Coming of Age In Samoa - Full Blog

Reference Information

Title: Coming of Age In Samoa

Author: Margaret Mead

Summary

This book presents an ethnography done by Margaret Mead on the Samoan people where she unpacks her findings on the ways of the culture, their beliefs and concluding with her results of the impact of those choices in how the society functions and even compares to our American society.

The book opens up with an introduction about how science and psychology has impacted the upbringing of children and adolescence. The second chapter provides information on how a typical day would be in the Samoan society from specific tasks to various scenarios that one might encounter. The Education chapter opens up discussing about a child's birth and progressing as they grow older what their duties consist of and what role they play in society. We are presented with the information that shows that everyone plays a part and it's a collective society in doing many things. The next chapter than presents what's considered to be the household in the Samoan society. It not only consist of blood related relatives but others as well. As the children grow they are set more in the roles of their genders and they are guided by the elders in their community.

Beginning in chapter 5, we see that the author takes a shift towards focusing on the female role. First discussing how a girl is grouped with females her age and then progressing to discuss how she fits into the community, and how she makes choices in her intimate actions. The book then shifts back to the role of the society in presenting how they view dancing and how it mirrors the education of the individual even though dance is never formally taught to the Samoans. The book then transitions to the view of attitude towards personality for the entire culture but then begins to narrow the focus of discussion of how females are shaped by what they know, are exposed to and the roles they play from a young age throughout life. Even covering the girl's way of life that would be considered counter-cultural. The book transitions to how one is viewed as they go into adulthood as a married individual or not married and how their view changes with age. Woman are continuously expected to have a maintained skill set despite their age in comparison to a males role.

The book closes out the final two chapters comparing the findings of the author to our American culture and offers suggestions in how we could change our society and views of educating our children.

The Appendices provide an in depth of information of all her quantitative data in order to provide the reader with a thorough understanding of how well she knew the people she observed and analyzed. The last Appendix (III) provides a comparison of how the culture was the time her study was performed and how American/European perspectives influenced their society and structure.

Discussion

This was the first ethnography that I had really read from beginning to end. I was told that the author plays a vital and foundational role in Anthropology and now I can understand that reasoning. She provided a book with a lot of information and found a way to interconnect all her findings and focus on different aspects to contrast with the American culture. Before this class I guess I had never really given it much thought as to the importance of referring to the culture when designing or implementing something we create in computer science. It's important for us to understand those we interact with from a cultural level in order to better communicate and fit with them.

Obedience to Authority - Microblog

Chapter 1: The Dilemma of Obedience

Summary

In this chapter Milgrim explains the meaning of obedience and how a person comes to act in an obedient behavior. He goes into more details of his shock experiement and discusses the foundation of his experiment and some of the events that infulenced his study.

Discussion

I found it interesting to read more from the perspective of Milgram's point of view in how he defined obedience. While I have always thought this was an interesting and odd experiment it helped to know more in dept about it.

Chapter 2: Method of Inquiry

Summary

Here Milgram discusses the components and constraints of his experiement and how he got his participants (no undergraduate students to avoid exposing his experiment). He explains the requirement of needing actors so that he could define his variable of study. He also discussed the machines that were used in this experiement.

Discussion

As I said for the first chapter, it was useful to know the in depth details of the experiment even to the reasoning why they chose the subjects they did for the experiment. It's just as important to have the proper tools in a user study as the study is so I thought it was good they he expanded on this information.

Chapter 3: Expected Behavior

Summary

This chapter explains how Milgram asked people for their input, in regards to the responses of the subjects in such experiment. This was an effort to get their own personal responses as well as what they thought others involved in the experiement would respond in doing. Many people responded that they believed that people would be stop when the learner expressed the desire to stop and be released and that they wouldn't continue shocking the learner.

Discussion

I found it interesting in how they chose to define the hypothesis of this study taking feedback from the subjects, versus that they could have gone with previous studies or their own knowledge. It's good to know the baseline they were going off of and this was a creative way to go about setting this for that experiment.

Chapter 4: Closeness to the the Victim

Summary

In an effort to determine the factor of proximity to the learner various test were done with the victim in the same room and not being in the same room. They discovered that when the victim was within the same room obedience was less likely to occur and and the subject was less actually finished the experiement. While when they were in a different room they did show signs of impact from the victim's reactions but they were more likely to be obiedent.

Discussion

I can understand how proximity can impact someone's actions. I think it's very true that we are very capable of doing harm at at distance, just consider the kinds of weapons we have in our society today. People will be more incline to fire a gun because they can do that at a variety of distances. I think it was a movie that I heard this statement, but I always heard that a knife is a more personable weapon and it takes guts to use it on someone since you have to get within close range to use it. In a more personable answer, I am becoming more aware in the use of proximics in how we react in social behavior based off the work done by Cindy Bethel, which will soon be expanded by one of the members on my robotics team in our lab.

Chapter 5: Individuals Confront Authority

Summary

This chapter unfolds more about the individual who were subjects in the study. While each experiment was taylored for each person, Milgrim made an effort to obtain and factor in the profile information of each victim when testing obedience. The profile information consisted of both their backgrounds, comments and thoughts on the experiement, as well as there reactions once the experiments were completed.

Discussion

I found it to be very good that they made a lot of effort to collect information on their subjects in order to truly test obedience for each subject involved in the experiment. As a researcher myself I've come to realize how important it is to truly analyze the ones your are going place in your user studies if you really want accurate results. Theirs a lot of factors that can attribute to someone's responses, but often some of the easiest ones can be overlooked if proper information isn't initially collected.

Chapter 6: Further Variations and Controls

Summary

This chapter expands on the variations that were altered in some of the experiements. They did various things with the victim as well as gave the subject some freedom to determine if this would impact the results. Some of the specific things altered was applying a heart condition to the victim, changing the personality, the proximity of the victim, the background information of the victim (school affilation to Yale), using women as subjects, or if the subject was given the option of determining the shock level.

Discussion

I hadn't considered the possibility of them using different variations in their experiment in order to ensure their results reflected sound feedback. It's interesting some of the factors they decided to change or add in, but I can see how that would impact the situation and find it necessary to try and test.

Chapter 7: Individuals Confront Authority II

Summary

Similar to the first experiments with the only difference is that this time the subjects were more women than men. This chapter concluded that the results with women were similar to the ones from the males, so there was no dramatic difference in the gender of the subject, the behavior resulted in the same behavior.

Discussion

Interesting how they tested woman and men separately, but yes I do believe that's a factor they had to try and see mattered for the results. Perhaps being a woman myself I'll quickly admit that often woman and men will result to doing the same action in many different scenarios. While some women may be prone to respond to some situations differently than men we are still human and often susceptible to such error and incorrect response.

Chapter 8: Role Permutations

Summary

In an effort to test the role impact on the subjects responses in the experiement they tried applying different roles in different context to test obedience. Some of the roles included having the learner ask to be shocked, contradictions in authority or if the person was an authroity figure or just an indvidual. The results showed that the hierarchy of authority proved to be valuable.

Discussion

It makes sense that they would test the various roles and how such changes in roles could impact the obedience of a subject to express on the victim. I can understand how the hierarchy of authority would proved to be valuable. In order for us to be obedient we would need to yield to someone we believe to be of esteemed, well-respected role and person.

Chapter 9: Group Effects

Summary

This chapter expands on experiement 17 and18 where they test whether groups (the existance of rebellion by two people) impacted authority and whether instructing others in a group impacted obedience. The results reflected that in experiment 17 obedience was very low. Where as in experiement 18 obedience was a very high.

Discussion

The impact of groups on behavior is something that has always interest me. The findings from this factor was something that I expected, we often follow the crowd and long to fit in. We'll even fall susceptible to doing what people in a group instruct us to do to fit that conformity.

Chapter 10: Why Obedience?

Summary

This chapter expands why the subjects were obedient and the reasoning which go into making someone respond in obedience. He presents the concept of the agnetic shift where someone goes from being a person in a state where they are controlling what they do and being controlled by someone else, someone of authority. There is also a shift in who the responsibilty of the actions committed in this shift.

Discussion

The agnetic shift makes a lot of sense in that we change states of thinking and it doesn't surprise me that they would also shift the blame of their actions to the person whom told them to do something. That's one thing we've seen that's consistent with human-kind throughout all of history is that we're consistent with trying to excuse ourselves and we have difficulty admitting that we are wrong. Rather we try to excuse our behavior by distributing the blame to make ourselves feel better.

Chapter 11: The Process of Obedience

Summary

Here Milgram expands even fruther of the agnetic state and goes more into detail of what factors go into producing the result of obedience. It reflects a lot of the the background of an individual and their certain conditions that result in being obedient and thus concludes why so many believed that they could not violate their authority.

Discussion

I found the in-depth information he provided and the results of the experiment to be consistent with what I believed before in regards to obedience. There are a lot more factors than what just meets the eye and I appreciated that he expanded on that within this chapter.

