Paper Reading #25 - A Code Reuse Interface for Non-Programmer Middle School Students

Comments
Cindy Skach
Joshua Penick

Reference Information
Paul A. Gross, Micah S. Herstand, Jordana W. Hodges, Caitlin L. Kelleher, IUI’10, February 7–10, 2010, Hong Kong, China.

Summary
The program in question here is one that would like to aid middle school students in finding features of a program they use and wanting to capture those features. This is done by recording the feature in question which then finds the appropriate code section and then the student can copy it over for use in their own program. An actual example of this would be the student trying to make an animation where the student wants a certain character to jump and kick a door. The student knows that this happened in a similar animation and then can use this code reuse program in order to extract that action for their own use. The code is extracted in what they call ActionScripts which are then played through until the student finds the exact action that they want.

Discussion
The objective behind these authors' motives is quite a good one. They are trying to get young people interested in coding and computer science at a time when they would be able to create an interest. As the computer science industry has a very lopsided ratio of genders currently, they are trying to get more interest generated in order to even that out. This program is actually a really important device for young people because I think that the biggest pitfall in teaching coding is the initial hump that people must get over in order to really get started. When the student looks at code, they cannot understand or find what they are looking for, but this program will help them ease into it and find more interest in computer science.

Living With Complexity

Summary
The idea of complexity is thought of as the unknown for most people and actually logical and simple for the people that know it. There are times that complexity is needed and times when it is totally overdone. This needs to be considered when designing things, etc. Often simple things in life have needless complexity that arise from them. Passwords for example are one of the most misused things in the office and most workers will think of very simple passwords to use. This annoys security experts but it gives more hassle than it takes away. There are also people that do just fine in the world of all this complexity. They mostly use signifiers as keys to what is going on. These are just subtle clues that some people take advantage of that can tell them a lot of the surrounding world.


Discussion
This book was actually quite helpful in that it can show designers that once it leaves to production that users should not need extra information in order to use it. I also like how it showed the contrast of people where complexity is concerned.

Book Reading #52 - Living With Complexity

Chapter 3-4
Summary
Often simple things in life have needless complexity that arise from them. Passwords for example are one of the most misused things in the office and most workers will think of very simple passwords to use. This annoys security experts but it gives more hassle than it takes away. There are also people that do just fine in the world of all this complexity. They mostly use signifiers as keys to what is going on. These are just subtle clues that some people take advantage of that can tell them a lot of the surrounding world.

Discussion
These two chapters were opposites of each other in that it reveals the complexity that a lot of people run into on a daily basis and also the subtleties that allow a lot of people to live their lives as smoothly as possible.

Book Reading #51 - Living With Complexity

Chapter 1-2
Summary
The idea of complexity is thought of as the unknown for most people and actually logical and simple for the people that know it. There are times that complexity is needed and times when it is totally overdone. This needs to be considered when designing things, etc.

Discussion
I think I like where this book is headed and the idea of complexity is a complex issue that will need to be addressed fully.

Why We Make Mistakes

Summary
The amount of mistakes that any one person will make is quite astounding. These first chapters are reserved to talking about what exactly the kind of mistakes they are and how we fall victim to them. The different ways as to our brain may ignore key information or similar is how we make mistakes. The memory of many of us is often times wrong in the details. Particularly when we do interesting things we will remember them in a positive light rather than what it actually was. This can lead to an argument happening where the person remembers using nice language rather than possibly more stern language. Also, the multitasking of people is usually a dangerous game to deal with. The nature in which people can get focused on something will be devastating if multiple things are occurring. The first chapter mentions the problem that everyone has with their memory and how things are stored away. The data that needs to be stored is often condensed or pattern-ized to be helpful in remembering. This causes us to take information and possibly make errors when trying to make it easier to remember. Then also mentioned was the differences between genders that exist for reactions. The confidence in both genders are usually heavily on the men side even though women might be better at a certain area. Also, the book goes into how guys and girls look at directions or their area. In general most people think of themselves as being slightly better than the average and are pretty good at a lot of things. Obviously not everyone can be above average, so this is an interesting mind state that most people have in order to delude themselves. Also, people are much more willing to do things when the time comes for it to be done rather than to prepare. 

Discussion
I like reading about these concepts that may not cross everyone's mind but show underlying concepts in humans. These can account for many things and be used for research. The book in general was a good way of showing the things that most people may or may not notice and actually analyzes why they are. More importantly how to curb these habits or work with them. The book is quite necessary for the designer and what he or she should think when considering what they are doing.

Paper Reading #24 - Outline Wizard: Presentation Composition and Search

Comments
Jacob Lillard
Evin Schuchardt

Reference Information


Lawrence Bergman, Jie Lu, Ravi Konuru, Julie MacNaught, Danny Yeh, IUI’10, February 7–10, 2010, Hong Kong, China


Summary
This paper deals with the common practice of creating new presentations from old presentations. Currently the process is a painful one looking through old powerpoint presentations in order to find the one slide that is needed for the new presentation. Current search technology is not catered to looking for specific slides and topics. The groups proposal is a system called SlideRiver that will index all slides in order to easily be searched or perused. Now obviously slides usually have topics on them that can be searched for but SlideRiver will take it a step further by searching the entire context of the presentation allowing the user to get better tailored results to what they are looking for. The system can also find multiple slides on what is being searched for because a lot of the time a topic that needs to be looked at is over multiple slides rather than just a single one in a presentation.

Discussion
This article has a very good idea, however I believe that it has been innovated over in the past year or two. The article seems to have been written using the 2003 version of PowerPoint. In the recent versions, however, searching through presentations has been made much easier through better file formats from Microsoft. Now the search in many operating systems can search within these files and yield pretty good results. The results that this group got are good, I just think that they should integrate their research into Windows Search or something similar rather than their own system.

Paper Reading #23 - Facilitating Exploratory Search by Model-Based Navigational Cues

Comments
Cindy Skach
Joshua Penick

Reference Information
Wai-Tat Fu, Thomas G. Kannampallil, and Ruogu Kang, IUI’10, February 7–10, 2010, Hong Kong, China.

Summary
The goal of this paper was to show the benefits of using navigational cues and the effects on exploratory search and knowledge exchange. The first major example that the group gives is social tagging and the effect that it has on people using search or discovery on the web. Sites now allow people to keep track of their web resources by tagging bookmarks in unique ways as way-finders which also allow research into allowing other people to use this information. This idea was then used by the group in order to see the effects on navigational cues. When viewing documents, they created a list of tags that the user could click on. When a tag was selected, a list of associated documents were listed along with other tags that each document might also be related to.

