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?

Fuel Efficiency Interface Analysis 2

Continuing with the fuel efficiency interface analysis I moved to units of analysis:

I’m wonderinr, what theories fit what pieces?

DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) – Signifier

 When I received and opened an e-mail from eBay, I found an interesting mark on the address of the sender. It was an envelope with a key on it. When I searched for the meaning of the mark, I found that it is DomainKeys Identified Mail, DKIM. DKIM technology is designed to verify both the DNS domain of an email sender and the integrity of a message. Therefore, if the sender has DKIM mark on it, it signifies that the sender is genuine, not a phishing. The image below is the sender’s address with DKIM on it.

 

 

DKIM can’t be a perfect solution to distinguish the genuine mail from spam mails, but this is another way to protect myself from the spam mails. DKIM tells me that I can rely on the information in the mail I received.