Chapter 12: Strain and Disobedience

Summary

This chapter discusses how strain factors into being disobedient. Being disobedient for many could mean that they are not fulfilling the experimenters wishes and thus there is a conflict within the individual to decide to be disobedient. Specificially some of the strain factors in this experiment would be the response of the victim. Milgrim presents that one of the ways the subject would resolve the strain would be to be disobident of the authority figure.

Discussion

I found it interesting how he presented the strains within the study and how the strain was resolved through being disobedient. While I can see that relieving the strain in that moment I wonder if that was something that was really a resolution. For me I think I would have still felt the strain of my actions, even if I did stop, but the fact that I probably struggled with that and that I even took part in the experiment as long as I did. I think I would still be struggling with the guilt of what I did do because I knew my internal thought process in a sense the 'real me'.

Chapter 13: An Alternative Theory: Is Aggression the Key?

Summary

Milgrim presents an alternative theory as to why the subjects were capable of shocking the victim and that being the possiblity of agression factoring into the obedience. The author then goes on to prove why agression was not the reasoning in the desire to be obeident.

Discussion

I could understand how this is an alternative theory for compliance. While I can see that might be a reason for some of the subjects I don't believe that was the compounding factor for everyone and I do believe that the evidence that Milgram presented to counter this theory was sufficient. There was a solid foundation to prove that aggression couldn't be the only reasoning but that it was an issue of obedience to authority.

Chapter 14: Problems of Method

Summary

Here Milgrim presents the three critisims which people presented about his experiment. He refutes these three critisms by providing evidence and reasoning. The chapter closes out by him comparing the experiement's results to what happened with the Nazi's in Germany.

Discussion

I appreciated that the author chose to cover this in his explanation of his experiment. It's important as researchers to be able to counter the arguments that come up against our research questions and to be able to defend it properly. I feel that the entire book did a good job of presenting information and reasoning why these claims could be refuted and I think the results did reflect the true desire of the research in the experiment.

Opening Skinner's Box - Full Blog

Reference Information

Title: "Opening Skinner's Box"

Author: Lauren Slater

Summary

This book presents the work of many psychologists and also presents information about there lives and how their research impacted society as well as her personal views. The book opens up talking about B.F. Skinner and his work with animals and rewards and reinforcement to encourage certain behaviors. The following chapter presents the work of Stanley Milgram's work in obedience to authority. Continuing The third chapter presents Thomas Szasz work on the myth of mental illness and then Rosenhan decided to try out an experiment. In his experiment he goes to the admissions of a mental hospital and told them he was hearing a voice where he was actually admitted into the facility. The fourth chapter discusses five stage approach when it comes to acting in a crisis or situation. The author expands on various cases that relate to the steps and experiments performed to test the steps. The fifth chapter talks about the experiments of Leon Festinger and his best-known work Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, which is defined as the adjustment of one's behavior to fit one's belief. The author then interviews people with extreme religious perspectives and discusses the various forms of cults that exist today. The sixth chapter discusses Harry Harlow's experiments which consisted of a soft surrogate mother and a metal milk-bearing one and how growing up without a real mother impacts development. The seventh chapter discusses the 1960s and 1970s research that was focused in the nature of addiction, specifically the studies of Dr. Bruce Alexander and Robert Coambs. His two claims were there is nothing "inherently addictive" about any drugs; and two, repeated exposures to even the most enticing drugs do not usually cause problems. The eighth chapter discusses Elizabeth Loftus in her effort to scientifically prove that it is capable to create false memories based on the information you are exposed to. She uses this effort in performing various experiments and in turn using her finding to try and help people who she feels were falsely accused and are facing a sentence they didn't commit. She did receive a lot of scrutiny for her work, but it did prove to be a perspective in psychology regarding memory. The book continues on memory by covering the experiments of Eric Kandel, which began with working on sea slugs in an effort to find where memory was located in the brain, then expanded to working on humans such as HM. The book closes up covering some of the more severe psychological work in memory and the brain by covering the work of Anonio Egas Moniz, the father of lobotomy. The chapter begins discussing some of the earlier cases and then some of the later procedures that were done in aiding people with various metal disorders. The author presents some of the positive aspects, but also presents some of the negative consequences of such a procedure.

Discussion

I found this book to be very enlightening. Since I had taken psychology before I was familiar with a lot of the studies, but never really had the opportunity to study them more in dept and see them from a perspective such as Lauren Slater's. She presented the cases but also did good in expressing how she viewed them and the work she did to come to the conclusions she did. I think it was good that we covered this in class because it's important for us to actually research and learn the meaning of experiments other than just the results presented. It's interesting to have such knowledge because as computer scientist we do need to consider psychology in our line of work and what we produce and design.

Ethnography Results Week #4

This week our during our observation time we got to follow-up on previous problems with HECC 204. What was believed to be just a computer replacement issue, ended out being a system issue. Later that day they ended out seeing the entire system stop working. They replaced the computer but ended out realizing that the issue was a programming issue and it was passed along to the Microcomputer LAN administrator.

Upon our arrival we came to an empty office (or perhaps the student worker fell asleep), so we waited out in the hallway for a little bit and proceeded to observe the automated system in HECC 100. This system is slightly different and consist of a better sound system and an HD projector. It also had a small touchscreen which has tabs for the devices. The one thing I noticed is that the tabs can be misleading because the DVD tab is actually the Blu-Ray/HD DVD player, while the DVD/VCR combo is controlled by the VHS tab (this has been known to confuse professors in the past).

Upon entering the office the environment was rather relaxed for a Friday morning (8:30). One student worker was studying anatomy and physiology because he had a test at 11:30. The other student worker was friendly as usual and was entertained on the computer near us by playing computer games and browsing facebook.

We did get to visit with one of the IMS consultants and he told the upstairs office that they were short-staffed downstairs so that might impact what the student technicians did during the class changes. One of the supervisors from the tech office did go downstairs to help during the class change. We followed one of the student technicians to HECC 200. The CPS receiver wasn't responding correctly and had to be rest via the back of the podium. The professors seemed slightly stressed and even questioned why we were in there particular space. They seem to change their attitude once they learned that we were observing one of the technicians. The student technician worked well with the professors present and was very polite, he even asked one of the professors how her other class was doing. In seeing that I realized how this particular role can become a very personable one and the student technicians do take pride in mentally tracking previous problems and the satisfaction of the professors.

Paper Reading #12: TwinSpace: an Infrastructure for Cross-Reality Team Spaces

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Reference Information

Title: TwinSpace: an Infrastructure for Cross-Reality Team Spaces

Authors:Derek F. Reilly, Hafez Rouzati, Andy Wu, Jee Yeon Hwang, Jeremy Brudvik, and W. Keith Edwards

Conference: UIST 2010

Summary

This paper presents a software infrastructure called TwinSpace. It combines physical and virtual environments, which combines the use of interactive or smart room technology. Their novel implementation is centered around 4 key features: communication layer, common model, mapping capability, virtual world clients that can participate fully in the services. They can connect to the virtual world through an interface. The paper progresses on the details of the framework. The team room is composed of three main regions: the assembly/array, which is on a wall; the aside table composing and modifying items on a table-like surface; the aside wall which is a whiteboard for new content. The system functions on two modes: brainstorming and present mode.

The TwinSpace software system

Discussion

This paper introduced an interesting system. I think it's a useful product because often in meetings one will use those three spaces, so it's nice that they can be put together and also be a virtual environment as well for people who are off-sight. It would be neat to try this system out.

Emotional Design Microblog

Chapter 1: Attractive Things Work Better

Summary

An experiment done between Japanese and Israelis to determine if attractiveness of an design was a very important factor. In the study it was found that Japanese took attractiveness of design more of a valuable factor in design than did the Israelis that cared more about the functioning factor. A rather new study from psychology has found that affect, emotion and cognition compliment one another. The brain could be seen as three levels: Visceral, Behavioral, and Reflective. Input is taken in through the senses and as humans it is processed by the three layers to output an action. The response can be a combination of the levels (bottom-up or top-down) or it can be mostly impacted by one specific layer over ruling the others. The role of positive and negative states do have an impact on design. Happier thoughts often result in creativity; versus negative thoughts often guide people to be more contentious of the appropriate design function. Yet design can and should be driven by both thought processes in order to have both the creative and functioning factor. A brains action can be driven from both biological predisposition and experience; and it is the second and third layer that is often impacted by these factors.

Discussion

I found this to be an interesting shift between the author's last book to this one. On the "Design of Everyday Things" it was more focused on making a product that worked correctly and could be understand by users. This books takes a different approach around affect, emotion and cognition. I've seen similar work with affect and behavioral factors presented in other courses I've taken (HRI focused) so it was nice to see the correlation between fields.

Paper Reading #11: Eden: Supporting Home Network Management Through Interactive Visual Tools

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Paper Information

Title: Eden: Supporting Home Network Management Through Interactive Visual Tools

Authors: Jeonghwa Yang, W. Keith Edwards, David Haslem

Conference: UIST 2010

Summary

This paper presents the network managing system for the home called Eden. It's an interactive and direct manipulation of the home network. It supports a range of tools and puts it in a format that is graphic oriented and user friendly to make manipulation of the network understandable to the user. In a study they found some of the features that people to be desirable in the system. One would be a desired to have an easy way to see the status of the network. Second feature would be security. Last would be to gain more control over network performance to ensure resources are being used correctly. From that analysis they grouped network management task into the following groups: membership, access control, network monitoring, QoS for bandwidth priority.

