You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘HCI’ category.
So I’m completely ignoring the fact that I’m supposed to be writing a post about the direction I want to take my final paper to give you this, this, this, this, and this! Talk about some serious human-computer interaction!
In case you don’t want to read even just one of those links (they’re very similar anyway): Coke has set up a vending machine at the university of Singapore that gives you a coke if you give it a hug. Yup. That’s it. A basically free coke, all you have to do is give the machine a love squeeze.
“The Coca Cola Hug Machine is a simple idea to spread some happiness. Our strategy is to deliver doses of happiness in an unexpected, innovative way to engage not only the people present, but the audience at large,” said a representative from the company’s “Open Happiness” campaign, Leonardo O’Grady.
This is kind of like the Free Hugs campaign, but instead of getting a hug from a person as your reward for giving a hug, you get a coke. On the surface, it seems really cute, playful, and innocent.
Is it possible that Coca Cola is just feeding off of the innocent playfulness of the free hugs campaign?
The Free Hugs campaign has a similar goal to the one mentioned in the quote from Coca Cola: that of “delivering doses of happiness” to people. This video on youtube is responsible for much of the popularity of the campaign (as well as the popularity of the Australian rock band Sick Puppies). Although the article doesn’t mention the Free Hugs campaign, it’s hard not to see the link (but I guess I’m biased in that way). Both campaigns claim to be giving out happiness through hugging. The Coke machine just also happens to reward your physical manifestation of your love for the brand with a coke. I wonder if people who know about the Free Hugs campaign have a different reaction to this machine than people whose worldviews do not include this notion of a “free hug” from something or someone unexpected.
Is it playing off of our biological responses to hugs?
Hugging people has a direct chemical and biological affect on your body. When you hug another person, your body’s Oxytocin levels increase.
“Oxytocin does more than make us feel good. It lowers the levels of stress hormones in the body, reducing blood pressure, improving mood, increasing tolerance for pain and perhaps even speeding how fast wounds heal. It also seems to play an important role in our relationships. It’s been linked, for example, to how much we trust others.” source
That last line actually makes this hugging Coke machine less cute and more creepy. Is hugging the Coke machine making you trust Coca Cola, the brand, more? Or just that particular machine? Can a machine trigger the Oxytocin response? We read an article sometime last year (I forget for which class) that claims people treat machines the same way they treat other people.
The results of this study show that playing with Sony’s AIBO dog robot reduces stress levels and has other mental health benefits, but does NOT result in increased ocytocin production (dang it! I thought I was getting somewhere really interesting).
I want to continue thinking about this, but I guess I should quit procrastinating and get back to capstone work.
Interaction-design.org, which hosts the Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction is about to release a new chapter on wearable computing. This could be useful to some of your final papers and capstones (looking at YOU, Candace!).
While we’re on the topic, for those of you who haven’t seen it yet, this Encyclopedia is also where I got in a dust-up over aesthetic interaction last week, as we talked about in class.
As an active user of Pinterest, I thought it is nothing more than a tool to organize images, which should be gender neutral. However, demographic data shows in 2012, 83% of the US users were women. I was surprised at first but suddenly thought of all those wedding dresses, jewelries I saw during my daily update. And here’s my closer look.
I’m not sure whether female are more of visual creatures than guys, but it’s so easy to hear “oh this is pretty”, “it’s really cute” from a female. They are also enthusiastic shoppers and home decorators: sometimes satisfied by just looking around without buying anything. While guys more often do their shopping with a clear goal and looking more into functionality. It’s also women who tend to care more about whether they look good in photos and check their current “image” from mirrors, just like Cleo. Some study shows as early as four months old, baby girls can distinguish facial features and are able to distinguish between photos of people they know versus strangers. Baby boys are not able to do that. Even a brief look into the default categories Pinterest provides for people’s collection boards, seem to give us some hints: there are 32 categories in total, in a quick tag I did, there are 11 categories which are more “female” such as DIY & crafts, gardening, hair & beauty, while 7 are more “male”, such as cars & motorcycles, geek, science & nature. Female also “wins” on the Popular page of Pinterest, where you may see babies, panda sushis, women’s apparel and cute pancakes.
