Title:
Chapter 3: On Being Sane in Insane Places
Reference:
Slater, Lauren. Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century. W.W. Norton & Company: 2008.
Summary:
This chapter discussed David Rosenhan's experiment in which he and eight others pretended to be hearing a voice saying "thud". They told this to psychiatrists at mental institutions to see if they would be admitted. Everything else about their lives they would tell the truth about. Surprisingly, all nine were admitted anywhere from seven to fifty-two days. Upon admittance, they were to renounce their hearing of the voice and act completely normal.
Laurne Slater duplicated this experiment around eight times herself. She was never admitted, but was prescribed drugs.
Discussion:
This chapter seemed to be focusing on our response to our labels. I was actually able to give a lecture on that very subject last night to friends in my small group. I like to think about the way the way others perceive us affect our actions and form the people who we are.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Book Reading #12 - Coming of Age in Samoa
Title:
Chapter 4: The Samoan Household
Reference:
Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa. Harper Perennial, 1928 (1971).
Summary:
The Samoan household is usually one of many members. The children are able to move from house to house depending on whether or not they get along with the other members of the house.
The chapter discussed that matai who is the male leader of a village and that taupo who is a female of great rank (named around 16 or 17). There are about three taupo per village.
Rank is very important among the people, but the rank is not necessarily from birth but from entitlement.
Discussion:
This section was extremely dry. I suppose it was a setup for things coming later in the book, but it was hard to follow because it was pretty much just a catalog of positions within the community and a bit of how they interacted with one another.
Chapter 4: The Samoan Household
Reference:
Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa. Harper Perennial, 1928 (1971).
Summary:
The Samoan household is usually one of many members. The children are able to move from house to house depending on whether or not they get along with the other members of the house.
The chapter discussed that matai who is the male leader of a village and that taupo who is a female of great rank (named around 16 or 17). There are about three taupo per village.
Rank is very important among the people, but the rank is not necessarily from birth but from entitlement.
Discussion:
This section was extremely dry. I suppose it was a setup for things coming later in the book, but it was hard to follow because it was pretty much just a catalog of positions within the community and a bit of how they interacted with one another.
Book Reading #11 - Design of Everyday Things
Title:
Chapter 4: Knowing What to Do
Reference:
Norman, Donald. The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic, 2002.
Summary:
In the chapter Knowing What to do, Norman shows how constraints should aid in the things we set out to do. He gives the example of a little Lego police bike which is simple to put together even if people have never seen the final result. He gives four different constraints: physical, semantic, cultural, and logical. Physical constraints limit the use of things in meaningful ways, semantic restraints show why the object would be used, cultural restraints relate to the world around us, and logical constraints just make sense.
He starts again on talking about the inefficient design of doors and switches and how they do not have good affordances. He suggests a modification of current day light switches to actually show a meaningful mapping of the room.
Norman finally revisits visibility and feedback as important characteristics. He also proposes the use of sound as a feedback, but warns it could be annoying.
Discussion:
This chapter seemed to be a repeat of the first chapter. All the illustrations were similar, and aside from the fact that he did not point to a phone in every example, I think I understand his argument. Norman does make good points that are worth thinking about.
Chapter 4: Knowing What to Do
Reference:
Norman, Donald. The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic, 2002.
Summary:
In the chapter Knowing What to do, Norman shows how constraints should aid in the things we set out to do. He gives the example of a little Lego police bike which is simple to put together even if people have never seen the final result. He gives four different constraints: physical, semantic, cultural, and logical. Physical constraints limit the use of things in meaningful ways, semantic restraints show why the object would be used, cultural restraints relate to the world around us, and logical constraints just make sense.
He starts again on talking about the inefficient design of doors and switches and how they do not have good affordances. He suggests a modification of current day light switches to actually show a meaningful mapping of the room.
Norman finally revisits visibility and feedback as important characteristics. He also proposes the use of sound as a feedback, but warns it could be annoying.
Discussion:
This chapter seemed to be a repeat of the first chapter. All the illustrations were similar, and aside from the fact that he did not point to a phone in every example, I think I understand his argument. Norman does make good points that are worth thinking about.
Paper Reading #6: Shimon: an interactive improvisational robotic marimba player
Title:
Shimon: an interactive improvisational robotic marimba player
Comments:
Felipe Othick
Cindy Skach
Reference:
Hoffman, Guy and Weinberg, Gil. Shimon: an interactive improvisational robotic marimba player. CHI EA '10. Georgia Institute of Technolog, Atlanta, GA, USA. http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1760000/1753925/p3097-hoffman.pdf?key1=1753925&key2=7636156921&coll=DL&dl=ACM&CFID=7443758&CFTOKEN=14060305
Summary:
Hoffman and Weinberg catalog the results of their jazz-playing improvisation robot which plays the marimba. The robot is to be accompanied by a human pianist and follows in unison the playing of the pianist. It recognizes chords being played and appropriately plays beats, rhythms and notes that accompany and compliment the pianist.
In order to do this, the robot recognizes the tempo, chords and intensity of the music and plays appropriately. It has three different modules in which it can follow: call and response, opportunistic overlay improvisation and rhythmic phrase-matching improvisation. The three modules represent different ways in which the robot will respond to the pianist with simple chord progressions, anticipated melody and history-based improvisation respectively.
There is a robotic head consisting of a camera atop the structure that is intended to give the robot a more lively feel. Future work includes face recognition for this camera as well as improved methods of having the head follow the patterns of the robot.
Discussion:
This article initially interested me because it mentioned a marimba. I was a percussionist in high school and often used a marimba and am familiar with its sound and capabilities. Before reading I was thinking whether or not it could make up music that sounds good. I am not good at improvisation on anything other than a snare, so I would be thoroughly impressed.
It turns out that the robot is improvisational. The article did not mention whether the robot digitally recognized the pianists music or did it through audible analog.
I watched a highlight of ht performance of this robot found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqcoDECGde8. It was amazing! The last and highest degree of improvisation was incredible. It was really interesting how the unit would be inspired by the pianist and the pianist inspired by the robot.
Shimon: an interactive improvisational robotic marimba player
Comments:
Felipe Othick
Cindy Skach
Reference:
Hoffman, Guy and Weinberg, Gil. Shimon: an interactive improvisational robotic marimba player. CHI EA '10. Georgia Institute of Technolog, Atlanta, GA, USA. http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1760000/1753925/p3097-hoffman.pdf?key1=1753925&key2=7636156921&coll=DL&dl=ACM&CFID=7443758&CFTOKEN=14060305
Summary:
Hoffman and Weinberg catalog the results of their jazz-playing improvisation robot which plays the marimba. The robot is to be accompanied by a human pianist and follows in unison the playing of the pianist. It recognizes chords being played and appropriately plays beats, rhythms and notes that accompany and compliment the pianist.In order to do this, the robot recognizes the tempo, chords and intensity of the music and plays appropriately. It has three different modules in which it can follow: call and response, opportunistic overlay improvisation and rhythmic phrase-matching improvisation. The three modules represent different ways in which the robot will respond to the pianist with simple chord progressions, anticipated melody and history-based improvisation respectively.
There is a robotic head consisting of a camera atop the structure that is intended to give the robot a more lively feel. Future work includes face recognition for this camera as well as improved methods of having the head follow the patterns of the robot.Discussion:
This article initially interested me because it mentioned a marimba. I was a percussionist in high school and often used a marimba and am familiar with its sound and capabilities. Before reading I was thinking whether or not it could make up music that sounds good. I am not good at improvisation on anything other than a snare, so I would be thoroughly impressed.
It turns out that the robot is improvisational. The article did not mention whether the robot digitally recognized the pianists music or did it through audible analog.
I watched a highlight of ht performance of this robot found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqcoDECGde8. It was amazing! The last and highest degree of improvisation was incredible. It was really interesting how the unit would be inspired by the pianist and the pianist inspired by the robot.
Ethnography Results, Week 1
Revolution in Happening - Week 1 Results:
An Ethnography by Evin Schuchardt, Jeremy Nelissen, Ryan Kerbow and Wesley Konderla
Goal:
Our goal for the first visit is to observe the general setting of Revolution Cafe and Bar in order to get a feel of what to expect in future visits. We hope but are not expectant to do much interaction with the patrons of the establishment, but do seek to observe from a distance their demeanor.
Setting:
Not knowing what at all to expect, we ventured to Revolution with three other friends, a total of five people. We arrived at approximately on a Monday night at 11:40 PM to our parking spot on main street in Downtown Bryan. The temperature was about 45 degrees outside. After traversing a dark alleyway riddled with graffiti we saw a sign painted on the sidewalk with backwards lettering pointing an arrow signaling Revolution. A few steps later we found ourselves at the entrance of a tucked away courtyard surrounded by buildings on three sides and the parking lot side with large privacy bushes. The courtyard had a cement flooring with roughly fifteen metal tables and chairs to accompany them. They were dispersed in no particular order, but some had been pulled together in the center to form one very large grouping of tables. Outside we were able to see a bar roughly belly height which was made out of cement with a mosaic on the outface. There was a stage about seven feet by fifteen feet in area with three hula hoops proudly resting on it. Atop the roof of the building directly left enclosing the courtyard was an ominous statue resembling either an owl, Buddha, or little boy. Sitting together by a cement-looking fire pit were two men talking. Everything was very dimly lit with light blue Christmas lights, so it was difficult to see their attire, and they had their backs towards us. The music outside did not match the music inside, for the outside music was a wide array of genres of music.