Discussion
This paper seemed a little convoluted for the most part. It was very broad when speaking and went on and on about seemingly nothing. The underlying idea is very important, however. The idea of tagging is getting very important online more and more. Tagging allows for a much easier way to connect to other things that the searcher may or may not have thought to search for allowing for a better search environment. I think the paper would have been better to show more actual real life applications.

Book Reading #50 - Why We Make Mistakes

Chapter 12-13
Summary
With all of the mistakes that occur obviously there are ways to make sure these won't occur. Training is done and constraints are put on different activities to help mistakes to be less. Standards are set in place to reduce mistakes as much as possible. Also, the observation of the grass is always greener on the other side is rampant in many people.

Discussion
I like how the author talked about finally the idea of curbing the mistakes that we make and how this is usually done. This needs to be addressed more to people and how it should be gone about.

Media Equation

Summary
The articles were on the sociality of it all and how computers and human connect in that social space. Essentially the purpose was to show the social qualities of computing devices and how it is natural for humans to use it in this way. And also the possibility of using the computer as a replacement for a personality and whether it would be accepted or not.

Discussion
These articles really got into the real human computer interaction type details and explained the social-ness to how we look at things and machines. The idea of applying social rules to these machines makes a lot of sense and allows for us to trust and accept them more.

Book Reading #48 - Media Equation

Summary
Essentially the purpose was to show the social qualities of computing devices and how it is natural for humans to use it in this way. And also the possibility of using the computer as a replacement for a personality and whether it would be accepted or not.

Discussion
These articles really got into the real human computer interaction type details and explained the social-ness to how we look at things and machines. The idea of applying social rules to these machines makes a lot of sense and allows for us to trust and accept them more.

Book Reading #49 - Why We Make Mistakes

Chapter 10-11
Summary
In general most people think of themselves as being slightly better than the average and are pretty good at a lot of things. Obviously not everyone can be above average, so this is an interesting mind state that most people have in order to delude themselves. Also, people are much more willing to do things when the time comes for it to be done rather than to prepare.

Discussion
I like reading about these concepts that may not cross everyone's mind but show underlying concepts in humans. These can account for many things and be used for research.

Paper Reading #22 - DocuBrowse: Faceted Searching, Browsing, and Recommendations in an Enterprise Context

Comments
Joshua Penick
Vince Kocks

Reference Information
Andreas Girgensohn, Frank Shipman, Francine Chen, Lynn Wilcox, IUI’10, February 7-10, 2010, Hong Kong, China.



Summary
The idea in this paper is essentially the creation of a search engine that looks through all documents and information in an enterprise environment. This includes databases, papers, documents, intranet, etc. The web type searching today is quite refined and intuitive, but an employee searching through a companies documents is not as good. This produced DocuBrowse in order to search through these documents. DocuBrowse knows a lot of document types and therefore can search through slides of a powerpoint or what-have-you and then display it in a intuitive way to the user. DocuBrowse is visually oriented which helps the user remember what he or she is looking for exactly. It also works by looking at the access history of the user in all of his or her documents in order to make suggestions as to what he or she is looking for. This is very helpful and important if the user also wants to look at related content or find it based on little information.

Discussion
This will be an interesting project to lookout for because essentially it is a networkable form of Google and advanced search. The fact that you can search based on type (slides, document, pictures, etc.) will be very helpful in finding just what you need. As companies move to a more cloud type structure, this will be very helpful as the program is web based and distributable.

Paper Reading #21 - Towards a Reputation-based Model of Social Web Search

Comments
Jeremy Nelissen
Vince Kocks

Reference Information
Kevin McNally, Michael P. O’Mahony, Barry Smyth, Maurice Coyle, Peter Briggs, IUI’10, February 7–10, 2010, Hong Kong, China.

Summary
This team of authors has created a unique way in which search could be moving. The social aspect to the web has boomed in the last several years and this idea called HayStaks is trying to socialize web searching. It comes in the form of a toolbar in the users browser and will record all searching events. Friend's can be made through the service and will allow friend's to share their searches with others. This can create communities of similar searchers and will also create people who explore and give out recommendations and people who follow those recommendations. The HayStaks program also has implemented a recommendation algorithm that is similar in style to Google. It takes into account the user giving the recommendation, how many friends they have, how many its shared to, the applicability of the search, etc. This allows for easier and better searches for the users to find. Also, the most important aspect of socializing the web is what the users can do with the recommended links. There are features to vote on the links, comment on them, etc. to bring people together and discuss.

Discussion
The idea of a social search environment is definitely logical as all aspects of the web are going that direction. However, I think it might be slightly over-saturating. I want my searching to be quick and simple and not have to spend my time with voting, etc. I think the approach that Google is taking might be a little better as it helps both the user and all other users. They have simply implemented a voting system that if your results were good then the website that answered the question is given 1 upvote. This helps the future searches of the user and also anyone else that searches that topic. Over time this will create much better results even if the searcher does not get better. Also, it seems like this system could simply be combined with Facebook or some already established social network since creating a social network needs a critical mass of people to become viable and/or relevant.

Book Reading #47 - Why We Make Mistakes

Chapter 8-9

Summary

The first chapter mentions the problem that everyone has with their memory and how things are stored away. The data that needs to be stored is often condensed or pattern-ized to be helpful in remembering. This causes us to take information and possibly make errors when trying to make it easier to remember. Then also mentioned was the differences between genders that exist for reactions. The confidence in both genders are usually heavily on the men side even though women might be better at a certain area. Also, the book goes into how guys and girls look at directions or their area.

Discussion

The ninth chapter seemed very interesting to me in that it showed the large differences that guys and girls have between each other on simple thoughts. These simple observations can be a boon for figuring out what needs to be done to better understand out world and mind.

Things That Make Us Smart

Summary
The first chapter speaks about the role of technology in the lives and evolution of humans. Technology has come about almost by accident and has allowed humans to benefit greatly in their lives from it. With all the benefit however comes some downside as this author says that the technology inflates our sense of what we are doing while ignoring the things we don't know. Then the next chapter talked entirely on the human cognition and how learning is done. The next chapter talked about how little details in cognition play a role in how we perceive things. The way information is put forward could allow us to fully understand or confuse a situation. Also, the next section showed the importance of pattern and structure that information must have in order to create good memory.

Discussion
This seems like it will be an interesting book to see how technology is inflating our level of knowledge and how the situation helps improve things. The way the human mind works is very important for us as a species to learn and know as it could help all of us in the long run. This knowledge can be exploited and used for good research and learning purposes.

