Concurrent Discourses

In class Jeff was talking about how self is defined by the discourse and that there is no “puppeteer” real version of self that exists inside of us.

Wow.

I know Semiotics is not supposed to be looked at like religion and its a tool and it has holes, but I’m loving it. Call bullshit if you want, but think about how that changes everything when we design. I mean look at how we use personnas or scenarios. We build these tools up to work with a given circumstance. The specific ones are typically the ones that help us the most.

My question is about concurrent discourses (think ubiquitous computing or group interaction). Jeff used the example that he acts differently around his mother than other situations. We act a certain way given the context, but what about overlapping contexts. What about when you’re married to a co-worker. Or drinking with a professor. Is this a whole new discourse, or would you consider that a combination of discourses, and if so what changes?

I may be way off here, but before I was only thinking about a single discourse. That makes sense. But when we have a lot going on (as we often do) what does that mean for semiotics?

Hang Em’ High…

So the other night I decided to watch a Clint Eastwood western. I watched Hang Em’ High for the first time; since it was one of those movies I had wanted to watch and always eluded me (available on Hulu).

I really enjoyed it, but in particular, there was one scene that got me thinking about ready-to-hand, and present-to hand. I know Ben brought up this point earlier when he wrote about his experience with Casey playing DDR. Though my point is really that in the scene I watched, the director used some interesting techniques to really capture the visual action, and make Clint Eastwood’s handling of a gun look very ready-to-hand.
Here’s the scene, where Clint Eastwood’s character (who is an expert gunman) guns down a criminal that had tried to kill him earlier:

I know this film is a work of fiction, but it is kind of scary to fathom that there are people that are so well trained to use firearms that their guns become ready-to-hand. Then their intention to kill becomes reality, almost as if their mind kills another person instead of their hands and a gun. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people; well, while I don’t completely agree with that saying, in the case of this scene, I’d say the ready-to-hand-ness of the gunman is pretty well portrayed.

Now that I’ve said that, since we’ve been talking about sequences lately, I thought I’d do a sequence analysis so the director’s design is out there, in front of us, and we can think about how he used camera/film techniques to portray Clint Eastwood’s character as a tough, pissed off, expert gunman who can shoot so well with a revolver that it’s ready-to-hand to him.

