Article on Web Accessibility

If you are interested in learning more about perspectives on web accessibility, you may be interested in the article Web Accessibility: A Digital Divide for Disabled People by Alison Adams and David Kreps.

You can view the article by using an IU-networked computer or logging into the IU VPN. Here is the link:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/x835p22217q3t143/

Regards,

Bob

Epistemology and Design: The Place of Judgment

In dialog surrounding the reviews of a recent paper a colleague and I submitted, one of the reviewers, resisting our call for a greater emphasis on criticism in interaction design on the grounds that psychology already does it, asked the following question:

How can you prevent the “anything-goes-subjectivism” when the judgments are not objective?

This is the kind of question that drives me–and I think anyone trained in the humanities–crazy. My immediate reaction is that this question is both naive and bigoted, not merely privileging that person’s own scientific background, but categorically excluding the possibility of intellectual contribution from anywhere in the liberal arts (art history, literary criticism, fashion design, philosophy, music, film, etc.).

But after some reflection, I realized that my reaction isn’t good enough. Here’s why:

Smash Lab

Hi, everyone.  I wrote a post on my blog that, after I finished it, thought it might be appropriate here, since it’s (kind of) about the design process. I also thought some of you might be interested in, as it relates to some things we discussed in Marty’s class last semester.  Check it out if you’re so inclined:

http://hcireflections.wordpress.com/

Jenny Brown

Who Would Have Thunk It?

I read an interesting article on Slashdot today: Academic Games Are No Fun.

Apparently, well into a $250K MacArthur grant, the IU Telecommunications Department-based creators of the MMO “serious game” Arden, The World of Shakespeare, have learned that (1) a game needs to be a game, and (2) games need to be fun.

I can’t wait to see what they learn next!

Interaction Criticism

Here is an article that I meant to share with all of you sooner. It is a framework for critiquing interfaces, from Bertelsen & Pold. You may find it helpful as you work on your papers. From a philosophical standpoint, I have some issues with it. But from a practical standpoint, I’m really glad it’s available. If I had designers working for me, I would certainly encourage them to use this. 

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1028018

Abstract: In this paper we discuss the re-orientation of human-computer interaction as an aesthetic field. We argue that mainstream approaches lack of general openness and ability to assess experience aspects of interaction, but that this can indeed be remedied. We introduce the concept of interface criticism as a way to turn the conceptual re-orientation into handles for practical design, and we present and discuss an interface criticism guide.

Natural Selection in Design

Affinova.com is a company which has explicitly adopted an evolutionary approach to product design.  Essentially, products are broken down into genetic components which are then evolved by a group of participants.

The final paper ongoing..

When designer is describing user.

Keywords: Ambiguity, Interpretation, Editoriality(Plausible), Authentic design  
I am not sure if I am successful to finish this final paper, since I have still studied in my interesting areas: The interpretation of experience from narrative to storytelling or from storytelling to narrative: recursive system or not. This is my current problem domain. I realized the relationship between the narrative of user and storytelling in my individual research. More specifically, I am curious how designers can create narrative/storytelling of Inter-subjectivity/subjectivity for interaction design by interpreting the language of user’s experience rather than the issues of interaction quality. This is not only introducing today’s researches of the interpretation of experience in HCI area but delving into the methodologies to interpret user’s experience and context. I will explain my curiosity based on hermeneutics cycle and post-modernism. Both the theories are representative to deploy my ideas (however, I won’t limit my ideas to the two theories only). In order to resolve, I will use Eco’s point of view, Abduction, which means un-canonical in terms of Interpretation and over-interpretation. (This predicates the issues of interpretation between two competing and polarizing paradigms: on the one hand Post-structuralism, De-constructivism; on the other hand Hermeneutics) In addition, I found the analogy between interpretation and editoriality, mentioned in the book, editorial engineering by Mathoka Seiko(松岡正剛), a visiting professor of Tokyo university, in that both are not objective but subjective, making us witness unexpected creations abundant. As a result, I came to think that the editoriality pursues the certain kinds of plausibility, the possible design solution for user’s ambiguity, in meta-interpretation process depending on intention/ editing axis. This is also likely to be useful in pointing out the limitations existed in HCI that usability methods such as heuristic manner reveal that the final result might be more difficult to understand user’s experience. As mentioned before, in the case study, I will introduce how designers/developers try to interpret user’s ambiguous narrative and how they as storytellers apply it to creating design story based on literature study in HCI. In this paper, I hope that the meaning of design is more comprehensive rather than merely pursuing the end for a certain goal that in the relation between designer and user and its interpretation, designing is to approach for “discovery” or “development”. Finally, I want to ask for myself what the authentic design methodology for user research is again.    

