website

 From 1995 starting from selling books online, Amazon has broaden its markets from just books to digital comsumption forty big categories almost cover all we need in daily life even gourmet food, paper towel.(From a-z). No matter what they sell on their website, I am not like the interface of Amazon website. But Amazon recently has remodeled its website to a new one.

They can change interface of website easily within 1 or 2 minutes,  but actually the product sthey are selling are still same as those before they changed their website.  As an E-commerce website who don’t produce and design product itself, it has to play a super good role of agent/breaker to connect supplier and customer. According to formal successful and unsuccessful experiences , it can predict and approach the most convenient shopping style (online) that majority of people would like to interact with.  They are on their way now.

I would like to analyze the new webiste and take advantage of what we have learned in class. Also I want to make a comparison with old framework of Amazon website…if I can find the old Amazon website pictures in my mind as more as possible..

Paper idea: make a better recommendation

For the final paper I would like to write something about the design of my team for the CHI student competition problem. It’s about helping the homeless people. We’re aiming at helping the 211 service specialist to make better recommendations on the social services to the homeless people, through a better designed computer recommendation application. (211 service is a nation-wide call-for-help service. People can call for help on: food, housing, transportation, financial assistance, etc. The specialist will recommend corresponding social service agencies to the clients.)

I am thinking of using structuralism approaches to analyze some existing recommendation systems (music recommendation, book recommendation, movie recommendation, etc), and maybe also some phenomenological concepts which can be applied here. Hopefully I can get some useful ideas about designing the recommendation system for the 211 service from this analysis.

My concern is, is it too broad to study recommendation systems in different areas? Would it be better to study only the existing book recommendation systems (or music,or movie)?

Paper Idea: Avatar Creation and Online Identity

There is a reasonable amount of existing work in the area of avatars and online identity. Many researchers have commented on why people style avatars like themselves (or not like), identified the avatar as an extension of the self, etc … However, I do not know if I’ve ever seen a formal structural analysis of an avatar creation system which was then tied back into some critical identity theory.

It should come as no surprise, then, that I am entertaining the idea of performing such an analysis and relating the results (somehow) back to identity theory/politics. I’m leaning towards a structural analysis of the World of Warcraft avatar system for the following reasons.

1. I am very familiar with World of Warcraft lore, players, interactions, etc. I’ll be able to focus my efforts on the analysis and creation system without spending lots of additional time just learning about the space.
2. The avatar creation system is fairly simple compared to other MMOGs. There’s definitely enough content for a full length paper but I might be able to avoid getting lost in the minutiae of avatar systems like those in Second Life.
3. I “get” phenomenology but feel like my understanding of structural theory/analysis needs more practical reinforcing.

What I worry about is confusing the “phenomenological” questions with the “structural” questions. I believe players choose certain avatars to represent identities they want to explore in the game, but that seems to deal with an individual’s intention which is more of a phenomenological inquiry. Structuralist inquiry would center more on how the structures/interactions/limitations/options/etc of the interface shape the avatar and identity choices available to the user?

Perhaps the paper needs a bit of both approaches to have some real explanatory power, but I definitely want to focus on structuralism. I think.

Thoughts?

Paper topic

For my final paper, I’m considering one topic: “How evolution of mobile phone affect to lifestyle”.

The basic function of mobile phone is originally a mean of communication as a phone call. However, as the function of mobile phone has been evolved to variety aspects, we are using the cell phone not only as a communicator but also as a camera, a music player, a scheduler and a game etc. Now, we regard mobile phone as the number one personal belonging when we go out. I’m sure that evolution of mobile phone affect to lifestyle and lifeworld. I’d like to look for more concrete phenomenon how people are affected by mobile phone, how it works to people and how people are changed by it.

And I also thought about computer imagination in terms of mobile phone. After taking Marty’s lecture about computer imagination, I began to wonder how mobile phone, which has some constraints by aspects of hardware and software, materialize the computer imagination. I’m not sure as yet whether the first topic is related to this aspect of computer imagination or not. I will do pre-writing soon to make sure my concept for concrete logic.