Shot # & description	Shot Type	Dialogue
#1 Eastwood tipping his hat, leaving jail	medium	N/A
#2 Worried look of local Sheriff, looks back at grinning prisoner	Close up	N/A
#3 Eastwood strolling calmly across the street, lighting up a cigar (striking a match on his boot), then noticing something important he sees	Continuous medium, zoom in to close up upon realization of something	N/A
#4 a brown horse that Eastwood recognizes	medium	N/A
#5 Eastwood starts walking towards the horse for closer inspection	Close up, zooms out to long shot and follows Eastwood	N/A
#6 The saddle reads the word “JED”. It is Eastwood’s previously owned saddle that was stolen from him	Close up	N/A
#7 Eastwood then turns towards the saloon, and goes in to find one of the criminals he’s looking for	Continuous long shot follows Eastwood into Saloon	N/A
#8 Eastwood’s reflection in the bar mirror as he bursts through the doors	Long Shot, pans following bartender till Eastwood comes into view, follows Eastwood as he walks left, and closer towards the camera, stopping once he reaches the criminal he’s looking for	JED (Eastwood): You’re under arrest Reno.
#9 Reno responds to the Marshall (Eastwood) while he’s drinking liquor	Close up	RENO: You talkin’ to me Marshall?
#10 Eastwood looks pissed	Close up	JED: You’re name’s Reno, isn’t it?
#11 Reno responds to the Marshall (Eastwood) while he’s pouring liquor	Close up	RENO: Look Marshall, I dunno what kind of town you’re runnin’ here….
#12 Reno is pouring liquor, ignoring Eastwood, and Eastwood is getting angrier	Medium shot	JED: This isn’t my town.RENO: Well I wouldn’t know…see, I just rode in….gonna wash down some trail dust..
#13 Shot Reno, with Eastwood extinguishing his cigar into Reno’s glass of liquor	Close up	RENO:…and
#14 Full shot of Eastwood still with his cigar in Reno’s liquor. Eastwood looks pissed	Medium shot	N/A (stare down)
#15 Reno stands up	Close up	RENO: All right Marshall, whaduya say I done?
#16 Eastwood looks pissed	Close up	JED: You don’t remember me, do you?
#17 Reno	Close up	RENO: No.
#18 Eastwood looks pissed, pulls down his scarf to reveal his hangin’ scar	Close up	JED: When you hang a man, you better look at him!
#19 Reno looks scared as hell	Close up, zooms in to Extreme close up of Reno’s scared face	N/A
#20 Eastwood’s scar is visible to the audience	Extreme Close up, pans up from scar to Eastwood’s eyes. He looks pissed.	N/A
#21 Reno looks scared, starts to back away from Eastwood as camera follows	Close up	N/A
#22 Reno continues to back away from Eastwood. Angle makes Eastwood look tall and towering, and Reno looks small like a scared little kid.	Medium shot	N/A
#23 Eastwood continues his stare down, and covers his neck again	Close up	N/A
#24 Shot of Reno backing away, with Eastwood in the foreground	Long shot of Reno, Eastwood in front of camera, over his shoulder	JED: Don’t go for that gun Reno…
#25 Shot of Eastwood with a low camera angle, makes him look tall and in control	Close up, low angle	JED: ..I need you alive.
#26 Reno pulls his gun to kill Eastwood	Long shot of Reno, Eastwood in front of camera, over his shoulder	N/A
#27 Quick, clear shot of Reno pulling his gun on the Marshall	Medium shot	N/A
#28 Quick shot of Eastwood pulling his gun fast, in reaction to Reno	Long shot of Reno, Eastwood in front of camera, over his shoulder	N/A
#29 View of Reno’s eyes widening as he is shot and killed	Extreme Close up	N/A
#30 Eastwood looks pissed as he shoots and kills Reno, pulling the trigger again and again	Medium shot, low angle	N/A
#31 Eastwood continues to gun down Reno as Reno falls down over the barrels of whiskey	Long shot of Reno, Eastwood in front of camera, over his shoulder	N/A
#32 Reno collapses and falls from his feet, dead, whiskey pouring on his face.	Medium shot, pans to follow Reno’s corpse falling to the floor	N/A
#33 Eastwood looks satisfied as smoke clears from his gun	Medium shot, low angle	N/A
#34 Shot of Eastwood walking towards the corpse, saloon patrons can be seen in the background. The local Sherriff runs into the saloon.	Medium shot, pans left following Eastwood, zooms out as he checks Reno on the floor	N/A
#35 Shot of local Sherriff checking the corpse	Long shot, changes to medium as Sheriff stands up to address Eastwood	JED: You know em’?SHERRIFF: No…JED: Anybody here know em?
#36 Shot of Eastwood and the saloon patrons	Long shot, holds steady for a while, then zooms into a medium shot.	JED: Goes by the name of Reno. Come up here and take a look at him. SHERRIFF: He musta just rode in.JED: That’s what he said, how much to bury him? SHERRIFF: Elwood?ELWOOD: Well…15 dollars oughta do a fair job Marshall.   JED: All right, there seven dollars there, I’ll give you 8 more. Mark it down there. Don’t anybody leave! I want everybody to write down in this book exactly what they saw… PATRON #1: I didn’t see nothing marshall…
#37 Shot of Eastwood responding to patron.	Close up	JED: Fine, then you say that in writing.
#38 Shot of patrons talking to Eastwood	Close up	PATRON #2: Nobody’s gonna fault ya Marshall…you gave him every chance.JED: Then say it in writing.PATRON #1: Marshall, I can’t write!
#39 Shot of patrons talking to Eastwood	Close up	JED: Well the Sherriff here can write it down, and you can put your mark on it.
#40 Shot of everyone in the saloon.	Long shot of patrons, Eastwood in foreground at medium distance	JED: Sherriff, there’s a saddle out there that belongs to me, I’ll be takin’ that.
#41 Shot of Eastwood	Close up	JED: Any of his friends or relatives show up, want his horse or his belongings, you let me know, heh…
#42	Long shot of patrons, Eastwood in foreground at medium distance, holds steady as Eastwood walks away from camera towards doors, and out of the saloon.	JED: …you can wire me in Ft. Grant.SHERRIFF: You gonna pick up the Swede now?JED: No….I’m gonna have that steak now.

