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.
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