Book Reading #29: Opening Skinner's Box

Reference Information

Title: Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century

Author: Lauren Slater

Editor: W.W Norton & Company, 2008

Chapter 8: Lost in the Mall
Summary
This chapter discussed the research and beliefs of Elizabeth Loftus, focusing on her false memory experiments. These experiments involved planting a false memory, such as being lost in the mall as a child, into someone's head by showing them written statements by family members. She was able to show that many people would start "recollecting" details of this memory, concocting things that never actually happened. Because of this, and observations from actual traumatic situations, Loftus concluded that human memory degrades, and imagination plays a large part in memory.

Discussion
I find it interesting that experiments were done to show that the human memory is subject to influence by imagination, time, and suggestion. I especially found it interesting that Loftus would testify in court for people on trial to show her evidence and say that eye witnesses do nothing to prove a person guilty. What if she's used that to set real criminals free?

Book Reading #28: Coming of Age in Samoa

Reference Information

Title: Coming of Age in Samoa

Author: Margaret Mead

Editor: Harper Perennial, 1928 (1971)

Chapter 9: The Attitude of the Personality
Summary
This chapter discussed the perception of a person's personality within the Samoan culture. Excessive personality traits are treated with a sort of superstition, it is acceptable to answer questions ambiguously, and relative comparisons of judgement rarely occur. Good and bad behavior is considered an inherent personality trait, and what judgments that do occur take place in terms of age groups.


Discussion
I found it particularly interesting that personality traits are not generally compared; the Samoans did not say who was the best or worst at something, but merely that many people are good at it. I also found it interesting that a person does not have privacy over their possessions -- their stuff could easily be given away while the person was temporarily not at home.

Book Reading #27: Emotional Design

Reference Information

Title: Emotional Design

Author: Donald Norman

Publisher: 2002 Basic Books

Chapter 2: The Multiple Faces of Emotion and Design
Summary
This chapter discussed the importance of emotions in design. The three levels of perception were explained (visceral, behavioral, reflective), and how each affects design was discussed (appearance, effectiveness of use, and personal satisfaction, respectively). The way that objects affect memories, people's concept of self, and the personality of a product were all explained with examples.


Discussion
I find it interesting how the author is linking psychology of thought and emotion with design and the marketing of products. Many of the things he states are rather obvious, but sometimes he makes good points that I had not previously considered.

Paper Reading #12: D-Macs: Building Multi-Device User Interfaces by Demonstrating, Sharing, and Replaying Design Actions

Comments
Derek Landini
Stephen Morrow 

Reference Information

Title: D-Macs: Building Multi-Device User Interfaces by Demonstrating, Sharing and Replaying Design Actions

Authors: Jan Meskens, Kris Luyten, Karin Coninx

Where/When: UIST 2010, New York, New York

Summary
This paper discusses Design tool Macros (D-Macs), a multi-device GUI builder that allows design actions to be recorded across devices, shared with other designers, and replayed in order to reuse them across multiple platforms. This came about from an increasing need for application deployment across multiple devices, such as both computers and phones. Manually designing a user interface for each device takes time, and many actions are repeated across each device. Therefore, D-Macs automates multi-device UI design by capturing and reusing design actions across devices.

One of the key points of D-Macs is that it does not require designers to master a new programming language in order to specify device designs. Instead, designers can work on the actual visual design for every platform. In addition, D-Macs records design sequences to automate later, instead of relying on unpredictable artificial intelligence algorithms to predict design sequences. Feedback is largely emphasized, providing a graphic history of past user actions and letting the user know when a sequence has been automated and why. The system provides contextual assistance by only applying actions to those devices that are applicable for that particular action.

Actions include direct manipulation, property updates, copy/paste, and tab-switching to switch between devices. Actions can be replayed as a combination of text descriptions with an image icon or as a key frame animation. Recorded actions sequences can be shared to a repository, where other designers can then view them, creating a social aspect to the system. Error handling is accomplished by a smooth error assistance mechanism that works with suggestions and highlighted regions in order to guide designers towards resolving errors.

An example of D-Macs. The far right section contains recorded design actions. Source: Article.

Discussion
The idea of allowing user interfaces to easily be designed for multiple different devices seems like it would be very useful. I like that the needs of the product's intended audience (graphic user interface designers) were specifically considered when creating D-Macs. The  recording, sharing, and replaying of actions in D-Macs is designed to make their work more efficient and less time-consuming by allowing repeatable actions to be automated across platforms. I wonder if something like this could be applied to other fields in order to make them more efficient by eliminating actions that are repeated over and over again. Maybe for calculations or for programming that isn't related to user interfaces?

It would have been nice if the authors had included some user studies in the paper.  They discussed some case studies, in which various interfaces were created using D-Macs, but there was no mention of people outside of the project trying it out or discussion about people's responses towards it.

Ethnography Results, Week 4

I was not able to attend a concert this week, but Joe and Vince each went to one.

Book Reading #26: Opening Skinner's Box

Reference Information

Title: Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century

Author: Lauren Slater

Editor: W.W Norton & Company, 2008

Chapter 7: Rat Park
Summary
This chapter discussed Rat Park, an experiment done by Bruce Alexander in an attempt to disprove addiction. There were two test groups, rats offered morphine that lived in cages, and rats in a rat-utopia that were also offered the drug. Those in in cages lived off of it; those not in cages avoided it. Alexander used this to conclude that addiction arises because of circumstances and situation, not because of chemical predisposition or helplessness.

Discussion
I found it very interesting that the rats in utopia could care less for the drugs, and that Alexander was able to rattle off so many facts disproving addition, while society currently bases so many things on the fact that drugs are so addicting. I agree that there is much controversy surrounding this topic, although for that reason, I found it quite odd that the author decided to do her own experiment on herself. What if she had gotten addicted? The consequences could have been very large.

Book Reading #25: Coming of Age in Samoa

Reference Information

Title: Coming of Age in Samoa

Author: Margaret Mead

Editor: Harper Perennial, 1928 (1971)

Chapter 8: The Role of the Dance
Summary
This chapter discussed the importance of dance in Samoan society. It is the only activity in which almost all ages and sexes participate, and unlike every day events, children are treated as the focus of the event. Individuality is encouraged, and the dances serve to socialize young children and allow participation despite of handicaps.