Well, after looking back, it’s interesting how rapidly the shots begin to change and cuts happen as tension builds before Eastwood guns down the criminal, and then the shots get longer again after the shootout and calmness returns. I’d say that this is a classic example of rhythmic montage: the cutting of the shots is based on the visual narrative, and the feeling that is being communicated to the audience, (of calmness or high intensity), is communicated through the contrast of a rapid succession of shots, or rather, long slow shots.

Ok, that’s all for now,

-Joe

Semiotics without Phenomenology?

So I asked this in class, but I wanted to open it up on the forums.

“Can we do semiotics, can we talk about it, without using phenomenology to explain our understanding of the text?”

Jeff’s comment was that’s how they thought about it in the 60’s but they realized there was a missing piece is assuming the signifier connected directly to the signified in an obvious way. But we now know that way is not so obvious. Yet, I believe there were some people who maybe disagree and that there is a bit of separation. If that’s true, please let me know because I’m having an impossible time of separating the two ideas in my head. I feel like at this point semiotics is just a way of looking at phenomenology, you know: things as symbols or representation that connect meaning and message from a supplier to a receiver. Like how UPS delivers my birthday ( november 12th ) cookies from my mom to my house.

..jaMEs

10/GUI critique outline(updated)

My phenomenology account of critique is on this concept design called 10/GUI, reinvent desktop human-computer interaction design.

I found it interesting that there are already many critiques going on in the comment area, and someone even wrote a post to exclusively critique this concept. I think it would be better to write my own before taking a look at others’ critiques, which will be an interesting read.

This video contains both the design and design rationale. So I guess I am going to critique both, but focused on the design. I have so much to say about this proposed new interaction, but I feel I am not there yet. Just post this as a place holder and will come back later.

Here are the clusters I came up from watching the interaction and reading one of the comments regarding to the video. I am not sure if they are good clusters or not. You don’t have to look at the video to tell me that, so here they are,

with ten fingers rest on the pad, the design let me think of playing piano, and I did feel a sense of freedom of operation

but with further examination, I found this design asks a high requirement for the hand/fingers (branches listed below)
• full use of fingers, I cannot as eating as operating for some tasks (ignore the accessibility issue)
• the fingers have to be clean and dry, but my hands (and the commentator’s) are most of the time sweaty, so worried about the pointer “jump” issue
• it could not meet the gamer’s need,
• it is good at general target but bad at small/precise target
• since ten fingers are on the pad, there could possibly be unexpected use (i.e. different finger position, finger joints touch…).

Instead of free, the design restrict the hands (explain)
when use a mouse, the hands stay separate, the design throw the mouse away but also sacrifice the hands position. It bring two hands together in a restricted manner(and it doesn’t have to be that way), to feel naturally, I see “break” the pad while still keep the function would be a better choice.

These are some of the first clusters, and I have some more clusters regarding to the software solution. I know it is too much for now, but there must be some that are not good clusters,

Using ‘clickers’ as an interaction critique

Turning Technologies Student Response System

Evaluating the most effective and efficient ways technologies can be integrated into classrooms to promote learning is an essential responsibility of any instructional technologist designer. A relatively new technology I am particularly interested in is the Student Response Systems (aka clickers). As you may know, Indiana University ended the contract with the clicker company eInstruction on August 31, 2009 and started a new contract with Turning Technologies just last month. It seems that one of the main reasons for switching clicker providers was the integration of this technology with Oncourse, which means that professors now have the potential to easily grade participation and attendance of big groups through the click of a button.

For the phenomenological aspect of the critique, I am planning to use a similar approach to Kickasola about focusing on a feeling or emotion to explore the interaction design. I plan to use the feeling of “social inclusion” which is purportedly experienced by students using clickers, especially in big groups.

