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.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Paper Reading # 13
Comments
Comment1
Comment2
Reference
Mouse 2.0: Multi-touch Meets the Mouse
Nicolas Villar, Shahram Izadi, Dan Rosenfeld, Hrvoje Benko, John Helmes, Jonathan Westhues, Steve Hodges, Eyal Ofek, Alex Butler, Xiang Cao, Billy Chen
UIST 09 October 4-7, 2009 Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Summary
This paper talks about innovative input devices that have computer mice capabilities combined with multi-touch capabilities. Even though multi-touch has been incorporated to mobile phones and tablets, desktops have yet to incorporate multi-touch input devices. The authors describe five different MT mice along with their benefits and limitations. The five prototypes are the FTIR, Orb Mouse, Cap Mouse, Side Mouse, and the Arty Mouse. The frustrated total internal inflection (FTIR) mouse is composed of an acrylic sheet, IR-Leds, optical sensors, and a camera. When fingers are pressed on the acrylic sheet an IR light is detected by the camera. The acrylic sheet is molded as a smooth arc. The optical sensor is used to located input displacement across the acrylic sheet. The Orb Mouse is composed of an IR-sensitive camera and an internal source of IR illumination. Illumination radiates away from the center of the device and is reflected back by objects. The main problem here is that the objects could be a user's hand, or a keyboard that is close by which is hard for the device to differentiate. Cap Mouse uses capacitive touch sensing similar to how keyboards work. When a user presses the mouse a change in capacitance in a specific area is determined. The benefit of this system is that it is not affected by illumination. Side Mouse detects movement in the surface in front of it instead of actual movement in the mouse. Finger movement is reflected as IR light back to the camera. The main benefit of this mouse is that the input area is not limited by the surface of the device. Arty Mouse is composed of a base where the palm of the hand rests, and two arms extend from it where the thumb and index fingers are placed.
Discussion
It seems incredible to me that even though we know that multi-touch has become the new norm of input, we have not yet implemented multi-touch mice. I do not know if we are waiting for the next generation of desktops to incorporate multi-touch mice, but we are definitely lacking on that part. Out of the five designs described in this paper I think I would like the FTIR mouse the best.
Comment1
Comment2
Reference
Mouse 2.0: Multi-touch Meets the Mouse
Nicolas Villar, Shahram Izadi, Dan Rosenfeld, Hrvoje Benko, John Helmes, Jonathan Westhues, Steve Hodges, Eyal Ofek, Alex Butler, Xiang Cao, Billy Chen
UIST 09 October 4-7, 2009 Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Summary
This paper talks about innovative input devices that have computer mice capabilities combined with multi-touch capabilities. Even though multi-touch has been incorporated to mobile phones and tablets, desktops have yet to incorporate multi-touch input devices. The authors describe five different MT mice along with their benefits and limitations. The five prototypes are the FTIR, Orb Mouse, Cap Mouse, Side Mouse, and the Arty Mouse. The frustrated total internal inflection (FTIR) mouse is composed of an acrylic sheet, IR-Leds, optical sensors, and a camera. When fingers are pressed on the acrylic sheet an IR light is detected by the camera. The acrylic sheet is molded as a smooth arc. The optical sensor is used to located input displacement across the acrylic sheet. The Orb Mouse is composed of an IR-sensitive camera and an internal source of IR illumination. Illumination radiates away from the center of the device and is reflected back by objects. The main problem here is that the objects could be a user's hand, or a keyboard that is close by which is hard for the device to differentiate. Cap Mouse uses capacitive touch sensing similar to how keyboards work. When a user presses the mouse a change in capacitance in a specific area is determined. The benefit of this system is that it is not affected by illumination. Side Mouse detects movement in the surface in front of it instead of actual movement in the mouse. Finger movement is reflected as IR light back to the camera. The main benefit of this mouse is that the input area is not limited by the surface of the device. Arty Mouse is composed of a base where the palm of the hand rests, and two arms extend from it where the thumb and index fingers are placed.
Discussion
It seems incredible to me that even though we know that multi-touch has become the new norm of input, we have not yet implemented multi-touch mice. I do not know if we are waiting for the next generation of desktops to incorporate multi-touch mice, but we are definitely lacking on that part. Out of the five designs described in this paper I think I would like the FTIR mouse the best.