Discussion
In this situation, it seems as if many of the roles of Samoan culture are reversed. I like that the children have this one opportunity to be in the spotlight, and I liked the author's relation of the discrimination of bad dancers to our educational system, where those that are not as proficient tend to fall behind due to lack of praise and opportunity.

Book Reading #24: Emotional Design

Reference Information
Title: Emotional Design
Author: Donald Norman
Publisher: 2002 Basic Books


Chapter 1: Attractive Things Work Better
Summary
This chapter discussed the way that emotions affect how human cognitive processes, including the fact that attractive things seem to work better, because people are happier with them and therefore more likely to ignore minor faults and keep an open mind. The author explained the three levels of processing (visceral, behavioral, and reflective) and different versions of focus (bottom-up and top-down).

Discussion
I thought it was very interesting that the happier a person is, the more broad-minded they are when approaching a solution. By this means of thinking, everything should be designed to be functional and to have aesthetic value, so that when there are problems with the product, the user is more likely to be able to cope with them.

Full Blog: Design of Everyday Things

Reference Information

Title: Design of Everyday Things

Author: Donald Norman

Editor: Basic Books, 2002

Summary
This book discussed good and bad design principles and presented real-world examples to support the claims. Donald Norman emphasizes throughout the book the strong need for visibility, conceptual models, mappings, and feedback. Visibility is necessary in order to indicate how a system should be operated. Conceptual models are the visible structure of a system, including affordances, constraints, and mappings that allow the user to predict the consequences of a particular action within a system. Feedback lets the user know what has actually occurred within the system as the result of some action.

The author also discussed how people think about and act with systems, including the tendency of a person to blame themselves for an error that occurred due to faulty design. In addition to this, people tend to find incorrect ways to explain things due to coincidence. Because of this, it may be unclear that something is wrong with the design of a system.

Different types of knowledge exist, including knowledge contained in the head (a person's memory) and knowledge contained in the world (environmental reminders such as sticky notes and natural constraints). People rely on signals, such as natural constraints and affordances, from objects in order to know how they should be used. Constraints include physical constraints, semantic constraints (that rely on the situation), cultural constraints, and logical constraints (a logical relationship between spatial or functional layout). Design can be improved by applying these constraints and affordances in order to eliminate common errors.

Errors were discussed in detail, explaining the difference between slips, that result for similarities between actions, and mistakes, that result from making wrong choices. The reasoning behind errors is presented due to models of human thought, including rationality and the connectionist approach (neural networks). Forcing functions of physical constraint work as possible error preventions.

The author argues strongly for designer awareness to design systems that are easy to use and fairly self-explanatory.

Discussion
This book seems like it would be very useful to apply to the design of systems. The author mentioned many good points, and provided good examples to illustrate each, such as the function of a typewriter and the use doors and elevators.

An example of bad design involving a door.

While this book did present many useful ideas, it was rather wordy and repetitive. The author repeated the same ideas in many of the chapters. In particular, the first and last chapters seemed to be almost the same. There were many examples presented, but the one I liked the least was an example of a door with a lock at the top designed to keep handicapped children inside of a building. The author praised this as an example of good design, but all I could see it being is a danger in an emergency situation.

For future projects, I will definitely keep many of these design principles in mind. In particular, the four main ideas of  visibility, conceptual models, mappings, and feedback could be very useful to incorporate within systems.

Paper Reading #11: Chronicle: Capture, Exploration, and Playback of Document Workflow Histories

Comments
Evin Schuchardt 
Paola Garza


Reference Information
Title: Chronicle: Capture, Exploration, and Playback of Document Workflow Histories
Authors: Tovi Grossman, Justin Matejka, George Fitzmaurice
When/Where: UIST 2010, New York, New York

Summary
This paper discussed Chronicle, a system that captures video history of a user's actions in a document, allowing the videos to be viewed and explored later. In particular, it was implemented for an image editing application. It records things such as settings that a user chooses and particular tools that the user uses, marking them in the video.Currently, many programs keep track of a user's past operations in order to allow undo operations to occur; however, many of these programs discard the information after a save. Chronicle keeps this information for the user or other users to view for reference later.

 It is suggested that this tool could be used for imitating someone else's work or for instructional purposes, when the user does not know how to accomplish a task that someone else has done previously. The system consists of the main Chronicle window, an interactive timeline, and the actual image editing application window. The videos can be played back in full-resolution, placed transparently on top of the application window, with slightly different colors, so that the user can see what operations are occurring in relevance to their current situation and still distinguish the video from their own work. As the user is working, videos are recorded in one-minute segments. Videos are presented as thumbnails organized into a hierarchy, each representing a revision and containing workflow information. The system provides probes and filters to help the user navigate through the videos. Annotations can even be added to videos, for use as a reminder or for teaching purposes.

A qualitative user study occurred with eight participants, each with previous image editing experience. They were asked to perform basic operations using Chronicle, and overall, the study reported very good results. While users said it was overwhelming to learn in a short amount of time, they thought it could be very useful and felt that it would not take long to master the program. The authors suggested adapting this system for other software domains.

An example of Chronicle. A is Chronicle's main window, B is Chronicle's timeline, and C is the image editing application window. Source: article.

Discussion
I thought this system was very interesting, since it expanded on a current system (saving past records) in a way to help improve human memory and education. While I do not have much experience with image editing software, I can definitely see how something like this could be helpful. Even more so, since I would theoretically be able to use Chronicle to learn how to use such a system by following the motions of someone who does know what they are doing. The main problem that I see with this, though, is that the videos take up a large amount of memory to store. In the article, it stated that one two-hour video took 1.3Gb to store, and with multiple usages and videos, that could get very impractical. And even privacy issues could occur with this. What if someone created some new image they wanted to copyright, but someone else got ahold of their automatically-recorded work history? Then anyone could easily duplicate it.

Despite the downfalls, this was still a very interesting product. I would like to see what other applications besides image editing that it could be applied to. Maybe in programming environments, to help teach new programmers or to provide programmers with an older copy of code when they forgot to back it up?