Paper Reading #20 - Lowering the Barriers to Website Testing with CoTester

Comments
Joshua Penick
Jimmy Ho

Reference Information
Jalal Mahmud and Tessa Lau, IBM, IUI 2010, February 7 - 10, 2010, Hong Kong, China.

Summary
In this paper the authors explain their way of going about creating an easy to use system that will be used to test web applications. Normally a scripting language would be used in order to test out different features repeatedly. However, these scripting languages are usually complicated and hard to use for the layman. The system that they have created is much more intuitive and does not require programming experience to use it. The 'CoTester' learns what the user wants to test and can write the code from that representation. The algorithm can take in many different plain text type actions and translate them to run the scripts. The article also talks about how the subroutines that are created can be segmented out.

Discussion
This type of program is actually incredibly helpful for the developer as the project progresses. If the web application is being made in a company, developers can push of these annoying tests to non-programming type people. The tests could be made in large numbers very quickly so development could speed up greatly. This program could also be tweaked to help in other areas. People could use it to perform a lot of basic functions when they open their web browser. It could also be used maliciously as it could be used to skew results on web applications that are trying to mine data since you could make the 'CoTester' repeatedly enter some wanted data into the web app.

Book Reading #46 - Why We Make Mistakes

Chapter 6-7
Summary
When looking over different aspects and details of scenarios the brain sometimes can not analyze these things correctly. Also discussed was the idea of skimming that is done by a person. This usually means we pay attention to the beginning of the piece and glean as much as possible. There is also a way of doing this where full attention is given when learning it, but as familiarity happens then skimming happens and more mistakes occur.

Discussion
These books that are being used right now go hand in hand very well and play off of each other. The cognitive abilities of most people will also cause mistakes sometimes.

Book Reading #45 - Things That Make Us Smart

Chapter 3-4
Summary
The first chapter talked about how little details in cognition play a role in how we perceive things. The way information is put forward could allow us to fully understand or confuse a situation. Also, the next section showed the importance of pattern and structure that information must have in order to create good memory.

Discussion
The way the human mind works is very important for us as a species to learn and know as it could help all of us in the long run. This knowledge can be exploited and used for good research and learning purposes.

Final Project Proposal

The last project will be a true implementation of something that we have discussed before. After consideration, I will go with project 2 just because it seems more feasible to implement and straightforward. I don't have team members but I could join up or do it alone, both are possible. I already have resources at my disposal in order to implement a project such as this. I own web servers to test and release code onto in order to get a class web app up and running. Realistically, most of the features could be implemented, but some might be left out just for times sake.

Paper Reading #19 - WildThumb: A Web Browser Supporting Efficient Task Management on Wide Displays

Comments
Vince Kocks
Aaron Kirkes

Reference Information
Shenwei Liu, Keishi Tajima, IUI’10, February 7–10, 2010, Hong Kong, China.

Summary
The topic of this paper is to address the management problem that people now have with tab-based browsers. People today are much more prone to multitask and have many tabs open at the same time. However, the current solution to look at all these tabs at a glance is very poor. Usually all you can see is a logo for the website and a couple of words for the title of the page. The solution presented takes into account that wide screen monitors have become much more prevalent in the world and the extra space is not being utilized well. Therefore, they want to have a browser that has the main window, but also large thumbnails instead of tabs for the other pages that are open. This allows the user to very easily glance and see what other screens are open and what they are without having to go back and forth. Also analyzed in the paper were special techniques to actually scan the page for important data to add to the thumbnail in order to give better information about the tab. So the thumbnail will not simply be a scrunched picture of the page, but have a large version of the logo and maybe a picture from the page.

Discussion
This is definitely a field that needs a lot of work for the browser world. Users of computers are spending more and more of their day on the browser and it is becoming a large focus of what the computer does. Even Google has made an entire operating system based solely on their Chrome browser. Tab management could allow for a much better experience and much more efficiency. I am really interested to see how their algorithm to make a better thumbnail would work out. I see that as the real key to this solution because often times thumbnails do not really tell you anything about what the real picture is.

Book Reading #44 - Why We Make Mistakes

Chapter 4-5
Summary
The memory of many of us is often times wrong in the details. Particularly when we do interesting things we will remember them in a positive light rather than what it actually was. This can lead to an argument happening where the person remembers using nice language rather than possibly more stern language. Also, the multitasking of people is usually a dangerous game to deal with. The nature in which people can get focused on something will be devastating if multiple things are occurring.

Discussion
Having rosy colored glasses is not a new thing for me. This happens with everyone and can really confuse as to what really happened. Even little things hidden are important to the overall understanding sometimes. Then when it comes to multitasking it is important to understand that everyone is better if they only focus on one task at a time but defining what multitasking is is another story.

Book Reading #43 - Things That Make Us Smart

Chapter 1-2
Summary
The first chapter speaks about the role of technology in the lives and evolution of humans. Technology has come about almost by accident and has allowed humans to benefit greatly in their lives from it. With all the benefit however comes some downside as this author says that the technology inflates our sense of what we are doing while ignoring the things we don't know. Then the next chapter talked entirely on the human cognition and how learning is done.

Discussion
This seems like it will be an interesting book to see how technology is inflating our level of knowledge and how the situation helps improve things.

Ethnography Results Week 8

This past week the band has slowed down a little bit after their first big show with the new guitarist. Practices continue to occur and new events are popping up in the next couple of days. The next show that they will be doing is opening for another band here in College Station at Wolfpen Creek. The practices that have been happening lately have been a little different than usual as the whole band is in College Station rather than back in Dallas. As before, the practices were usually an all day affair and started in the morning at around 11 (different every day for various reasons) and lasted until 10 at night. This was only separated by meals and slight breaks. The breaks usually were sitting around drinking and telling some jokes or whatever came up in order to lighten the mood. Sometimes band set lists and other logistics came up but not usually. After the last gig however the practices have gotten a little different. Now being in College Station, they practice at the guitarists house. Since the guitarist is still in school, this requires the practicing to be a little more brief and to the point. This is not a problem though because the reason they were practicing so long before was to have the guitarist learn the songs. Now that he has gotten most of the songs down they only need to practice for a couple hours most days.

The leader of the band also got a deal with another band to write and play a song together. He is going to collaborate with a girl that he has played with before and has similar music to his own. They met in Waco on Friday and started writing the song and some basics for everything.

Coming of Age in Samoa

Summary
This book was one of the most famous ethnographies in the field. The book focused on the Samoan society and how the community functions on the different levels of authority, class, age group, sex, etc. This type of research was very big for the time and allows different societies to see the rest of the world and compare their own life to that of another's. Also the ethnography focused quite a bit on the adolescent aspect to the girls of the tribe and how growing up in their society worked. This included what was expected of them and what roles they played in the community. Throughout the entire study many details were revealed that showed the interesting similarities that the culture had with western culture, but at the same time many things were quite different. The way basic principals were dealt with in Samoan culture was vastly different sometimes than it is in the west such as sex or relationships.

