Title:
Chapter 3: How Simple Things Can Complicate Our Mind
Chapter 4: Social Signifiers
Reference:
Summary:
Chapter 3: How Simple Things Can Complicate Our Mind
Chapter three talks about the complexity of simple things. It seems that some things are so simple such as inserting a key into a whole and turning, but the differences between all the different types of keys and keyholes presents a problem. The same thing goes with computer passwords. The answer to this, says Norman, is to put the problem on the environment. If we put constraints on things based upon the environment around them we make it easy (and less stressful for our minds to remember) to figure out the way in which to use something. He calls things that make us use something a certain way forcing functions.
Chapter 4: Social Signifiers
Social Signifiers is about just that. Norman talks about the way in which clues from either the outside world or clues or cues from other people influence our thought process. If there are people waiting at a bus stop, that affords that the bus has not yet come, but if there aren't people at the bus stop we wonder if the bus is running at all. Affordances are perceived uses of a tool. All these are important in design in order for things to be used correctly and so that people are aided in their use of things.
Discussion:
This is exactly what he has talked about in previous books. I agree with him that it is a valid point, yet still don't understand why we are reading every book that this guy has authored. The password issue is a tough one, and there really seems to be no good solution to it. It is interesting - things like OpenID and such - that only require one password for a host of different applications. I am not sure on the security mechanisms that are backing that, but it is interesting to think about.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Paper Reading #25: Tagsplanations: explaining recommendations using tags
Title:
Tagsplanations: explaining recommendations using tags
Comments:
Cindy Skach
Michael Atkinson
Reference:
Vig, J., Sen, S., and Riedl, J. Tagsplanations: explaining recommendations using tags. IUI '09. http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1510000/1502661/p47-vig.pdf?key1=1502661&key2=6271472031&coll=DL&dl=ACM&ip=165.91.4.169&CFID=16209705&CFTOKEN=47524431
Summary:
Tagsplanations is a design implemented on a movie recommender website that not only made recommendations to users but explained why the recommendation was made. This is the novel point about this design. It is split into both relevance of an item and preference of an item. For instance, if an item is similar in feature, the relevance would be high, but if the user preferred a certain type of item or brand, the preference would be high.
An experiment was conducted in order to see how users responded to the different types of recommendations. The conclusions were that tag preference was more important than tag relevance. Concerning effectiveness, the two were about the same. For mood compatibility, relevance was rated higher.
Discussion:The thought of telling people why an item was put on the "items you may enjoy" list in my opinion would be a very beneficial idea. For books on Amazon I can usually understand why they place the items there because most of the books are about computer science. However when it comes to other items sometimes I am oblivious to the reason they appear on my recommendations. Thus, this design I see as benefiting users. The paper was well organized and it was easy to track what they did and how they did it due to the nice section headings.
Future work could include testing this design in more than one domain. Since they only tested it on a movie recommendation website, they could try a site that sells accessories.
Tagsplanations: explaining recommendations using tags
Comments:
Cindy Skach
Michael Atkinson
Reference:
Vig, J., Sen, S., and Riedl, J. Tagsplanations: explaining recommendations using tags. IUI '09. http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1510000/1502661/p47-vig.pdf?key1=1502661&key2=6271472031&coll=DL&dl=ACM&ip=165.91.4.169&CFID=16209705&CFTOKEN=47524431
Summary:
Tagsplanations is a design implemented on a movie recommender website that not only made recommendations to users but explained why the recommendation was made. This is the novel point about this design. It is split into both relevance of an item and preference of an item. For instance, if an item is similar in feature, the relevance would be high, but if the user preferred a certain type of item or brand, the preference would be high.An experiment was conducted in order to see how users responded to the different types of recommendations. The conclusions were that tag preference was more important than tag relevance. Concerning effectiveness, the two were about the same. For mood compatibility, relevance was rated higher.
Discussion:The thought of telling people why an item was put on the "items you may enjoy" list in my opinion would be a very beneficial idea. For books on Amazon I can usually understand why they place the items there because most of the books are about computer science. However when it comes to other items sometimes I am oblivious to the reason they appear on my recommendations. Thus, this design I see as benefiting users. The paper was well organized and it was easy to track what they did and how they did it due to the nice section headings.
Future work could include testing this design in more than one domain. Since they only tested it on a movie recommendation website, they could try a site that sells accessories.
Living With Complexity
Title:
Living With Complexity - Full Blog
Reference:
Norman, Donald. Living with Complexity. MIT Press. Cambridge, Mass, 2011.