Book Reading #23: Opening Skinner's Box

Reference Information

Title: Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century

Author: Lauren Slater

Editor: W.W Norton & Company, 2008

Chapter 6: Monkey Love
Summary
This chapter discussed the monkey experiments of Harlow, in which he demonstrated attachment. The experiments involved separating baby monkeys and providing a soft surrogate mother and a feeding machine in order to see what they preferred. Harlow showed that this created autistic-like monkeys, and he demonstrated three variables of love: touch, motion, and play. His findings were told to human mothers, resulting some changes in how society handled their kids.


Discussion
I found this article very interesting, and that before studying how this affected the monkeys, Harlow published his results and started making suggestions to how humans raised children. He should have considered the affects such a separation could have. In addition, I find it interesting that the mistreatment that occurred to the monkeys was allowed, although it did have controversy.

Book Reading #22: Coming of Age in Samoa

Reference Information

Title: Coming of Age in Samoa

Author: Margaret Mead

Editor: Harper Perennial, 1928 (1971)

Chapter 7: Formal Sex Relations
Summary
This chapter discussed how relationships between men and women work in the culture. From a young age, both genders practice avoidance of each other until puberty, when they began to form relationships and sneak away at night. Marriage is regarded as a social and economic arrangement, and varies depending on rank. Divorce is as simple as returning home to one's family.


Discussion
I found it interesting that marriages were so likely to not be monogamous, and that it was considered to be prestigious if a village could successfully kidnap the taupo of another village. This seems weird since in many ways, it is not like our own culture.

Book Reading #21: Design of Everyday Things

Reference Information

Title: Design of Everyday Things

Author: Donald Norman

Editor: Basic Books, 2002

Chapter 7: User-Centered Design
Summary
This chapter discussed user-centered design, and summarized the points made in previous chapters. The author discusses in detail the main points of design: use of constraints, making things visible, making it easy to evaluate the state of the system, and following natural mappings. He then suggests how to design things to be deliberately difficult, such as for security purposes.


Discussion
This chapter seemed to just be repeating much of what the author had previously discussed in other chapters. I did, however, like the discussion about how to make things difficult, and enjoyed the examples of how many common things could have standardized as opposed to the current conventions, like the backwards clock. They almost  blew my mind.

Paper Reading #10: Enhanced Area Cursors: Reducing Fine Pointing Demands for People with Motor Impairments

Comments
Stuart Jones
Miguel Alex Cardenas 


Reference Information
Title: Enhanced Area Cursors: Reducing Fine Pointing Demands for People with Motor Impairments
Authors: Leah Findlater, Alex Jansen, Kristen Shinohara, Morgan Dixon, Peter Kamb, Joshua Rakita, Jacob Wobbrock
When/Where: UIST 2010, New York, New York


Summary
This article aimed to evaluate whether or not enhanced area cursor designs improve performance for motor impaired computer users. Enhanced area cursors are designed to work with small, dense targets, which motor impaired users have difficulties with. The motor impaired users included in the study included impairments such as cerebal palsy and muscular dystrophy.

The study tested four different cursors, two that use goal crossing (where the user selects a target by crossing over it) and two that provide magnification for selection purposes. The design of the cursors was improved by including the insight of one motor impaired user that tested each of them during the design process. Each cursor involves two stages, activation and selection, in order to distinguish between intentional and unintentional target choices.

For the actual study, twelve impaired participants and twelve non-impaired participants were given the same tests. The participants were reimbursed for their time, and the non-impaired participants were used as a base case for testing and evaluation purposes. The evaluation observed cursor type, target size, target spacing, and target clutter. Time to select targets and error rate were used to evaluate the cursors. It was determined that both of the crossing cursors and one of the magnifying cursors reduces errors compared to the normal cursor methods. The majority of impaired users preferred that magnifying cursor, while the normal point cursor was the least preferred. The article suggests future improvements, such as studying real-world applications of the cursors.

An example of an enhanced area cursor, the Click-and-Cross, that allows the user to select targets by moving the cursor through an associated target arc. Source: faculty.washington.edu

Discussion
This paper was interesting, because it considers the part of the population with motor impairments that make using computers difficult. A lot of products aren't designed for these people, so it can be difficult to accomplish tasks on the computer that are easy for others. Multiple versions of cursors were tested by people with various different impairments. The only possible problems with this evaluation were that different motor impairments affect people in different ways, therefore clumping many of them together into one study may not have resulted in entirely useful results. Still, this paper brought up many interesting points regarding software for the motor impaired population that could be implemented in future to provide cheap solutions to create easy computer environments for those that currently have difficulties using computers.

Ethnography Results, Week 3

This week, we went to O'Bannon's on Friday night, where Blaggards was playing the whole time. We arrived around 10:00 to find the place packed with people. Apparently, there was an annual event occurring that night, so many people had shown up for the occasion. Most people were clustered around the band, and others were trying to make their way closer to the stage. The crowd was mostly older, especially those sitting at the tables. Up by the band, the crowd seemed to be much younger. In lounge areas near the back, groups of people relaxed. In particular, I found it interesting that along the back wall near the stage, younger, single men leaned against the wall, looking around awkwardly and not talking to anyone. Many people were singing along to the lyrics of songs, and cheering when the band said the name of the song to be played next, so I believe it is fair to assume that a majority of people in attendance had previously heard of the band and had shown up specifically to see them.

As the night progressed, the many of the older people in the crowd left, and it became mostly college-aged guys wearing brightly colored polo t-shirts or collared button-up shirts. In addition, there was a large group of corp guys at the back. Although we didn't fit in very well, we migrated towards the front of the stage to try to integrate with the crowd. It turns out that we knew some members of a large group at the front, and were able to dance and enjoy the music with them. Joe even became part of a three-person mosh pit for a while. The integration was something that we were not able to do last time, and could be attributed in part to the fact that we brought some other people with us in order to have a larger group dynamic.

The music was too loud for conversation in most of the bar, so many people remained facing the band, dancing, and ordering drinks using a combination of lip reading and gesturing. During the band's breaks, conversations started up, and Joe was able to talk to some of the band members, learning that while not from this area, the band does frequently play in College Station. From other conversations, I was able to gather that the majority of people did not personally know members of the band, unlike those that we saw last week. This week was very different from last week's experience, so I would like to see if other places/bands are even more different than the two that we've already seen.

