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.