The door to the inside cafe and bar was difficult to distinguish as it blended into the surrounding buildings. It was a large unattractive door with a latch on it that swung wide open. The five of us peered in to see roughly fifteen people dispersed throughout the joint all conversing or on the computer having a good time. The room was extremely small for a cafe or bar with enough room to fit about fifty people all standing together. There was a stage in the far end away from the door with two men making music. On the left side as you waked in there were about four extremely small round tables with a bench along the side wall and a couple of chairs every so often. There were also a couple of stools at the bar in which people were sitting. There was not an empty chair in the building, be it there were not many chairs to begin with. On the opposite wall as we entered was the bar where the barhop was entertaining guests. Immediately on the right I assume there were bathrooms. There were a few hand-painted paintings, presumably art from previous guests. The outside had a mural painted across the entirety of one of the buildings which was calming.
Initial Feeling:
Throughout the entire night the humongous sign pasted on our foreheads was “outsiders”. We were all very out of place there looking around at everything, searching for a place to sit and generally taking everything in. We met glaring patrons wondering for what reason we would enter their domain. The outside felt nice and open - welcoming for a group to just sit and relax and enjoy a drink. The mural and lights added an ambiance to the evening - a nice place for an political, philosophical or intimate discussion. That may be because there was hardly anyone outside. The inside seemed very exclusive and we felt very unwelcome and judged. Two of us decided to hula hoop on stage, and with the large windows of the cafe could be seen by the folks inside. This was a bit unnerving, but we went for it anyway.
People:
While unable to speak to any of the ladies and gents there, we did observe quite a few. Again, there were two men outside sitting by the fire pit and roughly fifteen people inside the building (not including us). Most of the men tended to have facial hair and dressy hats atop their heads. The clothing was hip and trendy - tight pants and vests all around. The place was mostly filled with Caucasian folk.
The two men performing had a guitar and kazoo in the time that we observed them. Their music was very indie and hard to follow. In addition to these two, a man walked up to the microphone when they were finished to recite something. We are unsure whether it was a speech or poem, but was either memorized or impromptu with much emphasis. We think it may have been slam poetry.
We feel that the condescending stares we received hindered us from being comfortable looking too much at the people present.
Conclusion:
This excursion provided a solid base of information to prepare ourselves for our next encounter at Revolution. We intend next visit to have conversation with at least the bartender and hopefully a few of the guests. We understand the importance of being able to be inside, as that is where most of the action seems to be. It will be difficult to find a seat since it is so limited, so we see the bar as a good option to that since we can stand.
Book Reading #10 - Opening Skinner's Box
Title:
Chapter 2: Obscura
Reference:
Slater, Lauren. Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century. W.W. Norton & Company: 2008.
Summary:
This chapter was about Stanley Milgram. He did the authority experiments testing how people react to an authority figure when it comes to how far people will go if they are hurting someone else. The findings were that 65% of people delivered lethal amounts of shock to the patients.
The second part of the chapter described the authors interactions with two of the participants in the study: one did not deliver lethal shock and the other did. She is interested in the relation between those who did and did not go through with it. Her findings reveal that the study made people really think about their current obedience to authority. It made her reflect on our morality and how exactly we should handle certain situations.
Discussion:
I was more excited about this chapter before I read it than after. It is always interesting hearing about findings and theories of the experiment, but I was disappointed that all the information I had heard before. It was interesting to hear the conclusions of the author on the last page of the chapter.
Chapter 2: Obscura
Reference:
Slater, Lauren. Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century. W.W. Norton & Company: 2008.
Summary:
This chapter was about Stanley Milgram. He did the authority experiments testing how people react to an authority figure when it comes to how far people will go if they are hurting someone else. The findings were that 65% of people delivered lethal amounts of shock to the patients.
The second part of the chapter described the authors interactions with two of the participants in the study: one did not deliver lethal shock and the other did. She is interested in the relation between those who did and did not go through with it. Her findings reveal that the study made people really think about their current obedience to authority. It made her reflect on our morality and how exactly we should handle certain situations.
Discussion:
I was more excited about this chapter before I read it than after. It is always interesting hearing about findings and theories of the experiment, but I was disappointed that all the information I had heard before. It was interesting to hear the conclusions of the author on the last page of the chapter.
Book Reading #9 - Coming of Age in Samoa
Title:
Chapter 3: The Education of a Samoan Child
Reference:
Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa. Harper Perennial, 1928 (1971).
Summary:
This chapter discussed the informal education that Samoan children receive both male and female. The very day of a child's birth is a very special day of celebration, however the subsequent years on this day are meaningless as the day is often forgotten. Children are raised by other children in the family, girls "parent" until around age 9 and boys until age 6. Discipline is not a high priority as it is usually merely words rather than reinforcement. Girls are looked down upon until marriage, but boys help out with fishing, farming and other chores. Boys get associated with cooperation since they are able to do these tasks where as girls are mostly secluded.
Discussion:
The most interesting part of this chapter was the lack of discipline. I can definitely see that happening as they are raised by little children as well who want to avoid conflict and accept passivity. Reading our other books in psychology it is interesting of how the seclusion of the girls would affect their later years. The boys are able to join in cooperation in fishing and other activities at a fairly early age.
Chapter 3: The Education of a Samoan Child
Reference:
Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa. Harper Perennial, 1928 (1971).
Summary:
This chapter discussed the informal education that Samoan children receive both male and female. The very day of a child's birth is a very special day of celebration, however the subsequent years on this day are meaningless as the day is often forgotten. Children are raised by other children in the family, girls "parent" until around age 9 and boys until age 6. Discipline is not a high priority as it is usually merely words rather than reinforcement. Girls are looked down upon until marriage, but boys help out with fishing, farming and other chores. Boys get associated with cooperation since they are able to do these tasks where as girls are mostly secluded.
Discussion:
The most interesting part of this chapter was the lack of discipline. I can definitely see that happening as they are raised by little children as well who want to avoid conflict and accept passivity. Reading our other books in psychology it is interesting of how the seclusion of the girls would affect their later years. The boys are able to join in cooperation in fishing and other activities at a fairly early age.
Book Reading #8 - Design of Everyday Things
Title:
Chapter 3: Knowledge in the Head and in the World
Reference:
Norman, Donald. The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic, 2002.
Summary:
The chapter focused on our knowledge and how it is dependent on both internal and external factors. It showed how we remember things as they are without great precision in an example of recognizing a coin; though we cannot usually pick the correct coin out of many coins that look strikingly similar, we know a coin because of its relation to other coins. We also use constraints to remember things. We use rhyme and rhythm to narrow our possibilities of the things to be remembered.
If we have thoughts and memories in our head, when distracted by other things, it can vanish. Short term memory is good for memorizing about 5-7 numbers at a time, and repetition helps, but we still forget things when distracted. We also have long term memory which takes longer to access, but we are able to retain it for longer.
The author points to three types of memory:
1. Memory for arbitrary things - things we must memorize that don't really play a role in the function of the device.
2. Memory for meaningful relationships - when we assign the use of something to a function that reminds us of how to use it.
3. Memory through explanation - when we know the way something works and the way it is designed to work, we can then formalize ideas of how to fix things because we know the background to the device.
Reminders are helpful in remembering things, but it is important that they are meaningful reminders and actually instruct you as to what you are suppose to remember.
Discussion:
This chapter was really thought-provoking for the psychology of how we remember things. It made me think about how I learn - the methods I use - and how I may be able to more effectively learn things I want or need to. It also reminded me of teaching and how different techniques could be beneficial rather than just having people memorize things.
Chapter 3: Knowledge in the Head and in the World
Reference:
Norman, Donald. The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic, 2002.
Summary:
The chapter focused on our knowledge and how it is dependent on both internal and external factors. It showed how we remember things as they are without great precision in an example of recognizing a coin; though we cannot usually pick the correct coin out of many coins that look strikingly similar, we know a coin because of its relation to other coins. We also use constraints to remember things. We use rhyme and rhythm to narrow our possibilities of the things to be remembered.
If we have thoughts and memories in our head, when distracted by other things, it can vanish. Short term memory is good for memorizing about 5-7 numbers at a time, and repetition helps, but we still forget things when distracted. We also have long term memory which takes longer to access, but we are able to retain it for longer.
The author points to three types of memory:
1. Memory for arbitrary things - things we must memorize that don't really play a role in the function of the device.
2. Memory for meaningful relationships - when we assign the use of something to a function that reminds us of how to use it.
3. Memory through explanation - when we know the way something works and the way it is designed to work, we can then formalize ideas of how to fix things because we know the background to the device.
Reminders are helpful in remembering things, but it is important that they are meaningful reminders and actually instruct you as to what you are suppose to remember.
Discussion:
This chapter was really thought-provoking for the psychology of how we remember things. It made me think about how I learn - the methods I use - and how I may be able to more effectively learn things I want or need to. It also reminded me of teaching and how different techniques could be beneficial rather than just having people memorize things.
Paper Reading #5: Weight-shifting mobiles: two-dimensional gravitational displays in mobile phones
Title:
Weight-shifting mobiles: two-dimensional gravitational displays in mobile phones
Comments:
Cindy Skach
Steven Morrow
Reference:
Hemmert, F., Hamann, S., Lowe, M., Zeipelt, J., Joost, G. Weight-shifting mobiles: two-dimensional gravitational displays in mobile phones. CHI EA '10. Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, Berlin, Germany http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1760000/1753922/p3087-hemmert.pdf?key1=1753922&key2=3962156921&coll=DL&dl=ACM&CFID=7443758&CFTOKEN=14060305.