I appreciate if you give me any feedback!!

Paper Idea: Religion and the Net

Most world religion statistics point out that more than 50% of the world claim belief in either Christianity or Islam.

For over 2000 years, the interpretations of “Abrahamic religions” have greatly influenced historic events and cultures. The formation of the Council of Nicaea in the 4th century CE is an early example of debates in interpreting religious doctrine which influenced many future generations.

The historic interpretations of Abrahamic religions are so diverse that they have consistently been used as a reason for conflict or stereotyping. Groups of individual Abrahamic faiths are also recorded to have partaken in major conflicts against each other due to differing opinions and labeling. In early Muslim history, a conflict often cited as the First Fitna is one of the first examples of Muslim civil war. In European Christian history, the protestant reformation is a famous example of conflict undermining Papal power. Conflicts in interpretation continue today to the point that intolerance has been used as a basis for hatred. Today some people even associate the current conflict in Iraq as more of a religious war than a politically motivated one.

With the emergence of the internet, millions of religious websites have appeared online. As a result, has the internet contributed to a progress of religious tolerance? Are people changing ideologies due to globally accessible online resources? Using the models we’ve discussed pertaining to the progression of film theory and HCI, what are some of traits of effective technological tools in increasing collaborative research for religious scholarship?

Paper Idea - Web Surveys

For this project I was thinking of structurally and phonologically examining the common web survey.   I would look at 2 or 3 representative surveys, possibly ones made at Zoomerang or survey monkey.  It is already clear to me that online surveys have a very clear syntagm.  So what do you think of this idea?  Do you think it will work?

ps. I am choosing this bc. right now im exploring in my capstone the idea of a new paradigm for online surveys that are more aesthetic, reflective, and open.  Providing designers with more open-ended inspiration, and giving survey takers a more aesthetic, reflective experience.  Think of it is a mix between an aesthetic multimedia experience, reflective design project, cultural probe, and an online survey.  I am thinking by studying online surveys as they exist now, I can do a better job on my capstone.  Does this make sense?

Any suggestions?  Ideas?  Critiques?

Kayce’s Paper, Rough Idea

So for my final paper, I have decided to use the work I have been doing for my capstone project in politics, more specifically by looking at political blogs (still in the process of choosing one or two specific blogs to focus on which are representative of political blogs in general)… how do conversations unfold, how does the interface assist in the forming of conversations or hinder the progress of political discourse, as well as taking specific theories (structuralism, primarily) to assist in the development of an argument for redesigning political blog interfaces. I have a rough idea for a concept (working title, the “Sweet Spot”) which is a type of blogging environment meets game where individuals participating in political discourse work to move their conversations into a place of understanding or consensus. The inspiration comes from some general charactersitics of political blogs that I have noticed:

* either everyone participating has similiar or the exact same viewpoints

* or the conversations progress into flame wars and arguments because the people participating have very different viewpoints on the political issue being discussed

After meeting with Tyler and Aaron, I have a bit more direction for this paper… I will look at two political blogs and do a structuralism analysis of them.  Within this structuralism analysis, I will talk about Manovich’s 5 principles of new media and how they relate to blogging interfaces.  From there, I hope to do a comparison of the two structural analyses. Finally, through the structural analysis and comparison/critique of my two chosen blogs, I hope that I can generate design insights, possibly for my sweetspot concept.  I welcome any comments/critiques/concerns from any of you!

Paper idea: patterned mobile phone

This is one of the three mobile phones HTC just released. The company plans to have more patterned mobile phones become available in the market in the near future.

I have not seen mobile phone like this in America. In Asia, where lots of people are crazy about knowing and buying mobiles that just enter the market, mobile companies keep updating the design of mobile phones. I notice that there are more companies who focus on not only the various function, but also the appearance of the phone recently. In this year, Motorola held a mobile patterning competition in Taiwan, in order to inspire creative ideas for mobile design. This is work of the first prize.