Book Reading #20: Opening Skinner's Box

Reference Information

Title: Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century

Author: Lauren Slater

Editor: W.W Norton & Company, 2008

Chapter 5: Quieting the Mind
Summary
This chapter discussed Festinger's research of cognitive dissonance, the "opposition of irreconcilable ideas" held by one individual and leading to the adjustment of that person's beliefs. The "Sananda cult" is described, and their changing of their beliefs. The author also describes the events of a woman whose daughter is considered a saint, and the author's experiences talking with her.



Discussion
I didn't like this chapter as much as the other ones I've read so far, but it was interesting to read this theory of how people change their beliefs to explain events that occur. This chapter wasn't really about an experiment, more about a researcher's conclusions from observing many people that seem to have experienced similar events and belief changes; therefore, I believe that his conclusions may not be all that accurate.

Book Reading #19: Coming of Age in Samoa

Reference Information
Title: Coming of Age in Samoa

Author: Margaret Mead

Editor: Harper Perennial, 1928 (1971)

Chapter 6: The Girl in Her Community
Summary
This chapter discusses the social order of both girls and boys in the community. While boys have much more order forced upon them, the women are thrown into a loosely-formal organization and for the most part, not expected to do much work.



Discussion
I find it interesting that the women are not expected to learn much etiquette-wise, or to do much work. However, when called upon to do so (i.e. by marriage with a title), they accomplish just as much as the men. Also, the fact that the taupo is treated to differently is interesting. It seems as if she is being forced into that life.

Book Reading #18: Design of Everyday Things

Reference Information

Title: Design of Everyday Things

Author: Donald Norman

Editor: Basic Books, 2002

Chapter 6: The Design Challenge

Summary
This chapter discussed challenges with design, including problems that restrict designers, aesthetics vs. usability, clients not being users, complexity, and designing products in the designer's image, not the user's. The author used examples such as typewriters, faucets, and computers to make his point, and listed design techniques that could be used to improve the computer, including experimentation, usage modes, and invisibility.


Discussion
Some of the examples the author used were obviously out of date, making some of his points a little more difficult to understand. For example, he had an entire point he was trying to make based entirely on the operation of the typewriter, which is, for the most part, no longer used. Over all though, he did present some good design techniques to keep in mind.

Paper Reading #9: The Satellite Cursor: Achieving MAGIC Pointing Without Gaze Tracking Using Multiple Cursors

Comments
Jimmy Ho
Derek Landini

Reference Information
Title: The Satellite Cursor: Achieving MAGIC Pointing Without Gaze Tracking Using Multiple Cursors
Authors: Chun Yu, Yuanchun Shi, Ravin Balakrishnan, Xiangliang Meng, Yue Suo, Mingming Fan, Yongqiang Qin
When/Where: UIST 2010, New York City, New York



Summary
This article discussed the satellite cursor, a technique of using a cursor where there are multiple cursors, one associated with every target on the screen. Each cursor moves synchronously. The idea is that by having multiple cursors, each associated with a specific target, pointing performance will be improved by reducing the amount of movement required for input. The cursor's position is calculated such that the user can only select one target at a time.

An example of Satellite Cursor, with one cursor per green target, all moving synchronously. Source: Article.

The satellite cursor uses an "Aggregate and Expand" algorithm for calculating positions of all of the satellite cursors. This algorithm aggregates all targets to the main cursor then expands all image targets to the same position of their targets. The use of empty space is considered, and by aggregating the targets to be as compact as possible, all empty space is eliminated, reducing the distance the mouse needs to move. The only constraint for this algorithm is that there should be no overlap between targets.

Different methods of target layout are considered, and user testing is done to test the advantages and disadvantages between some of them. Of two studies, each consisted of asking participants to select targets on the screen. The first one was simpler, and measured completion time. Results concluded significant differences between layouts, and demonstrated that the performance of the cursor can be modeled well by Fitts' Law. The second study also measured completion time, but this time with different cursor layouts and selection strategies.

Discussion
This paper was difficult to get through. While it explained product design and testing, much of the explanation involved numbers and equations, manipulating Fitts' Law, which I have only briefly read about before. Due to my unfamiliarity with this, it made it difficult to understand quite what was being discussed.

That being said, it was fairly interesting to read about a new concept for cursors. The idea of having a cursor associated with each target, each moving synchronously with the main mouse sounds very confusing, but could also be very useful in eliminating time wasted dragging a single cursor back and forth across the screen.

Ethnography Results, Week 2

My group and I decided on the ethnography idea of observing the culture of the local music scene. For this week, we went to Schotzi's on Friday night, and were able to watch four different music performers throughout the night and the changes in listeners that occurred with each of them.

We arrived at 9:30pm, as the bands were testing and setting up for later in the night. The only people in the bar at that time were us, the music performers for the night, and some friends of the music performers. While the first performer had a lovely voice, only a few people filed into the bar to listen to her. First, people began arriving in large groups and travelling to the back of the bar away from the performance stage. The groups seemed to be sorority and fraternity groups, which each remained near each other without any contact between the two groups. As the first performer neared the end of her performance, more people began filing in, mostly in groups of 4 or 5, or as pairs. The groups tended to be all male or all female.

No real changes in the crowd occurred until the third band came on, by which time the bar was packed. The singer's family had even shown up, both old and young. Most of the people standing near the front by the stage seemed to know the singer, as they all hugged her when she walked in. The crowd was younger in age, and the groups that had remained solitary earlier were now broken up, mingling with other groups. When the final band came on, the crowd cleared out, indicating that many of them were only there to see the third band. Many people filtered out onto the outside patio to have conversations without the loudness of the music. By this point, the crowd was a bit older, perhaps with an average age of 25.

Also interesting to note, every band but the third one remained to listen to all of the others out of respect. Also, the fact that throughout the night, people seemed to be picked off from their groups seemed to be very interesting as well. Next week, we will be going to a different place to listen to a different band, and it will be interesting to see if any of the trends observed this time will occur again.