Eden Interface (Source: publication)

Discussion

I found this paper to be rather interesting. The interface of an application makes all the difference in how a product is used and if it's used successfully. I found it useful that they evaluated people's responses of the system as the implemented features. They took a user's perspective and it strengthened their network tool.

Paper Reading #10: Gesture Search: A Tool for Fast Mobile Data Access

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Paper Reference Information:

Title: Gesture Search: A Tool for Fast Mobile Data Access

Author: Yang Li

Conference: UIST 2010

Summary

This paper presents the Gesture Search tool for mobile phones. This tool uses a handwriting method that can be activated from multiple areas of the phone based on the gesture the person does. Based on what letter the application detects the user writes it will collect information, applications and web links based that correlate with that letter. The author provides a through explanation of the implementation and algorithms used to create this tool. There was also a user study done with the tool with the tool implemented on Android phones. The log analysis test had 125 users. It collected information on the types of data the users accessed using the application and contained some statistical findings on length of the gesture. According to user feedback in the study they found the tool to be 'useful and usable'. They did find that 66% of the users used the tool to access their contacts versus 35% that accessed applications although 17 our of 59 who participated in the feedback survey found this feature useful.

Discussion

This tool seems to be a neat feature. While I've seen it on smaller scale of texting in a few phones, I thought it was interesting how they implemented it to access the store of the phone and able to access a lot of different things. I personally think that would extremely useful, the phone I have at the moment has a scroll by letter feature, but I've always found it difficult to use because the button is rather small and it doesn't always scroll correctly. Due to that finding I often just scroll to my contacts until I get to the one I want. I thought the last line of the conclusion was an interesting way to end the paper, made me laugh. "As a user enthusiastically commented: 'I gesture it, I find it.'"

Ethnography Results Week #3

This week we got to focus with our initial onsite observation of following around the technicians. On Friday (February 18, 2011) from 7:30-10:00a.m. (we left a little early because Zack had previous commitments back at our lab), we did our first observation. The student workers for Harrington Media Center are required to be at work by 7:15a.m Monday-Friday, however the technicians come into work around 7:30. When we arrived at the office I became aware of how much change has occurred since I last had been there. There is a wall that used to separate the technician office and the storage closet, that wall has now been removed and the office has been expanded. The technician office now has two supervisors, one preparing to be a supervisor for the downstairs office. There has been update and modifications to the layout of the office, it's very organized and has a cozy feel to it. The light brown paint seems to have really expanded the room feel.

When we arrived only two of the three technicians working that time were present. One was on his laptop switching between a few different things. The other one was very friendly and made an effort to engage with us in conversation, even offering us to join him in ordering breakfast, but since we both had already eaten we passed on the opportunity.

About an three-fourths of an hour later one of the supervisor came into the office. I hadn't met him before, but he seemed similar in personality to the supervisor that managed the techs when I was there. Shortly after the main technician supervisor came into the office.

Around 9:00 the one of the tech's got paged to go to HECC 105 because the professor stated that red wasn't showing up on the projector. We headed downstairs to observe the troubleshooting of the problem. One of the supervisors reset one of the Ethernet cables that controls the projected image (NTI cable) and the problem didn't re-occur after that. The professor was nice to us and she offered us the opportunity to troubleshoot the problem during her lecture since her class was taking an exam. We proceeded to the projection booth to check the lap hours on the projector and then exited the classroom.

When returned I noticed that one of the other student technicians was gone, I thought maybe he went to class, but he was actually attending to another problem in HECC 204. The technician that attended to HECC 105 decided to proceed to HECC 204 when he realized they weren't able to discover the problem. On this observation, we did cross through the middle of the class to reach the podium. One of the student workers from the media center was also present observing and looking for a possible future fix to the current problem. They discovered that they needed to replace the computer completely and decided to that putting in a laptop as a temporary fix would suffice for now.

Our second observation was Monday, February 21, 2011 from 3-5pm. Upon entering the office we realized there were five technicians on duty during this time. The one thing that has become evident over our last two visits is what a unique, close group this truly is. They not only spend time together working, but they make an effort to hang out with one another (even the supervisors) for various activities and sometimes even sharing a meal together. They are a very close group and from an observation perspective they have a unique way communicating with each other, often using language and way of speaking that only they understand.

We also got to meet with the IT manager for IMS (current supervisor for Harrington Media Center). Her office is in the projection booth above HECC 100. It has a unique feel to it as well. It's decorated with a lot of personal things and although it may just be a projection booth it says a lot about the people who are in that office. She inquired about our project and how I was doing since my leaving IMS back in July. We talked about different things from upcoming equipment installations about to occur in ANIN, to former and current student workers, to our personal goals as Zack and I prepare to graduate with our Bachelors.

I showed Zack the downstairs office (formally known as Harrington Media Center) and the card system they use to manage the use of equipment in the various buildings for the HMC area. The students partially noticed our presence and some of them didn't. One of them even thought that Zack was a new hire (a little confusing how I fit that role, as though I would return all the way from Bright to 'teach' this really special new hire...haha). A lot of them were doing there own things and one was on his laptop.

In the coming day I plan to take a closer look at the technology used in various classes at different times. We will also continue to follow the technicians on Fridays and Mondays. It's been an interesting project so far, and even I've come to some findings that I wasn't aware of until this project. I've greatly enjoyed working with my partner and seeing how he views and takes in this truly unique environment.

Paper Reading #9: Performance Optimizations of Virtual Keyboards for Stroke-Based Text Entry on a Touch-Based Tabletop

Comments

Comment #1: Adam Friedli

Comment #2: Pending

Reference Information

Title: Performance Optimizations of Virtual Keyboards for Stroke-Based Text Entry on a Touch-Based Tabletop

Authors: Jochen Rick

Conference: UIST 2010

Summary

The author introduces shape-writing for touch-based tabletop devices. Shape-writing is defined as stroking through all the letters without lifting their finger to write out words. The author introduces the concept of using virtual-keyboards but switching to a stroke method instead of a tap method. There is a transition to the layout of the keyboard and the author presents a series of different options from the usual QWERTY keyboard. After evaluating how each of the keyboards would suite the Shape-writing method the author concludes that the ATOMIK square keyboard is the most optimal. The model they created was based on Fitts's law to have a more sophisticated actions. There was a user study conducted with 8 adults (6 right-handed, 2 left-handed individuals). The users completed a series of movements which had four parts: beginning, middle, end and lifting the finger. They began by completing a task of over 100 sequences to train in using the device. The study noted the time by distance ratio and stroke time by angle. The author continues in justifying the model used by demonstrating how it fits into Fitts's law and then finding a suitable lexicon for the spelling of the words. In evaluating the existing layout they concluded that the optimal layout to use was the Square OSK and Hexigon OSK.

ShapeWriter Software (Source)

Discussion

I thought it was an interesting detailed paper about the shape-writer methods. While this wasn't the first time I had seen this feature (I've been aware of it on Android phones since the summer), I couldn't really justify the need to change the layout of the keyboard (as we've already seen it successful on the QWERTY layout). Nonetheless, I applaud the author for attempting to take a different approach and trying other layouts to see if there is a better way to implement this feature. I did get to try this feature on a Samsung Captivate phone and it was neat. It worked well, but I did have to get used to it at first; but I've always thought it was interesting new way of typing.

Ethnography Results Week #2

In the past week we finalized our Ethnography project with Dr. Hammond. We established our workspace to do our observations on the web-based KIOS system. We also began to gather classroom equipment specifications by surveying the KIOS and looking into the Inventory system database. We are also finalizing our plans to do onsite observations in classrooms and following the technicians as they respond to technical issues.

Some of the issues that I was made aware of by the staff were:

• Issues with the CPS responder & clicker system (in Zachary 102), which are used to collect survey data from the students using a digital remote. While IMS installs the CPS receiver in their automated podium they were having difficulties with the responder being visible to the software which analyses the data and provides an output file to the corresponding course, course section and professor. This problem is a joint concern for IMS and the staff which are in charge of managing the CPS software (ITS).
• Yesterday, Harrington 204 and 207 were having issues getting the system to display the current selected device. This is a current problem which they are looking into to correct.
• This morning their were reported problems in Peterson and a technician was responding to the call; however I have yet to collect more information on the issue and the outcome of the problem.