Paper Reading # 25
Comments
Comment1
Comment2
Reference
A code Reuse Interface for Non-Programmer Middle School Students
Paul A. Gross, Micah S. Herstand, Jordana W. Hodges, Caitlin L. Kelleher
IUI'10, February 7-10, 2010, Hong Kong, China
Summary
This paper talks about a programming tool for middle school students with no programming experience to reuse code functionality. The authors believe that middle school is a very important learning stage where students usually determine if they will pursue math and science related careers in the future. It is extremely rare that schools offer courses in Computer Science in this stage of education. In order to try to awake more interest in Computer Science, they developed a programming tool that is integrated with a program called Looking Glass. The process of this tool is the following: users will find the code that corresponds to the desired functionality, users will then extract this code which will be called Actionscript, and finally users will integrate this code into a new program. The main goal is to allow middle school students to reuse snippets of code without them fully understanding how all of the code works. In order to facilitate this process, the code navigation is based on an observable output display. Look Glass is based on story telling and is designed to create animation stories. An experiment was conducted on an Exxon Mobil Summer Science Camp. At the end of the session, the students participated in a quiz where they were asked to identify the best description of code snippets. According to their results, about 98% of the participants were able to capture and reuse Actionscripts.
Discussion
How awesome would it have been if I had been exposed to something similar to this? My first experience with computer programming was in my second semester in college. I truly believe that programs like this could really attract more people to Computer Engineering/Science. It is a very interesting approach and there should be more of these programs trying to teach middle school students about future opportunities. Even though this experiment was triggering students to become more familiar with Computer Science, it could work with any other subjects as well.
Comment1
Comment2
Reference
A code Reuse Interface for Non-Programmer Middle School Students
Paul A. Gross, Micah S. Herstand, Jordana W. Hodges, Caitlin L. Kelleher
IUI'10, February 7-10, 2010, Hong Kong, China
Summary
This paper talks about a programming tool for middle school students with no programming experience to reuse code functionality. The authors believe that middle school is a very important learning stage where students usually determine if they will pursue math and science related careers in the future. It is extremely rare that schools offer courses in Computer Science in this stage of education. In order to try to awake more interest in Computer Science, they developed a programming tool that is integrated with a program called Looking Glass. The process of this tool is the following: users will find the code that corresponds to the desired functionality, users will then extract this code which will be called Actionscript, and finally users will integrate this code into a new program. The main goal is to allow middle school students to reuse snippets of code without them fully understanding how all of the code works. In order to facilitate this process, the code navigation is based on an observable output display. Look Glass is based on story telling and is designed to create animation stories. An experiment was conducted on an Exxon Mobil Summer Science Camp. At the end of the session, the students participated in a quiz where they were asked to identify the best description of code snippets. According to their results, about 98% of the participants were able to capture and reuse Actionscripts.
Discussion
How awesome would it have been if I had been exposed to something similar to this? My first experience with computer programming was in my second semester in college. I truly believe that programs like this could really attract more people to Computer Engineering/Science. It is a very interesting approach and there should be more of these programs trying to teach middle school students about future opportunities. Even though this experiment was triggering students to become more familiar with Computer Science, it could work with any other subjects as well.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Paper Reading # 24
Comments
Comment1
Comment2
Reference
Outline Wizard: Presentation Composition and Search
Lawrence Bergman, Jie Lu, Ravi Konuru, Julie MacNaught, Danny Yeh
IUI'10, February 7-10, 2010, Hong Kong, China
Summary
This paper talks about creating presentations from existing presentations from common program such as Microsoft PowerPoint. There are no searching tools that can return single slides displaying the content a user is searching for. The authors propose a system called Outline Wizard which is an outline-based composition and search program. The main goal of Outline Wizard is to search from hierarchical structures to facilitate creating presentations and adding slides from existing presentation. Another important aspect of their system to achieve search that can find results that are relevant to a specific topic of information. Currently when you search for a specific keyword the user will find a single slide but other slides with relevant information on that keyword will not be retrieved in the search. Trying to find relevant information can be tedious and time consuming, so Outline Wizard stressed the importance of adding the capability of constructing presentation with a hierarchical structure.
Discussion
This paper introduces a very cool idea, I consider this paper one of those that can actually beneficial to users. I am not too familiar with PowerPoint's searching capabilities but I would think that idea would have been introduced earlier. Another thing that I noticed is that in the screen shots, they seem to have an older version of PowerPoint which would probably explain these proposed search capabilities were not present in PowerPoint yet.
