Chapter 3 & Chapter 4
Summary
In chapter three, Norman talks about how things seem simple but in reality they can complicate our lives. As an example he talks about passwords which most likely we have more than a couple. Some of these ideas seem redundant from the previous chapter. In chapter four, Norman talks about social signifiers.
Discussion
The idea of having the designers take extra time to analyze their designs, share with other developers to get from feedback is a relevant topic of discussion in class. I think this is very important as this can reduce the frustration the users suffer from an inappropriate design. Designers have to take off their design hats and put their user's hat to alleviate some of this user frustration that can be provoked. I enjoyed reading Norman's previous book but I don't think I could read more than three of his books as they seem to be getting redundant.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Book Reading # 51
Living with Complexity
Donald A. Norman
Chapter 1 & Chapter 2
Summary
In chapter one, Norman talks about the different between something that is complex and something that is complicated. If something is described as complex it is understandable but hard to get a grip on. On the other hand, something complicated is hard to understand. In the next chapter he is talking about how we believe we want to thing about a simple design but the matter of fact is we only make things more complex based on the individual who is designing.
Discussion
I do not now if I should re read chapter one again but it seems like he is contradicting what he tried to tell us before in other books which was to keep things simple. In this chapter he tells us that complex things are desirable and enjoyable. Chapter two makes me think a lot because I have been in that situation many times when I want to design something that is simple but then start thinking about it too much that I deviate too much from my initial goal and start making things too complex.
Donald A. Norman
Chapter 1 & Chapter 2
Summary
In chapter one, Norman talks about the different between something that is complex and something that is complicated. If something is described as complex it is understandable but hard to get a grip on. On the other hand, something complicated is hard to understand. In the next chapter he is talking about how we believe we want to thing about a simple design but the matter of fact is we only make things more complex based on the individual who is designing.
Discussion
I do not now if I should re read chapter one again but it seems like he is contradicting what he tried to tell us before in other books which was to keep things simple. In this chapter he tells us that complex things are desirable and enjoyable. Chapter two makes me think a lot because I have been in that situation many times when I want to design something that is simple but then start thinking about it too much that I deviate too much from my initial goal and start making things too complex.
Book Reading # 50
Chapter 12 & Chapter 13 & Conclusion
Summary
In chapter twelve, Hallinan talks about affordances and how this concept can help avoid human errors. One of the main reasons why we cannot prevent making errors is because we blame the incorrect reason.
In chapter thirteen, he describes how people believe in the "grass looking greener". This can be attributed to us focusing on the very obvious cues and leaving the other ones ignored. One example he gives is the idea of the positive social life people have about California, but in reality many people move out after only a few years of living there. In the conclusion chapter, he summarizes all of the previous chapters and the mistakes he talked about and gives some advice on how to preventing these mistakes.
Discussion
I liked reading the conclusion chapter because he gives you an insight on how you can prevent mistakes and that is what he tries to emphasize on all his previous chapters. I like to hope for the best of my actions and if something happens along the way I want to learn from that experience to make a better decision in the future.
Summary
In chapter twelve, Hallinan talks about affordances and how this concept can help avoid human errors. One of the main reasons why we cannot prevent making errors is because we blame the incorrect reason.
In chapter thirteen, he describes how people believe in the "grass looking greener". This can be attributed to us focusing on the very obvious cues and leaving the other ones ignored. One example he gives is the idea of the positive social life people have about California, but in reality many people move out after only a few years of living there. In the conclusion chapter, he summarizes all of the previous chapters and the mistakes he talked about and gives some advice on how to preventing these mistakes.
Discussion
I liked reading the conclusion chapter because he gives you an insight on how you can prevent mistakes and that is what he tries to emphasize on all his previous chapters. I like to hope for the best of my actions and if something happens along the way I want to learn from that experience to make a better decision in the future.
Book Reading # 49
Chapter 10 & Chapter 11
Summary
In chapter ten, Hallinan describes how people tend to feel overconfident and feel they are extremely good at something when in reality they may not be even that great. This overconfidence can lead to mistakes. A good practice to avoid mistakes by being overconfident is trying to ask for feedback.
In chapter eleven, he talks about how people try to do things the easy way instead of following detailed instructions in manuals. People -like the title suggests- rather wing a situation instead of practicing for it.
Discussion
Chapter eleven is interesting to read because it can help us to prepare better for our class presentations. Our awesome TAs made sure we were aware that we should not wing project presentations, and it was definitely beneficial. It was also funny because we say that people in Mexico avoid reading manuals, that we rather waste time trying to make things work by playing with them instead of reading the instructions and saving some time.
Summary
In chapter ten, Hallinan describes how people tend to feel overconfident and feel they are extremely good at something when in reality they may not be even that great. This overconfidence can lead to mistakes. A good practice to avoid mistakes by being overconfident is trying to ask for feedback.