This is my current thought for the final paper. Not yet elaborated. I guess there are a number of weak points. Please let me know if you guys have good ideas. Especially, I am still confused with what kinds of case studies might be good examples for this theme, and what kinds of issues to analyze the case studies might be effective to deploy my idea. I don’t just want to introduce the case studies in the part. I want to analyze them by using the criteria that I set. However, I have no idea about it. Hmmmm      

Does Facebook’s design change the way we take photos?

I did a structural and phenomenological analysis of Facebook’s people tagging feature.    Just today I was able to create a semi-coherent argument from the analysis.   I am curious what you all think of this:

My overall thesis for the paper is that the way that a social networking community (Facebook) is designed fundamentally changes the way that its members take photos.  Interaction designers should study and attempt to understand how social networking communities affect the way people act in the ‘real world’ and then design communities that encourage the users to act in desired, ethical ways.

Paradigm and Participatory Design

I have a bit of a rambling story to share with the Interaction Culture crew today!

As some of you know, I’m immersing myself in postmodern and poststructuralist theory. While google searching for some images describing postmodernism I came across the following comic.

Note: I know the comic is too big to fit in the page, so click on it for full viewing pleasure.

The dinosaurs sparked something in my brain from a story I read a few months back about the best online comics. Another google search revealed the Qwantz strip at http://qwantz.com/.

Qwantz is a comic that uses the exact same dinosaur graphics in the same order for every comic in the series. The dialogue changes with the release of each new comic. To me, these seem like pretty obvious examples of syntagm and paradigm.

I started to think, again, about the first dinosaur comic about postmodernism. You’ll notice that the Copyright section at the bottom of the comic is scribbled out because the author of Qwantz did not make the comic about postmodernism. Someone stole the Qwantz formula and “made a funny” out of it. [Extra Credit for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live action movie reference]

Now for the real leap. Someone appropriating the Qwantz formula reminded me of comicboarding from CHI 07. Comicboarding is a participatory design method for use with children in which a comic about some design situation is prepared with missing panels. The children are then asked to fill in the panels to complete the story. The researcher can then interpret the desire and intentions of the child through their completion of the story.

If you extend the notion of syntagm to the design process (yes, I know I’m breaking all sorts of rules), does paradigm then become a notion of choice with an area of constraint. In all participatory design, not just comicboarding, the designer is in ultimate control of the process and has designed some sequence of steps. Participatory design gives users a chance to enter that design sytagm and push for a paradigm of their choosing. Maybe.

Food for thought and an excuse to post a funny comic.

structuralism account in design methods

I think I would like more think about things in structuralism approach. And from this account, I thought, there is no totally new things or innovative things.  Hypothetically,  human have 100 English words in total to compose a sentence in order to describe  an object. Based on the permutation and combination, there are definitely limit sequences of how we compose the sentences. If all the writers,  movie editors use those limited sequences to describe the world,  this world will become boring and tired. And we know, all language has limited words.

However, everything is changed since the time is always flying and you can’t just ask the God to freeze it; anything is also changed.  For example, when I am planning  to write down an entry to put what I thought in mind into a paragraph,   I open computer, and began to type; During this process of writing, I translate my mind into languages. When I finished this entry, I read the entry again and I found it is a little bit different from what I thought in the beginning. Then I realized that all the things in this world are design because of different situated space, time, and context.  You use a different body position to read a paper in bed is a design, even your body have this exactly same position before this moment, like when you are in bathtub.

When we first see a cell phone has  function of mp3 replay,  as a combination of communicator and mp3 player device, it is design. 

By the way, I think as the first step of design new thing, observation, imitation and thinking  is all necessary.  Da Vinci began his artist career from drawing eggs again and again. Because his teacher told him that every egg has different shape depending on when and how you watch it.  Further more, what is the second step of how a amateur becomes a pro,  I think is not thinking, instead, is imitation or copy.  Any design is a small  valuable improvement based on existing thing in the world; and before that, you have to study how the design of  iPhone is so popular. Multi-touch is not invented by Apple, just Apple use it very well.

 And thinking is the third step.