Comment1
Comment2
Reference
Outline Wizard: Presentation Composition and Search
Lawrence Bergman, Jie Lu, Ravi Konuru, Julie MacNaught, Danny Yeh
IUI'10, February 7-10, 2010, Hong Kong, China
Summary
This paper talks about creating presentations from existing presentations from common program such as Microsoft PowerPoint. There are no searching tools that can return single slides displaying the content a user is searching for. The authors propose a system called Outline Wizard which is an outline-based composition and search program. The main goal of Outline Wizard is to search from hierarchical structures to facilitate creating presentations and adding slides from existing presentation. Another important aspect of their system to achieve search that can find results that are relevant to a specific topic of information. Currently when you search for a specific keyword the user will find a single slide but other slides with relevant information on that keyword will not be retrieved in the search. Trying to find relevant information can be tedious and time consuming, so Outline Wizard stressed the importance of adding the capability of constructing presentation with a hierarchical structure.
Discussion
This paper introduces a very cool idea, I consider this paper one of those that can actually beneficial to users. I am not too familiar with PowerPoint's searching capabilities but I would think that idea would have been introduced earlier. Another thing that I noticed is that in the screen shots, they seem to have an older version of PowerPoint which would probably explain these proposed search capabilities were not present in PowerPoint yet.
Paper Reading # 23
Comments
Comment1
Comment2
Reference
Facilitating Exploratory Search by Model-Based Navigational Cues
Wai-Tat Fu, Thomas G. Kannampallil, and Ruogu Kang
IUI'10, February 7-10, 2010, Hong Kong, China
Summary
This paper talks about social tagging and exploratory search. The simplest way to describe social tagging is associating labels or shortcuts to pieces of information to facilitate a search. Exploratory search is explained thoroughly in the paper and it is best described as ongoing search. Social tagging and exploratory search can generate navigational cues that facilitate knowledge exchange. The author's thesis states that different interaction methods will significantly impact the structuring, shaping, and behavior of human-computational systems. They claim that navigational cues create more intelligent interfaces. Social tags provide cues that facilitate information exploration as they help users predict content. These cues can help discover information in relevant topics. These methods focus in exploratory search and not in simple fact-retrieval searching. The main issue with navigational cues or creating tags for pieces of information is the vocabulary problem. This problem happens when different words are used to describe similar content, and as the number of tags increase they are incorrectly used to describe information. Even though this is an existing problem, authors have shown with their research that tags seem to converge over time and there is stability in tagging information. This could be explained by the fact that users seem to imitate how other users have created tags to keep the community consisted I would think.
Discussion
After reading multiple papers regarding research on navigational cues, I am starting to read very similar content. I have to say that I found this paper boring to some extent. The statistics in this paper completely lost me. One thing I read in a previous paper that could be very helpful to these researchers is the ability to create search communities which are created based on similar topic searching.
Comment1
Comment2
Reference
Facilitating Exploratory Search by Model-Based Navigational Cues
Wai-Tat Fu, Thomas G. Kannampallil, and Ruogu Kang
IUI'10, February 7-10, 2010, Hong Kong, China
Summary
This paper talks about social tagging and exploratory search. The simplest way to describe social tagging is associating labels or shortcuts to pieces of information to facilitate a search. Exploratory search is explained thoroughly in the paper and it is best described as ongoing search. Social tagging and exploratory search can generate navigational cues that facilitate knowledge exchange. The author's thesis states that different interaction methods will significantly impact the structuring, shaping, and behavior of human-computational systems. They claim that navigational cues create more intelligent interfaces. Social tags provide cues that facilitate information exploration as they help users predict content. These cues can help discover information in relevant topics. These methods focus in exploratory search and not in simple fact-retrieval searching. The main issue with navigational cues or creating tags for pieces of information is the vocabulary problem. This problem happens when different words are used to describe similar content, and as the number of tags increase they are incorrectly used to describe information. Even though this is an existing problem, authors have shown with their research that tags seem to converge over time and there is stability in tagging information. This could be explained by the fact that users seem to imitate how other users have created tags to keep the community consisted I would think.