Book Reading #17: HCI Remixed

Reference Information

Title: HCI Remixed

Editors: Thomas Erickson, David McDonald

Publisher: MIT Press, December 2007

Chapter 6: A Creative Programming Environment
Author: Henry Lieberman, MIT Media Lab


Summary
In this chapter, the author discussed the works of D. C. Smith on Pygmalion, a Creative Programming Environment that allows beginners to easily use computers for creative means. The author discussed the highlights of Pygmalion, including its desire to support creativity by visual programming, programming by example, and interactive techniques. He then described the lessons taught by this program, including addressing the problem of creativity, thinking globally but acting locally, searching for meaningful things, and teaching by example.


Discussion
I like how this author directly outlined the benefits of the idea that he was describing, then listed the lessons that he believed it taught. This allowed for me to easily see what the author's point was, instead of having to search through definitions and anecdotes for it.

Chapter 7: Fundamentals in HCI: Learning the Value of Consistency and User Models
Author: Sara Bly, Sara Bly Consulting

Summary
This chapter discussed the Xerox Red Book, a user interface design specification for the Xerox Star workstation. The author described the main points of this book, including its emphasis on consistency, the desktop, and UI specification. Then, the main points of the book that still apply today were discussed, such as being a set of overall principles on which the UI was built, and encouraging similar ideas for current systems.


Discussion
This was a fairly short article, just detailing a design specification book for a particular system. While the system does seem to be very important to the interface design field, it doesn't seem like a specification book for it could be too useful any more. If the author had discussed more of the basic ideas that pertain to systems now, instead of just listing the things the Red Book contributed to the Star system, it would have been more helpful.

Chapter 9: The Disappearing Computer
Author: Norbert Streitz, Fraunhofer IPSI

Summary
This chapter discussed the "disappearing computer" and its implications. Disappearing was defined as meaning two different things: physical disappearance (miniaturizing devices and their integration into everyday objects so that they become invisible) and mental disappearance (objects no longer being seen as computers, but as ordinary objects that are interactive). The author demonstrated this evolution into invisibility with examples, going from LiveBoard to Roomware.


Discussion
I found the definitions given to be more interesting than the examples of systems I am unfamiliar with. However, the definitions explained the meaning of "disappearing computer", which I believe can be seen by the devices surrounding us today, such as cell phones that now surf the internet. They have become such a part of our everyday life, that we see it as a phone and not a computer powering the phone.

Chapter 10: It Really Is All About Location
Author: Anind K. Dey, Carnegie Mellon University


Summary
This chapter discussed the importance of location-aware systems, and the system that started the field. Active Badge is a system of badges tracked by infrared sensors to determine the location of people within a building, to be used in place of swiping badges. The author discusses how this system allowed research to occur concerning location-aware systems, showing the usefulness of them and demonstrating the fact that you don't have to be limited by the technology available to you in order to experiment with future ideas.


Discussion
I really liked reading about this system, it seems like it is very useful not only in a research perspective, but also in an application perspective. I especially like that this system started the location-aware systems that are in wide-use today, even though they didn't actually have the technology to do it then.

Chapter 46: The Essential Role of Mental Models in HCI: Card, Moran, and Newell
Author: Kate Ehrlich, IBM Research


Summary
This chapter defined and described mental models in various fields. Mental models are designed to explain how people construct internal representations of meaning from which they infer semantic relationships, and can be applied to UI design and HCI to provide a theory of the user's representation of a system. The user's model is represented by goals, operators, methods, and selectional rules.


Discussion
The idea of creating a mental model is good, but I am not sure how useful it would be in practice. It seems like it is making the thought process too rigid and formatted, but it seems as if it has influenced the field of HCI a lot.

Chapter 47: A Most Fitting Law
Author: Gary M. Olson, University of Michigan


Summary
This chapter discussed the implications of Fitts's Law, which the author describes to be a precise prediction about how movement and target characteristics are related quantitatively. The law says that the time it takes to move to a target is a function of the length of movement and the size of the target. The author lists of design ideas that result from this law, including the value of the edge of the screen, the value of pop-up menus, and the idea of expanding items as you move towards them.


Discussion
I find the idea that a mathematical equation could tell designers so much about how to best design a system with the cursor in mind to be fascinating. In particular, I find it amusing that the author describes how the Macintosh system to follows the design principles that results from Fitts's Law, while contrasting by saying that Windows does not follow these principles.

Paper Reading #8: Interaction Design in the University: Designing Disciplinary Interactions

Comments
Aaron Kirkes
Luke Roberts 


Reference Information
Title: Interaction Design in the University: Designing Disciplinary Interactions
Authors: Gale Moore, Danielle Lottridge
When/Where: CHI 2010, Atlanta, Georgia

Summary
This article discussed the field of interaction design and explored the implications of doing research that incorporates multiple disciplinary boundaries. The authors discuss the "third paradigm", called "phenomenological matrix", which is described to be the newest wave of HCI research, drawing on the fields of humanities and social sciences. The problem with this paradigm is that it does not fit well within disciplinary and departmental boundaries.

Different disciplinary terms are defined, such as interdisciplinary (activities in which individuals from two or more disciplines participate), multidisciplinary (research that involves more than one discipline, in which each one makes a separate contribution), and transdisciplinary (where the focus is the potential of interactions from different disciplines working together in the context of a specific problem/application). Each of these creates problems when concerning university processes of tenure and promotion, since it is difficult to evaluate contributions between departments.

Discussion
I found this article to be rather difficult to get through and understand. It was mostly just definitions of multiple similar areas, making it fairly confusing. I do like the fact that this paper was encouraging multiple disciplines to work together. In a university setting, many times the departments tend to be separate and not want to mingle, but by working together, more kinds of research and contributions can occur. Also, the authors suggested changing tenure/promotion guidelines to take this kind of departmental interaction into account, which seems like it could be very helpful to promoting multiple disciplines to work together.

A diagram of the contributions of multiple disciplines working together for a single cause. In this case, nanotechnology.
Source: x-journals.com

Book Reading #16: Opening Skinner's Box

Reference Information

Title: Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century

Author: Lauren Slater

Editor: W.W Norton & Company, 2008

Chapter 4: In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing
Summary
This chapter discussed the events and repercussions of Darley and Latane's experiments on social cues and the bystander effect. They conducted seizure and smoke experiments to test the likeliness of people to help others in a scenario of turmoil or danger.The results were that the larger the group, the less likely someone is going to help. The author discussed this, and Bearman's experiments about the reactions of those informed about these results.


