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I came across this video about a relatively new high-tech oriental restaurant located in London. Even though the restaurant is not using multi-touch technology, I think that their interaction is more down-to-earth and useful than the applications shown in the cheesy (and degrading) Microsoft Surface ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2R24CfeZoY) . The concept seems to be quite simple: the video is projected on each table by an overhead projector. Customers interact with the application using a touchpad so there is no need for the whole table’s surface to be touchable.
What I found particular interesting is that the designers thought about several ways to customize the customers’ experience such as allowing them to choose the virtual tablecloth and to have each entrée being displayed right unto your dish as opposed of just seeing the pictures on the menu. Additionally, while their waiting for the food, customers can play digital games, get info about tourist places nearby, order a taxi, and even see (via video stream) how the chef is preparing their food.
Also, the interaction seems to be very intuitive: other videos located in the restaurant’s website show first-time costumers and kids interacting with the applications without any problems.
A multi-touch solution would have been quite expensive for a small restaurant so I think that it is really creative how the owners of this particular restaurant explored other alternatives and came out with an interaction that might have even surpassed the success of implementing a much more expensive and sophisticated solution (such as Microsoft Surface).
So, some of you seem interested in semiotic approaches, but also are uncertain as to how to pursue one. For example, Yujia writes in her blog post,
I don’t see how camera angle, depth of the field and montage can be applied to interaction
More generally, Yujia writes that she is not quite sure how to use some of the semiotics readings to do her own. I suspect that she is not alone in this, and so what I want to do in this post is maybe shed some light on how you can use those papers as models for your own thinking. I’ll start with Yujia’s point about some of the film theory.
Those aspects of film she mentions all have an effect on the way (or style with which) reality is presented. A low camera angle (looking up at the actor) magnifies the actor, making her or him look bigger, more imposing; a high camera angle likewise diminishes the actor. Thus, decisions like that establish a relationship between the audience and the actor–of superiority or inferiority, in the case of vertical camera angle.
How do interactions present reality? How do they structure users’ relationships with their reality? What paradigmatic alternatives could have been chosen that were not? (Example: every shot of an actor must have a camera angle; there is no such thing as no camera angle at all. But among all the possible camera angles–close, far, low, high, etc.–that could have been chosen, why was that one chosen for that shot?)
Notice what I am doing here. I am not trying to directly apply a concept from film semiotics to interaction in a literal way (though I would say that you can apply some film theory directly to interaction in the case of cinematic interactions, e.g., contemporary video games). Instead, what I am doing is asking, “what does this semiotic theory actually do for film?” Then I ask, “what could fill the same kind of role for interaction”? Thus, instead of trying to apply camera angle or depth of field to interaction, instead I ask, “given that camera angle and depth of field get at issues of ways that cinema presents reality in certain ways to viewers, how do interactions present reality to users, and what are the techniques and options interaction designers use to present reality in certain ways?”
We can apply a similar approach to other readings.
Let’s look at Entwistle’s power dressing paper, which looks at ways that clothes are enmeshed in discourses that construct subject-positions for people who wear them. If a woman wears a feminine uniform, she is constructed as a “laborer” with no upward mobility. If she wears a power suit, she is constructed as a “professional” and even an “entrepreneur.” (We talked about this in class last week.)
How might that apply to interaction? Well, what are the ways that interactions construct subject-positions for people to inhabit? Example: OneStart and Oncourse look different for students and faculty. What views, data sets, and operators are available to faculty but not students? And vice-versa? How are these two types of users constructed as subjects by the system? To what extent do these discursive constructions align with the empirical reality/needs of actual users (to rephrase: what is the difference between Oncourse users-as-addressees and Oncourse users-as-recipients)?
Another example.
In the resume cover letter example we talked about weeks ago, the phatic relationship between addresser and addressee was one of polite, formal submission. The addressee was constructed in a position of power–to decide who gets a valuable resource (the job)–and the addresser is constructed as a candidate seeking both the job itself, and more immediately, the approval and interest of the addressee. The point here is that the cover letter establishes a phatic relationship between addresser and addressee that is inscribed with a power relation.
