Class Notes for Tu, 25 Mar 2008

All,

I’ve posted notes from today’s lecture. You can find the notes using either of the two links below:

• Freemind Format (open in Freemind)
• XHTML Format

Regards,

-Bob
rmolnar[at]indiana[dot]edu

IA and Prototyping Links

All,

Here are a few of the resources that I mentioned in today’s class …

Boxes and Arrows, a journal “devoted to the practice, innovation, and discussion of design”:
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/

“Pencils Before Pixels: A primer in hand-generated sketching” - a great article from the current issues of Interactions:
http://interactions.acm.org/content/?p=1081
(You’ll need to view after logging in to the IUB VPN or using your Interactions subscription id)

Another great resource is the book The Elements of User Experience, by Jesse James Garrett. It’s a little old and web-centric, but it’s great for the basics of IA:
http://tinyurl.com/38dzu7

I’d be interested to learn of other resources that you might have. Please contribute …

Regards,

Bob

Lecture Live Blog 03.06.08

Humans become accessories to the machine

Four problems with rationalism in HCI

1. idealizes computing, not seen in use
2. users become accessories t othe machine
   1. (nbearers of mental models, informaiton processing devices)
3. Computers in use is what we care about, rather than computers in the abstract. Rationalist approaches are not always good at getting at this.
4. If a computer system is universal and abstract, it is something. But what about emergent use (e.g. appropriation of technology for new uses).

Ontology–the theory of what is

Winograd & Flores’ book Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design bring up the notion of ontological design–that is, recognizing that we design technology and technology designs us.

Technology designs (and how they affect us) are always moving targets and, interpretation and criticism are necessary to shed light on these effects.

Ethnography is thick description often interpretive of social discourse (discourse meaning a collection of expressions (in Dilthey’s sense)). Writing ethnography is a process of writing people’s sense-making processes in ways that other (from outside the group) can understand. The notion of thick description largely comes from Clifford Geertz’s classic book Interpretation of Cultures.

Key features to take away from McCarthy & Wright, ch. 2

Unconcealment–deliberately try to expose things that are hidden, reveal hidden assumptions (e.g. design is often driven by management, which has political implications)

Imagining Futures (and the notion of bliss)–interaction design has serious implications and transforms society. computing needs to start bringing us true happiness (e.g. if we’re computers all day now, they must go beyond just being usable)

Political Considerations–social justice, sustainability

Emphasis on local meaning (rather than objective truth)–what does this mean for the intersubjective group that I’m studying?

Desire to find what will enlighten people, rather than solve a particular business problem–what would make me a more skilled professional

Concern over longterm sociocultural effects

Post your questions for the final project on the blog!
Jeff quote for today: “Watch your head–dongles everywhere!”

mix tapes vs. digital playlists (mediation, meaningful objects and sign values)

Last week, I conducted some user studies to learn about music libraries. One of the participants commented on how cool mix tapes were yet how rarely he creates playlists in iTunes.

I started to wonder about the differences between old and new music media formats. In particular, I was interested in the differences between mix tapes (cassette tapes created by the user from other cassettes or CDs) and digital music playlists (lists of current or saved songs in digital music players like iTunes or Windows media player). I found various theoretical concepts helpful in thinking more precisely about these differences and how we might improve the design of digital music technologies.

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:

A speculation on personas & scenarios

In the wake of our discussion on Representation and Speculation approaches in HCI, I thought I would write a short post to pose a question. Granted that these categories aren’t exclusive, where do techniques such as personas and scenarios lie on this continuum? Personas are a common technique used in user-centered design and indeed do “speculate” on how certain groups or members of particular demographics go about their daily lives (or work contexts). Ultimately, the aim of personas is to help designers empathize with their target group and create a design that appropriately fits in their lives. While personas have a speculative quality, they are staunchly grounded in representation. User research (or sometimes just market research) techniques are used to synthesize accounts of human experience into one (or a small set) of primary and secondary “users” that objectively represent wide–and oftentimes diverse–populations of people. That’s not to say this approach is bad, rather this example simply illustrates it’s rationalist underpinnings.