The roles that people undertook seemed to be a lot more straight forward and understandable than it is sometimes in the west. Certain things were expected out of everyone that made much more sense.

Discussion
This should be a required book for everyone to read as it reveals a way of thinking to people that is invaluable and important for life. Looking at life in a very critical sense is important to understand how and why we do the things we do. Traditions and rituals are important, but to understand them is much more important. In terms of this class, that is why this skill is important to learn and use. Computer and human interaction requires that the designer of the computer object understand how humans of all backgrounds perceive what he is designing.

Book Reading #42 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Appendix III
Summary
Essentially in this appendix, the author goes into what the Samoan culture has changed into over the time since the study was published. For the most part the culture has stayed largely the same as one would expect, however many modern influences have come to find their way into the community. That isn't to say that the people rely on them, they have merely showed up.

Discussion
This was probably a really important chapter to read in order to see the relative change that occurred since the study had been done. It was interesting to see all the influences that have come in to the community with how much of their culture still remains intact.

Book Reading #41 - Why We Make Mistakes

Chapter 2-3
Summary
For the second chapter, the topic of question was the memories of people and how they associate in our minds. The visual nature of our memories in connection with faces show a very good result but connecting those faces with names was sub-par at best. In the next chapter the author talked about the subtle queues that occur and how we still pick up on them in humans. These allow us to discern what underlying things are happening with other people and we act on them subconsciously.

Discussion
I think that these chapters were important to show how we act even though we might not know what we are doing. The role of mistakes is quite important to understand in order to fix it and also for some to exploit it.

Emotional Design

Summary
Of the few chapters that we read in this book, the premise is similar and yet different from our earlier book, The Design of Everyday Things. The author talks about the aesthetic or behavioral aspects of design and their large effects on people who use them. The user is going to be affected greatly by the different visceral designs that the inventor creates. The designs can allow for a much better time of use if the design of the product is aesthetically pleasing or well designed. This idea of designing can help the inventor get more people using their product simply by appealing to the culture and personality of the people

Discussion
This book was essentially the exact opposite of the other book from the same author. The first book always talked about how little design flaws were the most important when designing an object and should be most considered. However, in this book the author basically switched tag lines and started spouting that the behavioral and etc. design was what should be priority and has the most value when designing the object in question. Obviously they both have their place and should be considered.

Ethnography Week 7

Well as time goes on the band's schedule is filling up more and more with events and shows that they must practice for and perform. This past week the big event occurred and my friend's band performed as the opener to the entire event. This was on Saturday morning as everyone was getting there assignments and when everyone was sitting around. The band came into town a couple of days before in order to practice and get ready for the event. Since a permanent guitarist has yet to be found, a friend of my friend who can play guitar is currently filling in. He will probably play any shows that the band needs for the next few months but he is not looking to be there currently. So they have frantically been practicing in order to get him ready for this first real event that the band has performed. The show went pretty well with minor problems throughout the hour. The crowd seemed interested but since it was eight in the morning, most people were still pretty out of it. Most of the crowd sat in front of the stage and listened. There were a couple of people dancing and getting up towards the end. The band ended up selling 15 or so CDs at the event which is fairly good right now since they are new and the fact that this generation is moving much more towards buying digitally their music. Statistics from their iTunes page and various websites can actually tell if they got any positive press from this event. This was true since they sold about 40 sales just after the event occurred.

Paper Reading #18 - Embedded Media Markers: Marks on Paper that Signify Associated Media

Comments
Patrick Frith
Stephen Morrow

Reference Information
Qiong Liu, Chunyuan Liao, Lynn Wilcox, Anthony Dunnigan, Bee Liew, IUI’10, February 7–10, 2010, Hong Kong, China.

Summary
The point of this article is to find an acceptable way to embed dynamic content into a paper that is written. Currently, many articles will embed a 2D bar code that the user will take a picture of with his or her cell phone. This will bring him or her to a site that has the content in question on it to play. However, this is usually intrusive of the overall look and feel of the paper and distracts from the flow. The goal of the authors is to create an Embedded Media Marker or EMM. These will be almost unnoticed by the reader and they will only know when the paper informs them. The paper will have marks in it such as a video camera to inform the reader that there is content there but the unique identifying mark will not be obtrusive at all.

Discussion
I believe that there is some truth as to where these authors are going. The QR codes today I think have a little bit of a stigma to them in the general populations eyes as possibly being too geeky and therefore will not be used as much. Having it just displayed as a unique icon of what type of content it is would not only be more helpful at discerning what will come after scanning it, but would also help people to use it more. However, I think that as time progresses, the idea of taking a picture to gain content will move past quickly and NFC chips on cell phones will be used a lot more since they are even simpler.

Paper Reading #17 - Estimating User’s Engagement from Eye-gaze Behaviors in Human-Agent Conversations

Comments
Aaron Kirkes

Stephen Morrow


Reference Information
I. Nakano Yukiko, Ryo Ishii, IUI’10, February 7–10, 2010, Hong Kong, China.

Summary
This article is on studying of eye-gaze in people when they are concentrating on a specific activity or event. The study of someone's eye-gaze can show that the person is interested or not and whether they are paying attention at any given time. Using this information the authors of this paper can create a way for developers to correctly implement their given program or activity. So for example, this study could be done during the time when a user watches television. The eye-gaze can be tracked to see what the user is interested in and/or whether the user gets bored with specific parts of the show. The specific study the authors performed, however, was to take a number of subjects and track their eye-gazes and movements while certain conversations were undertaken.

Discussion
I can actually see this type of technology and study be very helpful in many new areas of study. Using this technology could help designers find the subtle changes that they need in order to create a good experience for the user. Even if the user does not realize it, this technology can show when they are not paying attention to anything that the designer wants them to. So then the designer can go back and bring out the feature more in some way or redesign everything. The idea of tracking eye-gaze would make me think there would be much error but the authors did not have much trouble.

Book Reading #40 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 14
Summary
This last chapter talks about the overall analysis of the entire experiment. The comparison of the american and first world culture with the simple Samoan culture and upbringing. This summary of things that are key features of the adolescent lives of the females in the culture can show that the stress that adolescent kids feel is either from the environment or natural. If in the case that it is from the environment then steps could be made to correct for this.

Discussion
The chapter here was merely a way of summing up all the material beforehand. It was interesting to see it all laid out and explained in a clear form.