Summary:
The researchers proposed to test and have the users evaluate a weight shifting mobile phone. The phone prototype had a movable weight on both the X and Y axis (2-dimensional). The 12 users were asked two things; they were asked to estimate the position of the weight as it changed. Also, the users were given a questionnaire to qualify the feel and usability of the device as well as what they saw as a good use of this technology.
The results show the accuracy of the users guess. These results were compared to a previous paper in which they tested a phone prototype that modified shape. The shape changing prototype was liked more than the weight shifting model. Users claimed that the device was too large and too heavy for comfort and use. Users saw that this technology could have use in the future for low-quality display.
Discussion:
This study seemed a bit fruitless to me. I was not able to get a feel for how the study took place or even why it took place. It seems to me that if there is a weight shifting device, that seems like just extra weight that is unnecessary. I could not see any real applications for this type of technology. It mentioned that with technology growing smaller and smaller, this could be very beneficial. In my view, because of this it will make any extra weight very unwarranted.
For future study I would suggest more reasons why this would be useful. The sample size was really low as well, so I would get more opinion on it.
Weight-shifting mobiles: two-dimensional gravitational displays in mobile phones
Comments:
Cindy Skach
Steven Morrow
Reference:
Hemmert, F., Hamann, S., Lowe, M., Zeipelt, J., Joost, G. Weight-shifting mobiles: two-dimensional gravitational displays in mobile phones. CHI EA '10. Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, Berlin, Germany http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1760000/1753922/p3087-hemmert.pdf?key1=1753922&key2=3962156921&coll=DL&dl=ACM&CFID=7443758&CFTOKEN=14060305.
Summary:
The researchers proposed to test and have the users evaluate a weight shifting mobile phone. The phone prototype had a movable weight on both the X and Y axis (2-dimensional). The 12 users were asked two things; they were asked to estimate the position of the weight as it changed. Also, the users were given a questionnaire to qualify the feel and usability of the device as well as what they saw as a good use of this technology. The results show the accuracy of the users guess. These results were compared to a previous paper in which they tested a phone prototype that modified shape. The shape changing prototype was liked more than the weight shifting model. Users claimed that the device was too large and too heavy for comfort and use. Users saw that this technology could have use in the future for low-quality display.
Discussion:
This study seemed a bit fruitless to me. I was not able to get a feel for how the study took place or even why it took place. It seems to me that if there is a weight shifting device, that seems like just extra weight that is unnecessary. I could not see any real applications for this type of technology. It mentioned that with technology growing smaller and smaller, this could be very beneficial. In my view, because of this it will make any extra weight very unwarranted.For future study I would suggest more reasons why this would be useful. The sample size was really low as well, so I would get more opinion on it.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Book Reading #7: Opening Skinner's Box
Title:
Chapter 1: Opening Skinner's Box
Reference:
Slater, Lauren. Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century. W.W. Norton & Company: 2008.
Summary:
This chapter focused on the man B. F. Skinner and his work and contributions to behavioral psychology. He worked with rats and pigeons to name a couple molding them to do what he wanted them to do. In his testing he saw results for behavior that was defined by positive reinforcement. The public views him as an evil, but his daughter, Julie, has different views. He had a way with children, according to Julie, and was a humanist.
Discussion:
I think I am really going to like this book. It was great reading about psychological tests and Skinner's thoughts on how our environment molds our society. If you think about it for a little while you get motivated to go out and surround yourself with positive influences so that you yourself will be surrounded with nothing but positive reinforcement and recognition for the favorable things that you do.
Chapter 1: Opening Skinner's Box
Reference:
Slater, Lauren. Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century. W.W. Norton & Company: 2008.
Summary:
This chapter focused on the man B. F. Skinner and his work and contributions to behavioral psychology. He worked with rats and pigeons to name a couple molding them to do what he wanted them to do. In his testing he saw results for behavior that was defined by positive reinforcement. The public views him as an evil, but his daughter, Julie, has different views. He had a way with children, according to Julie, and was a humanist.
Discussion:
I think I am really going to like this book. It was great reading about psychological tests and Skinner's thoughts on how our environment molds our society. If you think about it for a little while you get motivated to go out and surround yourself with positive influences so that you yourself will be surrounded with nothing but positive reinforcement and recognition for the favorable things that you do.
Book Reading #6: Coming of Age in Samoa
Reference:
Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa. Harper Perennial, 1928 (1971).
Title:
Chapter 2:
Summary:
This chapter catalogues a day in Samoa. Their day begins at dawn where people go about their chores of fishing or cooking. The village is a unit, where everyone has great concern and care for one another, a family. They have contact with neighboring villages. They have a nap time! It is warm during the days as people seek to keep cool. The village has group meals together. When night falls people gather to do "lighter" activities such as talk and sometimes when the moon is out catch crabs.
Discussion:
I absolutely love the fact that they have a nap time! It was interesting hearing how close knit they were too. That makes sense because they are in villages. It reminds me of how I live with my community of followers of Christ here in College Station. Many of us live on the same street and often as we can share our time, meals and occasions with one another.
Title:
Appendix II
Summary:
The study took place on three contiguous villages on Samoa studying the things that girls do. There were only sixty-eight girls within the bounds of ages Mead was studying. Therefore, the results have a high variability. The study took place in the native tongue as Mead lived there and acclimated to their culture for the first six months there. Each person of each house was investigated based upon a number of factors in order to get the full scope of why things were happening the way they were. Mead administered different tests to the girls, some formal some informal, to get a representation of the variability among them and found it to be low. She found a sort of control group in a group of girls living in a type of boarding school with a pastor where their actions were meticulously monitored.
Discussion:
It sounds like this appendix is slamming Mead for her methods and lack of relevant data, but it sounds to me like she did all she could with the materials and methods of data collection present.
Title:
Appendix V
Summary:
This appendix shows the ways in which the girls were tested by Mead. They were asked hosts of questions in her entire stay, often with their parents present, and all this information was logged in spreadsheets presented in this appendix. Both qualitative and quantitative data was obtained. The girls ages are not completely accurate for they do not keep track of age. Mead also tracked what skills the girls had as well as her own perceptions of how intelligent each girl was.
Discussion:
This appendix was interesting because we were able to see the documentation that Mead collected on her findings. The questions she asked seem to be most personal, and with the notion that the girls' parents were there makes the findings a bit odd to me.Book Reading #5: Design of Everyday Things
Title:
Chapter 2: The Psychology of Everyday Actions
Reference:
Norman, Donald. The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic, 2002.
Summary:
This chapter discussed ways in which users of things attribute blame. It spoke of people falsely blaming themselves when the problem was really in the complexity of the devise being used. The focus of this was on ordinary and seemingly easy appliances and how people see themselves as inefficient when they cannot work something that should be simple. Concerning blame, it showed how we blame the environment for our own situations and blame others for their own actions and states.
They chapter touched on our perspectives and how we often perceive things in a completely different way the reality and this is often due because of our sense of causality and insufficient information of the process at hand.
Norman laid out 7 stages of action that do not necessarily start in the same place and not always are all of them used, but they are involved in most processes: perceiving, interpreting, evaluating, goals, intentions, sequence of actions, and execution. All these revolve around our surroundings.
Finally it ended with his gulf of execution and gulf of evaluation. The gulf of execution dealt with the idea that it should be easy to put our intentions to action. The gulf of evaluation is the conception of the device and how to use it.
Discussion:
This chapter was very thought provoking, yet tied back into the idea presented in chapter 1 about visibility, conceptual layout, good mappings, and feedback. I think it is great how he built on the ideas of chapter 1 in a different way, this time using our psychological impulses to explain the need for these four attributes. It is interesting to see the development of different technologies and how in some ways the technology has aided in ease of use such as the fact that we no longer have to worry about threading film through the projector but simply pop in a solid form of media and it does everything for us, yet sometimes it is difficult to actually access that media.
Chapter 2: The Psychology of Everyday Actions
Reference:
Norman, Donald. The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic, 2002.
Summary:
This chapter discussed ways in which users of things attribute blame. It spoke of people falsely blaming themselves when the problem was really in the complexity of the devise being used. The focus of this was on ordinary and seemingly easy appliances and how people see themselves as inefficient when they cannot work something that should be simple. Concerning blame, it showed how we blame the environment for our own situations and blame others for their own actions and states.
They chapter touched on our perspectives and how we often perceive things in a completely different way the reality and this is often due because of our sense of causality and insufficient information of the process at hand.
Norman laid out 7 stages of action that do not necessarily start in the same place and not always are all of them used, but they are involved in most processes: perceiving, interpreting, evaluating, goals, intentions, sequence of actions, and execution. All these revolve around our surroundings.
Finally it ended with his gulf of execution and gulf of evaluation. The gulf of execution dealt with the idea that it should be easy to put our intentions to action. The gulf of evaluation is the conception of the device and how to use it.
Discussion:
This chapter was very thought provoking, yet tied back into the idea presented in chapter 1 about visibility, conceptual layout, good mappings, and feedback. I think it is great how he built on the ideas of chapter 1 in a different way, this time using our psychological impulses to explain the need for these four attributes. It is interesting to see the development of different technologies and how in some ways the technology has aided in ease of use such as the fact that we no longer have to worry about threading film through the projector but simply pop in a solid form of media and it does everything for us, yet sometimes it is difficult to actually access that media.