Paper Reading #8: Planz to Put Our Digital Information in Its Place

Comments:

Comment #1: Zachary Henkel

Comment #2: Steven Hennessy

Paper Information

Title: Planz to Put Our Digital Information in Its Place

Authors: William Jones, Dawei Hou, Bhuricha Deen Sethanandha, Sheng Bi, Jim Gemmell

Conference: CHI 2010, Atlanta, GA, USA

Summary

Planz (short for 'Personal Project Planner') is an integrative document-like overlay to a folder hierarchy system. It allows additional support including e-mail messages, web references, and informal notes. On the front end of the document it shows the files listed in outline, tree like structure along with two basic operations "Drag & Link" and "In Context Create." It acts as a word processor but allows better manipulation and options to store the data. In an early evaluation of Planz they found out that it was a feature believed to 'save a lot time.' They also did a study with 8 people and had them perform various task and then answer a questioner discussing their experience. While the results showed a mix of responses from what the usual prototype some people had been using for years they found that it had a good visability factor. As far as future work they plan to make modifications for certain features in order bring forward their vision for this product.

Planz program (Source: Publication)

Discussion

I thought this paper was interesting to read. I think the Planz program sounds very useful and can't even begin to count how many times I've had to take time to find documents I've stored on my computer or external storage devices. I think it would have helped this paper if they would have discussed more about the features of the program and use a few more visual clues to how the system works; however, I did notice how they did discover they had a website to discuss in more detail their program and how it works.

Paper Reading #7: Manual Deskterity: An Exploration of Simultaneous Pen + Touch Direct Input

Comments

Comment #1: Patrick Frith

Comment #2: Paola Garza

Paper Information

Title: Manual Deskterity: An Exploration of Simultaneous Pen + Touch Direct Input

Authors: Ken Hinckley, Koji Yatani, Michel Pahud, Nicole Coddington, Jenny Rodenhouse, Andy Wilson, Hrvoje Benko, Bill Buxton

Conference: CHI 2010: I Need Your Input, Atlanta, GA, USA

Summary

This paper talks about a prototype of a digital drafting table called Manual Deskterity. This takes both the input of a pen and touch. Both inputs are popular among several devices in today's technology. They designed a scrapbooking application which allows both forms of input interchangeably. In a study of eight people they observed peoples common techniques and gestures and how they navigate their workspace. This application allows users to select and manipulate objects. There were also some tools that made task more natural to common human tendencies including: the stapler (grouping of objects), the X-acto Knife (cutting and tearing items), carbon copy, ruler using the straight edge of an object, brush and stamps, and finger shadows and painting. The paper closes by discussing the results and findings of the study and also what they would like to work on in the future.

Manuel Deskterity Application (Source)

Discussion

I found this paper to be an interesting application. I've always appreciate devices that have a natural and intuitive way of doing things. I find it interesting how applications have evolved over time and we've began to design applications with the user are the ones in mind, versus just what the designer/inventor envisions. This particular application could also be integrated in a variety of application uses and to accommodated a variety of users.

Paper Reading #6: Adaptive Mouse: A Deformable Computer Mouse Achieving Form-Function Synchronization

Comments

Comment #1: Shena Hoffmann

Comment #2: Steven Hennessy

Reference Information

Title: Adaptive Mouse: A Deformable Computer Mouse Achieving Form-Function Synchronization

Authors: Sheng Kai Tang, Wen Yen Tang

Conference: CHI 2010 Atlanta, GA, USA

Summary

This paper discusses the implementation of the Adaptive Mouse, which is adaptable for both left and right-handed users which produces accurate cursor feedback, to demonstrate form-function synchronization. This new design with embedded row column sensing the mouse is able to adapt to its input. In order implement that design the Palm Terrain study was performed with 30 individuals and they were asked to perform 6 steps. One, hold the mouse with their right hand; two, press with the fore-finger; and third, press with the middle-finger and repeat those three steps for the left hand. After they analyzed the data they found out that their was some consistent locations with left and right handed users pressed, allowing them to implement the dynamic button location. Even with the circular shape of the mouse the sensing was directional using a formal for optical sensor calibration. While their study both had benefits and drawbacks this marked the beginning of their research to improve their adaptive mouse in future work.

Adaptive Mouse design (Source: publication)

Discussion

I found this paper to consist of an interesting application, but wasn't too sure as to how this was really novel. It was nice to see the application and use of sensors, but I could understand the drawbacks that the users stated they had. I kinda wonder if I had the opportunity to use such a device if I would have approached it as freely as they stated by the user. I think the lack of visual cues might make me question how to use the device and I'd have to experiment with it prior to feeling comfortable using it.

Ethnography Report #1

Our group ethnography is centered around observing professors teaching class on campus. We are observing their integrations and use of technology available to them in their classrooms. We hope to gain insight into the role the technology plays in their efforts to communicate concepts. To date we have:

• Established permission and control of classroom remote access systems for observations

• Briefly observed portions of several classes in which technology was being used.

• Formulated the following questions to be asked while observing:

1. Is the technology a pivotal element of the lecture or is it an after thought?
2. Does the user go out of his or her way to avoid certain pieces of equipment?
3. Does the user go out of his or her way to incorporate certain technologies?
4. How does the technology broaden the ability of the learner?
5. How do users typically address the classroom technology?
6. Which technical missteps are common among users?
7. How can we best describe the common teaching style of the user?
8. How does the user further his or her lecture without technology?

In addition to these questions, we also collect practical quantitative data.

We are looking forward to observing more classrooms in the coming days. We have also obtained information about which classrooms submit the most trouble tickets, which will aid us in selecting rooms to observe on a regular basis. As we are interested in any disruptions that misuse or malfunction of the equipment can cause.

Dr. Celine Latulipe's Lecture

Summary

Dr. Latulipe has been working in the field of CHI centered around two-handed interaction applications and also working alongside performance arts in enhancing performances with wireless technologies and an artistic approach. One of her main research considerations is testing her research works and she's even taken various methods to better get feedback and evaluation of her various applications, such as taking factors similar to what's used in a lie-detector test to determine an emotional response through bodily functions.

Discussion

I found her area of research interesting. I attended the lecture not knowing too much of her area of study, but I had heard that she did things related to dancing. Personally I've always been fascinated with various styles of dances (if I could have been anything in life I would have been a professional dancer). So it was interesting to see how she created applications and strive to aid and enhance the process of artistic performances. The concept of two-handed interaction was something that I wasn't too sure about at first, as I can't really imagine using my left hand and doing anything well; however, she did address that in the questions and it made a lot of sense when you look at it from the perspective of it's part of a process that cognitively comes together to successfully produce an output.

Paper Reading #5: Tangible Video Bubbles

Comments

Comment #1: Zachary Henkel

Comment #2: Jimmy Ho

Reference Information:

Title: Tangible Video Bubbles

Authors: Kimiko Ryokai, Hayes Raffle, Hiroshi Horii, Yotam Mann

Conference: CHI 2010, Atlanta, GA, USA

Summary

Tangible Video Bubbles is a new video-based drawing space created for children, which consist of a web camera and a microphone, located in a squeezable bubble, to capture the child's visual or auditory input. It's also a kinesthetic multimedia tool which that through squeezing the bubble of various pressures and lengths of time can navigate through the recorded video and play it back at various speeds. There is also a software that is used to draw and incorporate the recorded input from the bubble. When the bubble is squeezed near the canvas it will 'spill out' and allow them to use the recorded audio and or video with the drawings which they created on the play space software interface. Through testing various ages of children, between the ages of 4-8, they were able to modify their design, which included increasing the size of the bubble in order to get the correct feedback. Overall they found that the bubble was something children got quickly and depending on their age, the use of the bubble was more advanced.

Video Bubble and the Interactive Play Space

Discussion

Interesting concept, I've never really thought about using a squeezable bubble (squeezable anything really) to interact with input and output devices. The pictures were really helpful to get a better understanding of what the device looked like and through user testing it seemed as though it was a useful project. I did wonder if their would be some children that would struggle, as in perhaps the bubble was a bit to big for them to grasp or perhaps their physical abilities didn't allow them to get the proper pressure for the desired playback. Maybe if they had the option of using both a button interface and the squeezable design would make it a more universal product.

Paper Reading #4: Tangible Interfaces for Download: Initial Observations from Users' Everyday Environments

Comments

Comment #1: Paola Garza
Comment #2: Adam Friedli


Reference Information
Title: Tangible Interfaces for Download: Initial Observations from Users' Everyday Environments
Authors: Enrico Costanza, Oliver Kung, Matteo Glaccone, Simon Shelley, Jeffrey Huang
Conference: CHI 2010 Atlanta, GA, USA


Summary
Tangible user interfaces (TUIs) have been used for about 15 years in HCI. They are commonly found in museums and laboratories; however the authors have designed the Audio d-touch system that is web-based, low in cost and simple setup to create, record and produce music. The materials needed are only a computer, internet connection, printer, and a webcam. The papers printed can then be cut out and placed on everyday objects similar to blocks and placed on the template paper, with a webcam placed on a lamp (or similar stand) which will allow it to be over the objects. Once the user is logged in to the system via internet they can simply calibrate their system and begin using the created blocks to create, record and produce musical rhythms.


The Audio d-touch consists of a drum machine and sampling sequencer. The drum machine correlates with the x-position with the time instant in the loop and the y-position determines the type of drum. The sampling sequencer the x-position correlates to the time and the y-position to the playback volume.