Discussion
I think it is rather interesting that the larger a group is, the less likely someone is to call for help. However, I see how this could work, as one doesn't want to be the only person to cry for help, especially as it could be a false alarm, and many people would just assume that someone else had taken the initiative to help. I like the author's own comments about gas masks and such, and the fact that those people who had been informed of this bystander effect were more likely to help in a situation in the future.

Book Reading #15: Coming of Age in Samoa

Reference Information

Title: Coming of Age in Samoa

Author: Margaret Mead

Editor: Harper Perennial, 1928 (1971)

Chapter 5: The Girl and Her Age Group
Summary
This chapter discussed how groups are formed among children of a particular age range. For younger girls and boys, they are limited to small groups within their neighboring households and relatives, separated by gender. As age increases, the girls result to smaller friendships according to relations, while the boys remain in looser, neighborhood groups. The groups gradually change as they get older, coming to be more groups based on title and personal gain than nearness.


Discussion
I found it interesting that the young children were expected to make friends with other children their age that lived around them, and generally disliked other groups, but when they moved to another group they were readily accepted since they were then part of the neighborhood. Also, it was interesting that the boys were allowed to keep more permanent friendships and fun-focused groups for longer than the girls.

Book Reading #14: Design of Everyday Things

Reference Information

Title: Design of Everyday Things

Author: Donald Norman

Editor: Basic Books, 2002

Chapter 5: To Err is Human
Summary
This chapter discussed the types of errors, including slips (when subconscious actions are interrupted) and mistakes (from conscious thought interruptions).  The author then discusses models of human thought, including mathematical logic and connectionism (mapping neurons). The structure of tasks was then discussed, along with how to deal with errors, and forcing functions (interlocks, lockins, and lockouts).


Discussion
I found the in-depth analysis of different kinds of errors to be interesting, and liked how the author provided examples of each type. The examples helped to understand what the author was describing, since some of the definitions seemed to be fairly vague.

Paper Reading #7: Experience in Social Affective Applications: Methodologies and Case Study

Comments
Zack Henkel
Stuart Jones 


Reference Information
Title: Experience in Social Affective Applications: Methodologies and Case Study
Authors: Paul Andre, m.c. schraefel, Alan Dix, Ryen White
When/Where: CHI 2010, Atlanta, Georgia

Summary
This article discussed Healthii, a social-networking tool for conveying well-being, and used it to show the need for methodologies to examine experience and affect in social situations. For this application, two things were tested: the concept and design of a tool for sharing personal information and evaluating the experience of how that information is interpreted and used.

Healthii uses four discrete dimensions and three finite values for reflecting personal well-being. This well-being status can be represented using a numeric code or avatar. Users can update their state and view past states, along with seeing the states of a friend group. These updates can occur through Facebook, Twitter, or a desktop application.

An example of Healthii. Source: users.ecs.soton.ac.uk

For evaluation of this tool, ten people were selected that were already friends of the authors and users of social networking tools in order to ensure new friend groups were not being created. The users were asked to use Healthii over a course of five weeks, creating a longitudinal test. Once a week, the group met to discuss the tool. From these discussions, the designers of the tool considered changing aspects of the design/interactions. These two aspects, longevity and refinements combine to create a hybrid evaluation approach. At the end of the test, the participants were given individual surveys to analyze results that users were unwilling to share in a group context.

Discussion
I liked how this tool was designed specifically for testing and evaluating the current networking tools, but with specified, default values for personal well-being in order to easier evaluate the results. I thought the authors had a valid point about needing to start discussions about how to evaluate the use of social networking tools. The idea of evaluating for a long period of time is good, but changing the tool throughout the process seems like it could affect the results despite the fact that the authors argue against any affect.

Book Reading #13: Opening Skinner's Box

Reference Information

Title: Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century

Author: Lauren Slater

Editor: W.W Norton & Company, 2008

Chapter 3: On Being Sane in Insane Places
Summary
This chapter discussed the experiments of David Rosenhan, which consisted of faking his way into a mental institution, then acting normally and seeing if the psychiatrists would detect his sanity. Eventually, they released the experimenters due to "remission", but before that happened, they got to experience inhumane treatment and being treated as insane. The author discussed the ramifications of this experiment, and the refinements psychiatric codes experiences afterwards. The author then conducted her own experiment of the same nature, with some notable results.

Discussion
I find it amusing that the author conducted her own experiment in the same fashion, with differing results. She wasn't admitted, and was treated much nicer; however, she was still diagnosed and given prescriptions for unnecessary drugs. Also, I find it interesting that in Rosenhan's experiment, the psychiatrists seemed to be unaware of his sanity, but the actual patients in the institution had figured out what was going on.

Book Reading #12: Coming of Age in Samoa

Reference Information
Title: Coming of Age in Samoa

Author: Margaret Mead

Editor: Harper Perennial, 1928 (1971)

Chapter 4: The Samoan Household
Summary
This chapter discussed the structure and problems of the Samoan household. Households are presided over by headmen, and are given various titles and ranks. However, for the most part, age gives more authority than such factors like marital status. Households consist of many different people, some that may only be distantly related.


Discussion
I find it interesting that children were allowed to switch households, often trying out different ones. This leads to immediate families being split among different households, but gives children more freedom than many cultures offer. I found it particularly amusing that the discipline of children was always given with consideration that the child could always move to a different household if they became unhappy.

Book Reading #11: Design of Everyday Things

Reference Information

Title: Design of Everyday Things

Author: Donald Norman

Editor: Basic Books, 2002

Chapter 4: Knowing What to Do
Summary
This chapter discussed design clues that let people know what to do, including signals, visuals, and sounds. Signals include physical, semantic, cultural, and logical constraints, as well as affordances that convey messages about possible uses, actions, and functions. The author included examples such as a lego motorcycle, doors, and light switches to describe his point.


Discussion
The discussion about light switches and needing a new method seemed rather odd to me. Sure, light switches tend to get confusing, but generally a person just goes around the room and tries them all out at first to determine which switch works which light. The author's argument of creating an entirely new kind of light switch seemed too absurd. Simply moving the positions of the current light switches to places that make more sense would help to fix this problem in an easier fashion.