Book Reading #39 - Why We Make Mistakes

Chapter 0-1
Summary
The amount of mistakes that any one person will make is quite astounding. These first chapters are reserved to talking about what exactly the kind of mistakes they are and how we fall victim to them. The different ways as to our brain may ignore key information or similar is how we make mistakes

Discussion
I think this will be an interesting book to get through as they tell the semi-obvious but good to define anyways. The book will reveal all the tiny things that some people gloss over in order to make a better design and not have people make mistakes with it.

Book Reading #38 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 13
Summary
This chapter takes a different turn by comparing american status with the situation of culture in the Samoan community. The book simply goes through the major differences of raising children in the community such as sex. The American side knows little to nothing about it while growing up while the Samoan children know much more than that.

Discussion
This is a good chapter to reiterate all the differences that exist between the two societies. I liked having them spelled out and seeing some of the absurdities in our own traditions that exist.

Obedience to Authority

Summary
The first experiment discussed is the classic experiment of what people do under authority. They were told to administer a specific level of shock and ramp it up as they get questions wrong. The many levels of how this experiment was done are described starting with inquiring for participants. Also, it described who the "victims" would be and how all the players come together to create the experiment. Then results were tallied and showed to have a clear trend showing where most people would not continue the experiment. Another factor in the experiment that was used was how the person delivering the "shock" saw the victim. This got progressively closer and had an affect on the out come. Next the book then focused on specific experiments of shock treatment. Then in future experiments new variations were created to make the victim vocalize that they have actual heart conditions at certain levels of voltage and also comparing the gender role of the victim and shocker. Also discussed were the specifics of when confrontation of authority occurred. Lastly a role switch experiment was done to see what happens when the subject is a different role in the experiment (ex. giving orders). Next up in the round of testing was to add in the element of having a group aspect to the variables. This is to see whether these people would still choose to go with the authority aspect even with peers by them. Then the next chapter pondered on the idea of why authority and obedience correlate so well. What makes the person who disagrees with what is happening go along with the instructions. The disobedience aspect of the equation is even more interesting because people simply don't just disobey because of the fact that shocking a victim is morally wrong because when the space between the subject and the victim is changed so does the obedience factor. Strain will definitely be a factor in this equation. Also proposed was maybe aggression as a key cause for all the outcomes. The last chapter was reserved for stating possible problems with the study such as whether the test subjects were truly thinking they were administering a shock, whether they were actual volunteers or whether the recruitment gave them any bias.


Discussion
This book allowed for a much better understanding on this seemingly well known study. It was interesting to see in the huge description of the experiment what all went into making this experiment work and all the different variables. This is obviously similar to the Opening Skinner's Box book but only focusing on one particular experiment. Also, I find it very similar to the coming of age in samoa because it presents findings in a similar fashion. 

Book Reading #37 - Obedience to Authority

Chapters 9-14
Summary
Next up in the round of testing was to add in the element of having a group aspect to the variables. This is to see whether these people would still choose to go with the authority aspect even with peers by them. Then the next chapter pondered on the idea of why authority and obedience correlate so well. What makes the person who disagrees with what is happening go along with the instructions. The disobedience aspect of the equation is even more interesting because people simply don't just disobey because of the fact that shocking a victim is morally wrong because when the space between the subject and the victim is changed so does the obedience factor. Strain will definitely be a factor in this equation. Also proposed was maybe aggression as a key cause for all the outcomes. The last chapter was reserved for stating possible problems with the study such as whether the test subjects were truly thinking they were administering a shock, whether they were actual volunteers or whether the recruitment gave them any bias.

Discussion
This last half of the book was much more on the technical aspects of the study and how specific outcomes were achieved. This study specifically turned out to be a little more substance than I thought. Many of the details of this experiment were left out for me when I normally read about how they performed it.

Paper Reading #16 - A Practical Pressure Sensitive Computer Keyboard

Comments
Joshua Penick
Stephen Morrow

Reference Information
Paul H. Dietz, Benjamin Eidelson, Jonathan Westhues and Steven Bathiche, UIST’09, October 4–7, 2009, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Summary
The main idea for this article was for this team to create a keyboard that could also incorporate pressure as an input to the computer along with ASCII lettering. The team began by creating the best possible keyboard first and then went to adding in the pressure sensors. This could aid in some programs where emotion would want to be conveyed. For example instant messaging programs could possibly use this to show more of what the person's mood is when 'speaking'. Another example would be in gaming. The keyboard could aid in telling the program how fast the user wants to run or how hard they want to shoot etc. More importantly however is the application in general typing situations. When typing on a normal keyboard at a fast pace, the user might accidentally strike a wrong key and this must be corrected. The pressure sensitive keyboard could tell that the wrong key was pressed at a much lower pressure than the other keys and then assumes that this was a possible mistake and corrects.

Discussion
The idea of this keyboard at first did not make much sense. The idea of the keyboard is more or less reached its maximum potential. However, using it as a way to sense if the user has accidentally struck a key is a very interesting idea. Also, this idea is very plausible and could be implemented and sold in a very short amount of time. Also in this groups implementation, the new circuitry will actually rid the problem of 'ghosting' from the old keyboards.

Book Reading #35 - Obedience to Authority

Chapters 1-8
Summary
The first experiment discussed is the classic experiment of what people do under authority. They were told to administer a specific level of shock and ramp it up as they get questions wrong. The many levels of how this experiment was done are described starting with inquiring for participants. Also, it described who the "victims" would be and how all the players come together to create the experiment. Then results were tallied and showed to have a clear trend showing where most people would not continue the experiment. Another factor in the experiment that was used was how the person delivering the "shock" saw the victim. This got progressively closer and had an affect on the out come. Next the book then focused on specific experiments of shock treatment. Then in future experiments new variations were created to make the victim vocalize that they have actual heart conditions at certain levels of voltage and also comparing the gender role of the victim and shocker. Also discussed were the specifics of when confrontation of authority occurred. Lastly a role switch experiment was done to see what happens when the subject is a different role in the experiment (ex. giving orders).

Discussion
It was interesting to see in the huge description of the experiment what all went into making this experiment work and all the different variables. This is obviously similar to the Opening Skinner's Box book but only focusing on one particular experiment. Also, I find it very similar to the coming of age in samoa because it presents findings in a similar fashion.

Book Reading #36 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 12
Summary
In this chapter the topic is on maturity and the differences between married and non married individuals. In terms of work and what is expected, the community finds no difference between these types of people. There is a hierarchy just like all other things and this is how the women move up in the scheme of things.

Discussion
I like reading these aspects of the community of such similarity but difference at the same time. This allows relatability but uniqueness at the same time.