In chapter eleven, he talks about how people try to do things the easy way instead of following detailed instructions in manuals. People -like the title suggests- rather wing a situation instead of practicing for it.
Discussion
Chapter eleven is interesting to read because it can help us to prepare better for our class presentations. Our awesome TAs made sure we were aware that we should not wing project presentations, and it was definitely beneficial. It was also funny because we say that people in Mexico avoid reading manuals, that we rather waste time trying to make things work by playing with them instead of reading the instructions and saving some time.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Book Reading # 46
Chapter 6: We’re in the Wrong Frame of Mind & Chapter 7: We Skim
Summary
Chapter six focuses on discussing frames and anchors. It also talks about how people strongly bias their decisions based on the way something is framed. Chapter seven talks about how people get used to skimming information. This can cause the person not to fully focus on the information. Once the main idea has been understood, people do not feel the urge to read sentence by sentence anymore. Hallinan also highlights the importance of context.
Discussion
Chapter seven is funny because that is exactly what a lot of people do when reading information. People skim the information and rely on context being present to extract the most of the information.
Book Reading # 37
Chapter 9-14
Summary
Chapter nine talks about the differences between conformity and obedience. Milgram describes variations in some experiments and discusses his results. Chapter ten talks about how obedience can be explained and how hierarchical models are formed. Chapter eleven describes obedience more in depth and how factors such as family, educational institutions, and rewards affect it. Chapter fourteen is about Milgram answering the questions critics raised from his experiment.
Discussion
I liked the way Milgram describes the differences between conformity and obedience. Having discussed in class the question about if this should be considered an ethical experiment, I think the last chapter is very interesting. Although I will say that I do not agree with everything Milgram says.
Summary
Chapter nine talks about the differences between conformity and obedience. Milgram describes variations in some experiments and discusses his results. Chapter ten talks about how obedience can be explained and how hierarchical models are formed. Chapter eleven describes obedience more in depth and how factors such as family, educational institutions, and rewards affect it. Chapter fourteen is about Milgram answering the questions critics raised from his experiment.
Discussion
I liked the way Milgram describes the differences between conformity and obedience. Having discussed in class the question about if this should be considered an ethical experiment, I think the last chapter is very interesting. Although I will say that I do not agree with everything Milgram says.
Book Reading # 35
Chapter 1-8
Summary
Chapter one talks about the importance of obedience and its impact on social life. Chapter two talks about Milgram's experiments in detail. He describes the shocking procedure and how it would evolve. Chapter three talks about the expected behavior that participants would have in the experiments. The people that participated in the experiment were adults older than college students. The location of the participant would affect the behavior in this experiment. If the participant was in a remote location it would be more likely for him/her to keep going all the way. The authority figure is very important in his experiment therefore he did some permutation in which Milgram changed the roles of the authority and the subject.
Discussion
This book was an easy read since we had read an overview of the experiment in Openning Skinner's Box. Since it is a very debatable experiment, it was interesting to read more about it. The in class discussion on this experiment from Openning Skinner's Box's chapter was fun to do.
Summary
Chapter one talks about the importance of obedience and its impact on social life. Chapter two talks about Milgram's experiments in detail. He describes the shocking procedure and how it would evolve. Chapter three talks about the expected behavior that participants would have in the experiments. The people that participated in the experiment were adults older than college students. The location of the participant would affect the behavior in this experiment. If the participant was in a remote location it would be more likely for him/her to keep going all the way. The authority figure is very important in his experiment therefore he did some permutation in which Milgram changed the roles of the authority and the subject.
Discussion
This book was an easy read since we had read an overview of the experiment in Openning Skinner's Box. Since it is a very debatable experiment, it was interesting to read more about it. The in class discussion on this experiment from Openning Skinner's Box's chapter was fun to do.
Book Reading # 19
Chapter 6: The Girl in Her Community
Summary
This chapter talks about sexual experiences by the Samoan girls. It describes that the first experience typically involved a girl with an older male. In the Samoan culture, adultery is looked down upon.
Discussion
It seems from reading this chapter that Samoans do not put too much importance into marriage, and how it seems to arise from sexual experiences. I completely disagree with the way Samoans handle this aspect of life because in my culture this is totally the opposite of acceptable behavior.
Summary
This chapter talks about sexual experiences by the Samoan girls. It describes that the first experience typically involved a girl with an older male. In the Samoan culture, adultery is looked down upon.
Discussion
It seems from reading this chapter that Samoans do not put too much importance into marriage, and how it seems to arise from sexual experiences. I completely disagree with the way Samoans handle this aspect of life because in my culture this is totally the opposite of acceptable behavior.
Book Reading # 18
Chapter 6: The Design Challenge
Summary
This chapter talks about product design difficulties. People want to design new products and therefore forget about old ideas which could have been helpful yet they are old research. It also talks about the mistake made by programmers or designers where they forget about errors that product users will be able to pin point.