Paper Reading #4: Shape-Changing Mobiles: Tapering in Two-Dimensional Deformational Displays in Mobile Phones
Title:
Shape-Changing Mobiles: Tapering in Two-Dimensional Deformational Displays in Mobile Phones
Comments:
Steven Hennesy
Vince Kocks
Reference:
Hemmert, F., Hamann, S., Lowe, M., Zeipelt, J., Joost, G. Shape-Changing Mobiles: Tapering in Two-Dimensional Deformational Displays in Mobile Phones. CHI EA '10. Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, Berlin, Germany. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1753920&CFID=5889600&CFTOKEN=71833395.
Summary:
This study focused on shape changing technology in mobile phones. The shape change was proposed for ergonomical use, displaying internal contents, and using the phone as a pointer. The paper mostly relays the information gathered on the users in estimating the angle of the tilted back panel.
The way the experiment was set up was that a mock-phone was designed with a backplate that could tilt in four directions (on two different axis). Users were asked to estimate the tilt of the phone for both the x-axis and y-axis. Another smaller aspect of the experiment was that compared to this use of a phone, another phone was developed that shifted weight rather than tilted. User feedback was recorded on all the devices.
The results showed that while users were not great at estimating the tilt, there was a correlation between the error at which they guessed wrong; they were off by similar margins. The tilted phone was much more preferable than the weight shifting phone. Users claimed they liked the idea of a tilted shape phone rather than "the alternative".
Discussion:
This paper had extremely relevant information about the study. This was one of the first papers I read for this class that actually showed the users opinion of the experiment. I really appreciated that because I am always interested in how the user felt about the study. I was a bit disappointed that they did not ask the user how they liked the design compared to their own phone. They may have asked that when the authors referred to "the alternative", but I am not sure.
I am all about having a slim phone, and it seems like any addition to the depth of the phone would upset me. I think it is a good idea to increase the ergonomical nature of phones, but not at the expense of depth.
Future work that I may like to see would be different sizes of phones with this ergonomical feature.
Shape-Changing Mobiles: Tapering in Two-Dimensional Deformational Displays in Mobile Phones
Comments:
Steven Hennesy
Vince Kocks
Reference:
Hemmert, F., Hamann, S., Lowe, M., Zeipelt, J., Joost, G. Shape-Changing Mobiles: Tapering in Two-Dimensional Deformational Displays in Mobile Phones. CHI EA '10. Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, Berlin, Germany. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1753920&CFID=5889600&CFTOKEN=71833395.
Summary:
This study focused on shape changing technology in mobile phones. The shape change was proposed for ergonomical use, displaying internal contents, and using the phone as a pointer. The paper mostly relays the information gathered on the users in estimating the angle of the tilted back panel.
The way the experiment was set up was that a mock-phone was designed with a backplate that could tilt in four directions (on two different axis). Users were asked to estimate the tilt of the phone for both the x-axis and y-axis. Another smaller aspect of the experiment was that compared to this use of a phone, another phone was developed that shifted weight rather than tilted. User feedback was recorded on all the devices.The results showed that while users were not great at estimating the tilt, there was a correlation between the error at which they guessed wrong; they were off by similar margins. The tilted phone was much more preferable than the weight shifting phone. Users claimed they liked the idea of a tilted shape phone rather than "the alternative".
Discussion:
This paper had extremely relevant information about the study. This was one of the first papers I read for this class that actually showed the users opinion of the experiment. I really appreciated that because I am always interested in how the user felt about the study. I was a bit disappointed that they did not ask the user how they liked the design compared to their own phone. They may have asked that when the authors referred to "the alternative", but I am not sure.I am all about having a slim phone, and it seems like any addition to the depth of the phone would upset me. I think it is a good idea to increase the ergonomical nature of phones, but not at the expense of depth.
Future work that I may like to see would be different sizes of phones with this ergonomical feature.
Ethnography Proposal
Revolution in Happening:
An Ethnography by Evin Schuchardt, Jeremy Nelissen, Ryan Kerbow and Wesley Konderla
Abstract:
This paper explains the reasoning and process of how Evin Schuchardt and Jeremy Nelissen will observe the atmosphere and people frequenting Revolution Cafe and Bar in Bryan, Texas. The purpose of this study is to explore the habits and ways of Downtown Bryan focusing on one location in particular, one with which we are very unfamiliar. As neither of us regularly visit bars or cafes, Revolution provides a mix of both and is centered in the heart of Downtown Bryan. We expect to learn the personality of the people, their interests, habits and reasons for being there, the local vernacular and how they interact with one another.
Introduction:
We have heard tales of the happenings in Downtown Bryan - the people, the music, the environment - but have never experienced it for ourselves. The eclectic environment provides opportunity to see a different side of the community we live in and more than likely a different life style than we are used to living as engineers.
Methods:
We will observe them for roughly two hours per week. The way in which we plan to do this is to venture there together on different days of the week to get the full feel of what goes on there. We will first attempt to go together so we can ease in to the atmosphere and have a companion to fall back on if need be. While there, we will visit and talk with the bartenders, guests, musicians and other patrons. We will observe from a distance and through conversation their interactions with one another as well as with us. We will attempt to show our feelings of the environment in order to give an overall picture to the cafe. We will comment on their speech patterns and mannerisms as well as our hypotheses of why they come there. We will also gather the quantitative information of the number of people present, expected capacity, how many people are by themselves verses with others, how many people are outside and inside, at the bar and at the tables. For interaction, we will speak with the bartender as we stand at the bar, ask to join people at their tables for a chat, hopefully interact with any musicians after their performances.
Conclusion:
We are about to enter a world unknown to us in a culture possibly completely dissimilar to us. The excitement is high and the anticipation is building. Results to come soon!
-------------------------------NOTE-------------------------------
Everything below this line is old stuff that we trashed
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Title:
Computers and Class
Abstract:
This report explains the process in which I, Evin Schuchardt, would be able to conduct ethnographical research on the topic of students bringing a laptop to class. The purpose of this study is to find answers to the following questions:
1. Do students at Texas A&M who bring a laptop to class think it aides them in comprehension, why?
2. Do students at Texas A&M who use laptops in class believe themselves to be more productive overall in class, why?
This paper will give the the background to why this study would be meaningful, give the methods to which I would use to conduct the study, and end with my final thoughts on the project.
Introduction:
At the beginning of last semester, I traded in my desktop for a netbook for various reasons. Now I carry my netbook with me where ever I travel, including class. I often pull it out in class to take notes, do homework, or research the thoughts running through my mind. I have noticed that many classmates in all my classes also use their laptops in class for reasons I could only guess at.
It seems logical that with all the information on the internet, the possibility of a person being able to type quicker than write, and so many professors reading from slides published online that having a laptop in class could greatly aide to the student's ability to take in the information being presented in class. On the other hand, this also paves the way for students potentially not paying attention to the lecturer and instead browsing online or doing other personal matters when they should be listening to the professor. This could however be a benefit as many believe that professors often lecture on things absolutely meaningless to the class or anything relevant thereof.
Methods:
For this study I would create a survey in which participants would be asked to provide information of whether or not they bring a laptop to class. This would separate the user group into two and give viewpoints from two different angles. They would also be asked how often they use their laptops in class and what they use their laptops for in class. Finally, participants would be asked to evaluate their efficiency and productivity with their laptop and without to compare. The user group would be focused on students at Texas A&M of any classification, and may include opinions of professors. The survey would be both online in a Google Docs form as well as hard copies. Facebook now allows for information to be distributed to many people at one time, so I plan to use that to publicize the online survey.
I will also observe students in my classes to gain quantitative information on who is using their laptop during my classes throughout the weeks. I can keep track of what class I am in as well as how many of the students pull out their laptop during class. I can also qualify my observation of the amount of attention the students who have their laptops seem to have. I could also compare this to the perceived attention of those without a laptop.
Conclusion:
I am interested to see the results of this survey and see whether laptops in class seem beneficial or not. I know my opinion which I will publish in the final report and I want to see if people share my same views.
An Ethnography by Evin Schuchardt, Jeremy Nelissen, Ryan Kerbow and Wesley Konderla
Abstract:
This paper explains the reasoning and process of how Evin Schuchardt and Jeremy Nelissen will observe the atmosphere and people frequenting Revolution Cafe and Bar in Bryan, Texas. The purpose of this study is to explore the habits and ways of Downtown Bryan focusing on one location in particular, one with which we are very unfamiliar. As neither of us regularly visit bars or cafes, Revolution provides a mix of both and is centered in the heart of Downtown Bryan. We expect to learn the personality of the people, their interests, habits and reasons for being there, the local vernacular and how they interact with one another.
Introduction:
We have heard tales of the happenings in Downtown Bryan - the people, the music, the environment - but have never experienced it for ourselves. The eclectic environment provides opportunity to see a different side of the community we live in and more than likely a different life style than we are used to living as engineers.
Methods:
We will observe them for roughly two hours per week. The way in which we plan to do this is to venture there together on different days of the week to get the full feel of what goes on there. We will first attempt to go together so we can ease in to the atmosphere and have a companion to fall back on if need be. While there, we will visit and talk with the bartenders, guests, musicians and other patrons. We will observe from a distance and through conversation their interactions with one another as well as with us. We will attempt to show our feelings of the environment in order to give an overall picture to the cafe. We will comment on their speech patterns and mannerisms as well as our hypotheses of why they come there. We will also gather the quantitative information of the number of people present, expected capacity, how many people are by themselves verses with others, how many people are outside and inside, at the bar and at the tables. For interaction, we will speak with the bartender as we stand at the bar, ask to join people at their tables for a chat, hopefully interact with any musicians after their performances.
Conclusion:
We are about to enter a world unknown to us in a culture possibly completely dissimilar to us. The excitement is high and the anticipation is building. Results to come soon!