The popular page of Pinterest, accessed on April 16. Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard, where people create “boards” (collections) and put “pins” (images) on it.
In the feminism chapter from the shoe book, Barnard mentioned “Feminism points out that there are gender differences and argues that the gendered position of the understanding subject has a part to play in, and makes a difference to, the understanding of understanding.” To some extent, the user of Pinterest is also creating their understanding of certain words (usually the title of their collection board), e.g. on User A’s board “Spring”, she not only put what people would normally put: flowers, but also pictures of Easter and St. Patrick’s Day, which shows she might be a religious person. The Spring collection might have influence in the following way (1) to other viewers, who has never thought from a holiday or religious perspective about spring, they may have more insights about the season now (2) shape the author’s own understanding of spring by consistent interaction with the board. It’s like the part and whole relationship we covered in previous class: the author’s “horizon” affects what she puts on the board named Spring, and what she put on the board (sometimes may be a random or suddenly inspired choice) will also cast influence on her understandings.
A collection named “Spring” (the St.Patrick Day picture is not shown in this screenshot)
When talking about the weakness of feminist is a gender-based approach to understanding visual culture is reductive. I randomly looked into 5 male and 5 female’s collections. There seems to be no big difference in quantity. But very “gender-biased” is the content, even under the same category they might have totally different pictures. For example, under “Travelling”, female users usually have pictures of flowers, landscape, but rarely boats; under “Architectures”, rarely do they post high-tech buildings as some guys do. It does appear to me gender-based understanding is reductive, because the filter of a woman’s eyes might keep the softer, more emotional staff, while the guy’s might retain the harder, more rational things. However, I don’t think it’s a weakness. Actually different individuals, groups, organizations, classes, should have distinct understanding towards the same thing. Feminist might look at the subject from a cultural perspective while scientist are studying the scientific formation or structure. It is such and such reductive understanding that come together to make it more holistic.
A male user’s (up) and a female user’s (down) collections with the same title “Home Home Home”
Shaowen’s paper pointed out “The interaction design process takes place independent of gender considerations, and even today the central concept of the whole field—the user—remains genderless.” I am curious whether the designers of Pinterest have thought about gender but I will not be surprised that the content of the default categories might have been changed according to what the users are putting up on their boards. If so, then it is a participatory process where the first release of the product can still be counted as part of the design phase. This is similar to the user-centered lane building process where people walk across a big lawn and stepped out a path, then the workers build the lanes accordingly. In that case, if more passers-by are female, the final lane should is more likely to be a female route (if there’s difference btw male and female about path picking).
A lawn in Stanford. The walking paths were built according to the people’s walking route on the original lawn (with out any path).
In Shaowen’s paper she also mentioned some qualities of feminist interaction:
Pluralism, which refers to “design artifacts that resist any single, totalizing, or universal point of view”, is well practiced in Pinterest. Though the functions are the same and quite limited, people turn to be creative and everyone’s boards are different.
Advocacy, which encourages designers to “question their own position to assert what an ’improved society’ is and how to achieve it”. I’m not sure if the designers have thought about the “good society” but though what people put up for topics like home, wedding, life, dream, it’s not hard to have a glimpse of at least a small group of people’s image of “good society”.
Self-disclosure, which refers to “the extent to which the software renders visible the ways in which it effects us as subjects”, is carried out by the function that the user can follow the whole collection of a person or a specific board.
I feel just by looking at what each individual has put up there can help me easily create a mood board about gender differences. Those collections cast light on things that women and men like respectively and would probably each be willing to spend effort on. It might face some harsh critique but I think it will be very interesting if we can filter the search result for a certain topic by gender. So far, it’s really hard to pick out males from random users because there are too few…
This is long but I really wanted to share it all any way…these are my thoughts from many different readings piled into one…this helped me iron out some thoughts for my final writing…
This article by Flitterman talked about the “transformation” (268) of image. It captured its essence in the central question which had dual meanings: “how do I look?” (269). In this text it describes the transition from an “image constructed from the looks of men”…to an image based on “subjective vision” (269).