Summary:
Living with Complexity touched on topics discussed in the Design of Everyday Things. What was present in the first four chapters were the ideas of why things are complex, why things are simple, some simple things aren't so simple, and social cues that aid us in understanding how to do something.
Norman makes a distinction between complex things and complicated. Complex is in the design of the object or environment and complicated is an idea we attribute to something we do not understand. With this in mind, simplicity is both a design issue and a perspective issue. Something can look simple but actually be complicated. Less does not always entail simplicity. In order for things to be truly simple in our mind, we need to, in effect, become experts in that area or with a specific object. In order to try and do this we often sketch in our minds a simpler version of the actual device.
Other things that can aid us in the recognition of how to use an object are putting the description back into the environment. This can be done through signs, post-it notes, and other visual reminders that show us the use of a function. Forcing functions, or making an objects use explicit by its perception is another way to make it more functional and usable. People also learn from other people how to use things - through social cues. This is almost like a forcing function as long as the tide of social cues is constant and people continue to benefit from these cues.
Discussion:
This book was the same old Donald Norman. Very dry and easy to skim. I feel like he writes his books just like papers. This is good for gathering information in a rote sort of way, but not a very good read. Nonetheless, the information is interesting and important. The thing I appreciated the most about this book was the social cues aspect of it. I have thought at a fairly low level about social cues, but this shed light into a much broader context to which this idea could be applied.
Living With Complexity - Full Blog
Reference:
Norman, Donald. Living with Complexity. MIT Press. Cambridge, Mass, 2011.
Summary:
Living with Complexity touched on topics discussed in the Design of Everyday Things. What was present in the first four chapters were the ideas of why things are complex, why things are simple, some simple things aren't so simple, and social cues that aid us in understanding how to do something.
Norman makes a distinction between complex things and complicated. Complex is in the design of the object or environment and complicated is an idea we attribute to something we do not understand. With this in mind, simplicity is both a design issue and a perspective issue. Something can look simple but actually be complicated. Less does not always entail simplicity. In order for things to be truly simple in our mind, we need to, in effect, become experts in that area or with a specific object. In order to try and do this we often sketch in our minds a simpler version of the actual device.
Other things that can aid us in the recognition of how to use an object are putting the description back into the environment. This can be done through signs, post-it notes, and other visual reminders that show us the use of a function. Forcing functions, or making an objects use explicit by its perception is another way to make it more functional and usable. People also learn from other people how to use things - through social cues. This is almost like a forcing function as long as the tide of social cues is constant and people continue to benefit from these cues.
Discussion:
This book was the same old Donald Norman. Very dry and easy to skim. I feel like he writes his books just like papers. This is good for gathering information in a rote sort of way, but not a very good read. Nonetheless, the information is interesting and important. The thing I appreciated the most about this book was the social cues aspect of it. I have thought at a fairly low level about social cues, but this shed light into a much broader context to which this idea could be applied.
Book Reading #51 - Living With Complexity
Title:
Chapter 1: Why Is Complexity Necessary?
Chapter 2: Simplicity is in the Mind
Reference:
Summary:
Chapter 1: Why Is Complexity Necessary?
Life is complex. Norman distinguishes between complex and complicated. Complexity is how the world shapes things and complicated is how our mind shapes things. Complexity is also seen as involving the design of a system as well as our innate skill in recognizing how to use it.
In order to reduce complexity and complication we seek to simplify. We do this by organization and familiarity. Nature and coffee makers can be complex. Food, farming, language, and music can be complicated but all have evolved over time so that one can put the blame on the world.
Chapter 2: Simplicity is in the Mind
Chapter 2 dealt with conceptual models. We often simplify things in our own minds in order to bridge the gap between complicated structures and the way we envision them. They help us organize our thoughts about something. The book states again that complexity is a matter of the environment and the simplicity is within us. If we understand something to the extent that we have mastered it, it seems simple to us because we have the experience.
Just because something seems simple doesn't mean it is. Reduction of buttons does not always lend itself to simplicity. Different cultures also have different notions of how a device should look - simple or complex - and that adds to how one should design these products too.
Discussion:
I was very disappointed to find out we were reading another Donald Norman book. He is often beating a dead horse with his continual citation of different examples. I am unsure where he is trying to go with this book because I know that I live in complexity. That is very easy to see. What is this book trying to say to me?
This seems like the fourth or fifth time we have talked about simplicity, conceptual models, and the like. It is getting very redundant. I think Norman would have been better off reducing the number of examples per book and then putting all of them together into one book.
Chapter 1: Why Is Complexity Necessary?
Chapter 2: Simplicity is in the Mind
Reference:
Summary:
Chapter 1: Why Is Complexity Necessary?