Opening Skinner's Box Full Post

Opening Skinner's Box was an interesting collection of several classic psychological experiments of the last century. These studies showed some of the greatest revelations of behavior that they changed how we perceived ourselves and each other. Some of them allowed us to figure out that memory was not how we thought it was, the idea of authority and how people deal with it, etc. Each separate chapter dealt with a different case and explained the importance of the results and how they came to these conclusions.

I loved this book the most out of all of our readings so far. The psychology aspect intrigues me on a basic level and I love learning all I can about these different experiments that are being performed in the past and the future. They allow all of us to break free from the thinking that something is unknowable and has an aire of magic into something that is knowable and helps us explain further other things if possible.

Paper Reading #15 - A Reconfigurable Ferromagnetic Input Device

Comments
Cindy Skach

Aaron Kirkes


Reference Information
Jonathan Hook, Stuart Taylor, Alex Butler, Nicolas Villar, Shahram Izadi, UIST'09 Oct 4-7, 2009, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Summary
The research being done in this article was again in user input to a machine. The specifics, however, were quite different from the normal inventive process. The idea here was to incorporate ferromagnetic substances in order to make it turn into any object that would be suitable to have as an input device. A large ball could be put up to the machine and allow for it to morph into a trackball-like device for example. Many sensor coils are used in order to sense the change in magnetic field to determine where an object is placed and the shape of it. Within the article they explain some of the applications that this technology might help with in real world situations. They give a scenario of a modeling program that is used to show virtual clay. The user then uses the ferromagnetic device to 'squish' down certain areas. These actions are picked up by the sensors and then translated into the program. This will allow the user to model the clay and virtually turn it into whatever they want. Also another example would be using the device to have the user have finger input in order to make sound. The pressure at which you press down can be used to translate into volume of the note or other aspects like tonality.

Discussion
I like the idea of this device but I see some conflicts with it. For most of the paper the authors describe aspects of their device that are quite similar to multi-touch devices of today. They rarely mention anything that it does that goes above and beyond this. They did mention some aspects in 3D modeling that could occur and they should bring focus to that more. But also I think the ferrous compound using aspect is just not a way to go if cost and maintenance is taken into account.

Ethnography Results Week 5 / 6

For the last couple of weeks a main focus of the bands worries has been finding a second guitarist after their last guitarist did not come through for them. Even though the last guitarist had good equipment and a place to practice for the whole band, his skills could not be ignored. The fact that he could not understand basic music theory commands just was not going to work with the band. The guitarist has stayed on as a friend and gives help every now and then, but for the most part he is not dealing with much anymore. This has made the leader of the band quickly scramble for another guitarist to teach his songs and help out. Currently he is using a friend that is still in school to play with the group in order to play several gigs that they have going on in the future weeks. This new guy will only be temporary since he is still in school, but he will help tremendously as they already have a few events scheduled to perform. With the advent of the first guitarist being let go, they then needed to find a new place to have all of their practices. They looked into renting certain places that cater to bands needing to practice, but those were looking to be a little expensive. So just recently did they start practicing in a rented out storage unit. This room is 10'x15' and is half the price of any of the other places that the leader looked.

The practices now consist of most days starting at 10am and going until around 7pm with slight breaks for lunch and dinner. This is pretty necessary because everyone is needing learn all of the songs in the repertoire in order to play the first events of this new band which is happening next saturday. During the practices they mostly consist of the leader simply picking a couple of the songs for a period of the day and running through them while fixing the mistakes that occur. What is really interesting also is the fact that during this time they will also improve on the songs by adding in solo sections, teases, etc. that were not originally there. This will be perfect for making the live aspect better and more appealing.

Recently we all went to the South by Southwest convention in Austin. The band didn't get to play a show this year but there were plenty of opportunities to network with other people. A producer/manager was going to be flying in that the leader of the band knew. He has shown interest in the band in the past but hasn't made a move yet. The leader picked him up from the airport and talked with him about possibly taking him on. The producer still seemed to hold the same stance but showed considerable more interest and just needed to listen to the band's new music a little bit more. Later at SXSW the band was able to get into a promotional event that they thought was not possible before. The band is being promoted somewhat by GrooveShark currently and they were also at SXSW. They had a recording studio on an RV that they brought where they would record audio and video of various bands that they are trying to promote. This wasn't going to happen for my band at first but they ended up having an opening for them that they pounced on immediately.

Paper Reading #14 - PhotoelasticTouch: Transparent Rubbery Tangible Interface using an LCD and Photoelasticity

Comments
Alyssa Nabors
Angel Narvaez

Reference Information
Toshiki Sato, Haruko Mamiya, Hideki Koike, Kentaro Fukuchi, UIST’09, October 4–7, 2009, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

Summary
This article is about a system that is similar in nature to Microsoft's Surface technology. Its called PhotoelasticTouch which is described as a table-top interactive type surface that can also recognize objects placed on it and give soft tactile feedback. The display is somewhat elastic and is therefore the most interesting part of the device. This can allow the system to give different kinds of feedback depending on the situation rather than what happens with a hard touch screen surface. The image recognition is done through a fixed camera above the system. Multitouch can be identified by both the camera and also to the surface. The amount of pressure a given finger is putting on the surface can be identified along with somewhat good processing of 3D placement of the finger.

Discussion
It seemed like this type of technology could be a real viable way that artists could use this to innovate in interesting ways. In the article, the subjects were using differently shaped material that could work on the surface in order to "paint" a picture. This could be made to act like different brushes and create nice works of art. The one problem I did see with it was that it required a camera to be on the outside of the system. This could cause problems with lighting conditions since that will always be varying with different locations and throughout the day. Also, what was really interesting was the ability to manipulate a pseudo 3D object with the surface. The user could place a face like object on the surface and mess with the nose sticking up and the system could track this.

Book Reading #34 - Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 10
Summary
This chapter touched on the topic of alternate lobotomies that occur called cingulotomies. These are mainly only used for OCD or depressed patients now. Also, this was simply on the idea of lobotomies in general and how they started.

Discussion
I find that lobotomies just show how humans knew almost nothing about the human brain not too long ago. Its understanding still eludes us and we have much to learn.

Book Reading #33 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 11
Summary
This chapter was a continuation in the regard of what is expected of a girl in this community. It reiterated certain specific girls and their lives.

Discussion
I found the discussion of church to be interesting in that they did not encourage the people to come to church until they wed. This is a large difference of cultures here.

Book Reading #32 - Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 9
Summary
This chapter deals with a more in depth look at how memories work and their function. The first story talks about a doctor performing brain surgery in the hope of elviating seizures. However, he inadvertantly removes the memory making center of the brain and makes his patient unable to form new memories.