So where do scenarios lie? The puzzle becomes more complicated for me. Similar to personas, scenario task descriptions emerged early in the development of user-centered design. Essentially, a scenario describes human activities or tasks in a story that creates a space for exploration of contexts, needs, and requirements. Scenarios are intended to capture personalized user perspectives relating to their activities, potentially leading to the development of new requirements.

During task scenario sessions, users reflect on hypothetical circumstances to generate the best assumption of how they might react in the given situation. These reflective descriptions are then synthesized into objectively reproducible design constraints. In contrast, approaches such as experience prototyping directly engage users in simulations, stimulating the physical and sensorial (as well as intellectual) nature of interacting with an artifact, system, or environment. Via simulation, experience prototyping engages participants directly in their own meaning making processes and designers aim to interpret these rich understandings (based on their own designerly ways of knowing) and incorporate them within specific design situations. It’s debatable exactly where experience prototyping lies on the continuum (I vote mostly speculation), however, in light of this example, scenarios fall strongly within representation. …but do they always?

Along with the growing movement toward human-centered design, new techniques and perspectives are being proposed to take into account the broader effects and unintended consequences design may produce on the world’s environments and inhabitants. Specifically, value-scenarios have been proposed as a method to support critical, systemic thinking throughout the design process about the ramifications of  introducing new technological designs into the world. In this case, value-scenarios represent a speculative extension of an approach rooted in representation (i.e. scenario-based design). I think this example is interesting in that it illustrates the boundaries between categories we construct can be quite fluid and mutually inform each other. That’s not to say these categories aren’t good or useful, but rather critical examination of particular practices could lead to future productive synergies.

Design: Nemesis

Most of people say that there is merely no dichotomy theory to divide an idea, or identification or explanation to explain about a certain phenomenon in an obvious way since there are the numerous things that we cannot explain. I am so tedious with this opinion since I was also telling to LB, and Sean also said to me it as if that is the life.. How is irresponsible! (Sean sorry, it’s just for me, not you!, and sorry to LB

I am just thinking that as if we, human beings don’t try to own any other purpose of life but instinctive goals, this kind of behavior seems like we might give up to take up the responsibility to think, question, and then answer to our own questions to exist here . I might not open to door of thinking space.  

If we don’t refuse to take up the responsibility… even though we already know we have not stopped to find the coherence meanings in hermeneutic cycle and the fundamental characteristic of the world has focused on phenomenological issue, that is, we already used to be, are trapped and will be trapped in our own thinking forever, why we cannot to stop analyze and categorize our own language into a sort of structures, creating new breakdowns or subjective interpretations on the other hand. (Anyway we know the both sides of a coin.)  
      

As a designer who tries to be authentic and flexible, I am also asking to myself. If the thing, we call knowledge, can be coined in a certain consensual domain, design knowledge should be there against the notion of innovation or creativity? (I have no idea if the notion would be called deconstruction or postmodernism or not. Whatever..)   

If putting designer’s own meaning (interpretation) into the center of design consideration will give designer a unique focus that other disciplines do not address, how can they deal with which individual users understand their artifacts and interact with them in their own terms and for their own reason? How do they know the boundary of interpretation in terms of meanings of user in use? Finally, how do designers argue the design knowledge in order to create the consensual area?      

Thus, is it the conclusion by me that design is not subjective or not objective? Hmmm..

I am not confident. I can’t trust myself. Can I be a designer? Do I really think that I am a designer?     

I have no idea why I am unsettled yet. The more I have gathered the evidences to argue my idea, the more my assumption has been agitated. Maybe.. I am worry to collect them since my limitation of design knowledge and ability as a designer would reveals… Maybe.. I would already think I am not good at getting the authorship of meanings of users aroused through their internal and external world.   For me, Designing is like Nemesis that I could not get out of its trap forever. I have no idea why I want to be in the trap, why I want to challenge to it. I could not trust if there is design axiom that could resolve my confusion. Where can I find it?       

If I am avoiding from the nemesis, do I have to be an irresponsible designer who gives up being human? Unreasonable thinking of mine!! :)   

Hey! Sean! I don’t get my answer to my humble question yet. Yes, I am just finding my answer as you said to me. However, I have no idea if I can get it finally or not. In HCI filed, I have to think what the design is again. I will learn it from my smart colleagues and thoughtful professors again and will apply the new realizations to existing design knowledge of mine. I guess this is also my duty as a human being who tells what design is and transfers design knowledge to other disciplines. I just try to do it. I just love the design.