Components of the d-touch System (Source)

The author continues in the article of providing information on the user testing and the analysis of the system. The user generated content was made up of videos and photos, observing how much time was spent using the system and the various setups and ways it was used. They also grouped their observation into 6 categories: interface physicality and ease of use, audio, technical, improve and extend, field trail related, and generic comments. Based on the collected feedback the authors provided the information that will impact future work and what they plan to do in response to those comments.



Discussion
I found this system and paper to be very interesting. They provided a detailed overview of their product and have even made it available online for future users. I enjoyed reading the results of the user studies and their dedication to improving and expanding their system. I haven't given much thought to a system like this before, but I can see its practical uses and value, especially that they made their system easy to make up with common things people already have.

Opening Skinner's Box - Microblog

Chapter 1: Opening Skinner's Box

Summary

The chapter opens up stating that B.F. Skinner is the leading neo-behaviorist famous for animal experiments where he demonstrated the power of rewards and reinforcement to encourage a certain behavior. She continues to discuss the view the media had on Skinner, often the myths that were associated with his work, and a biography of his life and works. The author then shifts to her visit to see Jerome Kagan a contemporary of Skinner's work. She also mentions Stephen Kosslyn and how his operant repertoire is still used to treat phobias and panic disorders are still used today. The author then personalizes her information about Skinner's work in how she would respond to her child's crying. In turn discussing some of the archived boxes at Harvard and her findings in seeing them. She ends that thought talking about the story of the "baby in the box" which leads her to look into contacting his daughters. She has a conversation with Julia which recommends that she reads a book called Beyond Freedom and Dignity, finding how it influenced Skinner's work. In closing she gets to visit the Skinner's old house which she finds many of his things as he left him prior to his death.

Discussion

I found this introduction to be different than I expected. I enjoyed not only reading about Skinner's works, but also getting the personal application, as well as encounters with his daughter. This reminds me how different the media and the general public can have one view of a particular person, but if you were to talk with their family members you would more than likely get another perspective. Perhaps I'm just fascinated with learning about people (whether through their own thoughts or people that know them well), but I think this book does a good job of providing factual information from his experiments as well as a personal experience.

Chapter 2: Obscura

Summary

This chapter begins by discussing one of the well-known experiments done by Stanley Milgram, testing his obedience to authority. The author then decides to find people who were involved with the experiment as well as his wife; where she looks into answering the question of the possibility of there being a characteristic or personality trait that can link to a person be obedient or defiant. Where many people, and the author try to answer why the results came out the way they did. In the interviews with people she finds out more about Stanley Milgram's life from his wife and more about some of the participants of the study and their views on the experiment.

Discussion

I've heard about this experiment before but it never fails to make me question myself and how I would have responded had I been in that situation. While the author notes that she thought she would get a morality response from some people, only to see it was perhaps in the interest of themselves and not others, I do believe that's a valid point. I think you can be a person with morals and even a person that affiliates with a religion or particular faith, and not necessarily be defiant to answering to your authority, even if it means not for the good of other people. I noticed how she parallels a smaller case, such as working more and sacrificing your family in the process. I can see the relationship between the two cases and it's true. We all yield to our authority and give our authority our unreserved 'yes'. So, maybe you're wondering, "what about your strong sense of morality or beliefs?" Oh, it's still there, it just happens to get overshadowed by other things. Just think about all the things we obsess over in our lives, and how many times those things have taken priority in our lives. It's like putting our hand really close to our face. Our hand seems huge, but in reality, if we would just pull our hand away we'd see it's not that big, but our perspective of it was; and it's the same with our priorities. While I would love to say, I would have been defiant in that experiment, and perhaps I would have been, I know I'm human (prone to error) and I gravitate towards answering to 'my authority', sometimes being selfish the process. Honestly it's something that I have to evaluate and work on daily in order to make sure that I strive to keep all the parts of my life in perspective.

And with that said, I'll close with one of quotes that's influenced my life and way of living, "Because what you care about is what you think about, and what you think about is what you chase." (B.C. Stuart).

Chapter 3: On Being Sane in Insane Places

Summary

This chapter talks about the experimenting with psychiatric diagnosis. The chapter opens up to Thomas Szasz writing on the myth of mental illness and then Rosenhan decided to try out an experiment. In his experiment he goes to the admissions of a mental hospital and told them he was hearing a voice where he was actually admitted into the facility. He expands on how he was treated and his views from his time being there which lead to his paper "Being sane in insane places." The author then transitioned to what thought about psychiatry and also decides to try the same experiment 6 times. She leads to discuss the difference of the studies between the two different times.

Discussion

I found this chapter both interesting and sometimes a bit disturbing to think about. I think it mirrors greatly how we've changed in our thoughts on medical illnesses and how people were viewed and treated. Clearly this study was originally done in 1970 while she tried it at a later time. We've advanced in medicine and ways of medical practice. Just looking at how people in older times and even sometimes in Biblical times there was an interpretation that perhaps they viewed things such as epilepsy as demonic, where as now we recognize it as an brain disorder that can be treated.

Chapter 4: In the Unlikely Event of Water Landing

Summary

This chapter goes through the five stage approach when it comes to acting in a crisis or situation. The first one is you, the potential helper must notice an event is occurring. The author discusses that she ordered a gas mask in an effort to prevent getting a virus that could possibly be spread by a particular mailed out package. This event lead her to discuss Darley and Latane's case. The second step is to interpret the event as one in which help is needed and she discusses the death of Catherine Genovese. The third step mentioned is that you must assume responsibility. In a study that they did to parallel the Catherine Genovese case was to have a 'person' (recording) from another room, converse in a conversation with a person in the room next to them. However during their time the person began to have a seizure and requesting help. They realized that a large percentage didn't go and request for help. Then the fourth step you need to do is decide which action to take. She then expands on the concept of social cues. The last step would be to take an action.

Discussion

I have heard of this action process before, except for when it came to an emergancy situation, for example someone drowning. It's true that a lot of people in a group wouldn't go but conform to be like the group. The best way I see to apply this chapter is to remember the value of being specific (for example, telling someone "You call 911" versus "someone call 911". It's a lot more effective and user friendly.

Chapter 4: Quieting the Mind

Summary

The author begins the chapter talking about the experiments of Leon Festinger and his best-known work Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, which is defined as the adjustment of one's behavior to fit one's belief. The author discusses how dissonance is evident in people like Marion Keech and her involvement with a cult. Then observed how some people who went under cover to enter into a cult. She explains a little bit about Festinger and some of the other areas he expanded his work on dissonance. Festinger had several forms of dissonance cults were associated with belief/disconfirmation paradigm, lying for money was the insufficient rewards paradigm, and induced compliance paradigm. That one was discovered based on a college student getting into a fraternity. She points out the difference between Skinner finding and Festinger. Skinner was based on rewarding good behavior, but Festinger shows that people are driven by punishment. She then transitions to a more personal story of Linda Santo and how her faith is distorted by her experiences with her daughter, believing that her daughter can perform miracles. She closes out the chapter talking about her returning visit to see Linda and how she found it funny that Christianity could be categorized with dissonance.

Discussion

This chapter was interesting, something that I've thought of before. I definitely think it's possible to become extremest and take beliefs to all the wrong places. I was able to relate to the personal story. I grew up Catholic and while I'm not catholic anymore a lot of my family still is. I understand and have witnessed how people can digress to "listianity" and think that actions and rituals or other people are what saves you. It would have been interesting to learn more about Festinger's experiments.

Chapter 6: Monkey Love

Summary

In an effort to determine the reason a monkey loves their mother Harry Harlow's experiments consisted of a soft surrogate mother and a metal milk-bearing one. The chapter opens up discussing about his son reflecting on time with his father, then proceeds to talk about Harlow's childhood, and how he got involved in research with monkeys. Through realizing how the monkeys were very disturbed he admitted to making a mistake and finding that there were three variables to love: touch, motion and play. Even as disturbed as they were they found that as they got older and interacted with one another they were seen as almost normal. The chapter continues to explain how his current wife had cancer and how that impacted him as a scientist. The chapter continues to discuss how he continues in his experiments and how his way of thinking impacted how he did and presented his work. The chapter than transitions to Roger Fouts who is a psychologist and also an animal activist. The chapter nears the end talking about his views of research on animals and how Harlow's life continued after his wife's death. At teh end of the chapter we see the author of the book going into his lab and interacting with the monkeys and her thoughts about the experiments and Harlow's reasoning.

Discussion

I found this chapter somewhat sad. I'm sure it's made an impact in research for psychology and there has been some good findings from it, but I feel as thought Harlow was very disturbed as a person and in turn did whatever needed to be done in efforts to answer his research questions. I definitely see the value in why we need 'community' with one another and this prompts me to realize that we too are impacted by our parents and how they raised us, or the world we lived in growing up. It would have been neat to know more about what research is now conducted in the Harlow's lab since the author did go for a visit.

