As of week two we have decided to completely change our topic, and since we heard very good feedback from Dr. Gill we believe our topic will be a good ethnography. Our group will be studying the culture of the movie theaters in a college town.
We have decided for this week that we each go to the movie theater separately. This past weekend, I got to go to the movies on Saturday and on Sunday. I attended the College Station one both days. There were many differences that I saw on these days. Particularly I decided to go on different times of the day. On Saturday, I went to the matinee movies at 5:30p.m. As I buy my ticket, I can tell that it seems that the lobby is empty. I sit down in the lobby with my roommate waiting for other friends 20 minutes before the movie starts. One thing that I noticed is that most of the people that were walking in to the lobby appeared to be in couples, and mainly college students or at least that's what they appear to be. On Sunday night, I went to a movie at 9:50p.m. I went to see a comedy movie, and I wanted to see what other movies were starting at the same time my movie was starting. As I expected, the crowd in the theater was college students, a few older couples, and I do not remember seeing any kids.
Dr. Gill's presentation on Tuesday, February 15 definitely has given us many ideas on how to observe the theater. We will write a formal letter and try to meet with the theater's manager so we can explain what we will be doing for the next six weeks.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Book Reading #20 - Opening Skinner's Box
Chapter 5: Quieting the Mind
Summary
This chapter talks about Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance. Slater describes in this chapter a group of people that started believing that a flood was coming on midnight December 21. The only way to survive this was by believing in a "god" named Sananda. This caught the attention of the media, and on midnight of December 21, several media channels were waiting outside of the cult's meeting location. Nothing happened at midnight and the cult started to proselytize. Festinger infiltrated the cult and proved his work, cognitive dissonance.
Discussion
Out of all the chapters that I have read so far, this definitely was the worst one. At the beginning of the chapter the idea of cognitive dissonance is described briefly. As the chapter continues, Slater describes two incident: the cult that believed in Sananda and the flooding, and the story of Linda Santo. The two stories sort of describe that extreme cases of Festinger's theory.
Summary
This chapter talks about Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance. Slater describes in this chapter a group of people that started believing that a flood was coming on midnight December 21. The only way to survive this was by believing in a "god" named Sananda. This caught the attention of the media, and on midnight of December 21, several media channels were waiting outside of the cult's meeting location. Nothing happened at midnight and the cult started to proselytize. Festinger infiltrated the cult and proved his work, cognitive dissonance.
Discussion
Out of all the chapters that I have read so far, this definitely was the worst one. At the beginning of the chapter the idea of cognitive dissonance is described briefly. As the chapter continues, Slater describes two incident: the cult that believed in Sananda and the flooding, and the story of Linda Santo. The two stories sort of describe that extreme cases of Festinger's theory.
Paper Reading # 9 - VizWiz: Nearly Real-time Answers to Visual Questions
Reference
Jeffrey P. Bigham, Chandrika Jayant, Hanjie Ji, Greg Little, Andrew Miller.
UIST'10 Octobe 3-6, 2010, New York City, USA.
Summary
This paper describes some of the barriers that blind people face and some possible solutions for aid in every day activities. Current technology to aid blind people is error-prone and most of the time is also extremely expensive. The solution described in this paper is a mobile application that offers nearly real-time responses to any questions blind people may have. The application is called Viz Wiz and is available for the iPhone platform. In order to make VizWiz's answers to approximate real time, the quikTurkit approach aims at recruiting workers to be available as soon as the questions arrive. One of the main issues described by this paper is the lack of access to virtual information such as nutrition information written on a can. Another problem with existing applications is that an automated response might not answers questions such as "What is the cheapest hamburger in the menu?". The answer could be limited to letting you know the prices of every single item on the menu. The emphasis on VizWiz is that human workers are generally a better support tool than automated messages because they can use intelligence on common sense issues that a software program does not have. At the beginning of this research a survey was constructed to get feedback from blind people on VizWiz.
Discussion
The approach of this application can be very handy for blind people. I personally do not have any relatives or friends with this problem, but if I imagine myself closing my eyes and asking for questions, human support would be my preference. The idea of this application being near real-time feedback is also extremely important in aiding blind people. Even though at the beginning of the paper, the authors mention that current applications are error-prone, VizWiz could also fail at any given time. No software application is perfect, but this seems to be heading in the right direction.
Jeffrey P. Bigham, Chandrika Jayant, Hanjie Ji, Greg Little, Andrew Miller.
UIST'10 Octobe 3-6, 2010, New York City, USA.
