attractiveness in Online Dating Profiles

Commented on:
Patrick Surber
Josh Meyers
Ben Cartsen

By: Andrew T. Fiore, Lindsay S. Taylor, G.A. Mendelshon, Marti Hearst
source: http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1360000/1357181/p797-fiore.pdf?key1=1357181&key2=6474628321&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=27966460&CFTOKEN=56677439

The following CHI2008 paper explored the components of an online dating website profile that had the biggest impact on the profile as a whole and its effectiveness as a predictor on how well the profile as a whole would be perceived. It was an interesting article that presented some unexpected results.

Implementation:
50 online profiles were chosen from 5 different cities across the United States. 5 male and 5 female from each city. Each profile consisted of 3 components, a picture, a fixed-choice portion and a free-text portion. 65 participants were selected to evaluate the profiles through a custom-build website. Participants were asked to rate the whole profile and profile components using a five-point Likert-type scale from 0 to 4 on the following dimensions:

Attractive
Genuine, trustworthy
Masculine
Feminine
Warm, kind
Self-esteem
Extraverted
Self-centered

The results were standardized by using "ipsatization".

Results:
To predict the attractiveness of each profile, a regression model was used.

Figure 1. (Click to see full size)
source: http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1360000/1357181/p797-fiore.pdf?key1=1357181&key2=6474628321&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=27966460&CFTOKEN=56677439

Predicting whole profile attractiveness:

For men:
High masculinity ratings predicted high overall profile attractiveness.

For women:
High extraversion ratings predicted high overall profile attractiveness.

Whole profile attractiveness and component attractiveness:

Photo attractiveness was a strong predictor for both men and women. The free-text section was also a significant predictor for both, although not as much as the photos.

Figure 2. (Click to see full size)

source: http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1360000/1357181/p797-fiore.pdf?key1=1357181&key2=6474628321&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=27966460&CFTOKEN=56677439

For both men and women, photo attractiveness and free-text attractiveness held significance for the overall profile. This data correlate with the previous results. It is important to have both an attractive photo as well as an attractive free-text section to have an overall high attractiveness for the profile.

Whole profile attractive and other components:

For men:
When their pictures were seen as more genuine and trustworthy and relatively less warm and kind, they were seen as more attractive. Also when they seemed more extraverted in their photos and feminine. (That’s not a typo)

In the free-text section, men's profile was seen more attractive when they were perceived as genuine, trustworthy, and extraverted. High ratings of masculinity and being perceived as feminine were both associated with attractiveness.

For women:
The whole profile was seen more attractive when their photo was seen as having more self-esteem and being more feminine, less masculine. Lower self-centeredness was also associated with a generally more attractive rating.

No association of attractiveness with any other free-text section components.

Conclusion:
For men, it is better to be perceived as more genuine and trustworthy, a picture that seemed feminine, but a high masculinity rating for the overall profile.

For women, it is better to be perceived as extraverted, not self-centered and not masculine. A photo that showed high self-esteem was also positive.

Emotional Design - Donald Norman

Commented on:
Sarah
John Book
Brian

Once again I find myself getting more acquainted with Mr. Donald Norman. I must say though, that this book does present him a little differently than the two previous ones. While I have complained about how he complains about designs in the previous books, this one seemed to have a lesser amount of such complaints. Not that they aren’t legitimate concerns, but I guess I just sympathize with designers a little more and feel like the consumer do have some responsibility in learning the product rather than expecting a “perfect” design, especially with the difficulties presented by the varying degrees of standards from user to user. In Emotional Design, Norman talks about three effects a design has. Visceral, behavioral and reflective. Each design is important, but serves a different purpose. Some fear that certain designers focus too much on the behavioral part, sacrificing the visceral and reflective designs. Personally, I wouldn’t mind something looking a little less extravagant if it makes up for it in functionality, but I guess not everyone is willing to accept that compromise. Or rather, according to some, that compromise shouldn’t have been made in the first place perhaps. Norman’s fascination with robots and its role in society today and in the future occupies a good portion of the book. As more and more advanced and intelligent robots are created and used throughout society, certain concerns are raised. Human interaction with these machines are inevitable in some parts for now, but with this area of opportunity increasing rapidly, designers must find a way to integrate robots into our lives unobtrusively while satisfying the different needs. I did like some of Norman’s ideas of changing up the conventional designs of household items to work better with robots. His idea of a kitchen more suited to work with robots was amusing and seemed like something a researcher could first implement in a test house and possibly adopted by the mass later on. The problems he described with will be realized soon enough with the advancement of technology, but perhaps the rate of change will be at a pace that allows designers and engineers to adjust and fix the present problems fast enough to not hinder the success of this technology. The good thing about this is that consumers can adapt to this technology at their own pace and will not feel obligated or forced to change, thus easing the transition and perhaps lessening the burdens that designers will have. If the consumer is personally interested enough to change their current lifestyle in order to take advantage of this new technology, then hopefully they’ll also make the extra effort of learning how things should work. Overall, Emotional Design was an interesting read, especially for those who have read his previous books.