Paper Reading #6: Tangible Interfaces for Download: Initial Observations from Users' Everyday Environments

Comments
Steven Hennessy
Miguel Cardenas


Reference Information
Title: Tangible Interfaces for Download: Initial Observations from Users' Everyday Environments
Authors: Enrico Costanza, Matteo Giaccone, Olivier Kung, Simon Shelley, Jeffrey Huang
When/Where: CHI 2010, Atlanta, Georgia

Summary
This article introduced a tangible user interface (TUI) system called Audio d-touch, a collection of tangible user interfaces for musical composition and performance, including a drum machine and a sequencer. The system was developed to be downloadable from their website, and low-cost with an easy setup. The system works on a sheet of paper, with folded paper with visual markers pasted on top acting as physical sliders on top of the paper board. A web-camera hangs above the paper board and tracks the position of the paper markers.

An example of the low-cost setup of Audio d-touch.

Most TUIs are expensive and only available in labs. The idea of Audio d-touch is to present an easily-available TUI for use by the general public, downloadable online, so that research can be done regarding large scale user tests of musical TUIs outside of the laboratory. This allowed a test of a large group of people, including musicians and non-musicians in various situations. Users were required to register on the website in order to log various information about them and keep track of repeated usage. Because of the logging of video and data, privacy was an issue with this study.

 After studying the usage and evaluation of the system, the results concluded that many people were enthusiastic and intrigued by the system. The low-cost nature of the system made it widely available and appreciated. Instructions and cutouts for setting up the interface were provided, and generally users had no problem with it, even expanding on it in some cases. Most users only created basic rythyms with the tool, and issues with recognizing the markers occurred, but the authors considered the study to be a success.

Discussion
I like that this system was designed with creating a large-scale, cheap user study in mind. Since this TUI was easily available, and could be constructed from common household items, many people were able to participate, allowing a wider range of results from the study. In addition, I think this system would be fun to play with. Like most people in the study, I don't have prior experience with TUIs, so the idea of a low-cost, downloadable TUI sounds like something I would use myself. However, I don't think I would have participated in the study, since the amount of information necessary and the logging of video from your personal work station or bedroom doesn't sound too appealing. The authors even mentioned in the article that some people commented on the privacy issue; however, it was explained in the download agreement, and was necessary for the research to occur.

Overall, I think it would be interesting to expand on the idea of a low-cost, easily-available TUI. I'm sure there are many other applications that something like this could be created for, and it could really help to expand the field of tangible user interfaces.

Ethnography Results, Week 1

My original idea was to observe two different programming lab sections, each with a different TA, to determine if there are noticeable quantitative or qualitative differences between them. As a peer teacher, I was able to easily observe each of these sections without affecting the already-established environment. In order to keep each section as similar as possible, I perform my work in the same manner for each section, answering questions when asked directly or going to students with their hands raised. I focused on two specific days, one for each lab, each where no homework is due that day.

The first lab occurs in the late morning and is taught by a TA with previous teaching experience with other classes. Out of the 11 students in the class, only 5 showed up, resulting in a 45% attendance rate. The TA didn't spend time lecturing or discussing the homework. Instead, she ran the lab by walking around and looking at the students' work, correcting as she saw problems or responding to specific questions. Out of the 5 students that showed up, one came in only for the last ten minutes of class, and two others asked questions. At the end of the lab, the TA left immediately, followed by most of the students.

The second lab occurs in the late afternoon. Out of the 20 students in the class, 15 showed up, resulting in a 75% attendance rate. The TA started the lab by discussing the current homework with the class, and giving hints that she felt would be helpful to figuring out the problems. As for answering questions, she remained at the front of the room, going to students with their hands raised. When there were no hands raised, she encouraged the class to ask more questions. About half of the students that showed up asked questions throughout the lab section. At the end of the lab, the TA remained longer to answer more questions, and none of the students left right away.

The differences between the labs could be attributed to many different factors, and further studies would be necessary to determine whether the attendance rate was due to the different TAs' teaching styles, the time of the labs, or the specific homework that had been assigned. However, I am abandoning this topic, as it does not fit the definition of an ethnography. While the results from this study could be important in improving learning environments, I am already part of this environment on a daily basis, and therefore will be finding a new topic that is not currently part of my own culture.

Ethnography Proposal

My tentative ethnography proposal is to study computer science students in two different lab sections of the same class. The idea is to learn how the differences between sections encourage or discourage learning and interaction. The Teaching Assistants of each lab will also be observed, to discover if the differences in teaching style seem to affect the differences between the sections. If this information can be discovered, it could be put to use in future to design and teach lab sections in a way that best promotes learning.

As a peer teacher, I am already part of two different freshman-level lab sections with two different TAs, and therefore, am able to study each lab section for two hours a week without interfering with the environment that is already established. I would just have to interact with the students as I usually do, helping to answer questions and such. This allows me to ask them questions about their understanding without disturbing the initial environment and thus disturbing the data.

Quantitative data that can be collected includes the number of students who actually show up the the lab and the number of questions that are asked during each lab per day. Qualitative data includes the overall attentiveness of the class, how the students interact with the TA, and the overall quality of the students' programs.

For the moment, this is a tentative individual project to discover what kinds of ethnography ideas will be the most useful to implement for the actual ethnography group project.

Book Reading #10: Opening Skinner's Box

Reference Information

Title: Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century

Author: Lauren Slater

Editor: W.W Norton & Company, 2008

Chapter 2: Obscura
Summary
This chapter discussed the obedience experiment of Stanley Milgram, in which a set of people were tricked into thinking that they were shocking a person to death for a learning experiment on the orders of the experimenter.  The author discusses the premise of the experiment, its results of 65% of people obeying the experimenter, and the results it had on the psychological community. The author even describes the effect the experiment had on the participants, and the fact that it seems to have changed their responses.


Discussion
I think that this whole experiment was both interesting and shocking. I find the results to be shocking, although the fact that the experience changed many of the participants' lives is to be expected, considering how much of an eye-opener the experience would have been. I also like how this brought into question how much lab results differ from real-world situations, and that the author says that in the real world, people have plenty of opportunities to change their course of behavior.