-------------------------------NOTE-------------------------------
Everything below this line is old stuff that we trashed
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Title:
Computers and Class
Abstract:
This report explains the process in which I, Evin Schuchardt, would be able to conduct ethnographical research on the topic of students bringing a laptop to class. The purpose of this study is to find answers to the following questions:
1. Do students at Texas A&M who bring a laptop to class think it aides them in comprehension, why?
2. Do students at Texas A&M who use laptops in class believe themselves to be more productive overall in class, why?
This paper will give the the background to why this study would be meaningful, give the methods to which I would use to conduct the study, and end with my final thoughts on the project.
Introduction:
At the beginning of last semester, I traded in my desktop for a netbook for various reasons. Now I carry my netbook with me where ever I travel, including class. I often pull it out in class to take notes, do homework, or research the thoughts running through my mind. I have noticed that many classmates in all my classes also use their laptops in class for reasons I could only guess at.
It seems logical that with all the information on the internet, the possibility of a person being able to type quicker than write, and so many professors reading from slides published online that having a laptop in class could greatly aide to the student's ability to take in the information being presented in class. On the other hand, this also paves the way for students potentially not paying attention to the lecturer and instead browsing online or doing other personal matters when they should be listening to the professor. This could however be a benefit as many believe that professors often lecture on things absolutely meaningless to the class or anything relevant thereof.
Methods:
For this study I would create a survey in which participants would be asked to provide information of whether or not they bring a laptop to class. This would separate the user group into two and give viewpoints from two different angles. They would also be asked how often they use their laptops in class and what they use their laptops for in class. Finally, participants would be asked to evaluate their efficiency and productivity with their laptop and without to compare. The user group would be focused on students at Texas A&M of any classification, and may include opinions of professors. The survey would be both online in a Google Docs form as well as hard copies. Facebook now allows for information to be distributed to many people at one time, so I plan to use that to publicize the online survey.
I will also observe students in my classes to gain quantitative information on who is using their laptop during my classes throughout the weeks. I can keep track of what class I am in as well as how many of the students pull out their laptop during class. I can also qualify my observation of the amount of attention the students who have their laptops seem to have. I could also compare this to the perceived attention of those without a laptop.
Conclusion:
I am interested to see the results of this survey and see whether laptops in class seem beneficial or not. I know my opinion which I will publish in the final report and I want to see if people share my same views.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Book Reading #4: HCI Remixed
Reference:
Erickson, Thomas and McDonald, David W. HCI Remixed: Reflections on Works that have Influenced the HCI Community. MIT. 2008
Title:
Chapter 24
Summary:
Chris Schmadt from MIT shows how James Gould's "Wizard of Oz" research was observing technology that had not yet been invented. The technology was voice input to text output. There was a typist on the other side of a wall who would type what the subject was saying. The study followed novice users as well as professional dictators - business men who frequently have secretaries shorthand their speech. Novice users were more enthusiastic about the "software" where the business men were critical. The two types of input tested was staccatic speech and continuous speech with limited vocabulary. To the naive user, the limited vocabulary was more cumbersome, but the business man did not like the staccatic speech.
Discussion:
This study is most interesting to me because of the fact that users thought they were testing revolutionary technology. I would have been in amazement thinking that this voice recognition software was working wonders when actually there was not software doing the manipulation.
Title:
Chapter 25
Summary:
Steve Harrison from Virginia Tech talks about "A Hole in Space", a project that he was part of leading in which, from what I understand, put a monitor and a camera in two different locations across the United States. The researches captured peoples' responses to this media and discovered that people acted differently with the person on the camera than with a person across the street. Two people involved in work with aesthetic telecommunications joined the team. They are credited with electronic cafes. Harrison notes at the end that the designers did not foresee the Internet, which now allows for interaction of these sorts from all over the world without specific terminals to do so.
Discussion:
It was hard for me to exactly understand what went on in this research project. I think I understand the basic concept, but the author was not very thorough in his explanation of what the study was actually for. I do find it interesting that the technology is unnecessary now because of the Internet.
Title:
Chapter 26
Summary:
Google's Scott Jenson comments on Tufte's 1+1=3 concept. This idea is that when you have two parallel lines, another thick line is formed in between them - white space or clutter. This relates to design by the idea that too many choices produces clutter. The example is given of an 'open' and 'close' button for elevators. You can either make the buttons more recognizable or simply eliminate one of the buttons altogether to allow for ease of use.
Discussion:
The paper brings out a good point that systems need to be simple for users. I found it funny that he pointed out managers and programmers as ones who do not like to lose functionality, but in order to make systems that are simple sometimes that must be done. I think of the iPhone which only has one button (that is not the screen). It is fairly intuitive that if you want the menu you would push the only button.
Title:
Chapter 27
Summary:
Jodi Forlizzi from Carnegie Mellon gives comments on typography. She starts by recalling 3-D modeled text but says how it was undesirable as it was difficult to manipulate and view. She ends with kinetic text which can demonstrate feelings and emotions and is used now to do just that in many movies and TV.
Discussion:
Graphic design is something that interests me, and the last section of the paper on kinetic text used in different media was fascinating. I was not able to follow entirely the progression of Jodi's thoughts.
Title:
Chapter 28
Summary:
Steve Whittaker of the University of Sheffield agrees with Kidd that storing mass amounts of digital information is not always useful. This article points out that when we initially store information in our computers, we must somehow think into the future to make a sensible naming convention for our folder system that will be recognizable to us when we need this data. Another problem comes that we have no way of gaining knowledge from the things that are stored; all that data is is stored data - something that may or may not be looked at later.
Discussion:
The paper seemed to aim at rethinking the need and uses for large memory banks. There is no doubt that these are good things, but the author liked to point out that we must also know when and for what purpose do people access that data. I thought the article was an interesting take on how we use a computer to store information.
Title:
Chapter 34
Summary:
Michael Muller from IBM Research comments on how Krupat's paper on ethnohistorians with Native American peoples translated into HCI. He claims that the way in which the ethnohistorians handled dealing between the United States and the Native Americans is important to see how to appropriately handle users. He rephrases Krupat's three points into three points of his own dealing with HCI.
Discussion:
This article was interesting in that Muller sees ethnography as important as Dr. Hammond. I liked looking at his approach that it was necessary to get into every aspect of the user in order to produce a product molded perfectly to the needs of all parties.
Paper Reading #3: Recognizing Shapes and Gestures Using Sound as Feedback
Title:
Recognizing Shapes and Gestures Using Sound as Feedback
Comments:
Shena Hoffmann
Cindy Skach
Reference:
Sanchez, Javier. Recognizing Shapes and Gestures Using Sound as Feedback. CHI EA '10. Stanford.
Summary:
Sanchez develops a system that studies the use of sound to recognize shapes capturing the gestures from the user. Seeing that sound is used in many aspects of life, it has now been transfered to computer devices. Popularized by the Geiger counter, the use of sound to model aspects of our lives has produced the pulseoximeter, vehicle back-up alerts and more.
In this study, the user would use a pointing device to move around (on a screen they could not see). As the user approached a shape that was on the screen, using sound duration, rhythm, timbre and panoramization. The system could contain different sounds based upon shape, slope of a line, and proximity of the mouse to a line. The user was able to get immediate feedback in order to compensate their pointing device movements.
Discussion:
This study is interesting to me not because of the design of the simulation or the way they went about orchestrating the system, but rather on the implications that systems like this have on other realms of technology. We have seen some progression in the use of sound to inform us of different aspects of a car such as an alarm or back-up warning system. In my experience the back-up warning system is heavily flawed. Hopefully papers such as this inspire others to take ideas like this more seriously in order to develop better technology.
Future research could be different areas in which sound would be useful. Much brainstorming could produce a set of activities to experiment with.
The topic presented did not show much in the way of what they found concerning the user. Sanchez explains the software very well, but does not qualify the user's experience.
Recognizing Shapes and Gestures Using Sound as Feedback
Comments:
Shena Hoffmann
Cindy Skach
Reference:
Sanchez, Javier. Recognizing Shapes and Gestures Using Sound as Feedback. CHI EA '10. Stanford.
Summary:
Sanchez develops a system that studies the use of sound to recognize shapes capturing the gestures from the user. Seeing that sound is used in many aspects of life, it has now been transfered to computer devices. Popularized by the Geiger counter, the use of sound to model aspects of our lives has produced the pulseoximeter, vehicle back-up alerts and more.
In this study, the user would use a pointing device to move around (on a screen they could not see). As the user approached a shape that was on the screen, using sound duration, rhythm, timbre and panoramization. The system could contain different sounds based upon shape, slope of a line, and proximity of the mouse to a line. The user was able to get immediate feedback in order to compensate their pointing device movements.Discussion:
This study is interesting to me not because of the design of the simulation or the way they went about orchestrating the system, but rather on the implications that systems like this have on other realms of technology. We have seen some progression in the use of sound to inform us of different aspects of a car such as an alarm or back-up warning system. In my experience the back-up warning system is heavily flawed. Hopefully papers such as this inspire others to take ideas like this more seriously in order to develop better technology.
Future research could be different areas in which sound would be useful. Much brainstorming could produce a set of activities to experiment with.