The Man who Shocked the World

Commented on:
Tyler
Brad Twitty
Brian

While I've heard of the experiment performed by Stanely Milgram, I had not really known much about this man until I read this book. "The Man Who Shocked the World" was an excellent biography of a man who had some really interesting ideas. I thought the book was a good read overall. The parts about the experiments and his ideas were well laid out and provided adequate details about his ideas, theories and implementation. The results were interesting to see, while surprising to some. I’ll admit that at first, even I would think that the subjects of the experiment would not go as far as some did, and even then, with some variations of the experiment, some of the actions of the test subjects surprised me even more. In particular is the one variation where the subject actually had to physically force the learner’s hand onto a metal plate to receive the shocking for punishment. To go that far simply under the instructions of a stranger in a lab coat seemed a little extreme to me. However, while I may say that, I cannot really say as to whether I would have done the same under similar circumstances. While the main focus of his career was the obedience project, I was also interested in his other experiment about the small world phenomenon. This experiment seemed very accessible to anyone who is interested and has people that are actually willing to participate. It really doesn’t take too much work from each person, but simply to pass it on to someone they think will help connect the source to the destination. If possible, I wouldn’t mind trying this out myself one day. With the available technology today, it’s possible to reach someone much easier than before, provided that the given target has the necessary ‘tools’. Although this will limit the experiment somewhat, as opposed to conventional mailing or actually going in person, but the basic idea still stands. Now that I have read the book, I guess I wouldn’t be such a good subject in any future obedience experiments that use shock boxes……or would I??

An Exploration of Pen Rolling for Pen-based Interaction

By: Xiaojun Bi, Tomer Moscovish, Gonzalo Ramos, Ravin Balakrishnan, Ken Hinckley

Abstract

The study explored the possibility of augmenting the pen's usability by introducing input from rolling it around its longitudinal axis. Two experiments were carried out to determine the feasibility and the possible applications. One experiment distinguished the intentional pen rolling from incidental, and the other experiment explored the parameter range at which users would be able to use it for application purposes.

Experiment 1: Incidental vs. Intentional Pen Rolling

The first experiment was on how the pen rotated under normal usage such as writing and drawing. Four tasks were given to participants to monitor pen movement:

1. Free Drawing
2. Writing
3. Screen Tracing
4. Table Tracing

Photos from "An Exploration of pen rolling for Pen-based Interactions", By Bi

Each task required a different type of pen movement and was monitored with cameras positioned around the setup. The cameras focused on markers that were attached to the pen. The parameters defined in this experiment were rolling angle and rolling speed. The experiment was carried out by setting the pen at 0, 45, and 90 degrees, and then measure from there the distance of movement as well as speed.

Results:
Rolling speed was fastest in writing and slowest in free drawing.
Rolling angle increases with the distance from the starting point of a stroke. There is a tendency for clockwise rotation. The mean rolling angle was 3 degrees. The mean rolling speed was 20 degrees/sec. To classify as an incidental roll, the rolling angle must fall within the [-10, 10] degree range and the rolling speed be in [-30, 30] degree/s range. If it falls outside of that range, it will considered intentional rolling.

Experiment 2: Intentional Rolling
The second experiment looked at the parameters during intentional rolling. The tasks given to participants included having them move a pen into a certain range of degrees. Variables that were monitored were the angular distance to the target and the angular width of the target sector. These variables represented the "usable range" and the "easily discriminable rotation".

Results:
Easily discriminable range was set at more than 10 degrees. As the angular target width decreased, so did the user's performance. (i.e. more errors, overshot target sector, and took more time.) Usable range was determined to be within [-90,90] degrees. The users' performance deteriorated as the range increased beyond that.


Pen Rolling Based Applications and Interactions
Users were subjected to applications such as using rolling to select a tool or to scroll down a page. Visual experiments were carried out where a user had to direct a puzzle piece using a pen and rotate the piece by rolling the pen. Pen-rolling could be used in parallel with other inputs. Another application involved users having to roll the pen a certain number of degrees to select a tool in a paint-like application. tools were set within certain ranges of degrees.