Discussion
I love any of these chapters that deals with the brain because it is still the last mystery of our body that we are slowly learning new things about. It is interesting to see what we once thought on the subject.

Book Reading #31 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 10
Summary
For this chapter specific individuality is addressed in the average girl of the community. It talked about their general knowledge of certain subjects such as the human body and its actions, etc.

Discussion
This was a good comparison to show the differences between other cultures and the knowledge and actions they take.

Book Reading #30 - Emotional Design

Chapter 3
Summary
This chapter once agains reiterates the few basic principles of emotional design from the first chapter. However, this time the author goes into much more depth on what exactly these specific characteristics mean.

Discussion
These are important things to take note, but sometimes I think that the author is saying the opposite of what he wrote about in The Design of Everyday Things. It was all about function and how the thing works, but now how it looks is much more important to take note.

Paper Reading #13 - Mouse 2.0: Multi-touch Meets the Mouse

Comments
Stephen Morrow
Vince Kocks

Reference Information

Nicolas Villar, Shahram Izadi, Dan Rosenfeld, Hrvoje Benko, John Helmes, Jonathan Westhues, Steve Hodges, Eyal Ofek, Alex Butler, Xiang Cao, Billy Chen,UIST’09, October 4–7, 2009, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Summary

Again, this is another article dealing with multitouch interfacing with the computer. However, instead of the tablet interface that I have read for the last few papers, this one is focusing on mouse hardware that is using a multitouch type input. The article describes many different prototypes that have different approaches to the dexterious nature that humans naturally have and use quite often. Most of the approaches were a combination of a regular mouse and also using IR cameras or capacitive surfaces in order to track the fingers. This could then be used to interpret multitouch input simply from your hand resting on the mouse. A study was also done having participants try out the five prototypes. The users could use all the five mice and complete the tasks. Obviously some had their own stregnths and weaknesses.

Discussion

I think it is obvious that this is where the industry needs to go rather than having a touch screen for the desktop. If the desktop stays the same for the coming future then no one wants to have to hover their arm in the air in order to use a touch screen to interact with the computer. The mouse is perfect because it allows the user to rest their arm on a surface and use the computer comfortably. These new prototypes allow for touch screen type applications but simply by using the mouse. Apple actually has an interesting approach to this in that they are simply selling an oversized touch pad for the desktop. This is one way of going about it.

Book Reading #29 - Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 8
Summary
The point of this chapter's case study was that of memories. The idea that memories were solid was challenged to see how fragile they really were. Apparently memories were not as good as once thought and even the mere mention of a wrong detail, the subject will go along with it or question themselves heavily.

Discussion
This is very interesting simply by the results but also the fact that it was long thought that memories were solid and good ways to remember things well. I like when obvious things are turned around because it shows to all that simple things should continue to be questioned.

Book Reading #28 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 9
Summary
This was a relatively short chapter in which different personalities were described. Also mentioned was comparisons do not really exist in the Samoan language.

Discussion
The interesting lives of these people show some very basic things can also be very different when compared to different cultures. I like the fact that some concepts can literally just not exist in a language.

Book Reading #27 - Emotional Design

Chapter 2
Summary
This chapter delves down into more layers of the different aspects of design. These levels are for example the appearance, behavioral response, reflective response, etc. The designer must now the audience that he or she is catering to in order to sell it well.

Discussion
Of course no product will sell to everyone since everyone has different responses to certain things. I think that these are obvious tips that designers should consider. Once again the author is going into obvious mode.

Ethnography Week 4

During this weeks studies I mainly just studied my friend's band interaction at practicing and also how they interacted when they were not working. The biggest event that happened this week was the fact that the entire band was finally practicing together after a month of the leader being in New York recording and producing new material. Many of them were quite antsy to get started as one of the members took off from school in order to pursue this career and one of them is just out of school ready to get started. The guitarist of the group was recently hired while the leader was in New York and has been quite busy over the last month. Therefore, no one in the band had played with him yet and this past practice was the first time to be done. The guitarist has his own studio at his house so the band met there in order to practice. However, within a short time it was very clear that the guitarist was in fact not very good and could not do simple things. When the leader would tell him simple chord changes or timing patterns, he did not understand at all. Unfortunately, this is just unacceptable in terms of a guitarist. Chord changes should be universally one of the first things that a musician learns and therefore he was dropped immediately. Apparently when the leader interviewed him, playing was not ever done, but the guitarist talked about how he had played on several albums and also produced them. He might be able to learn a song eventually, but not having these skills makes playing something live and changing it up nearly impossible. However, this was good because everyone saw immediately that he could not do the job and was therefore cut, and guitarists are relatively plentiful.

Paper Reading #12 - Detecting and leveraging finger orientation for interaction with direct-touch surfaces

Comments
Bain Mullins

Aaron Kirkes


Reference Information
Feng Wang, Xiang Cao, Xiangshi Ren, Pourang Irani, UIST’09, October 4–7, 2009, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

Summary
This article continues similarly to my previous paper in that it is on the touch input of multi-touch screens of the emerging tablet market. The authors of this article are trying to show the benefits that come from easily determining the orientation of the user's finger direction and how it can be used as another type of input. This could be very helpful as humans use this kind of mentality all the time to point at objects or move them in this manner. In a game such as pool, the orientation could be used in order to easily aim the pool cue. Any sort of aiming would become much easier and more accurate. The algorithm for determining the actual orientation of the finger is quite simple in thinking, but harder to actually implement. When placing the finger down on the touch surface, the user will almost always place the tip of their finger first and then rock their finger back a little. So the pressure can be recorded and therefore determine which way the finger is being placed. Testing was done with a handful of subjects and showed positive results with minimal error.

Discussion
These types of articles are always very important to the future innovation of this area of technology. The touch screen input boon is still relatively new that there is much need for improvement to take over the mouse's territory. Currently, multi-touch is very primitive in that it is simply just tracking a handful of points on the screen in a fairly imprecise fashion. Orientation could open up a whole new area of menus and widgets that could be used. The menus would be semi-circles around a finger and the user would merely point to the relevant option.

Book Reading #26 - Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 7
Summary
In this chapter drug dependence is tested and observed. The idea of addiction is talked about and whether it really is a disease or what. It is mentioned that no matter the fluctuation of other variables, addiction constantly remains at around 1 percent.

Discussion
I find this study to be quite interesting just because of personal reasons. The idea of addiction being a disease I think is much more complicated than most people want to make it to be. They see it simply as a choice, which in a way it is but there is something more.