Discussion
I liked reading this chapter because it makes you think as a software designer of the stages in the process of designing a product. It makes you think about showing your project to other designers for feedback in which the user errors can be found before actually deploying the product.
Summary
This chapter talks about product design difficulties. People want to design new products and therefore forget about old ideas which could have been helpful yet they are old research. It also talks about the mistake made by programmers or designers where they forget about errors that product users will be able to pin point.
Discussion
I liked reading this chapter because it makes you think as a software designer of the stages in the process of designing a product. It makes you think about showing your project to other designers for feedback in which the user errors can be found before actually deploying the product.
Book Reading # 17
Chapter 6, 7, 9, 10, 46, 47
Summary
Chapter six talks about creative programming and programming by example. The author talks about a research paper that focuses on creativity and graphical programming. Chapter seven talks about the documentation for the Xerox Star project and how users should be able to use this without any knowledge. The next chapter talks about ubiquitous computing. Chapter ten talked about location based services and a project where people in a building were given badges with sensors that facilitated the phone operator to locate them and re route phone calls to the closest phone station. The next chapters talk about the mental model to make a system intuitive for use.
Discussion
I liked reading chapter six because graphical programming can be related to HCI in many aspects. Chapter seven is very interesting because I consider my self a very consistent person and therefore that is how I like to document things. If a user without knowledge on a specific project can read some documentation and understand it, it is very well organized documentation. Chapter ten was the chapter that I enjoyed reading the most. It would be interested to apply the same experiment in a hospital perhaps with more people in it.
Summary
Chapter six talks about creative programming and programming by example. The author talks about a research paper that focuses on creativity and graphical programming. Chapter seven talks about the documentation for the Xerox Star project and how users should be able to use this without any knowledge. The next chapter talks about ubiquitous computing. Chapter ten talked about location based services and a project where people in a building were given badges with sensors that facilitated the phone operator to locate them and re route phone calls to the closest phone station. The next chapters talk about the mental model to make a system intuitive for use.
Discussion
I liked reading chapter six because graphical programming can be related to HCI in many aspects. Chapter seven is very interesting because I consider my self a very consistent person and therefore that is how I like to document things. If a user without knowledge on a specific project can read some documentation and understand it, it is very well organized documentation. Chapter ten was the chapter that I enjoyed reading the most. It would be interested to apply the same experiment in a hospital perhaps with more people in it.
Paper Reading # 12
Comments
Comment1
Comment2
Reference
Detecting and Leveraging Finger Orientation for Interaction with Direct-Touch Surfaces
Feng Wang, Xiang Cao, Xiangshi Ren and Pourang Irani
UIST'09 October 4-7, 2009, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Summary
This paper talks about an algorithm that detects finger orientation in real-time and how this algorithm could benefit the development of applications that rely heavily in finger orientation. Users have adapted very well to multi-touch devices since it gives the user the freedom to manipulate the system without an intermediary. The authors believe knowing the finger orientation is an important piece of information. There are two types of finger touch: vertical touch (finger pointing directly downward) and oblique touch (finger touching the surface at an oblique angle. When a finger touches a surfaces it creates an elliptic shape. By examining the finger's deformation on the surface, useful information can be found such as the location of the user's palm and the direction in which the finger is pointing to. In order to test their algorithm, researchers used a tabletop surface based on FTIR technology.
Discussion
This paper was very boring in my humble opinion. I can't think of a specific application that could benefit from their research. It is interesting to read some of things they pointed out but I think the existing touch interaction is very accurate. I might be wrong but I just did not enjoy reading this paper.
Comment1
Comment2
Reference
Detecting and Leveraging Finger Orientation for Interaction with Direct-Touch Surfaces
Feng Wang, Xiang Cao, Xiangshi Ren and Pourang Irani
UIST'09 October 4-7, 2009, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Summary
This paper talks about an algorithm that detects finger orientation in real-time and how this algorithm could benefit the development of applications that rely heavily in finger orientation. Users have adapted very well to multi-touch devices since it gives the user the freedom to manipulate the system without an intermediary. The authors believe knowing the finger orientation is an important piece of information. There are two types of finger touch: vertical touch (finger pointing directly downward) and oblique touch (finger touching the surface at an oblique angle. When a finger touches a surfaces it creates an elliptic shape. By examining the finger's deformation on the surface, useful information can be found such as the location of the user's palm and the direction in which the finger is pointing to. In order to test their algorithm, researchers used a tabletop surface based on FTIR technology.
Discussion
This paper was very boring in my humble opinion. I can't think of a specific application that could benefit from their research. It is interesting to read some of things they pointed out but I think the existing touch interaction is very accurate. I might be wrong but I just did not enjoy reading this paper.
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