Discussion
After reading multiple papers regarding research on navigational cues, I am starting to read very similar content. I have to say that I found this paper boring to some extent. The statistics in this paper completely lost me. One thing I read in a previous paper that could be very helpful to these researchers is the ability to create search communities which are created based on similar topic searching.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Full Blog - Media Equation
Summary
All three of these papers discuss the concept of social cues leading humans to apply social responses to computers. The authors study how humans can stereotype computers by ethnicity and gender. There are social cues that can give a computer a dominant or a submissive personality. The experiment shows that humans tend to prefer interaction with a computer with a similar "personality" as their own. Another experiment shows that humans apply social rules to computers. An example of this is politeness. The researchers try to answer some questions:
Do humans apply politeness to computers?
Do humans apply stereotypes to computers?
Do humans interact socially because they feel they interact with the computer or with an external agent?
Students volunteer for a three session experiment to determine the answers to the questions above. The other paper talks about determining the minimum set of cues to create a computer-based personality. There are two personality dimensions: dominance and the affiliation dimensions. The authors claim the a person with a dominant personality will perceive a computer as dominant, and a person with a submissive personality as submissive.
Discussion
I think that reading all three papers is a must because they are so tightly related. I read them in a different order from what is shown in the course website, and I felt I was able to understand the social interaction study better. I like these readings because they are easy to read. Another interesting thing is that most of the content can be considered common sense yet it is information you don't think about everyday and therefore I find it extremely useful to think about it.
All three of these papers discuss the concept of social cues leading humans to apply social responses to computers. The authors study how humans can stereotype computers by ethnicity and gender. There are social cues that can give a computer a dominant or a submissive personality. The experiment shows that humans tend to prefer interaction with a computer with a similar "personality" as their own. Another experiment shows that humans apply social rules to computers. An example of this is politeness. The researchers try to answer some questions:
Do humans apply politeness to computers?
Do humans apply stereotypes to computers?
Do humans interact socially because they feel they interact with the computer or with an external agent?
Students volunteer for a three session experiment to determine the answers to the questions above. The other paper talks about determining the minimum set of cues to create a computer-based personality. There are two personality dimensions: dominance and the affiliation dimensions. The authors claim the a person with a dominant personality will perceive a computer as dominant, and a person with a submissive personality as submissive.
Discussion
I think that reading all three papers is a must because they are so tightly related. I read them in a different order from what is shown in the course website, and I felt I was able to understand the social interaction study better. I like these readings because they are easy to read. Another interesting thing is that most of the content can be considered common sense yet it is information you don't think about everyday and therefore I find it extremely useful to think about it.
Book Reading # 48
Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses to Computers
Summary
This paper talks about how humans apply social rules to computers even though we know they are just computers. In their studies they discuss how people categorize computers by gender (perhaps pink computers for females), how people engage in polite behavior towards the computer, and humans interacting with dominant and submissive computers.
Discussion
It is impressive how we as humans unconsciously assign social traits to computer. How can a computer be dominant or submissive? I was surprised by the results the paper gives. The personality test and personality matching is also described in on of the other papers.
Computers are Social Actors
Summary
This paper talks about a study that involved 180 college computer literate students. The main goal of this study was to answer if people interact with computers applying social rules. There were five answers the authors wanted to answer from the results of the study. Study volunteers would go through a tutoring, testing, and evaluation session. After the three sessions, volunteers would answer a questionnaire about their experience.
Discussion
It is nice to read this paper at last, and it was actually by accident. This paper shows actual results about the five questions the authors wanted to answer.
Can Computer Personalities be Human Personalities?
Summary
This paper talks about determining the minimum set of cues to create a computer-based personality. There are two personality dimensions: dominance and the affiliation dimensions. The authors claim the a person with a dominant personality will perceive a computer as dominant, and a person with a submissive personality as submissive. According to psychologists people tend to prefer to interact with other people of their same personality.
Discussion
The interesting thing about this paper is how they create a personality test and randomly match you with a computer with a certain personality. The results show that their initial hypothesis were all true. Individuals who were randomly placed with a matching personality computer found the experiment to be more satisfying.
Summary
This paper talks about how humans apply social rules to computers even though we know they are just computers. In their studies they discuss how people categorize computers by gender (perhaps pink computers for females), how people engage in polite behavior towards the computer, and humans interacting with dominant and submissive computers.
Discussion
It is impressive how we as humans unconsciously assign social traits to computer. How can a computer be dominant or submissive? I was surprised by the results the paper gives. The personality test and personality matching is also described in on of the other papers.