Book Reading #25 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 8
Summary
This chapter talks about the activity that all persons in the community are allowed to participate in, dancing. All the different preparations are mentioned and how everyone gets in on the semi-formal event.

Discussion
This was kind of an interesting break as it just described the different emotions of all the people involved and how they felt about dancing. I like seeing these basic events being present in all different cultures.

Book Reading #24 - Emotional Design

Chapter 1
Summary
Emotion plays a key role in all aspects of design for humans and the objects they interact with. Aesthetics of objects therefore will play a role in whether or how a person uses it. Then described are the basic processing that all humans do. Exploiting these emotions are what all designers need to do to make great things.

Discussion
This looks like it will be a good compliment to the Design of Everyday Things. The emotional aspect of all objects is quite important to study when creating and designing them. This can increase the use of it as demonstrated in the chapter.

Full Blog Design of Everyday Things

Summary
The Design of Everyday Things gave an interesting portrayal of how the thought process works in creating interfaces and various objects and the pitfalls that occur when doing this. Throughout most of the chapters the author continually speaks about the minor problems that plague well known devices. These include the phone or temperature setting devices. Odd labeling, multiple switches, and information overload were just some of the examples that the author gave to why users are confused or just make mistakes. By pointing out these flaws the author was trying to give designers a way to see that thinking about the design through their own eyes is not always the best policy. The user usually will need to be catered to when it comes to these interfaces by giving the obvious functions in an obvious way and not making things complicated. This was the theme throughout the entire book.

Discussion
This book was actually my least favorite at the beginning of the course. The author simply pointed out the flaws of all these simple objects and went on and on about them. I could not see what he was doing by just mentioning these already obvious flaws. However, I grew to see that showing these simple examples show the underlaying cause of why these flaws come up in the first place. By the end the author was walking through the steps that designers should take heed of in order to not fall into these bad habits so the designer wont make obvious nor non-obvious mistakes.

Paper Reading #11 - Contact Area Interaction with Sliding Widgets

Comments
Brian Meyer
Felipe Othick

Reference Information
Tomer Moscovich, UIST’09, October 4–7, 2009, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.


Summary
This paper discusses the current situation in tablet computing input. The problem with current setups are the fact that the finger input maps to a pixel rather than the area under the finger. They coin this term the "fat finger problem". This accounts for many errors by the user when using any touch screen device. The author proposes to solve this by having the selection area be the small circle of the finger tip. Now any object in this area will respond to touch. In the article many different situations are proposed in order to show how a sliding widget interface can work well, be intuitive, and help the user. The trials that this system were put through did actually show a slight improvement in both time spent and the amount of errors the user caused.

Discussion
I have a problem with the authors initial proposal of having the finger tip area get a response from all near objects. This seems like a nightmare of frustration with users as they are only trying to manipulate one object but instead all the objects move. This is solved by the author in regard to action buttons by making everything need a sliding action to activate. So objects close to each other can be made to slide in opposite directions in order to not clash with each other. However, this was found to confuse the user slightly and might need to be reworked or thought of before setting the final design. The idea of this is a good one however. Deciding where a large finger is exactly pointing is hard and will probably cause problems for the user. Therefore just using the area is a logical solution.

Notice the widgets all require a sliding motion to activate

Ethnography Results Week 3

For the third week of study things are moving along a little better now that the topic for my proposal is essentially finished. Now that the topic is on music and the music scene in general and the background of the dealings that go on with modern artists. The past month or so my friend has been trying to launch his career into music. He was in New York recording music and meeting with people to see if record deals or other promotions were possible. He has a promotional deal now with a certain company and is in talks with a record label that has shown interest. The couple of songs that he was recording are nearly finished and he is now back in College Station. Over the following weeks I will see what exactly he does when he is recording, practicing, meeting with people, and various music related activities to see how the modern artist is getting along today. I got many interactions that he had while in New York with various executives and what went on when he was in the studio. These ranged from the usual working environment, to crazy exclusive clubs for meetings, to weird hour sessions on the computer finalizing the songs. I hope to complement these findings with how most people will consume their music and just the general landscape of music currently by looking at what surrounds me in life and what music is laced in it. This can reveal a lot by what is perceived to be popular.

Paper Reading #10 - Ripples: Utilizing Per-Contact Visualizations to Improve User Interaction with Touch Displays

Comments
Alyssa Nabors

Chris Kam


Reference Information
Daniel Wigdor, Sarah Williams, Michael Cronin, Robert Levy, Katie White, Maxim Mazeev, Hrvoje Benko, Microsoft, UIST’09, October 4–7, 2009, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Summary
This paper is on the topic of the recent trend of multi-touch input displays that have been starting to sell on electronics. These types of inputs have become very popular, but unfortunately the feedback to users has taken a step back. Often times an irregular result will come out of a particular action and cause the user confusion. This, however, is not accompanied by any sort of visual feedback in order for the user to figure out exactly what their mistake was. Ripple is a new program from these authors that provides the users with appropriate feedback through contact visualization to show correct operations and errors. Ripple is a way of standardizing this solution to a problem that will become prevalent as the products keep coming out. The program is friendly enough to be able to become implemented in different platforms by being the system level framework that renders visuals above all other layers. The whole point to the Ripple framework is to bring together a standard so users everywhere can easily pick up these devices and be able to use them with ease and fewer errors just like the mouse and keyboard.

Discussion
This topic is a very important aspect of computing as time goes on. The multi-touch screen is a huge new piece of hardware that will be frequently used in the coming future and I think that the biggest problem that it still faces is the annoyance with dealing with user input errors. People get frustrated because they do not realize what problems they are doing because no feedback is given. When devices freeze and the user continually tries to push a button on screen and it will not respond is often a problem and the user is receiving no feedback that the device is no understanding the input. However, a simple act of adding in vibration after every 'click' has not been accepted and is often turned off by the user. This will be a very important topic in human computer interaction realm for the coming years.

Book Reading #23 - Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 6
Summary
The case study of this chapter is on personal attachment observed with monkeys. So essentially the relationship of love with our perception of touch and sight. The monkeys were fed by a metal figure and compared with the normal feeding ritual.

Discussion
This was an interesting take on how love and affection play a large role on animal's lives. Simply an inanimate object can be used to look like a mother to the monkeys and play an important role in affection.

Book Reading #22 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 7
Summary
Chapter seven talks about all the actual puberty type situations that happen within the tribe. All the sexual related aspects to relationships between the girls and boys are observed and their respective feelings. Even interesting superstitions are mentioned when it comes to these types of situations.

Discussion
It was interesting to see the superstitions that the tribe had and how they are relatable to other communities. This topic is obviously one of the most important of a community so therefore interesting to cover.