Book Reading #9: Coming of Age in Samoa

Reference Information

Title: Coming of Age in Samoa

Author: Margaret Mead

Editor: Harper Perennial, 1928 (1971)

Chapter 3: The Education of a Samoan Child
Summary
This chapter generalized the life of a Samoan child from birth. It described the lack of interest adults showed in children, and the fact that the older young children are supposed to take care of the younger children. Then, it discussed the differences between the upbringing of boys versus girls, such as girls having to take care of children  for far longer than the boys.


Discussion
I find it interesting that birthdays are not regarded as being significant. Also, I think it is noteworthy that the author pointed out that boys have much more stress and responsibility as teenagers, while girls are allowed freedom by claiming that they are still young, and are allowed to enjoy themselves and neglect learning responsibilities for a while.

Book Reading #8: Design of Everyday Things

Reference Information

Title: Design of Everyday Things

Author: Donald Norman

Editor: Basic Books, 2002

Chapter 3: Knowledge in the Head and in the World
Summary
This chapter discussed the different kinds of knowledge, mainly imprecise knowledge, which includes information available in the world limited by natural and cultural constraints. This knowledge reduces the number of alternatives for any particular situation, allowing people to make quick actions based on this knowledge. The author also discussed how people use this knowledge and their memory to remember things.


Discussion
I liked the analysis of how people tend to remember things. The examples of leaving notes and such definitely pertained to me, making the reading interesting and quite helpful at times.

Paper Reading #5: Tangible Video Bubbles

Comments
Patrick Frith
Jessica Gonzales


Reference Information
Title: Tangible Video Bubbles
Authors: Kimiko Ryokai, Hayes Raffle, Hiroshi Horii, Yotam Mann
When/Where: CHI 2010, Atlanta, Georgia


Summary
Tangible Video Bubbles is a video-based drawing space for children in order to encourage children's "meaning making" through various forms of creativity. The Bubble acts as a both a container and instrument for the project, allowing video to be recorded and manipulated by it. This was created because children between the ages of five and seven display expressiveness and creativeness using various types of media. While many forms of technology that promote this interaction exist, they are usually expensive and difficult to use, making adult supervision necessary.

Tangible Video Bubbles is a "play space" for that allows both video recording and manipulation, as well as the ability to transfer video to a touch-screen digital canvas that allows for drawing and placing of the video. The video is displayed as a bubble on the canvas, that can be repositioned and can be touched for playback. The Bubble itself is a large, huggable ball with a video camera and a screen for playback. There is a button to press for recording of video and audio. While recording, the screen displays what is being recorded. The child can then play back the recorded message, manipulating it by squeezing the bubble with different amounts of pressure. For example, both speed and position in the video are controlled by squeezing. Pieces of video/audio can be cut and repeated just by squeezing the bubble, as well.

User studies were done with groups of children of various ages to both determine what shape worked best for the bubble, and then to evaluate the bubble and the canvas operations. The article states that the results of the evaluation were that the children quickly understood the idea of the bubble and were able to learn how to manipulate it for recording and playback purposes. Each child used it differently to create unique, creative projects, with some similarities between age, such as complexity of creations with older children.

The Tangible Video Bubbles process. Source: Article.

Discussion
While this idea seemed to be very interesting, to me, I feel as if it would be a very complex item to learn to use. In the article, they outlined how to do all of the interactions, and I got lost with the instructions written out for me. However, the authors do say that the children seemed to pick it up quite fast, so it may just be the description of it that sounds confusing. Other than that, this idea seems like it would be a good way for children to mix many different modes of creativity. I find it particularly interesting that the authors note that children seemed to say more personal statements to the video, since the bubble seemed to provide a private atmosphere for them. This could have many implications for fields such as psychology when dealing with children.

Special Assignment: Dr. Celine Latulipe

Reference Information
Title: Exploring the Design Space in Technology-Augmented Dance
Authors: Celine Latulipe, David Wilson, Sybil Huskey, Melissa Word, Arthur Carroll, Erin Carroll, Berto Gonzalez, Vikash Singh, Mike Wirth, Danielle Lottridge
When/Where: CHI 2010, Atlanta, Georgia

Summary
This article described the current efforts of the Dance.Draw project, which integrates dance motions with interactive visualizations in an attempt to better engage the audience. The idea is to blend dance performance with modern technologies, which could present some interesting interactions not previously associated with stage performances. Not only is this for performance reasons, but research is occurring to see how technology can influence the field of dance..

Dance.Draw began as experimenting with dancers holding mice while performing, with the mice controlling points in the projected imagery incorporated into the choreography. Various methods of this were used, including passing the mice between people to keep the audience engaged. The current system uses 3D sensing, with both accelerometers and mice attached to dancer's costumes. Productions have been put on using the various forms of Dance.Draw, and gauging audience reaction as a form of user study.

An example of Dance.Draw in action, with the interactive graphic displayed in the background.
Source: greatdance.com

Discussion
Incorporating such technology into dancing does seem like an interesting mix, and the ability to use technology to better engage the audience may draw more people to dance performances. While this research could be useful for the performing arts, I am unsure of what other fields this technology could be put to use in. There are probably many other computer scientists that think the same way, and this is could be limiting the potential of the research that is being used for Dance.Draw.

Book Reading #7: Opening Skinner's Box

Reference Information
Title: Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century
Author: Lauren Slater
Editor: W.W Norton & Company, 2008

Chapter 1: Opening Skinner's Box
Summary
This chapter discusses the psychological experiments of B. F. Skinner, in which he created operated conditioning, a process by which a human can train another human or animal for perform tasks or skills they would not normally do based on a system of rewards and reinforcements. The author discusses how Skinner was regarded as controversial by many, in that his experiments could be argued to show that humans have no free will. Ultimately, he produced quantifiable data on how organisms learn and how the outcome of learning can be predicted and controlled, which has been useful in many different ways.


Discussion
I like the author's style of explaining these great psychological experiments. She uses a narrative form that kept me interested and wanting to read more. In addition, I found Skinner's experiments to be very interesting and thought-provoking, and I can see how they have influenced or explain many factors in today's world.