Computers are Social Actors
Summary
This paper talks about a study that involved 180 college computer literate students. The main goal of this study was to answer if people interact with computers applying social rules. There were five answers the authors wanted to answer from the results of the study. Study volunteers would go through a tutoring, testing, and evaluation session. After the three sessions, volunteers would answer a questionnaire about their experience.
Discussion
It is nice to read this paper at last, and it was actually by accident. This paper shows actual results about the five questions the authors wanted to answer.
Can Computer Personalities be Human Personalities?
Summary
This paper talks about determining the minimum set of cues to create a computer-based personality. There are two personality dimensions: dominance and the affiliation dimensions. The authors claim the a person with a dominant personality will perceive a computer as dominant, and a person with a submissive personality as submissive. According to psychologists people tend to prefer to interact with other people of their same personality.
Discussion
The interesting thing about this paper is how they create a personality test and randomly match you with a computer with a certain personality. The results show that their initial hypothesis were all true. Individuals who were randomly placed with a matching personality computer found the experiment to be more satisfying.
Paper Reading # 22
Comments
Comment1
Comment2
Reference
DocuBrowse: Faceted Searching, Browsing, and Recommendations in an Enterprise Context
Andreas Girgensohn, Frank Shipman, Francine Chen, Lynn Wilcox
IUI'10, February 7-10, 2010, Hong Kong, China
Summary
This paper talks about browsing and searching for documents in enterprise document repositories and the system the author propose called DocuBrowse. Their main focus is searching for information in a unstructured corporate document repository. The weaknesses of current enterprise document repositories are that the employees usually know where the document they are searching for is located. In a corporate document structure, information is created in such a way that documents are stored in files corresponding to projects or a certain department within the corporation. Finding this documents is easy when the user expects the document to be there. The authors propose a system where document searching resembles more of a web search engine where you can search for documents that you are unfamiliar with, there does not need to be a repository structure and most importantly a user does not need to expect a specific result. Browsing in DocuBrowse is similar to the famous directory trees. In order to propose an innovative interface design, the authors use a data-oriented document analysis similar to the search engines (Google). DocuBrowse supports faceted searching and also adds the capability of recommendations. This way users will be allowed to determine if their search was successful or if some properties of the document can lead them to the correct information.
Discussion
While working on my internship I became really frustrated sometimes when I was trying to search for information that I did not know where to search for it. The system we were using suffered from the same weaknesses this paper points out and I truly believe DocuBrowse could have been really helpful. It is no lie that current web search engines are extremely powerful and it is an interesting idea to add those capabilities to enterprise document repositories.
Comment1
Comment2
Reference
DocuBrowse: Faceted Searching, Browsing, and Recommendations in an Enterprise Context
Andreas Girgensohn, Frank Shipman, Francine Chen, Lynn Wilcox
IUI'10, February 7-10, 2010, Hong Kong, China
Summary
This paper talks about browsing and searching for documents in enterprise document repositories and the system the author propose called DocuBrowse. Their main focus is searching for information in a unstructured corporate document repository. The weaknesses of current enterprise document repositories are that the employees usually know where the document they are searching for is located. In a corporate document structure, information is created in such a way that documents are stored in files corresponding to projects or a certain department within the corporation. Finding this documents is easy when the user expects the document to be there. The authors propose a system where document searching resembles more of a web search engine where you can search for documents that you are unfamiliar with, there does not need to be a repository structure and most importantly a user does not need to expect a specific result. Browsing in DocuBrowse is similar to the famous directory trees. In order to propose an innovative interface design, the authors use a data-oriented document analysis similar to the search engines (Google). DocuBrowse supports faceted searching and also adds the capability of recommendations. This way users will be allowed to determine if their search was successful or if some properties of the document can lead them to the correct information.
Discussion
While working on my internship I became really frustrated sometimes when I was trying to search for information that I did not know where to search for it. The system we were using suffered from the same weaknesses this paper points out and I truly believe DocuBrowse could have been really helpful. It is no lie that current web search engines are extremely powerful and it is an interesting idea to add those capabilities to enterprise document repositories.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Book Reading # 47
Chapter 8 & Chapter 9
Summary
In chapter eight, Hallinan discusses how humans tend to manipulate memory details so that it is simpler to rationalize or understand them. Hallinan points out that studies has shown that people tend to straighten lines on a map such as the drawing of the Seine river. Also since people do not recall exact details about their memories, they tend to change their stories a little. In chapter nine, Hallinan compares how men and women perceive things differently. He talks about how men tend to be more confident then women, and therefore they are more likely to take risks.