Life is complex. Norman distinguishes between complex and complicated. Complexity is how the world shapes things and complicated is how our mind shapes things. Complexity is also seen as involving the design of a system as well as our innate skill in recognizing how to use it.
In order to reduce complexity and complication we seek to simplify. We do this by organization and familiarity. Nature and coffee makers can be complex. Food, farming, language, and music can be complicated but all have evolved over time so that one can put the blame on the world.
Chapter 2: Simplicity is in the Mind
Chapter 2 dealt with conceptual models. We often simplify things in our own minds in order to bridge the gap between complicated structures and the way we envision them. They help us organize our thoughts about something. The book states again that complexity is a matter of the environment and the simplicity is within us. If we understand something to the extent that we have mastered it, it seems simple to us because we have the experience.
Just because something seems simple doesn't mean it is. Reduction of buttons does not always lend itself to simplicity. Different cultures also have different notions of how a device should look - simple or complex - and that adds to how one should design these products too.
Discussion:
I was very disappointed to find out we were reading another Donald Norman book. He is often beating a dead horse with his continual citation of different examples. I am unsure where he is trying to go with this book because I know that I live in complexity. That is very easy to see. What is this book trying to say to me?
This seems like the fourth or fifth time we have talked about simplicity, conceptual models, and the like. It is getting very redundant. I think Norman would have been better off reducing the number of examples per book and then putting all of them together into one book.
Why We Make Mistakes
Title:
Why We Make Mistakes - Full Blog
Reference:
Hallinan, Joseph. Why We Make Mistakes. Random House, Inc.c New York. 2009
Summary:
Why we make mistakes discusses reasons that people make mistakes along with how mistakes are made. Most of the mistakes that people make are on the subconscious level and, thus, on the one hand have no control over. We often get use to doing things a certain way and due to our personal bias we take something to mean another - that which it is not suppose to. In order to make things simpler we often classify or stereotype things so that we do not forget the minute details we so often miss. In simplifying things, we also cut out the seemingly unnecessary details which may lead to errors.
Our memories are not very good at all, but it has been found that our spacial memory is much better than our rote memory; we can easily recognize a face but not so much a name. This can also happen because we are in the wrong frame of mind. It is easier for us to recognize something in its original context than an unfamiliar one. Mnemonic devices aid in our memory of things because it is important to make associations within our brain of connections between related items in order to remember them. This adds meaning to the memory.
We look at the good things we like and appreciate in good scenarios but discredit things we dislike. This shows more bias on our part, but also shows how hard it is for us to overcome something we are use to doing - we do not pay attention to the details.
Just as a computer cannot multitask, we cannot multitask. We can only simulate it. This is done when one of the activities can be pushed into the subconscious. We also skim material to look for patterns rather than go through all and look at the details.
We like to do things on our own rather than follow directions. Men are worse about this than women. We think more of ourselves than we ought; we are very overconfident. We also see situations more favorable than the one we are in. We feel we can do it all.
In conclusion, we should think realistically, plan ahead, get good sleep, don't make money our god, and learn to love the things in our particular environment.
Discussion:
This book first of all was very refreshing coming off of three Donald Norman books. This was the best book that we read. It gave great insight into ways we make mistakes in order that we can think about them more and hopefully change our ways. The most important part of the book for me was in the conclusion. For one, it was one of the best conclusions I have ever read because it summarized and gave the take-home points the book was trying to convey. Also I like the idea of finding the things we like in the environment we are in. So often I find myself being dissatisfied with where I am and yearning for more. While that is not always a bad thing, if I cannot cherish the good things about the circumstance that I am in I feel like it would be easy for me to become burnt out and lose my purpose.
Why We Make Mistakes - Full Blog
Reference:
Hallinan, Joseph. Why We Make Mistakes. Random House, Inc.c New York. 2009
Summary:
Why we make mistakes discusses reasons that people make mistakes along with how mistakes are made. Most of the mistakes that people make are on the subconscious level and, thus, on the one hand have no control over. We often get use to doing things a certain way and due to our personal bias we take something to mean another - that which it is not suppose to. In order to make things simpler we often classify or stereotype things so that we do not forget the minute details we so often miss. In simplifying things, we also cut out the seemingly unnecessary details which may lead to errors.
Our memories are not very good at all, but it has been found that our spacial memory is much better than our rote memory; we can easily recognize a face but not so much a name. This can also happen because we are in the wrong frame of mind. It is easier for us to recognize something in its original context than an unfamiliar one. Mnemonic devices aid in our memory of things because it is important to make associations within our brain of connections between related items in order to remember them. This adds meaning to the memory.