Summary
Discussion
The approach of this application can be very handy for blind people. I personally do not have any relatives or friends with this problem, but if I imagine myself closing my eyes and asking for questions, human support would be my preference. The idea of this application being near real-time feedback is also extremely important in aiding blind people. Even though at the beginning of the paper, the authors mention that current applications are error-prone, VizWiz could also fail at any given time. No software application is perfect, but this seems to be heading in the right direction.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Microblogs on HCI Remixed
Chapter 10: It Really Is All About Location!
Summary
This chapter introduces the start of the location-based services era. The author Anind Dey mentions that he was inspired by Mark Weiser's location-based system proposition. In 1990 a system called Active Badge system allowed you to detect users by detecting badges with sensors. He gives the example of Olivetti Research, where an interface was built for the receptionist to use in order to locate users. This not only tracked users, but allowed the receptionist to identify the closest telephone extension.
Discussion
It is unbelievable to find out that a person in 1990 was implementing a system that resembles exactly how a GPS works. I think if there is an area of computing that I am really interested in, it would be this location-based services. With smart phones popularity growing exponentially, more and more applications are becoming dependent on let's say Google Maps. If you travel to another city in which you have never been, there is nothing to worry as LBS will take care of you.
Chapter 46: The Essential Role of Mental Models in HCI: Card, Moran, and Newell
Summary
This paper talks about the idea of users using mental models to understand their interactions with computer systems. This is an important idea as this can help developers understand the process to construct systems in a way that will be intuitive for users. The author also talks about the immersion of ideas from science and psychology to create what is now known as human computer interaction.
Discussion
As I was reading this chapter, the first thing to come into my mind was a Microsoft Office presentation I attended about two years ago. In this presentation, the speaker claimed that 70% of all of the issues the users report about Microsoft Office are already present in the product. People often rely too heavily on their mental models that they do not try to understand the full capability of a certain product, such as Office.
Chapter 47: A Most Fitting Law
Summary
This chapter talks about Paul M. Fitt's law. Fitts was a psychologist who was interested in problems of human performance. Fitts served for the U.S. Army Air Forces and trained pilots. Fitts is well known for engineering psychology, which focuses on equipment design to better accommodate with human behavior.
Discussion
The idea of engineering psychology sounded really weird at first, but then after reading his law and how it fits with HCI it seemed pretty reasonable. It is very interesting to read that these people were coming up with these ideas 60-70 years ago. I cannot wait to see what we as computer engineers will create in the next 20-30 years.
Summary
This chapter introduces the start of the location-based services era. The author Anind Dey mentions that he was inspired by Mark Weiser's location-based system proposition. In 1990 a system called Active Badge system allowed you to detect users by detecting badges with sensors. He gives the example of Olivetti Research, where an interface was built for the receptionist to use in order to locate users. This not only tracked users, but allowed the receptionist to identify the closest telephone extension.
Discussion
It is unbelievable to find out that a person in 1990 was implementing a system that resembles exactly how a GPS works. I think if there is an area of computing that I am really interested in, it would be this location-based services. With smart phones popularity growing exponentially, more and more applications are becoming dependent on let's say Google Maps. If you travel to another city in which you have never been, there is nothing to worry as LBS will take care of you.
Chapter 46: The Essential Role of Mental Models in HCI: Card, Moran, and Newell
Summary
This paper talks about the idea of users using mental models to understand their interactions with computer systems. This is an important idea as this can help developers understand the process to construct systems in a way that will be intuitive for users. The author also talks about the immersion of ideas from science and psychology to create what is now known as human computer interaction.
Discussion
As I was reading this chapter, the first thing to come into my mind was a Microsoft Office presentation I attended about two years ago. In this presentation, the speaker claimed that 70% of all of the issues the users report about Microsoft Office are already present in the product. People often rely too heavily on their mental models that they do not try to understand the full capability of a certain product, such as Office.
Chapter 47: A Most Fitting Law
Summary
This chapter talks about Paul M. Fitt's law. Fitts was a psychologist who was interested in problems of human performance. Fitts served for the U.S. Army Air Forces and trained pilots. Fitts is well known for engineering psychology, which focuses on equipment design to better accommodate with human behavior.
Discussion
The idea of engineering psychology sounded really weird at first, but then after reading his law and how it fits with HCI it seemed pretty reasonable. It is very interesting to read that these people were coming up with these ideas 60-70 years ago. I cannot wait to see what we as computer engineers will create in the next 20-30 years.
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