Discussion
The point about people tending to skew stories because humans do not recall exact details has already been a topic of discussion in this class. As far as the point of making things easier to understand, I totally agree with his point of view. The latter chapter made me think about all of the discussions I have had with my girl friends. But it had never made me think how this could affect the CHI world, it could be interesting to see if there should be gender oriented or what can we do to narrow this difference.
Summary
In chapter eight, Hallinan discusses how humans tend to manipulate memory details so that it is simpler to rationalize or understand them. Hallinan points out that studies has shown that people tend to straighten lines on a map such as the drawing of the Seine river. Also since people do not recall exact details about their memories, they tend to change their stories a little. In chapter nine, Hallinan compares how men and women perceive things differently. He talks about how men tend to be more confident then women, and therefore they are more likely to take risks.
Discussion
The point about people tending to skew stories because humans do not recall exact details has already been a topic of discussion in this class. As far as the point of making things easier to understand, I totally agree with his point of view. The latter chapter made me think about all of the discussions I have had with my girl friends. But it had never made me think how this could affect the CHI world, it could be interesting to see if there should be gender oriented or what can we do to narrow this difference.
Paper Reading # 21
Comments
Comment1
Comment2
Reference
Towards a Reputation-based Model of Social Web Search
Kevin McNally, Michael P. O'Mahony, Barry Smyth, Maurice Coyle, Peter Briggs
IUI'10, February 7-10, 2010, Hong Kong, China
Summary
This paper talks about how the web search is usually seen by users as a solitary space. The authors are proposing a web search collaboration system in which additional features are added to already mainstream web searching sites as Google or Yahoo. More specific the authors designed HeyStaks which has been deployed online and according to them, HeyStacks has more than 500 users. The idea of this design is to capture and share search experiences with other users. They believe this will facilitate web search by creating searching communities. Users that become community members can benefit from recommendations from other community members. Within these search communities, there are search leaders and search followers. They are identified by how much information they share, how many communities they create, and how much they share with other community members. The biggest benefits of using HeyStaks are that users can still use their favorite search engine, and is a more collaborative search experience. HeyStaks allows you to create what are called staks which are similar to a folder where you can save search experiences. These staks can be shared with other users to facilitate their search. These will generate recommendations to users based on relevance of users that have tagged or shared search experiences. Staks can be private or public, and can limit which users use specific staks. Users can vote positively or negatively for search results. HeyStaks has two types of ranking which are primary promotions and secondary promotions. These rankings can impact the relevance of the recommendations.
Discussion
Overall I believe the idea of HeyStaks is a great collaborative tool, although I probably would not ever use it except when maybe doing research. This last point brings me to a good point, it could potentially benefit researchers. The whole idea is to be able to help other users who search for similar topics. Some of the capabilities of HeyStaks seem to be similar to the already existing bookmarks in web browsers. The benefit of HeyStaks is that you can share your staks with other members, and they can also contribute to different search communities.
Comment1
Comment2
Reference
Towards a Reputation-based Model of Social Web Search
Kevin McNally, Michael P. O'Mahony, Barry Smyth, Maurice Coyle, Peter Briggs
IUI'10, February 7-10, 2010, Hong Kong, China
Summary
This paper talks about how the web search is usually seen by users as a solitary space. The authors are proposing a web search collaboration system in which additional features are added to already mainstream web searching sites as Google or Yahoo. More specific the authors designed HeyStaks which has been deployed online and according to them, HeyStacks has more than 500 users. The idea of this design is to capture and share search experiences with other users. They believe this will facilitate web search by creating searching communities. Users that become community members can benefit from recommendations from other community members. Within these search communities, there are search leaders and search followers. They are identified by how much information they share, how many communities they create, and how much they share with other community members. The biggest benefits of using HeyStaks are that users can still use their favorite search engine, and is a more collaborative search experience. HeyStaks allows you to create what are called staks which are similar to a folder where you can save search experiences. These staks can be shared with other users to facilitate their search. These will generate recommendations to users based on relevance of users that have tagged or shared search experiences. Staks can be private or public, and can limit which users use specific staks. Users can vote positively or negatively for search results. HeyStaks has two types of ranking which are primary promotions and secondary promotions. These rankings can impact the relevance of the recommendations.