I would like to analyze if the phenomenon contributes to the sustainable use of mobile phone by applying some concepts we learn in class. Do these products tell us who are the targeting user groups? Are these products a kid of experience design? What experience they would like to communicate? Is the experience durable? I am trying to figure out several specific concepts I would like to use to analyze patterned mobile phone. I will do some prewritting to clarify it. Is the topic ambiguous? I have no idea if it is narrowed down and could be further developed. And is “patterned” the right word to describe these mobiles? (forgive my poor English.:P)

Portfolio site interpretation –final paper idea

I know my portfolio site is so terrible, but I just get a headache when I think about to make a new one, because that two words–portforlio site means maybe more than ten hour work! But finally,  I could not tolerate anymore!  I felt shame when I look at it and call myself a designer. Yesterday, I finally decided to make some change on it. When I looked around on others’ portfolio site, and lots of free templates, I got an idea about my final paper.

The idea is I’d like to analysis some portfolio sites by using structuralism and phenomenology theories from designer’s perspective.

Just like Lacy’s paper, I want to analysis portfolio sites by discussing the relationship between style, color with the professional field the owner in. And also how and why sounds becomes popular in a website. Is there different visual angles (virtual camera?) ? Or let’s say, where is the focus suppose to be? How big our screen the designers think we are using? Do you have some other ideas about this?—PLEASE tell me!

How do you think this idea? I have no idea about what kind of conclusion will I get, but is it necessary? Could I just analysis they way portfolio sites were created, the strategies and theories people are using to create portfolio sites and get a brief conclusion? Should I really come out a guild line of how to create portfolio site at the end?

paper topic ideas

 Manovich says “If there is a new rhetoric or aesthetic possibile here, it may have less to do with the ordering of time by a writer or an orator, and more with spatial wandering. The hypertex reader is like Robinson Crusoe, walking across the sand, picking up a navigation journal, a rotten fruit, an instrument whose purpose he does not know; leaving imprints that, like computer hyperlinks, follow from one object to another.”

The web is made up of content pieced together. We create meaning out of it by moving through and between sites and synthesizing content. Hyperlinks and search are our main tools for this spatial meandering.  One idea I was considering for a paper topic would be to explore the use of interfaces such as webrowsers, blogging software and social bookmarking sites and how they related to how we navigate and author hypermedia.  I would  use structuralist analysis of the interfaces and the content produced by them (e.g. sequences and groups of tabs in firefox, the sequence and forms of hyperlinks within a blog entry, the tag names and groups formed on flickr and delicious) to understand how these interfaces constrain and encourage “spatial wandering.”  I’d also draw “actionable design insights” that suggest how we could improve the design of such interfaces.

[more thoughts]

Tabbed browsing is an improvement over window browsing in that it seems to recognize the reading of interactive hypermedia as a form of non-linear meandering rather than the following of a strict linear narrative. A typical blog entry will link to multiple sites for various reasons. Tabbed browsing allows you to, for instance, more easily open all the links and proceed to look at them in any order.

Websites are still separated by tabs and it’s typically possible to only view one tab at a time.  Is this appropriate for how we browse the web? Could web tools allow you to merge content from sites?  Allow you to more easily group and order webcontent?  Visualize and record the paths you take as you meander? Help you backtrack and reorder the sequences of steps?

Tagging and social bookmarking is another set of tools that allows us to create and describe meaning from webcontent. Tagging allows us to group webpages together in multiple locations.  However, tagging doesn’t allow you to easily describe a path or sequence of meaningfully related webpages, e.g. a sequence of youtube videos.  And recalling websites based simply on textual descriptions and tags can be difficult.  What other types of links could be constructed to  help signify meaningful relations constructed with or among webcontent? Visual tags? Historical links of browsing history?

Manovich also briefly discusses the possibility “…to invent a new rhetoric of hypermedia that will use hyperlinking not to distract the reader from the argument (as is often the case today), but rather to further convince her of an argument’s validity…” So maybe spatial meandering isn’t the only way to read hypermedia…What would a new rhetoric of hypermedia? In what sense does it already exists?  (makes me think of persuasive games)