Experience Design = Driving Force in Modern Day Economics or the Next Frontier?

A recent entry on the logic+emotion blog discusses David Lee King’s forthcoming book on digital experience design. In this book preview three main components of experience design for digital media (particularly websites) arise, namely:

Wearable Computing: Automation and Fashion in Second Life

Holy transcoding, Lev! One of the interesting recent developments in Second Life fashion is the increasing extent to which programming and automation are a part of virtual dress-up. An interesting example of this is a line of clothing from one of Second Life’s greatest and oldest design houses: PixelDolls. What initially caught my attention was the following ad:

As I research Second Life fashion, one feature I’m always on the watch for is the language or even cultural logic of technology showing up in unexpected ways, and this sign really grabbed my attention. In plain English, it says that the skirt comes with an HUD (heads-up-display) that enables the user to change the color and fabric of her clothing while she is wearing it. According to the Universal Font of All Knowledge, an HUD is an interface or data display that doesn’t obstruct a user’s view; HUDs were originally developed for military aircraft and later became a common metaphor for first-person shooter video games. Here’s how it works:

1.10.2008 Lecture Liveblog

Don’t just be a passive receptor.  In order to engage, interpret, and generally get the knowledge from these readings you should consider:

Doing the readings.

• If you can’t do the readings. Do a half-ass job at the readings.
• When you read alone, you make connections to what you’re doing in your own life (e.g. research projects or just everyday phenomena encountered in daily life)

Write about the readings and on the readings.

• By logging notes on your readings, you create your own personal interface to navigating the readings itself.

Write informally about the readings.

• The sheer process of articulating your thoughts through writing will tremdously help you in (i) understanding the concepts in reading and (ii) developing your perspective on the issues.
• Start Blogs!! Your own blog, a group blog, the interaction culture blog, or a secret blog.
• Also, send e-mails to Jeff or me or other classmates.
• Take notes in class.

Participation could be more difficult with such a big class.

• When you’re doing the readings write down a single question (at least) AND bring that question to class.
• Remember: not everything you say in this class has to be high quality discourse. While we’re in the ::ehem:: esteemed presence of Dr. Jeffery Bardzell’s presence, we’re not in the old, dusty halls of Cambridge.

Try to be inclusive of everyone in the room.

• The heterogeneous mix of national and international students presents a melting pot of valuable perspectives. Engage your fellow students—even the ones you don’t know—, they might challenge you to think in different ways.
• For instance, my shoe collection is far superior to Jeff’s, however I still take into consideration his thoughts (most of the time).

3 Wave of HCI  (Bodker Reading)

This paper offer a comparable perspective on the three paradigms of HCI.

1^st Wave (1970s-1980s)

• Rigid guidelines & testing
• Human factors, ergonomics
• Fairly machine-centric view of “the user”
• Unity of everything on the desktop
• Emphasis on Cognitive, Experimental Psychology
• Weakness (according to Bodker): too narrow

2^nd Wave (1990s)

• Context (defined boundaries)
• Workspace (in the expanded sense)
• Distributed Cognition
• Continued focus on producing objectively reproducible results
• While still an emphasis on  user-centered design, but a shift in rhetoric began to occur userà human
• Ethnomethodology, Situated Action , Activity Theory
• Design-as-Science
• Weakness: too focused on work & rationality

3^rd Wave (2000s)

• Context (loosely defined boundaries)
• Leisure
• Home
•  Emotion
• Felt experience
• Multiple Mediators (systems, interfaces, devices)
• Take it or leave it—more interpretive, less scientifically objective approach
• Now designing for LifeWorld—totality of your own personal, subjective life
  • The richest, most nuanced notion of what it means to be a human being that HCI has ever has attempted to deal with
• Design-as-art , Phenomenology, Cultural Studies, Ethnography
• Emphasis on non-goal oriented activity
• Weakness: too artsy-fartsy 

 Big message: can’t leave behind the 2^nd wave for the 3^rd wave.