Discussion
Overall I believe the idea of HeyStaks is a great collaborative tool, although I probably would not ever use it except when maybe doing research. This last point brings me to a good point, it could potentially benefit researchers. The whole idea is to be able to help other users who search for similar topics. Some of the capabilities of HeyStaks seem to be similar to the already existing bookmarks in web browsers. The benefit of HeyStaks is that you can share your staks with other members, and they can also contribute to different search communities.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Full Blog - Things that make us smart
Summary:
Donald Norman's Things that make us smart book has probably been the funner read. I really enjoy reading Norman's material because it allows you to do some reflective thinking, I wonder about what he writes when I am reading his chapters. It is one of those books that are so interesting you can't put down. In the beginning of this book he emphasizes the fact that he is a cognitive scientists.
In the first chapter Norman wants people to focus on human-centered technology in the future. He believes that in the past, people have been designing machine-centered technology and this has long term effects on how humans perform. He also describes the two types of artifacts that aid cognition which are mental and physical. Norman describes the three types of learning which are accretion, tuning, and restructuring. Accretion is how add to our existing knowledge. Tuning is where people sharpen their skills, this is where the practice comes in. Restructuring is the most difficult type of learning. Chapters three and four describe which artifacts have aided humans in becoming smarter. Norman also points out how humans underestimate the ability of artifacts that aid us in learning processes and how much information we can hold. He gives an example where Socrates questions reflective reasoning. He also describes an experiment by his Ph. D. student who modifies the famous Tower of Hanoi to study cognition.
Discussion
I really like reading books like this one because it makes me want to analyze what the author is writing, and often I often find myself formulating ideas to question their ideas. I like the fact that it gives examples that actually relate to technology and are therefore easier to relate to computer-human interaction.
Donald Norman's Things that make us smart book has probably been the funner read. I really enjoy reading Norman's material because it allows you to do some reflective thinking, I wonder about what he writes when I am reading his chapters. It is one of those books that are so interesting you can't put down. In the beginning of this book he emphasizes the fact that he is a cognitive scientists.
In the first chapter Norman wants people to focus on human-centered technology in the future. He believes that in the past, people have been designing machine-centered technology and this has long term effects on how humans perform. He also describes the two types of artifacts that aid cognition which are mental and physical. Norman describes the three types of learning which are accretion, tuning, and restructuring. Accretion is how add to our existing knowledge. Tuning is where people sharpen their skills, this is where the practice comes in. Restructuring is the most difficult type of learning. Chapters three and four describe which artifacts have aided humans in becoming smarter. Norman also points out how humans underestimate the ability of artifacts that aid us in learning processes and how much information we can hold. He gives an example where Socrates questions reflective reasoning. He also describes an experiment by his Ph. D. student who modifies the famous Tower of Hanoi to study cognition.
Discussion
I really like reading books like this one because it makes me want to analyze what the author is writing, and often I often find myself formulating ideas to question their ideas. I like the fact that it gives examples that actually relate to technology and are therefore easier to relate to computer-human interaction.
Book Reading # 45
Reference:
Things that Makes Us Smart
Donald A. Norman
Chapter 3 & Chapter4
Summary
Chapter three talks about cognitive artifacts that have aided the human brain by making humans smarter. Norman points out that we pay much attention to people who can retain large quantities of information because these are abilities that are hard for the average person to perform. He gives an example where Socrates questions that reading did not lead to reflection, and that it was experiential. He goes on to talk about the importance of the power of representation. A very important thing he mentions is that humans perceive information as a visual representation. In the latter chapter, Norman describes the views of a cognitive artifact which are the personal point of view and the system point of view.
Discussion
I found the fourth chapter more interesting because it points out example that make you understand what Norman is getting at. The description that I liked the best is when he talks about digital versus analog displays. It would seem to me that he would discuss that the digital displays are better since in the previous chapter he mentions that humans perceive information as a visual representation.
Things that Makes Us Smart
Donald A. Norman
Chapter 3 & Chapter4
Summary
Chapter three talks about cognitive artifacts that have aided the human brain by making humans smarter. Norman points out that we pay much attention to people who can retain large quantities of information because these are abilities that are hard for the average person to perform. He gives an example where Socrates questions that reading did not lead to reflection, and that it was experiential. He goes on to talk about the importance of the power of representation. A very important thing he mentions is that humans perceive information as a visual representation. In the latter chapter, Norman describes the views of a cognitive artifact which are the personal point of view and the system point of view.