Chapter 7: Rat Park

Summary

The 1960s and 1970s mark the research that was focused in the nature of addiction. One of the people who focused on this study is Dr. Bruce Alexander and Robert Coambs. He strongly believed that no such chemical causes addiction. His two claims were there is nothing "inherently addictive" about any drugs; and two, repeated exposures to even the most enticing drugs do not usually cause problems. This chapter begins by covering his claims and continues talking about the authors interaction with him. Then it transitions to talking about his upbringing and experiences. In order to get evidence of his claims he created what he called the "rat park." In one of their first experiments was the cramped rats were known to consume more of the drug versus the ones in the 'park'. He shortly realized that the experiment was not complete. and so over the next fifty-seven days they only gave them the drug water and then later provided them both clean and drug water as an option. They found that even though they were already addicted they didn't choose the water, even with the withdrawal symptoms. Thus he tried to suggest that addiction is connected to free will. The remaining of the chapter discusses Kleber's view and the authors concluding view that the 'rat park' wasn't a normal environment but rather a perfect one that is unrealistic to our world today.

Discussion

I found this chapter to be intriguing with its various views. I think it brought up some valid points and ways to look at addictions. I personally think that it's a combination of chemical influence and an individual. I've understood that some people are more prone to different addictions versus others. I don't think biology is the only answer to addictions and think it has a lot to do with the choices one makes and what they expose themselves too, but I don't doubt that once exposed to a chemical substance the body sometimes responds in addiction.

Chapter 8: Lost in the Mall

Summary

This chapter expands on the work of Elizabeth Loftus in her effort to scientifically prove that it is capable to create false memories based on the information you are exposed to. She uses this effort in performing various experiments and in turn using her finding to try and help people who she feels were falsely accused and are facing a sentence they didn't commit. She did receive a lot of scrutiny for her work, but at the end she was asked what she has to hold on to when she believes that thoughts are true and she closes with a letter to her mother about what she doesn't have and wish she did.

Discussion

I found this chapter to be interesting. At the beginning I was in support of the direction Elizabeth was going in because I do feel that in a sense we can forget small details about people we have encounters with, especially if it is a stressful situation, but to see her expand on full events like getting lost in the mall was a bit much. I think perhaps you could persuade a kid that things like that happened, but in the end truth prevails and the story doesn't stick.

Chapter 9: Memory Inc.

Summary

This chapter expands on the experiments of Eric Kandel which began with working on sea slugs in an effort to find where memory was located in the brain. He in turn began to work on the hippocampus to aid in memory loss as demonstrated in the case of HM. The author then explains about the protein CREB that works with memory connections helping with memory loss.

Discussion

I found this chapter to be somewhat interesting. I've always wondered how our brain works with memory, since I've had a lot of friends or family members that have suffered from Alzheimer's. I think that a medication that can make you lose your memories is a little far fetch and I wouldn't want to take that, but it was an interesting concept presented.

Chapter 10: Chipped

Summary

This chapter discusses the history of psycho-surgery which is known by Anonio Egas Moniz, the father of lobotomy. The chapter begins discussing some of the earlier cases and then some of the later procedures that were done in aiding people with various metal disorders. The author presents some of the positive aspects, but also presents some of the negative consequences of such a procedure.

Discussion

In my opinion this chapter presents a medical procedure which is very risky and dangerous. While I'm sure science has continued to expand and we're getting better at understanding how the brain works and where things are stored I still don't think I'd feel comfortable with people physically altering my brain. I personally think that the brain is such a complex organ that it's difficult to fully comprehend. Even in just looking at how people try to simulate neural networks in Artificial Intelligence it's not something that has been the answer to solving all issues as they try to present in the Spielberg movie AI.

Paper Reading #3: Experience in Social Affective Applications: Methodologies and Case Study

Comments

Comment #1: Adam Friedli

Comment #2: Paola Garza

Reference Information

Title: Experience in Social Affective Applications: Methodologies and Case Study

Authors: Paul Andre, Alan Dix, M.C. Schraefel, Ryan W. White

Conference: CHI 2010 Atlanta, GA

Summary

Taking into consideration the various social networks and connections and the experience of use as well as the affect and focuses on two key aspects. The concept and design of a tool to share well-being information and evaluating the experience of how that information is precieved, interpreted and used. The goal of this paper is to find an appropriate evaluation solution in an application which detects the affect of the user. Motivated by psychology the Healthii application tool is used for conveying the well-being status in a social network. It consist of four dimensions: busy; enjoyment; stress and health, with three possible values: not; quite and very.

The emotions could be set using an interface and it could also be customized with other adjectives. The author states that this application isn't novel, but what is novel about this application is that concept being studied (flexibility, not within constraints) and the specific methodology used. The study took place among a group of friends and over the series of five weeks. The group would meet each week; and a survey was taken at the end of the five weeks to get individual feedback. In order to find an acceptable way to measure they combined the concepts from various other methodologies in similar affective studies. This centered in on the awareness of the user, the awareness of others in the group and tailoring both the concept and tool to fit the user's desired experience, promotion of discussion, and sufficient period of evaluation of the experience to promote higher level of discussion. As results didn't necessarily meet the desired goals of the project's team, they end the article stating that this paper was aimed to inform a discussion on whether or what types of methodologies are needed, what attributes to use in order to study and learn from them in that field of study.

Discussion

I was looking forward to reading a paper on a case study. I personally think implementing applications with the intent of conveying affect is very neat. As I started to read their experiment I realized that indeed, this wasn't a novel application. I've seen similar applications on various other places that do similar things, about at least 3 years back. When I was reading the results they disclosed that this didn't really produce the desired outcome as they expected. I found it interesting how they had argument after each finding to, in my opinion, justify that they found something useful. I can identify with the users in some sense because I think that I wouldn't want to be updating my emotion status, with the other usual status that we often update in facebook or twitter. I remember I used a similar application on facebook a while back and yeah, I often neglected to update the emotion status. Even people that update it rather frequently it's rare that you'd update it with ever emotion change in your day. So while I think the application is somewhat interesting (I must admit the first thing I noticed was that they were using a Mac from the pictures and coincidentally they used i's in their application name, I'm such a dork, haha). Nonetheless, I wasn't too impressed with there findings.

Paper Reading #2: Interaction Design in the University: Designing Disciplinary Interactions

Comments

Comment #1: Paola Garza

Comment #2: Patrick Frith

Reference Information

Title: Interaction Design in the University: Designing Disciplinary Interactions

Authors: Gale More, Danielle Lottridge

Conference: CHI 2010 - Atlanta, GA, USA

Summary

Interaction design is a field that is rooted in both HCI and design communities which came about in the late 1990s. This paper asks whether "interdisciplinarity" agenda could be used in the university, since most departments boundaries are seen as being 'virtually synonymous in how a department is regulated and evaluated. Three types of knowledge production are identified as Interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinarity. Interdisciplinarity describes activity where two or more disciplines are engaged to create one product, where it is a synthesis of ideas and methods. Multidisciplinarity is defined as research that involves more than a single discipline in which each discipline make a separate contribution. The third type of crossing is transdisciplinarity, which is the primary focus is not on the disciplines but that they are working together in a context of a specific problem or application. It is this one that is most challenging to academic norms in which knowledge is produced in the university, due to how a university functions traditionally departmental, as a way of accountability, yet this method is said to have the most potential for innovation. This could be seen in examples of papers written across departments and in a panel at INTERACT which focused on a scenario of developing of an in-vehicle emotion sensing system to deal with the problem of car accidents caused by aggressive driving or 'road rage'.

Discussion

The concept of working together across departments is something that isn't new to me or my work in HRI. I think that's it's very common that we often come together to contribute and solve a problem, in a sense that one are of discipline alone is going to solve a particular issue. While this might be seen as against traditional work, I think we've already begun to function as a transdiciplinarity of knowledge production in various areas of research with a goal to overcome the obstacles within a various fields.

Source

HCI Remixed - Microblogs

Chapter 1: My Vision Isn't My Vision: Making a Career Out of Getting Back to Where I Started

William Buxton

Microsoft Research, Toronto, Canada

J. K. Pulfer, 1971: "Man-Machine Interaction in Creative Applications"

Summary

William Buxton discusses how he went from being an individual who was studying music in his university to someone who integrated his studies in music with computer technology. Where it began as a bribe for him to go to the NRC and tryout there computer music system, what he got to experience there was something that later became his career. He begins to explain the detailed description of this music machine and how a person would interact with it in order to create and produce music and how he sees this system as one that is developed better in HCI than any system ever did for 20 years after that time.

Discussion

I grew to appreciate the author's honesty in how he wasn't extremely fond of the idea of working with a computer system. Yet you could see how his interest were pulled towards this field as he explained the music computer system with such detail and enthusiasm. His enthusiasm also reflected how well the design of this system was done well (however, I'm sure it might not have been so highly praised by all users, as it is impossible to please everyone). It's important to remember that people will be able to be successful at using products and probably have better results when they are given a product that is intuitive in understanding and to use.

Chapter 4: Drawing on SketchPad: Reflections on Computer Science and HCI

Joseph A. Konstan

University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A.