The self-image construction in this “story of femininity and its social representations…reveals as much about the character as about ourselves and the culture in which we live” (283). From this, what I saw in the “women-as-a-spectacle to women-as-a-social being” (273) is the transition out of a mirror representation to a lifeworlds representation. This was made more apparent in this statement: …”her subjective vision is rendered by an alternation of past, present, and imagined images, an alternation that intercuts people on the street” (275). This looked/sounds a lot like a hermeneutics circle and internal lifeword map made visible through film. She is meaning making through the life/objects/lives she has encountered.
Our social context, as I allude to above, is not only impacting our lifeworlds but our lifeworlds are possibly structuring our self-image… “How we look”. Bardzell, in her six qualities of Feminist HCI, mentioned the concept of ecology which I think is very fitting in this case. She “invites interaction designers to attend to the ways that design artifacts in-the-world reflexively design us (1307). Cleo’s montage of thoughts and images of the past and present and images is in my mind one level of self imaging.
I was curious in considering if we were able to extrapolate those internal thoughts made apparent by the film? What would that look like? I concluded that the what I am asking is similar to the self-disclosure use quality of Feminist HCI (1307). So if we followed the film in applying “intercuts” of self disclosure, if we participated in the externalizing of the internal (Active theory in a Nutshell, 69), I thought about how the ecology around that artifact would respond. That response in my mind would be an artistic encounter (161) as expressed by Bourriauds in Rational Aesthetics.
Taking this into a practical application, such as my personalized prosthetic interaction topic. I have found so many interesting applications and quite frankly a need for individuals to be able to construct a self-image. However, just as important there is a need to be able to articulate it—(i.e. have self-disclosure) in that participatory design process. There is a potential to have all personalized designs but I am leery of how many people are simply seeing how they look by the industrialization of culture and ideology—which would decrease the amount of personalization even though it is made possible—my rant (Kellner, 202).
Bespoke Innovations does what Feminist HCI advocates. In closing I would like to highlight it’s participatory design process. But a question that I feel this life world mapping challenges me to consider juxtapose this text of Cleo is the issue found in Active Theory. This issue of Self-Disclosure as mentioned by Bardzell. This brings even more clarity to Nelson and Stolterman argument for a key element to the design process being communication (165). It is this issue of communicating effectively which can hinder the participatory design process.
I whole heartedly agree with the mandatory need for personalized design. I also see an equal need and requirement for designers to be very sensitive in those participatory design settings to be able to capture the essence of what is being conveyed verbally and nonverbally (by their co-partner of design) as that co-partner communicates/exposes their subjective vision—their self image, their lifeworld.
As I was reading the Corrigan reading, I found myself trying to make the connections in critiquing current technology and interactions. So here’s my go at making the connections on a few of Corrigan’s approaches. Whether they are correct or not, I’m not too sure. But its a try.
Film History – Corrigan stated that this approach was typically used in investigating the historical context of a film. He said that “some historical analysis informs most writing about the film.” I guess with interaction design, the historical analysis would inform us about the evolution of interactions and devices. In regards to interaction, I took this historical analysis not of the context of the time, but the historical context of the artifact. For example, if we take a look at how music players have changed throughout history. They have evolved from radios, large boxes full of wires used to play recorded music, to more portable forms. From radios, we moved to things like tape players, Discmans, mp3 players, to the iPod, the iPod Nano, and eventually the iPod Shuffle. Looking at the history of music players, we can see a historical trend of devices getting more compact. And now that I’m writing and thinking about it, this is a historical trend that reflects us as a population. Because music players are not the only devices in history that have evolved to become smaller and more portable; we notice this trend in phones, and even video playing devices.
