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.