I. Sutherland, 1963: "Sketchpad: A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System"

Summary

A drawing program called SketchPad and the studies which helped formulate this program is explained in this paper. This software is similar to the early generations of computer-aided design (CAD) software. The author explains the HCI and computer science behind this program by explaining four examples. The first of the examples is pointing with a light pen, which allows the user to point, select and alter objects in the drawing with the use of a certain pen. The second example that is given is to discuss the rendering of lines, circles and text which with rendering algorithms it could help perfect the drawing, even at different angles. The third example discussed was the constraints and their display. These constraints were often at work behind the scenes of the drawing construct the various shapes in the drawing. The last point discussed was the data structures, algorithms and programming structures; which took the object-oriented approach and various algorithms to make this program robust, useful and reliable in computing. He closes the chapter by explaining three lessons learned from this program, demonstrating how HCI along with computer science go hand-in-hand to create such programs.

Discussion

This SketchPad software seems to be a very interesting, useful system. The one thing that I did wonder about it was how "user-friendly" this system really was. While it probably had a lot of great functions, it might have been confusing to some users. It would have been of interest to see screenshots of SketchPad to get a better visual of the program.

The Mouse, the Demo and the Big Idea

Wendy Ju

Stanford University, Stanford, California, U.S.A.

D. Englebart, 1968: "The oNLine System (NLS) Demo"

Summary

This paper begins by discussing the video which demonstrated the Engelbart mouse demo. It was something that to the author originally seemed to fit into their environment, as she explains growing up around computers and her parents worked for IBM. However, in viewing this demo it provided a more in dept look at how the mouse was created and functioned. The author explains how although it was fascinating to her to see the demo, Engelbart had a difficult time getting an audience for his idea even after the NLS demonstration. She ended the paper talking about her perception of Big Ideas taken from the reaction of the mouse demo.

Discussion

People often take for granted the simple things in life and a lot of times it takes a lot to impress and get the approval of someone else when we come up with a idea or product. Just thinking of how products are on the market and yet, often people find some function to complain about them or that they feel the product doesn't add up to par. A big part of evaluating a product in my opinion is how valuable it can be to one's environment and life. Just thinking about the mouse, a simple device perhaps, but it is valuable to how we navigate our computers, and many hand-held devices. Just think how many of us are Really that awesome with keyboard shortcuts, most of us use our mouse or mouse pad to do most things on our computer.

Chapter 18: Observing Collaboration: Group-Centered Design

Saul Greenberg

University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada

J. Tang, 1989: "Listening, Drawing, and Gesturing in Design: A Study of the Use of Shared Workspaces by Design Teams"

Summary

This paper takes the discipline of computer-support cooperative work (CSCW) and discusses studies of shared work surfaces. A study started by Sara Bly, and later extended by a man named John, observed how people worked together when drawing on a table surface compared to a white board surface on a wall. The following observations were made. The orientation of the drawings, when in front of the person better helped facilitate the meeting compared to using a mounted paper on a wall. Second, the proximity of the paper was better placed on the table compared to the wall in order to be more of a key role in mediating the conversation. Third, simultaneous access also found to be helpful, which is a basic framework, along with gesturing facilitated the conversation. As these discoveries were being made it lead to the development of software which allowed drawings to be shared and conversations guided by pictures and diagrams drawn.

Discussion

This article had more of a visual aid than did the previous papers. It reminded me of a lot of the popular product which is now used to record a conversation connected to what the person draws or writes with the Livescribe pen. Being a visual learner I've grown to appreciate products that take both the audio and visual aspect when documenting a conversation or sharing information with a group at a meeting or lecture. I've come to realize that sometimes just the visual or audio standing alone isn't always as effective (just think of just hearing your lecture or trying to remember what exactly was being said when looking at your notes... sometimes that's hard to piece together from memory).

Chapter 20: Taking Articulation Work Seriously

Geraldine Fitzpatrick

University of Sussex, Brighton, U.K.

K. Schmidt, and L. Bannon, 1992: "Taking CSCW Seriously: Supporting Articulation Work"

Summary

The author of this paper begins by discussing about the discipline of CSCW and how it centered on their college career. Coming from the ground up on this topic the author shares how it focuses on "cooperative work" which combines the "mutual dependencies" and "articulation work" and the importance of taking into consideration the mechanisms of interaction and coordination of mechanisms of that shared social space as described from the work of Schmidt and Bannon.

Discussion

This paper points out the importance of remembering the factor of CSCW and how that connects to all areas of computing and even throughout technology. It's an important factor to remember and can greatly impact the overall design or implementation of a project.

Chapter 23: Video, Toys, and Beyond Being There

Brian K. Smith

The Pennsylvania State University, Park, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

J. Hollan and S. Stornetta, 1992: "Beyond Being There"

Summary

The author compares computer-mediated-communication (CMC) to face-to-face (F2F) communication and how it can relate to the analogy of crutches or shoes. He emphasizes that often CMC is not 'beyond being there' but rather it can relate to a crutch for communication, and often not chosen when given the option to communicate face-to-face. Through personal experiences he discusses the "emotional design" and "experiment design" are factors of study in HCI and how technology integrates and impacts our lives.

Discussion

I was surprised at the emotional touch of this paper, I suppose I wasn't expecting it from the title. Nonetheless, it did teach and remind me of a few things. I was reminded how valuable communication is and how we're fortunate to be able to communicate via CMC when we can't talk in person. I see now that even our childhood toys (which have an intelligence to them, or maybe not) can remain as a impact on our lives. I thought about my own childhood, but perhaps more of my 2 and a half year-old Godson Ernesto (aka Neto, pronounced in Spanish, not English). I think of all the computer-related toys he has and how it's helped him grow and develop; and yes, I'm guilty of singing along with his musical toys. I often associate the memories of my Godson to the toys he is very fond of, and I suppose I'll carry those memories forever. Nonetheless, without CMC I wouldn't be able to communicate with my friends on the other side of the world and often my family.

Me and Neto: Thanksgiving 2010

Chapter 24: A Simulated Listening Typewriter: John Gould Plays the Wizard of Oz

Chris Schmandt

MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

J. Gould, J. Conti, and T. Hovanyecz, 1983: "Composing Letters with a Simulated Listening Typewriter"

Summary

The author opens this paper by explaining how he was part of some of the first speech recognition projects and transitions to the work of John Gould. While his experiment is known to have a "Wizard of Oz" definition because it wasn't really a speech recognition system, it did give some valid information in user studies and specifications of such a system and how it would be accepted by others.

Discussion

I knew by the title that this would be an twisted outcome. Personally I would be disappointed if I found out I was deceived by a system and it wasn't legitimate. Nonetheless this experiment did show some interesting factors to take into consideration when developing a system which does speech recognition.

Chapter 25: Seeing the Hole in Space

Steve Harrison

Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A.

K. Galloway and S. Rabinowitz, 1980: Hole in Space (video)

Summary

The author explains his time at Xerox PARC in 1985 and the Media Space Project (electronically created shared work spaces), which led to encountering the Hole in Space project. Through a friends referral the author meets two artist. Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, which worked in the "astetetic research in telecommunications." Through video-mediated connection the Hole in Space was created, which was between the sidewalks in the Lincoln Center in New York and through the Century City in Los Angeles. It didn't consist of user instructions, local feedback monitor explanatory didactics, but just a projected black-and-white image of the other location. People behaved in ways that they didn't normally with strangers they encountered on sidewalks and they were engaged with each other. It was through video mediation that these people created an event and even 'community.' This led to further experiments in electronic cafes but weren't as successful due to the growth of the Internet.

Discussion

I found the ending of this paper rather interesting. In talking about the Hole in Space I began to recall how we connect to different parts of the world through CMCs and different networks. I can understand why this was probably an intriguing concept back when this project first came into play; however, with the advancement with technology and the Internet it's something that we might take for granted.

Chapter 26: Edward Tufte's 1+1 = 3

Scott Jenson

Google, Mountain View, California, U.S.A.

E.R. Tufte, 1990: Envisioning Information

Summary

The paper opens up with a quote from Edward R. Tufte about the principle of 1+1=3 in information design. The author takes the scenario of the buttons in an elevator and his horrified experience of accidentally closed the elevator doors instead of opening them, because he pressed the wrong button. In an effort to correct the two "sins" he mentioned with the principle of 1+1=3 were reducing the clutter by for example, using pictures to symbolize the meaning versus shapes that could be misinterpreted. The second "sin" he mentions is to remove the choice altogether. Since the choice to close the doors, in his opinion used to hurry the process of the elevator because someone was in a hurry, it wasn't absolutely essential. In working to correcting the 1+1=3 it minimizes that problem and makes a process more effective on a technical aspect.

Discussion

This was something that I was just pondering on today as I was exiting the garage where I park my car. I have noticed how those buttons can sometimes be misused, or in my case I might press a button out of habit, even when the doors are already closing (I don't really know why I do that, probably a delayed reaction which is common for me, but I digress). I have noticed the effectiveness of pictures in my travels around the world. I picked up on that in airports (probably because I was in Germany or Estonia where I couldn't read descriptions). I also liked the idea of color coding objects to guide certain behaviors.