We look at the good things we like and appreciate in good scenarios but discredit things we dislike. This shows more bias on our part, but also shows how hard it is for us to overcome something we are use to doing - we do not pay attention to the details.
Just as a computer cannot multitask, we cannot multitask. We can only simulate it. This is done when one of the activities can be pushed into the subconscious. We also skim material to look for patterns rather than go through all and look at the details.
We like to do things on our own rather than follow directions. Men are worse about this than women. We think more of ourselves than we ought; we are very overconfident. We also see situations more favorable than the one we are in. We feel we can do it all.
In conclusion, we should think realistically, plan ahead, get good sleep, don't make money our god, and learn to love the things in our particular environment.
This book first of all was very refreshing coming off of three Donald Norman books. This was the best book that we read. It gave great insight into ways we make mistakes in order that we can think about them more and hopefully change our ways. The most important part of the book for me was in the conclusion. For one, it was one of the best conclusions I have ever read because it summarized and gave the take-home points the book was trying to convey. Also I like the idea of finding the things we like in the environment we are in. So often I find myself being dissatisfied with where I am and yearning for more. While that is not always a bad thing, if I cannot cherish the good things about the circumstance that I am in I feel like it would be easy for me to become burnt out and lose my purpose.
Paper Reading #24: Have a say over what you see: evaluating interactive compression techniques
Title:
Have a say over what you see: evaluating interactive compression techniques
Comments:
Cindy Skach
Luke Roberts
Reference:
Tucker, S. and Whittaker, S. Have a say over what you see: evaluating interactive compression techniques. IUI '09. http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1510000/1502659/p37-tucker.pdf?key1=1502659&key2=1951472031&coll=DL&dl=ACM&ip=165.91.4.169&CFID=16209705&CFTOKEN=47524431
Summary:
This paper goes over the idea of interactive compression (IC). This is the process seen in Figure 1 of reducing the amount of content. This is able to be done at different levels of compression which is different than most summary software, hence one can choose the level of compression wanted. IC controls the amount of information a user sees. It is split into two types in this paper: Excision - removing unimportant words or transcripts from a sentence and highlighting - keeping all the text there but highlighting important words.
The researches did an exploratory survey in order to test the design principles in which they were interested. The survey basically featured ways in which people skim a document and asked whether each way was helpful. The results showed that users had a preference for word over utterance techniques for IC and that highlighting was also liked.
The second study tested these findings in an implementation backed by the control of a regular full document. It was found that the IC techniques made users skip over more important information more easily, but also allowed them to view documents faster. Users also preferred IC to unmodified text. Excision allowed faster reading than highlighting, but highlighting allowed the user to skip over less information.
Discussion:
This paper was interesting. I am definitely a skimmer, and I think if I had this software to skim the papers that we are reading I would be in good shape and would appreciate it so much! Where is my copy? But I like that they did two surveys and based their implementation on an initial survey rather than just going out and thinking of a design themselves.
Future work could be to the effect of summarizing. They were railing on summaries, however if they claim their way is so much better, they must have some insight in to why summaries are weak and revise it.
Have a say over what you see: evaluating interactive compression techniques
Comments:
Cindy Skach
Luke Roberts
Reference:
Tucker, S. and Whittaker, S. Have a say over what you see: evaluating interactive compression techniques. IUI '09. http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1510000/1502659/p37-tucker.pdf?key1=1502659&key2=1951472031&coll=DL&dl=ACM&ip=165.91.4.169&CFID=16209705&CFTOKEN=47524431
Summary:
This paper goes over the idea of interactive compression (IC). This is the process seen in Figure 1 of reducing the amount of content. This is able to be done at different levels of compression which is different than most summary software, hence one can choose the level of compression wanted. IC controls the amount of information a user sees. It is split into two types in this paper: Excision - removing unimportant words or transcripts from a sentence and highlighting - keeping all the text there but highlighting important words. The researches did an exploratory survey in order to test the design principles in which they were interested. The survey basically featured ways in which people skim a document and asked whether each way was helpful. The results showed that users had a preference for word over utterance techniques for IC and that highlighting was also liked.
The second study tested these findings in an implementation backed by the control of a regular full document. It was found that the IC techniques made users skip over more important information more easily, but also allowed them to view documents faster. Users also preferred IC to unmodified text. Excision allowed faster reading than highlighting, but highlighting allowed the user to skip over less information.
Discussion:
This paper was interesting. I am definitely a skimmer, and I think if I had this software to skim the papers that we are reading I would be in good shape and would appreciate it so much! Where is my copy? But I like that they did two surveys and based their implementation on an initial survey rather than just going out and thinking of a design themselves.