Can you think of a software application that just by using it puts people in phatic power relations? I can imagine, for example, project management software differentially empowers managers and employees. I can imagine even a calendar application in which some types/classes of users publicly post their entire calendars for all colleagues to see, while other classes of users do not, and the latter class signs themselves up for meetings with those whose calendars are always available. There is a surveillance aspect to such calendars, and while one person (the latter) is always able to take the action of signing up to meet the other (the former, whose calendar is always posted online), the former cannot sign up to meet with the latter, because the latter’s calendar is not available to view!
So these are some examples I just made up. The point is that I encourage you to abstract a little from your readings in order to apply them to interaction; don’t try to apply them directly. Instead, ask the question, what does the semiotic approach get for a film/fashion critic, and then seek to get that same thing for yourself for an interaction.
Sequence of Analysis
Feedback is appreciated.
by James, Emily, and CJ (with inspiration from Ben)
Thanks Yujia for finding the link in her last post. Today, when I was reminded of task analysis(TA) by sequence analysis(SA), I knew there are some similarities, but also some difference, but I could not articulate at that time. This paragraph from Jeff’s post helps me think,
“But whereas task analysis if often used as a means to measure efficiency to ascertain usability, sequence analysis in film is used to gain insight into the objective basis of a subjective phenomenon: the experience of a film.”
Here is a definition of task analysis from Dan Saffer’s book, Designing for Interaction,
“A task analysis is a raw list of activities that the final design will have to support.”
“[it] is especially useful later in the design process as a check to see whether the design supports all the tasks required. … the designer can make sure the design meets all the requirements.”
From Jeff’s analysis about the SA, I got the sense that it is to make the invisible visible, and the unconscious conscious by seeing the break down of a sequence from the film, and find out and analyze what exactly shape the experience. While TA is about logic, exploring all possibilities of an interaction. The purposes are different.
However if going further, by laying the two out, I can see the possible connection here. If TA could also be used to analyze the sequence of interaction, instead of just examining whether something is missing, but also exposing the elements that consist of the design, we could also make the invisible visible, in terms of finding out how they affect the user experience. Any thoughts?
Ha, it seems that I should explore Jeff’s old posts as supplementary class readings.
I was on the bus and thought about iPhone keyboard. I don’t have an iPhone, but I have several experiences using the iPhone soft-keyboard. Compared to the physical keyboard, one difference I suppose is every time when you input you have to look at the soft-keyboard, while you don’t have to do after a while using the physical one. Does that mean the iPhone keyboard is always present-to-hand, since it always causes your attention when inputting?
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
Here is something you don’t see every day: a quadriplegic WoW player who’s among the elite (progression raiding is sort of the top of the food chain in WoW–it takes months if not years to get to the point where you can even start doing it; RL issues notwithstanding, this guy is good).
Besides its human interest and inspiration for all of us, this kind of computing at the extremes can be a very informative case study. Obviously, this is a great example of emergent uses of technology.
But from a phenomenological standpoint, it is really amazing how similar this player’s experience of WoW is to any other elite player’s. I mean, other than the physical mechanics of how he plays, he talks about raids like I do. That says something not just about him, but it also says something about WoW as a technological environment: it is able to create similar–and very successful–interactive experiences for an incredibly diverse base of users. And phenomenological theory can help us explore and articulate the characteristics of those felt experiences in rich ways.
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,
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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…).
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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,
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
“Activity theory cautions us that any tool has the potential to transform the activity in which it is used and, reciprocally, that tools have the potential to be transformed as they are used.” pg. 13
This made me start thinking in circles about how the context of something is constantly changing. It makes it very difficult to ever truly understand a situation on top of the different lifeworld problem within design of never being able to understand something the exact same way as someone else understands it. If the context is always changing, then it’s impossible to design for a context. There is always more to learn and more to understand. No wonder design is so difficult and the strategy of working with the ultimate particular was developed. At least at that level there is a smaller net of things to understand because the focus is narrow.
Then there’s the thought here of user interpretation. If the context of design understanding is always changing based on an ever changing context, interpretation of the both the user and the designer is influenced by context, context is influenced by interpretation, and the addition of a new design causes new interpretations and new context… no wonder design = HARD; design = WICKED.
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