Unfortunately I do not have any experience using these devices and I was wondering if some of you might have already used them either as a professor or as a student. Even though I will particularly focus in the Turning Technologies brand to write the critique outline, I will greatly appreciate any ideas, insights or suggestions about any other phenomenological approaches that could be applied when using clickers of any brand.

By the way, now that I think about it, I’m not sure if my critique should be from the student’s point of view or the professors’ or both… hhhmmm

Is Link Involved in Activity Theory?

So I took a look at the activity theory reading for this week, and it’s figures were very reminiscent of something I’ve seen before: the triforce from The Legend of Zelda. There are three pieces of the triforce: the triforce of power (top), the triforce of wisdom (bottom left), and the triforce of courage (bottom right). Let’s compare this to the activity theory diagram, and let’s see what we can get and gain insights about this little exercise (I don’t know this in advance):

The top triangle in activity theory (paralleling the triforce of power): so the top triangle represents the relationship between the instruments, subject, and object. If this relationship were to mimic Zelda, then power comes through the relationships between these three aspects. Hmmm… by knowing these relationships, we are getting to know the people, and how they will become transformed by the object and the objects in their lives. OK… so how does the instrument come into play? Well, I guess by knowing what types of instruments are available to the designer to create the objects and the transformation of people, as that will affect what and how we can design. I guess that does create some sort of power, in the same sense power is used in the meta-analysis of this heuristic aid. It is the power to really know how you will change the people through what you design, possibly subjugating them, or freeing them.

The bottom left triangle (paralleling the triforce of wisdom): this triangle represents the relationships among subject, rules, and community. Well, wisdom to me is the utilization of prudence in crafting knowledge for others to be able to use at a later time. So… if we take a look at how rules affect people, we can be able to learn what type of world they live in. By knowing what type of world people live in, we can gain some insights on how their world is built and maybe what will happen if we change it. This will also help us to see how each subject fits into the community at large, and how rules play a part in the community, and also for the subject in that community. So far me, taking wise design decisions means that one studies these aspects of the people we are designing for, such that we don’t introduce any “planned” evils into their community, and also having a healthy knowledge of the rules they like to follow and live by. So I guess then being able to articulate activity theory in this light is kind of like the wisdom designers must be able to have in creating and executing on their designs.

And let’s take a look at the bottom right triangle (paralleling the triforce of courage): this relationship takes a look at the object made, the division of labor among people, and the community at large. As a designer, this area connotates to me to taking a look at how our design affects the system of the world at large. It is through the object that we create that we affect the world. Whether it is software or an artifact, this thing ends up changing how people work: from simply the people who have to build the thing, to seeing how that object potentially changes how much work each person in the workforce has to end up doing to get their job done (this can be for good or for bad) – and it also reminds me of the consequences of design Erik talks about. We need to be able to take the courage to live with our consequences of how this object will change how people will work (even play is considered work by some), and how this ends up affecting the community at large. Even something as “simple” as Photoshop has completely changed the amount of “courage” out there, as now it is a pre-req in order to do many things in the creative industry, which has transformed what objects that industry makes and whom can be involved in that industry as well. So I guess this analogy holds as well, which is epic, as I didn’t think this was going to semantically happen (just thought the lines would be the only thing that would hold).

So then this begs the question: was Link (and by Link, I mean the creators of The Legend of Zelda) knowledgeable on this topic when they were creating the triforce. Were the original makers of activity theory psychic enough to see the power behind this symbol to many gamers in life down the road. I guess the obvious answer is that this is a simple coincidence, but it would be cool if this had any impact whatsoever. And just like when all three parts come together, the goddesses of Zelda created the world and all of its people, design creates the world we end up living in when we put the triforces of activity theory together (after all, it’s just another tool we can use to help us design the world we live in). That’s some creative powers there!

I guess maybe a flip side of this is necessary, but I’m going to leave that open to the rest of the class.

Criticism to Inspiration

I was stunned during the class exercise about falllingwater, when someone concluded the shape of balcony and floor is parallel to the edge of waterfall, and it is obvious and easily perceived.

Although my background is in industrial design ( somehow related to architecture), this wonderful observation never came to me in that particular moment. Why?