The topic presented did not show much in the way of what they found concerning the user. Sanchez explains the software very well, but does not qualify the user's experience.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Book Reading #3: HCI Remixed: Reflections on Works that have Influenced the HCI Community
Title: Chapter 1
Reference:
Erickson, Thomas and McDonald, David W. HCI Remixed: Reflections on Works that have Influenced the HCI Community. MIT. 2008
Summary:
William Buxton describes the opportunity he had to go up to Canada to use a new technology in making music on a computer. He used a simple blend of buttons and wheels to interact with the computer to compose his music which he could listen to at any time. He claims the purpose of the program was not to test new music software, but rather to study human-computer interaction; taking flexible, non-technical musicians and immersing them in an environment conducive to their learning.
Discussion:
I find it hard to imagine that the system being used was just to study human-computer interaction as it seems like such a large set of tools - six refrigerators. If it was just that sort of study, it sounds like they did a great job in designing it from the ground up for the user. The author sounds to have extreme bias towards this system though.
Reference:
Erickson, Thomas and McDonald, David W. HCI Remixed: Reflections on Works that have Influenced the HCI Community. MIT. 2008
Summary:
William Buxton describes the opportunity he had to go up to Canada to use a new technology in making music on a computer. He used a simple blend of buttons and wheels to interact with the computer to compose his music which he could listen to at any time. He claims the purpose of the program was not to test new music software, but rather to study human-computer interaction; taking flexible, non-technical musicians and immersing them in an environment conducive to their learning.
Discussion:
I find it hard to imagine that the system being used was just to study human-computer interaction as it seems like such a large set of tools - six refrigerators. If it was just that sort of study, it sounds like they did a great job in designing it from the ground up for the user. The author sounds to have extreme bias towards this system though.
Title: Chapter 4
Reference:
Erickson, Thomas and McDonald, David W. HCI Remixed: Reflections on Works that have Influenced the HCI Community. MIT. 2008
Summary:
Joseph Konstan looks back at an important paper made in the sixties with the development of SketchPad. Konstan claims that this work incorporated principles that are still in effect today and were way ahead of its time. Focusing on human-computer interaction, he saw it as a landmark for ease of view, labeling, and precision for the user concerning sketch software. Konstan also comments on how the software also touched on the basic principles of Object Orientation which are still paramount today.
Discussion:
Based upon the author's description, it was hard for me to get a picture of what this SketchPad actually was and how the user interacted with it. I think I understand generally what it did, but had he described the uses of it I think it would have been much clearer for me.
Based upon the author's description, it was hard for me to get a picture of what this SketchPad actually was and how the user interacted with it. I think I understand generally what it did, but had he described the uses of it I think it would have been much clearer for me.
Title: Chapter 5
Reference:
Erickson, Thomas and McDonald, David W. HCI Remixed: Reflections on Works that have Influenced the HCI Community. MIT. 2008
Summary:
Wendy Ju recalls a day in her human-computer interaction class when she saw the demonstration of Englebart's mouse. She saw it as motivating and inspiring to create devices that would make human-computer interaction better. She experienced her own frustrations with demonstrations and was asked by her professor to once again watch Englebart's video. From a new point of view she watched as the video showed the new technologies not fully embraced at the time. Ju concludes by stating that demos, while not always glorious, inspire people to continue to improve, make and do more.
Discussion:
I have never seen this mouse demonstration but it sounds fairly interesting. Maybe I would not care in the least if I were to see it, but maybe it would inspire me too to keep up with inventions.
Title: Chapter 18
Reference:
Erickson, Thomas and McDonald, David W. HCI Remixed: Reflections on Works that have Influenced the HCI Community. MIT. 2008
Summary:
Saul Greenberg wrote on how influential John Tang's research has been on group collaboration. Tang studied the habits of a group when a large writing surface was on a desk as well as hanging up as a white board. Important to note is that not all interaction was through the drawing and verbal communication alone, but also through actions such as gestures - pointing and examining.
Discussion:
This seems like a really good area to study (had it not already been studied). The question comes to mind of what other tasks we do on a normal basis could be studied to make more efficient for interaction from different locations.
Title: Chapter 20
Reference:
Erickson, Thomas and McDonald, David W. HCI Remixed: Reflections on Works that have Influenced the HCI Community. MIT. 2008
Summary:
Geraldine Fitzpatrick shows her appreciation of the CSCW paper by Schmidt and Bannon. Important because of its collaborative work focus, she claims the paper gives important insight into coordination, delegation and shared work space.
Discussion:
This paper was extremely trivial and did not give me any sense of why the paper was so important. Maybe it just did not capture my attention. I agree that collaboration is important, and I did find it interesting that it mentioned assignment of tasks.
Title: Chapter 23
Reference:
Erickson, Thomas and McDonald, David W. HCI Remixed: Reflections on Works that have Influenced the HCI Community. MIT. 2008
Summary:
Brian Smith tells of his mother diagnosed with leukemia who used video chat to communicate with a granddaughter she could not see face to face because of her disease. Brian points to Hollan and Stornetta as having the right idea of developing an experience greater than that of the face to face interaction. He sees this as an enhancement of the personal. Video chat allowed a crutch for his daughter and mother's communication, but a toy simple as a doll with a voice really played a heavy roll in his mother's last year. This facilitated an extremely close bond between the two.
Discussion:
The story was very touching and filled with passion about enhancing communication. I agreed with the concepts presented and that on some levels it is beneficial to develop functions that go beyond face to face communication. A question would be "will it ever become too impersonal?"
The story was very touching and filled with passion about enhancing communication. I agreed with the concepts presented and that on some levels it is beneficial to develop functions that go beyond face to face communication. A question would be "will it ever become too impersonal?"
Paper Reading #2: Exploring Interfaces to Botanical Species Classification
Title:
Paper Reading #2: Exploring Interfaces to Botanical Species Classification
Comments:
Cindy Skach
Joshua Penick
Reference:
White, Sean and Feiner, Steven. Exploring Interfaces to Botanical Species Classification. CHI 2010: Media Showcase Session 3.
Summary:
The goal of White and Feiner's research was to compare different devices in obtaining, comparing and identifying botanical species. Currently it is difficult to identify plants because of the data collection and expert knowledge needed in order to identify the plants. The devices used were a Tablet PC, an ultramobile personal computer (UMPC), an Apple iPhone, augmented reality, and Microsoft Surface.
The steps in which were followed for the plant identification were to acquire a plant specimen, identify matching specimen, compare potential matches, inspect details and characteristics of those potential matches, collect contextual data, and send the collected data in a format viable for research. The comparison between the five devices showed that
1. Tablet PCs, which would require a WIFI camera and GPS receiver in addition to the tablet was useful because of its large screen, however there was noticed to be too many parts to potentially lose and the equipment was to heavy.
2. The UMPC had an integrated camera, therefore only the GPS receiver was needed. This made the system more mobile.
3. The iPhone had an integrated camera and GPS making it even more mobile than the UMPC. It required network connection though.
4. The augmented reality tested 2 systems: a pair of glasses that overlaid the virtual plants directly, and a pair of glasses that used a clipboard on which to display the virtual plants. The results showed that the augmented reality made for easier comparison as one could compare directly side by side in a more natural way than having to switch from looking at a screen to the real thing.
5. The Microsoft Surface was not able to be used for field work, and also was not able to get the detail that the other cameras did.
Discussion:
I found it interesting that the authors seemed to attribute such success to the augmented reality equipment. My thought is that they are bias towards it because my last paper was by Feiner and one of his augmented reality devices at the same conference. That said, I really appreciated the extent to which they compared the five interfaces. The Microsoft Surface was doomed for failure, and I am not really sure why they included that in their study; maybe to prove the Microsoft product as lacking. I am interested to know why the iPhone needed the algorithm on a separate server. My guess is because the database was too vast to fit in its storage.
Expansion on this research could be the quality of recognition, the algorithm behind correctly identifying the plant. That wasn't the point of this paper, but I would be interested in statistics of how well this software was able to work and if it would be able to replace the expert plant identifier.
Paper Reading #2: Exploring Interfaces to Botanical Species Classification
Comments:
Cindy Skach
Joshua Penick
Reference:
White, Sean and Feiner, Steven. Exploring Interfaces to Botanical Species Classification. CHI 2010: Media Showcase Session 3.
Summary:
The goal of White and Feiner's research was to compare different devices in obtaining, comparing and identifying botanical species. Currently it is difficult to identify plants because of the data collection and expert knowledge needed in order to identify the plants. The devices used were a Tablet PC, an ultramobile personal computer (UMPC), an Apple iPhone, augmented reality, and Microsoft Surface.
The steps in which were followed for the plant identification were to acquire a plant specimen, identify matching specimen, compare potential matches, inspect details and characteristics of those potential matches, collect contextual data, and send the collected data in a format viable for research. The comparison between the five devices showed that
1. Tablet PCs, which would require a WIFI camera and GPS receiver in addition to the tablet was useful because of its large screen, however there was noticed to be too many parts to potentially lose and the equipment was to heavy.
2. The UMPC had an integrated camera, therefore only the GPS receiver was needed. This made the system more mobile.
3. The iPhone had an integrated camera and GPS making it even more mobile than the UMPC. It required network connection though.
4. The augmented reality tested 2 systems: a pair of glasses that overlaid the virtual plants directly, and a pair of glasses that used a clipboard on which to display the virtual plants. The results showed that the augmented reality made for easier comparison as one could compare directly side by side in a more natural way than having to switch from looking at a screen to the real thing.
5. The Microsoft Surface was not able to be used for field work, and also was not able to get the detail that the other cameras did.