Chapter 27: Typographic Space: A Fusion of Design and Technology

Jodi Forlizzi

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

D. Small, S. Ishizaki, and M. Cooper, 1994: "Typographic Space"

Summary

This paper describes the typographic space system which allowed three dimensional graphics to allow the designer/programmer to apply basic typographic attributes, which included the attribute of motion. This led to the focus of kinetic typography and the RSVP technique which was used to convey an intention of emotion in that message. It could indicate the pitch, loudness and tempo changing by the size of the text. Through mimicking human actions it could convey emotion and used in portraying characters and dialogue.

Discussion

I've seen this concept implemented in a video of a speech where the phrases in a speech where written out and the text was animated with various sizes and colors, so I could see how this is an effective method of communicating a message. The author closes this paper talking about it's been implemented in movies and I can see how this would also be effective. I think it also emphasizes the meaning of the statement because you can associate the various kinetic factors to understand the message.

Chapter 28: Making Sense of Sense Making

Steve Whittaker

University of Sheffield, Sheffield, U.K.

A. Kidd, 1994: "The Marks Are on the Knowledge Worker"

Summary

Analyzing how store and organize our data two claims are made: Memory prosthesis, computers are mainly used for passive storage of information but it may not be useful according to the author of the original paper. Second, sense making is not well done with computers with the current way of techniques of organization, such as the use of folders. Theirs is a distinction between making sense of something and managing tasks. The author states that AI won't help because it's not effective in task management. Now that we're in the digital era where it's vital to remember we process new information as well as valued the stored information.

Discussion

A valid topic to ponder and remember, however I found it strange how the paper just kept reinforcing the concepts by introducing new questions. Maybe I enjoy papers that introduce a concept and then show experiments and results to work towards making that topic more effective at solving a desired problem. I can understand the concerns because I can vividly remember the times I'm trying to go through old saved information to find some specific file and how all I really have is my distant memory of where I put it and the fact that I try to organize them in a chronological order.

Chapter 34: Revisiting an Ethnocritical Approach to HCI: Verbal Privilege and Translation

Micheal J. Muller

IBM Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

A. Krupat, 1992: Ethnocriticism: Ethnography, History, Literature

Summary

What began as an initial interest in finding ways to think about the Native American cultural works the author also got new insights in ethics, politics, and epistemology. This provided people involved in HCI a new perspective on some of the current problems but useful solutions. Taken from the history involving the Native Americans the HCI ethnohistorian can often analyze work based on their own. They are often trying to fit their results to the rules of evidence and argumentation that are used by the 'higher power'. So in order to do things correctly it's important to mediate between both groups. The author explains the three major principles of multiculturalism, polyvocal polity and heterogeneity and closes with the ethnocritical heuristics of the analyst's location, translation as a core process in HCI and verbal prvilige as a core problem in HCI.

Discussion

Before this class I don't think I was as aware of how valuable concepts from anthropology are to the field of technology, specifically in research. It's very important to take into consideration how we analyze things in order to get the fair results and if you want your findings to have truthful impact.

Chapter 6: A Creative Programming Environment

Henry Lieberman

MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

D.C. Smith, 1977 "Pygmalion: A Creative Programming Environment"

Summary

This researcher began in doing research at MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab string to make programming teachable to young children in a way that they could explore, hypothesize, experiment and understand what math and science was all about. When given a copy of a thesis from Standford (1975) it related back to his original interest. It introduced Pygmalion: A Creative Programming Environment and the author and advisor were well known work in Henry's particular line of interest, but was a thesis in both computer science and philosophy. The author then recollects his encounter with Smith and his first experience with Pygmalion and how it crashed. Although there were no backups, there were many innovations of Pygmalion, which had a focus in the notations and meanings behind graphical programming languages. One of the most important ideas that the author had was to "program by example" and it lead to supporting creativity through visual programming by example. Some of the lessons the author took from Pygmalion for today's HCI are: don't let big questions scare you; think globally, act locally; hunt for good stuff, even in the out-of-the-way places; teach by example. In closing something like this probably wouldn't be accepted in HCI today, but it should hold the possibility of profoundly transforming the field with discoveries like this particular one.

Discussion

I thought this was an interesting paper. I appreciated hearing about the author's experience with the original thesis writer. I could connect to this concept because I've always been someone who is focused on working with youth and making programming something that can be graphically represented, understandable and fun.

Chapter 7: Fundamentals in HCI: Learning the Value of Consistency and User Models

Sara Bly

Sara Bly Consulting, Oregon, U.S.A.

The Xerox Red Book: Star Functionality Specification, Revision 5.3 for Start-1, 1981

Summary

The author opens up this paper talking about the system called Xerox Star and the documentation called Xerox Red Book. The book is organized around two categories document creation and document management. There were three aspects that was impacting to the user: user interface specification, consistency, and desktop metaphor. The user interface combined a number of innovations from personal computing, GUI, mouse input device, the office metaphor, email, windows and LAN. This interface design is still in use today. There was consistency in how the functions where implemented in the system. The Desktop metaphor is based on it's office-like function features.

Discussion

I found this as an interesting way to describe the functionality of a computer system. It had some obvious factors that I never really deemed as important, but now that I've read this paper I see how valuable and under appreciated they are at times.

Chapter 9: The Disappearing Computer

Norbert A. Streitz

Fraunhofer IPSI, Darmstadt, Germany

M. Weiser, 1991: "The Computer for the 21st Century"

Summary

The concept of the disappearing computer was for the 21 century. The author of this paper ponders on how we are now in the 21st century, the time intended for this concept. The goal of this concept was to minimize the interaction problem. Live Board was a computer that was designed to test this concept. Building on the Live Board system allowed the DOLPHIN system to be put in place. The author notes the shift between human-computer interaction to human-information interaction and human-human-interaction and cooperation, which implies the computer should disappear from the scene. The author points out two types of disappearance: physical and mental. Physical being size and mental being that they are no longer seen as computers but everyday objects. They then transition to LiveBoard to Romeware where it spans an entire wall. They also emphasize the importance of smart, people-oriented systems.

Discussion

The first thing that came to mind when seeing the title was how we are seeing a disappearing factor in today's society. Just looking at how computers have gotten smaller in size and a lot of technology has gotten smaller. I do believe we have several devices that we don't see as computers anymore, but rather vital objects that are a part of our life.

Chapter 10: It Really Is All About Location

Anind K. Dey

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

R. Want, A. Hopper, V. Flacao, and J. Gibbons, 1992: "the Active Badge Location System"

Summary

The phrase "location, location, location" is not only applicable to businesses but to technology as well. The Active Badge is introduced in the paper and they discuss it's capabilities to be able to track a person based on just wearing the badge, based on picking up sensor input. They tried this on a study done with 32 employees for two weeks. Although they found that the system could be compromised, for example they could stop tracking by just not wearing the badge. Nonetheless, based on this invention it led people to study more intently and 16 years after the Active Badge the use of GPS and network services became very popular.

Discussion

I found it interesting to learn about a system similar to our present day GPS navigation systems. Over the years this has been a novel design that is now very useful for many, many things.

Chapter 46: The Essential Role of Mental Models in HCI: Card, Moran, and Newell

Kate Ehrlich

IBM Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

S.K. Card, T. Moran, and A. Newell, 1983: The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction

Summary

This paper describes the psychology behind computer-human interaction, specifically the mental models used in CHI. The mental models outlined earlier were GOMS, which stood for Goals, Operators, Methods, Selectional Rules. Goals represented the set of things that the user wanted to do using the computer. Operators are the actions that belong to the user's skills. Methods were the sequence and subgoals accomplish the overall goal. Selectional rules correspond to the multiple methods that could be done to do some task. The model would have to specify what method is to be used to accomplish the task.

Discussion

This reminds me of something I would have found in "The Design of Everyday Things." I think a lot of times we don't realize how valuable it is to specify the Selectional rules because it can cause confusion since there is often multiple ways of performing a task.

Chapter 47: A Most Fitting Law

Gary M. Olson

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.

P.M. Fitts, 1954: "The Information Capacity of the Human Motor System in Controlling the Amplitude of Movement"

Summary

Based on information from psychology Fitts's law is introduced MT = a + b log2 (2A/W) where MT is movement time, a and b are constants, A is distance of movement and W is the width of the target. A number of ideas came from the understanding of Fitts's law. The value of the edge on the screen. One of the things that Mac and Windows do differently. The value of pop-up menus, selecting from a pop up window, Fittsizing a menu, organization of walking menus, expanding items as you move toward them. While there are a number of movements which Fitts's Law is too simple, but it does factor into a successful design.

Discussion

The user interface of a Mac and Windows computer is different indeed. I do appreciate the menu layout on Mac's versus Windows can get confusing because they aren't always directly on the edge. I think maintaining the Fitts's Law is applicable when it comes to designing a successful interface to avoid confusion.