Photos from "An Exploration of pen rolling for Pen-based Interactions", By Bi

Participants who used the applications were generally able to quickly get use to it. Most felt the preset parameters were easy enough to use and some even suggested a bigger roll angle. One complaint that was raised was the difficulty to take advantage of the multiple input ability of the pen. It was difficult for the user to control direction, position and magnitude simultaneously.

Conclusion:
The paper concluded that, while this is feasible and the parameters set are reasonable, additional research and evaluations need to be conducted and that pen-rolling based applications can indeed be beneficial to users. Additionally, it might be a good idea to let users customize the thresholds such as rolling angle.

Ethnography on the Sports Car Club

Commented on:
Tyler Hennings
Patrick Clay
John Book


I did my ethnography on the Texas A&M Sports Car Club. It was a pretty interesting experience, and while they are an official organized group of people rather than strangers who performed similar actions, there were still things to be realized about them. Aside from the implicit conclusion that everyone in the group like cars, members of the Car Club is a diverse and friendly group of individuals. My method included in going to one of their events and unobtrusively observe their behaviors and, through an interview, gather information on how they operate and what they have to offer its members.
As their name implies, the group revolves around cars and motorsports, however, a person does not need to have a sports car to actually join. Members have the opportunity to participate in various racing events such as Auto Cross, drag racing and rallies. Social events include annual formals and monday night dinners. At the recent monday night dinner, I had the pleasure of meeting many members, as well as the president of TAMSS, Chad. Chad explained to the structure of the sports car club and what the club really had to offer those who are interested. The commadarerie among club members can be felt just by being among them. Small talk erupts sporatically.

My conclusions about the club shows that they are a group of car-loving guys and gals who enjoy celebrating their passion in a safe and organized manner. The club welcomes anyone and everyone who is even remotely interested in cars and motorsports and it has many things to offer.

Heres a video of what an auto cross looks like:

The Complaints of Future(and Current) Designs

Commented on:
Devin McKaskle
Adam Griffin
Patrick Surber


Thats what Donald Norman's "The Design of Future Things" felt like to me. Okay, so that may have sounded a little harsh, but I couldn't help but felt that this whole book was his way of letting the world know of his discontentment with the way designers are approaching problems of today and tomorrow.

Now, onto to the good stuff. The book does contain several good points regarding the errors of design and how they pose potential problems in the future. Autonomous and augmentative machines are two separate but similar implementations of technology that will impact our lives more and more in the future. His story of the vehicle assistance system seemed scary, yes, but considering its rarity, the design might not seem so bad. There is an acceptable error margin for everything and already this system is working better than the Ford Pinto ever did. Perhaps a better question that should be answered before designing is a clear separation of the tasks that SHOULD be automated and augmentative. Some things just weren't meant to be done by machines alone. If efficiency and ease are the main focus of these tools, then to relentlessly pursue a certain technology regardless of the outcome should be unacceptable. His argument that the smart homes will take over seemed too early. He underestimates people's reluctance for change from something they're familiar and comfortable with. Slowly these technology will be integrated into our everyday lives, but the magnitude of this change will be small and slow enough that it'll allow people to adapt and designers to improve so that the potential problems faced by current designs will never be fully realized. Aside from design problems, many obstacles stand in the way of the deployment of the said technologies. Despite the decrease in production cost, many items are simply too expensive to be embraced by the mass public. 10 people might buy a fridge that'll tell you what to eat, but 1000 will buy a fridge that doesn't do anything more than keep your food cold. In such a situation, are the problems as alarming as it could be? The marketing teams of manufacturers will come up with ingenious ways of diminishing the effects of bad designs. Norman suggested that what he insist isn't perfection from the designers, but rather, just to consider the rules he has established in the book. I think a designer should avoid compromising a device's functionality by designing for the lowest common denominator. A reasonable expectation should be set for the consumer and user of such items. Overall, the book was an easy read and fairly enjoyable!

P.S. I think Norman would like Wall-e. Wall-e is awsome!

Moley Moley Moley

Commented on:
Brian Salato
JD
Patrick Surbur

In Jennifer Toth's "The Mole People", she immersed herself in the community under New York to explore the life styles of the homeless. Through her various encounters, she witnessed events that would change her as a person as well as, in my opinion, provide a shock factor to the readers. I suppose she tried to keep her distance from the mole people primarily due to the fact that she was doing an ethnography and didn't want to be too deeply involved in any way that'll affect their daily habits. However, I felt that in their current condition, it wouldn't have been detrimental to her purpose had she shown a little more compassion or perhaps provided some additional help during certain times. Despite the pitiful conditions of those who lived in the tunnels, Toth's attitude within the book does not really show much sympathy. Very often I felt the writer was distant from those that she involved herself with even though she tried to gain their trust and acceptance. During some parts of the book, I thought the author came out as a bit stubborn and unreasonable. Many times, she would insist on going into the tunnels alone despite repeated warnings by the police and other tunnel dwellers. I understand that shes just doing her job, but she often would put other people in a difficult position just so she can get this ethnography completed. Had she been in real danger, mugged or murdered, who would take responsibility for her? I wonder if the author had been a man, would he have received the same reception from the tunnel folks as had Jennifer. Did they not treat her a little nicer because she was a vulnerable looking young woman? Either way, I admire her courage for going into the darkness to gather the data she needed and am surprised that she was able to pull this off without any real harm. Overall, it was an interesting read, as I have never personally witnessed anything of the sort.