Discussion:
I found it interesting that the authors seemed to attribute such success to the augmented reality equipment. My thought is that they are bias towards it because my last paper was by Feiner and one of his augmented reality devices at the same conference. That said, I really appreciated the extent to which they compared the five interfaces. The Microsoft Surface was doomed for failure, and I am not really sure why they included that in their study; maybe to prove the Microsoft product as lacking. I am interested to know why the iPhone needed the algorithm on a separate server. My guess is because the database was too vast to fit in its storage.
Expansion on this research could be the quality of recognition, the algorithm behind correctly identifying the plant. That wasn't the point of this paper, but I would be interested in statistics of how well this software was able to work and if it would be able to replace the expert plant identifier.
Ethnography Ideas
Title:
Ethnographic Ideas
Comments:
Stuart J.
Vince Kocks
Discussion:
I am not exactly sure if I am hitting the point on some of these ideas, here is a working list of my ideas:
1. The life of the female as it compares to the male. This is not necessarily a task I would be excited about undertaking; no offense, ladies, but I am perfectly fine with only knowing the little about you that I do. This being said, it would provide an interesting experiment to have a guy immersed in a flock of girls. As discussed in class, I am not sure that this would adequately get a feel for the specimen of the girl because the mere presence of a guy could throw their entire way of doing things.
2. As I have never been addicted to drugs, another interesting study would be to get into the life of a drug addict. I don't know if it would be the safest study, but what is a few gunshot wounds for the sake of science, right? One could notice whether or not it is true that the single thought of acquiring and using the drug would consume every part of a druggies life or not.
3. Homelessness could prove to be another extremely interesting way of life. It would be sensational to get into their lives for just a week and experience a taste of what they experience every day of their lives. For the one studying it would be a great humbling experience I am sure. It would give a deep respect and appreciation for the things we have.
Ethnographic Ideas
Comments:
Stuart J.
Vince Kocks
Discussion:
I am not exactly sure if I am hitting the point on some of these ideas, here is a working list of my ideas:
1. The life of the female as it compares to the male. This is not necessarily a task I would be excited about undertaking; no offense, ladies, but I am perfectly fine with only knowing the little about you that I do. This being said, it would provide an interesting experiment to have a guy immersed in a flock of girls. As discussed in class, I am not sure that this would adequately get a feel for the specimen of the girl because the mere presence of a guy could throw their entire way of doing things.
2. As I have never been addicted to drugs, another interesting study would be to get into the life of a drug addict. I don't know if it would be the safest study, but what is a few gunshot wounds for the sake of science, right? One could notice whether or not it is true that the single thought of acquiring and using the drug would consume every part of a druggies life or not.
3. Homelessness could prove to be another extremely interesting way of life. It would be sensational to get into their lives for just a week and experience a taste of what they experience every day of their lives. For the one studying it would be a great humbling experience I am sure. It would give a deep respect and appreciation for the things we have.
On Computers
Title:
On Computers
Reference:
Aristotle/Anonymous. On Plants. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. Vol 2.
Comments:
one: John Janosko
two: Chris Kam
Summary:
The author thoroughly explains plants and their similarities to each other as well as other things of this earth. He is searching for the meaning of life for a plant, the essence of the plant. In this search he expounds upon the possibility of plants have sensation or desire and compares those feelings to that of animals. Plants can be seen in contrast to animals through many reasons including their cyclic nature of growing in and out of season. Plants are compared within themselves to each other looking at different types of plants and how they relate. Their utility and substance is related to the uses we as humans ascribe to them. The paper goes on to once again show the relation between plants and animals in-so-far as what they need to survive, the different ways they grow, and concludes with the commonalities and tendencies among plants.
Discussion:
The paper seemed more interested in describing and relating every feature known to plants than actually figuring out their "soul status". I suppose this is not a bad way to go about things as one can make his own inferences based upon all the material provided. That being said, in reference to computers, I see it important to focus on the fact that plants and animals were not created by us, but rather procreated while computers are not only made by us, but made from inanimate objects. The same question is hinted at in Searle's Chinese Room argument. Can a bunch of inanimate objects pieced together form something known only to an animate object, a living object, a soul? It seems that in order to realize a computer as having any sort of feeling or sensation, the hypothesis would have to come from a strong AI argument, for it seems trivial to assume that modern computers have no sensations as they simply perform action as specified by their developer. However, if strong AI is considered, then one can begin to imagine the possibility of a thinking, feeling thing of a computer.
On Computers
Reference:
Aristotle/Anonymous. On Plants. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. Vol 2.
Comments:
one: John Janosko
two: Chris Kam
Summary:
The author thoroughly explains plants and their similarities to each other as well as other things of this earth. He is searching for the meaning of life for a plant, the essence of the plant. In this search he expounds upon the possibility of plants have sensation or desire and compares those feelings to that of animals. Plants can be seen in contrast to animals through many reasons including their cyclic nature of growing in and out of season. Plants are compared within themselves to each other looking at different types of plants and how they relate. Their utility and substance is related to the uses we as humans ascribe to them. The paper goes on to once again show the relation between plants and animals in-so-far as what they need to survive, the different ways they grow, and concludes with the commonalities and tendencies among plants.
Discussion:
The paper seemed more interested in describing and relating every feature known to plants than actually figuring out their "soul status". I suppose this is not a bad way to go about things as one can make his own inferences based upon all the material provided. That being said, in reference to computers, I see it important to focus on the fact that plants and animals were not created by us, but rather procreated while computers are not only made by us, but made from inanimate objects. The same question is hinted at in Searle's Chinese Room argument. Can a bunch of inanimate objects pieced together form something known only to an animate object, a living object, a soul? It seems that in order to realize a computer as having any sort of feeling or sensation, the hypothesis would have to come from a strong AI argument, for it seems trivial to assume that modern computers have no sensations as they simply perform action as specified by their developer. However, if strong AI is considered, then one can begin to imagine the possibility of a thinking, feeling thing of a computer.
The Chinese Room
Title:
Minds, Brains, and Programs
Comments:
one: Aaron Kirkes
two: Stephen Morrow
Reference:
Searle, John. R. (1980) Minds, brains, and programs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (3): 417-457
Summary:
In this article, Searle discussed the question of whether or not a program can be sufficient for intentionality. He uses the base example of himself, an English native speaker with no knowledge of the Chinese language, locked inside a room with only a set of instructions in English (which he can understand). When he is passed under the door Chinese symbols, the question is whether or not the set of instructions will be sufficient to convince a native Chinese speaker he speaks Chinese (which he in fact does not). Searle outlines the guidelines for his argument - the constraints and assumptions - and then proceeds to respond to common arguments against his point. He concedes at no point but those he sees irrelevant to the problem at hand. He concludes that there is not such a set of instructions that would be sufficient to allow a machine understanding.
Discussion:
In my opinion, Searle makes well thought out and thorough arguments both in his set up and in response to the arguments against his position. The whole topic reminded me of Skynet in the Terminator series. It seemed to me that although he laid out an easy to understand definition of what type of "understanding" he was speaking of in the beginning of the paper that most of the arguments against his point boiled down once again to the definition of understanding. In his refutations, he was able to exclude all the information that went past his presuppositions in terms of understanding. I found it interesting in the end where he did state his stance that there was some biological process in which our intentionality comes from that we cannot reproduce. I would have assumed that he would just leave it up to speculation his own stance and allow the audience to formulate their own conclusion, but I appreciate him being bold in actually voicing his stance.
One fault that I see according to my taste in writing style is that he often strays tangent to the point he is trying to convey. I know he is probably doing that for completeness, but it seems as though that drew away from his point. Specifically in the Systems Reply I found it hard to see how he was relevantly tying all of his thoughts together. It just seemed to be a jumble of thought.
I like how he responded to arguments that people had in regard to his topic. Future work may expound on more arguments people have brought to him since his 1980 paper. They may also include the current state of computers compared to what they were back then. I think that would be along the lines of seeing the natural progression of technology in an effort to extrapolate an idea of where technology could end up. This may play significant in the argument for using different "stuff" to formalize a machine like us to have intentionality.
Minds, Brains, and Programs
Comments:
one: Aaron Kirkes
two: Stephen Morrow
Reference:
Searle, John. R. (1980) Minds, brains, and programs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (3): 417-457
Summary:
In this article, Searle discussed the question of whether or not a program can be sufficient for intentionality. He uses the base example of himself, an English native speaker with no knowledge of the Chinese language, locked inside a room with only a set of instructions in English (which he can understand). When he is passed under the door Chinese symbols, the question is whether or not the set of instructions will be sufficient to convince a native Chinese speaker he speaks Chinese (which he in fact does not). Searle outlines the guidelines for his argument - the constraints and assumptions - and then proceeds to respond to common arguments against his point. He concedes at no point but those he sees irrelevant to the problem at hand. He concludes that there is not such a set of instructions that would be sufficient to allow a machine understanding.
Discussion:
In my opinion, Searle makes well thought out and thorough arguments both in his set up and in response to the arguments against his position. The whole topic reminded me of Skynet in the Terminator series. It seemed to me that although he laid out an easy to understand definition of what type of "understanding" he was speaking of in the beginning of the paper that most of the arguments against his point boiled down once again to the definition of understanding. In his refutations, he was able to exclude all the information that went past his presuppositions in terms of understanding. I found it interesting in the end where he did state his stance that there was some biological process in which our intentionality comes from that we cannot reproduce. I would have assumed that he would just leave it up to speculation his own stance and allow the audience to formulate their own conclusion, but I appreciate him being bold in actually voicing his stance. One fault that I see according to my taste in writing style is that he often strays tangent to the point he is trying to convey. I know he is probably doing that for completeness, but it seems as though that drew away from his point. Specifically in the Systems Reply I found it hard to see how he was relevantly tying all of his thoughts together. It just seemed to be a jumble of thought.