I try to come out with a list to explain the reasons:

1. Maybe I am not good in design.
2. I am too “Design-Professional” and take it for granted that every floor should be parallel to the ground.
3. I am so surprised that this new point of view comes out.
4. I then recognized this idea, was almost persuaded, and start to think about the purpose of author, although I am still not sure this is Wright’s idea or not.
5. It is a process of inspiration. I might apply this “rule” in the future.

As a designer, I want to argue another similar example of the design process related to criticism, with my own past experience. Maybe it will be a start point for further discussion, or just a quick answer to Jeff’s curiosity about my thinking as a designer with past “proper” design education.

How remediation works very well in Star Wars…

When I was taking one of the Social Informatics class last semester, we had a discussion on Remediation. In class, the movies, Star Wars and Matrix were largely discussed. Here is one of the remediation examples.

When I was watching a YouTube video again last week, I thought about the remediation and about how it could work well in terms of interaction culture.
Even though, as in the video above, Lego is not actual part of the movie, Lego was used to recreate Star Wars character. When the video started, the very famaliar music from Star Wars played. Even without watching the video and the characters in the video, a lot of people can figure out that it is a music from the movie, Star Wars. Then, if they see the characters in this YouTube video, they can understand somebody recreated Star Wars in a funny way. Anyone who knows about Star Wars can understand what the signifiers and the signifieds are in this video.

Here is another video… haha… I just wanted share this video because everybody is getting stressed because of the finals. Just for some laughs..

The Game Pad Design and Book Holding

When we look into the design of these portable video game consoles, we can easily identify their similarities. Take the most two popular at present handheld game consoles – Nintendo DS Lite and Sony PSP for example. They both constructed in a brick-like shape, with LCD screen in the middle, direction keys (D-pad) on the left and other buttons on the right. They also have two shoulder buttons on the top of the console. Why they both look like this? It has to be the reason of the first modern game-pad – the controller of Nintendo’s Famicom. If we take a look at the Famicom’s controller, we can see there are the cross-shaped D-Pad on the left and the ‘B’, ‘A’ button on the right side.

Famicom controllers

Sony PSP-1000

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The layout design of such game-pad was possibly come with the experience of the way a person holds and reads a book. Book is a kind of traditional things people will carry around and read. When people read books, they will open the book with both hands and give pressure on both thumbs to against the force from the spine of the book. In the meanwhile they will also use their other 8 fingers to support the book against the gravity. In a game pad, you will use you’re your thumbs to press the D-pad and buttons, and use other fingers to hold the pad. The thumb is giving pressure to the pad and the other fingers are fighting with the gravity from the weight of the pad.

How about shoulder keys? When you read a book, sometime you will insert your forefingers in between previous pages to “mark” that particular page so that you can go back and forth anytime without remembering the pervious page number. That is also very similar to what you will do when you use the forefingers to hit the shoulder keys in a game controller.

The text of the book is in-between your two thumbs while you are holding your book and reading. Same thing happens while you are holding a modern handheld portable game console. You see contents through the LCD screen in the middle of your two thumbs.

To sum up, the interaction of a Game pad has a lot of similarities with the interaction of a traditional paper book. It is highly possible that the idea of the game pad layout design was come from the experience of a person reading a book.

Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful by Don Norman

I have been thinking about taking “human-centered design” as my overarching position for the design of ebooks, because as I mentioned in my earlier posting, “human-centered design” approach, which I think is about making human’s experience more explicitly, will lead me to get deeper understanding about readers’ rich reading experience (including their emotion).

However, after I read Norman’s article “Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful” at http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/human-centered.html, I feel like I need to do literature review first about differences among ”user-centered design,”"human-centered design,”"activity-centered design,” “experience-centered (?)” and “the like.”

The following quote was taken from one section, “WHY MIGHT HCD BE HARMFUL?”
“But there are more serious concerns: first, the focus upon humans detracts from support for the activities themselves; second, too much attention to the needs of the users can lead to a lack of cohesion and added complexity in the design. Consider the dynamic nature of applications, where any task requires a sequence of operations, and activities can be comprised of multiple, overlapping tasks. Here is where the difference in focus becomes evident, and where the weakness of the focus on the users shows up.” 

Does this make sense to you guys?