Discussion
I found the fourth chapter more interesting because it points out example that make you understand what Norman is getting at. The description that I liked the best is when he talks about digital versus analog displays. It would seem to me that he would discuss that the digital displays are better since in the previous chapter he mentions that humans perceive information as a visual representation.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Paper Reading # 20
Comments
Comment1
Comment2
Reference
Lowering the barriers to website testing with CoTester
Jalal Mahmud, Tessa Lau
IUI'10, February 7-10, 2010, Hong Kong, China
Summary
In this paper, Mahmud and Lau introduce a system called CoTester which primary goal is to decrease the difficulty of web applications testing. The authors express that the current tools for web testing require programming knowledge and maintenance which tends to be time-consuming. Their system CoTester is built on CoScripter platfrom and its main goal is web applications testing. CoScripter is a scripting language which supports assertions and does not require advanced programming skills to use. CoTester uses subroutines within a testing unit to improve test management and also tries to provide the tester a visual structure of the changes being made. With the use of these subroutines a change can be automatically made to similar instances of a certain process, for example changing the log in process of an application. In order to make testing easier, this system relies on a machine algorithm that identifies subroutines in testing scripts. Mahmud and Lau claim that their algorithm is capable of recognizing subroutines with 91% accuracy in a subset of seven subroutines. The recordings in testing scripts are recorded by actions in a web application. The recording can include objects present or not present, links, presence of text, and buttons clicked.
Discussion
The last two papers I read have dealt with website research. I found this paper to be extremely boring and although there are some interesting aspect such as the script subroutines, I do not agree with the author's ideas. First of all is someone is going to develop website applications, I would expect that person to have an advanced knowledge of computer programming. This system is trying to implement a scripting programming language that can be used by people who do not necessarily have programming knowledge. CoTester is trying to aim towards programming by display which I do not disagree with. However I still think someone with programming skills should be the one doing this. The accuracy of their algorithm is pretty high and might be useful in another application, but the main purpose of this paper to me is irrelevant to future web technology.
Comment1
Comment2
Reference
Lowering the barriers to website testing with CoTester
Jalal Mahmud, Tessa Lau
IUI'10, February 7-10, 2010, Hong Kong, China
Summary
In this paper, Mahmud and Lau introduce a system called CoTester which primary goal is to decrease the difficulty of web applications testing. The authors express that the current tools for web testing require programming knowledge and maintenance which tends to be time-consuming. Their system CoTester is built on CoScripter platfrom and its main goal is web applications testing. CoScripter is a scripting language which supports assertions and does not require advanced programming skills to use. CoTester uses subroutines within a testing unit to improve test management and also tries to provide the tester a visual structure of the changes being made. With the use of these subroutines a change can be automatically made to similar instances of a certain process, for example changing the log in process of an application. In order to make testing easier, this system relies on a machine algorithm that identifies subroutines in testing scripts. Mahmud and Lau claim that their algorithm is capable of recognizing subroutines with 91% accuracy in a subset of seven subroutines. The recordings in testing scripts are recorded by actions in a web application. The recording can include objects present or not present, links, presence of text, and buttons clicked.
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| Figure 3 from paper |
Discussion
The last two papers I read have dealt with website research. I found this paper to be extremely boring and although there are some interesting aspect such as the script subroutines, I do not agree with the author's ideas. First of all is someone is going to develop website applications, I would expect that person to have an advanced knowledge of computer programming. This system is trying to implement a scripting programming language that can be used by people who do not necessarily have programming knowledge. CoTester is trying to aim towards programming by display which I do not disagree with. However I still think someone with programming skills should be the one doing this. The accuracy of their algorithm is pretty high and might be useful in another application, but the main purpose of this paper to me is irrelevant to future web technology.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Full Blog - Coming of Age in Samoa
Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa was an interesting book since I could relate to many aspects of the Samoan's lifestyle. Mead used a translator to interact with the Samoan girls to disable the disadvantage of the language barrier. The translators also gives more freedom to the native girls to express themselves. In her book Mead describes her findings of many aspects of the Samoan life and how she was able to gather the data she has.
This was a very interesting read because it kept me impressed on how many things the Samoan culture and the Mexican culture are very similar. The hierarchical roles are incredibly marked. Everything is based on how the society views certain family members. I believe it was a good ethnography book.
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