I like how he responded to arguments that people had in regard to his topic. Future work may expound on more arguments people have brought to him since his 1980 paper. They may also include the current state of computers compared to what they were back then. I think that would be along the lines of seeing the natural progression of technology in an effort to extrapolate an idea of where technology could end up. This may play significant in the argument for using different "stuff" to formalize a machine like us to have intentionality.
Paper Reading #1: Rolling and Shooting: Two Augmented Reality Games
Title:
Rolling and Shooting: Two Augmented Reality Games
Comments:
one: Cindy Skach,
two: Ethan Ballinger
Reference:
Oda, Ohan and Feiner, Steven. Rolling and Shooting: Two Augmented Reality Games. CHI EA 2010. Columbia University.
Summary:
Oda and Feiner explore augmented reality gaming, which is graphics and sound that is overlaid into real world surroundings. This is accomplished in one case by gravity sensing eyeglasses with a camera fixed to them and in the other case a Sony Vaio UX series ultramobile personal computer (UMPC). The developers use two separate games to explore this type of virtual reality. One game is a labyrinth game where virtual marbles and dice move around based on gravity. The eyeglasses were used to notice the movement of a handheld labyrinth the user would tilt in order to simulate the virtual movement of the marble and dice. The other game is a networked two-player first person shooter in which each player tries to shoot off the other players dominoes from the table overlaid with optical markers. Using the UMPC, one can see the table with the dominoes appearing on the screen even though they are no dominoes on the table. Through this the developers sought to test interference avoidance between the two devices, so that the two players would not hit their UMPCs against each other through aggressive gaming. This was accomplished by the UMPC shifting its virtual location depending on how far it was being moved towards the other UMPC. The findings showed that there were significantly farther apart when this feature was used.
Discussion:
The idea of augmented reality seems to have huge implications for gaming in the coming years. I do not see it in the near future due to the primitive nature of this testing, but promising for the far future. The utilities used in this test seem very cumbersome as compared to a simple controller and screen. One would have to get use to many different scenarios in order to remember how exactly to interact with a device. I would be interested to see how the game actually felt, whether it was natural or very unnatural as some virtual reality games are. Further studies based upon this technology could include a user study to see if the technology seemed user friendly and acceptable to gamers, and their thoughts on how the systems played.
Rolling and Shooting: Two Augmented Reality Games
Comments:
one: Cindy Skach,
two: Ethan Ballinger
Reference:
Oda, Ohan and Feiner, Steven. Rolling and Shooting: Two Augmented Reality Games. CHI EA 2010. Columbia University.
Summary:
Oda and Feiner explore augmented reality gaming, which is graphics and sound that is overlaid into real world surroundings. This is accomplished in one case by gravity sensing eyeglasses with a camera fixed to them and in the other case a Sony Vaio UX series ultramobile personal computer (UMPC). The developers use two separate games to explore this type of virtual reality. One game is a labyrinth game where virtual marbles and dice move around based on gravity. The eyeglasses were used to notice the movement of a handheld labyrinth the user would tilt in order to simulate the virtual movement of the marble and dice. The other game is a networked two-player first person shooter in which each player tries to shoot off the other players dominoes from the table overlaid with optical markers. Using the UMPC, one can see the table with the dominoes appearing on the screen even though they are no dominoes on the table. Through this the developers sought to test interference avoidance between the two devices, so that the two players would not hit their UMPCs against each other through aggressive gaming. This was accomplished by the UMPC shifting its virtual location depending on how far it was being moved towards the other UMPC. The findings showed that there were significantly farther apart when this feature was used.
Discussion:
The idea of augmented reality seems to have huge implications for gaming in the coming years. I do not see it in the near future due to the primitive nature of this testing, but promising for the far future. The utilities used in this test seem very cumbersome as compared to a simple controller and screen. One would have to get use to many different scenarios in order to remember how exactly to interact with a device. I would be interested to see how the game actually felt, whether it was natural or very unnatural as some virtual reality games are. Further studies based upon this technology could include a user study to see if the technology seemed user friendly and acceptable to gamers, and their thoughts on how the systems played.
Book Reading #2: Coming of Age in Samoa
Title:
Book Reading #1: Chapter 1
Reference:
Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa. Harper Perennial, 1928 (1971).
Summary:
Mead ventures after the thought of adolescence and the "problem" of adolescence: the very nature of the adolescent in America. She wants to know if this nature is due to the very fact that the person is adolescent or to cultural factors. In order to discuss this topic, she feels that going outside of our Indo-European society is the only true way to confront the issue, taking a society completely different from the formation of our own. Looking at social interaction, religion, education and family structure she says she will lay out the important factors in the development of the adolescent girl in Samoa.
Discussion:
I found it interesting how it seemed like I could pick up the ideas she was interested in during this study - those being religion and sexuality. I predict that much of the book will have ties to these two ideas no matter what topic is actually being discussed. She labeled adolescence as being idealistic and rebellious, and in my opinion according to todays society, I can see the rebellion part, but it doesn't seem that idealistic. I would put that label more on the post-adolescent, the young adult, more than I would on the adolescent. I appreciate the way she is approaching the problem at hand and commend her for stepping out of the normal bounds of psychological study and immersing herself in a completely different society and environment.
Book Reading #1: Chapter 1
Reference:
Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa. Harper Perennial, 1928 (1971).
Summary:
Mead ventures after the thought of adolescence and the "problem" of adolescence: the very nature of the adolescent in America. She wants to know if this nature is due to the very fact that the person is adolescent or to cultural factors. In order to discuss this topic, she feels that going outside of our Indo-European society is the only true way to confront the issue, taking a society completely different from the formation of our own. Looking at social interaction, religion, education and family structure she says she will lay out the important factors in the development of the adolescent girl in Samoa.
Discussion:
I found it interesting how it seemed like I could pick up the ideas she was interested in during this study - those being religion and sexuality. I predict that much of the book will have ties to these two ideas no matter what topic is actually being discussed. She labeled adolescence as being idealistic and rebellious, and in my opinion according to todays society, I can see the rebellion part, but it doesn't seem that idealistic. I would put that label more on the post-adolescent, the young adult, more than I would on the adolescent. I appreciate the way she is approaching the problem at hand and commend her for stepping out of the normal bounds of psychological study and immersing herself in a completely different society and environment.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Book Reading #1: The Design of Everyday Things
Title:
Book Reading 1 - The Design of Everyday Things Chapter 1
Reference:
Norman, Donald. The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic, 2002.
Summary:
The author explains that things need to be practically made in order for people to be able to use them. He gives many examples of almost unusable technology because they are too complicated (often referring to the telephone). He discusses that there needs to be both a good conceptual model and good visibility of what each button and lever's function is, a natural mapping of things. Also feedback is important in order to make sure one's actions are intended.
Discussion:
Norman had a very clear distaste for the way some things are designed in this world, namely phones. Obviously he was not well aware of cellphones at this time because much of what he mentions it seems has been cleared up by cellphones such as a screen showing you exactly what you are doing. But these too seem to have become congested with useless material that one hardly ever uses. I like his thought of applying common sense to design to make it simple for the user.
Book Reading 1 - The Design of Everyday Things Chapter 1
Reference:
Norman, Donald. The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic, 2002.
Summary:
The author explains that things need to be practically made in order for people to be able to use them. He gives many examples of almost unusable technology because they are too complicated (often referring to the telephone). He discusses that there needs to be both a good conceptual model and good visibility of what each button and lever's function is, a natural mapping of things. Also feedback is important in order to make sure one's actions are intended.
Discussion:
Norman had a very clear distaste for the way some things are designed in this world, namely phones. Obviously he was not well aware of cellphones at this time because much of what he mentions it seems has been cleared up by cellphones such as a screen showing you exactly what you are doing. But these too seem to have become congested with useless material that one hardly ever uses. I like his thought of applying common sense to design to make it simple for the user.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Blog Entry #0 Introduction Blog
Howdy,
As you have probably noticed, I am Evin Schuchardt. First and foremost I have given my life to Jesus, which I hope to say drives all of my actions and decisions. I am a part of a wonderful fellowship of believers as a part of my local church with whom I spend most of my time. I enjoy snowboarding and playing basketball as often as possible. I am an only child from Boerne, Tx, a bit north of San Antonio with two great parents. I plan to stay in College Station for a few years after I graduate and maybe venture off to Austin to live in the near future.
- Email: emschuchardt@gmail.com
- Class standing: 4th year senior
- Why am I taking this course? I have heard nothing but good things about Dr. Hammond and desire to take a class by a professor who cares about her curriculum.
- What experience do you bring to this class? I bring into this class another smile, something I try to have on my face always; not a fake one, but to be satisfied enough with the situation God currently has me in so that I may be joyful.
- What do you expect to be doing in 10 years? In 10 years I expect to be telling people about Jesus.
- What do you think will be the next biggest technological advancement in computer science? I'm going to have to go with the hologram, simply because that is what I want.
- If you could travel back in time, who would you like to meet and why? I would like to really get to know my grandfather and really get to know him.
- What is your favorite style of mustache and why? According to the figure on the right I would pick the walrus because it is making the statement "I am here!"
- If you could be fluent in any foreign language that you're not already fluent in, which one would it be and why? I would be fluent in Spanish because often I have the privilege of hanging out with people from Mexico who are just here to work. I would enjoy knowing more of what they are saying and would also like to converse with them more.
- Give some interesting facts about yourself: see above
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