Future work could be to the effect of summarizing. They were railing on summaries, however if they claim their way is so much better, they must have some insight in to why summaries are weak and revise it.
Book Reading #50 - Why We Make Mistakes
Title:
Chapter 12: We’ Don’t Constrain Ourselves
Chapter 13: The Grass Does Look Greener
Conclusion:
Reference:
Hallinan, Joseph. Why We Make Mistakes. Random House, Inc.c New York. 2009
Summary:
Chapter 12: We’ Don’t Constrain Ourselves
This chapter discussed affordances and constraints. It spoke of how medicine is sometimes difficult to distinguish because things look the same and are named similar things.
It was shown that the navy and more generally pilots have a low rate of error in the tasks they go about in the navy. Medical people compared with the navy has a much higher rate of error. The root causes of these errors must be looked at rather than just the last person to cause the error. Also, with pilots, communication when a problem is seen and encouraged while in medical situations nurses more often keep quiet if they see something they do not agree with.
Chapter 13: The Grass Does Look Greener
This chapter shows how we always view things better in other places, but usually the content of life is the same. It gives the example of California versus Oregon or something like that and finds that the level of contentment is pretty much the same, though both places viewed California as the ideal better place to live.
We feel that in the future we will want something that is more beneficial to us than we actualize. It is the same kind of thing as the idea of choosing food now (candy) or later (healthy). Gift cards are a bad idea because we mispredict.
"Hope impedes adaptation" is the idea that people are more content when they are stuck in a situation than if they were to have options.
When making decisions, we often focus on the wrong things.
Conclusion:
The conclusion sums up the whole book. It pretty much touches on each focus of each chapter. It says to think negatively, think realistically, and plan ahead. We should get sleep and be happy. Money does not affect happiness. Learn to love the things about the specific environment you are in.
Discussion:
While chapter 12 did not discuss anything new to me, the idea of communication between ranks when a problem is seen was important to me. This crosses over to every platform of society. As religion is what interests me the most, it is natural for me to default my thoughts to this topic. Hence, I see it necessary for lay people to communicate to those in staff positions and leadership positions when a seeming problem is seen.
I think it is interesting that we are more discontent when we have choices or the possibility of reversal. This can kind of be seen in having many options. I like having few options because it is easier to decide.
Honestly, blown away by this conclusion. Awesome stuff! What a great book.
Chapter 12: We’ Don’t Constrain Ourselves
Chapter 13: The Grass Does Look Greener
Conclusion:
Reference:
Hallinan, Joseph. Why We Make Mistakes. Random House, Inc.c New York. 2009
Summary:
Chapter 12: We’ Don’t Constrain Ourselves
This chapter discussed affordances and constraints. It spoke of how medicine is sometimes difficult to distinguish because things look the same and are named similar things.
It was shown that the navy and more generally pilots have a low rate of error in the tasks they go about in the navy. Medical people compared with the navy has a much higher rate of error. The root causes of these errors must be looked at rather than just the last person to cause the error. Also, with pilots, communication when a problem is seen and encouraged while in medical situations nurses more often keep quiet if they see something they do not agree with.
Chapter 13: The Grass Does Look Greener
This chapter shows how we always view things better in other places, but usually the content of life is the same. It gives the example of California versus Oregon or something like that and finds that the level of contentment is pretty much the same, though both places viewed California as the ideal better place to live.
We feel that in the future we will want something that is more beneficial to us than we actualize. It is the same kind of thing as the idea of choosing food now (candy) or later (healthy). Gift cards are a bad idea because we mispredict.
"Hope impedes adaptation" is the idea that people are more content when they are stuck in a situation than if they were to have options.
When making decisions, we often focus on the wrong things.
Conclusion:
The conclusion sums up the whole book. It pretty much touches on each focus of each chapter. It says to think negatively, think realistically, and plan ahead. We should get sleep and be happy. Money does not affect happiness. Learn to love the things about the specific environment you are in.
Discussion:
While chapter 12 did not discuss anything new to me, the idea of communication between ranks when a problem is seen was important to me. This crosses over to every platform of society. As religion is what interests me the most, it is natural for me to default my thoughts to this topic. Hence, I see it necessary for lay people to communicate to those in staff positions and leadership positions when a seeming problem is seen.
I think it is interesting that we are more discontent when we have choices or the possibility of reversal. This can kind of be seen in having many options. I like having few options because it is easier to decide.
Honestly, blown away by this conclusion. Awesome stuff! What a great book.
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