EDIT: Wow...how did I let so many grammatical and spelling errors slip by?

Media = People....Orly?!

The last book assigned in class was "The Media Equation". First and foremost, what a pain it was for me to obtain a copy of this book. I had originally purchased a used copy on half.com a week in advance and thought I had given myself enough time for shipping. Apparently not, as I did not receive the book until a week AFTER the book was due. !&%@#. (I purchased another copy from a local book store)

In "The Media Equation", researchers propose that “people” can be replaced directly in many of their hypothesis regarding a human's reaction or actions towards another person. So, if a person was polite to other people, it would be polite to a media equivalent such as a computer. Many of the points they discussed do seem interesting. Experiments on honesty towards machines as well as personal affection seemed obvious to others, yet nobody would ever make a comment about it in a normal situation. Human nature seems to dictate that we treat these objects of media as if we treat humans out of subconscious progression rather than a conscious decision. While reading the book, I reflected on my personal behavior around mentioned objects. Sure enough, I had reacted mostly in the same way most test subjects had reacted. However, some things they mentioned seemed a little farfetched for me. The fact that this book was written about 2 decades ago had some effect on how it would appeal to me. Things such as the experiment on visual and audio fidelity would probably have a different outcome in today's world due to more advanced technology. If they had tested whether or not people would have liked the Hi-Definition programming better in 2009, I’d wager it most likely yield an alternate reaction. One of the more common but seemingly simple conclusions they came up with was the generalist vs. specialist discussion. I thought this particular experiment could be more attributed to how people were taught throughout life. If a child was always directed to go to a specialist for their respective causes instead of a more general alterative, wouldn't it be reasonable to say that, by intuition, they would automatically assume the specialist media would be better at something than its general alternative regardless of their quality of materials? If Fox News presented a better story piece than CNN, people would probably still prefer to watch CNN instead. I’d like to see some of their experiments repeated in today’s world and compare the results to the book. I assume that some differences would appear, while not many.
Overall, it was an interesting read for the most part. Some may argue with some of their test methods, but for the most part, I thought it was reasonable.

The Design of Everyday Things

The Design of Everyday Things was an interesting book about the interaction between users and their everyday items. Perspectives from both a users and designer's point-of-view were presented regarding different designs and the reasons behind them. Issues regarding usability vs. aethestics were discussed and the author suggested a delicate balance must be kept for the user's sake. The book provided many interesting points that I otherwise would've never considered. Many examples such as the variety of keyboard layouts or door handles seems plausible but some examples seemed a bit extreme. The CD player remote example, in particular, struck me as odd. The hook at one end seemed like such a small and odd diversion that I would not have thought the user might get confused about. Someone in class pointed out that perhaps, the buttons on the controller might've been upside down, but was still hard to differentiate. Overall, I believe the author made some very good points and illustrated some very interesting design problems.

A UI that I like: Ipod Touch


A reason why I like the user interface of this particular device is that, ultimately, its simple. Physically the device only have 2 buttons. 1 on the front facade to activate the menu, and 1 on top of the device to turn it on and off. The rest of the controls are mapped virtually on the touch screen. By default, the ipod does not have as many icons as there are displayed in this picture. The controls are fairly intuitive and clearly labeled for ease of use. All the settings are in a icon labeled "settings" and to get back to the main menu from any other area, the user would simply just have to press that button on the front. The screen is clear allowing for great visibility even in sunlight. Feedback is provided through a noise that is heard each time an icon is clicked. Also with the button on the bottom of the device, users will not get confused as to which side is up. Inputs for the Ipod include an earphone jack and an usb jack, both of which are located on the bottom of the phone, which provides more natural clues to the user on how to properly hold the device. I know this device has recieved much praise for its design, but I believe its well-deserved. The price? Not so much.

First blog entry. Just a test. Leave (positive) comments!!

First blog entry. Just a test. Leave (positive) comments!!

P.S. Did anyone notice the classroom website URL is case-sensitive? It never works when i type chi2009, only with CHI2009.