National Cinemas – I had a harder time with this theme in regards to technology and interactions. To Corrigan, the national cinema approach dealt with the culture and national character of a film. I suppose in our case, this means that technology is portrayed differently within different cultures. This is a long shot in the dark, but could this play into how western cultures typically read left to right and up to down, and how most of web interfaces place their menus on the left side of the page, or at the top of the screen? I feel like menu placement is a standard across the web, but how does this affect cultures that read in the opposite way? Is it possible that other cultures may try formatting their technology differently because of this?
OR does the national cinema approach deal with specific cultures and how they interact with technology differently (with less of a focus on the actual technology, and more focus on the cultures using it)? Again, I’m not too sure…
Genres – The genre analysis approach focused on finding patterns of form and content in a film. With genres, we identify themes, structures, and techniques that are similar within a set of films- or in our case, technologies. I relate this to having certain design patterns for different companies. Take Apple for example. Apple products have certain patterns when it comes to gestures. I consider them one of the first companies to play with gestures successfully. On macs, Apple made use of the no button track pad. They played with gestures and how a user can use the two finger swipe to scroll up and down, four finger swipe to display all applications, pinch to zoom in and out, etc. As a company, Apple has carried on these types of gestures to other technologies. They moved to the iPod touch, eventually to the iPhone, and now the iPad, which has similar use of gestures. This is just one example, since Apple has made various design patterns recognizable to the brand. When someone says “That’s an Apple product”, the phrase has a certain connotation of design patterns that follows it.
Auteurs – This type of analysis deals with associations of films to certain dominant figures. I saw this as associating certain technologies to specific companies, or those at the head of the company. I’ll use Apple products as an example again; they have a direct association with Steve Jobs. Other examples include associating Macintosh products to Bill gates, or social media products to Mark Zuckerberg.
Kinds of Formalism – This type of criticism dealt with style and how features are structured within different films. In film, Corrigan stated that critics focused on different patterns in narrative, camera techniques, etc. I could be wrong, but I related this to different UI elements. If you compare Android phones to the iPhone, both have their own unique design patterns. Android phones typically have a sort of static menu structured into the phone at the bottom of the screen. Because of this, apps designed for an Android device don’t typically need a “back” button. The iPhone however does not have a static back button, so typically in iPhone apps you’ll see the back button as a back arrow with text on the top left of the phone.
Ideology – The beliefs we have about the world… honestly, I had no clue how to relate this aspect. Any thoughts?
So I fell in love with Bespoke Innovations as I mentioned last week. I believe there are multiple angles to approach this from:
- I thought this approach could lend itself to discussing the significance of Aesthetic Coherency of the artifact. I thought this approach while critically looking at within the Ideological and genera lenses would afford the opportunity to discuss: the designer, the designed for, and community response based on our Tyson Reading page 182. Lars-Erik Janlert and ERIK Stolterman in the Character of things on pg 300 said: “In ascribing a certain character to an artifact we make a very simple, but powerful description that frequently will be accurate enough to help us to manage the task of handling the artifact and to appreciate the consequences of our interaction with it.”
- Subjectivity that impacts the Objective.
- Sculpting your life world.
the last two arent too flushed out…but I just wanted to give you something…
Scott Summit: Beautiful artificial limbs
I love this Scott Summit guy please check this 11min talk out. I would love to hear your thoughts–if mine are too long skip my thoughts, listen, and share!!! But I haven’t been on here in a minute and I have much to say!
It was like he took the words right out of my mouth…
I have tried and tried to challenge myself to think outside the proverbial box (i.e. what I have already worked on) when considering my final writing. And I went online today looking eagerly for some interactive technology that resonated with me. The search was seemingly futile until I happened upon this Ted Talk (hopefully I can embed it properly). And then I fell in love with an interaction that went beyond the interaction to the objectively subjective.
In class yesterday we discussed the difference between the subjective and the objective and how both are important. I agreed with Vince’s definition of both of the above terms. To articulate here what I thought there, I would define subjective as that interpersonal felt experience where what one is experiencing, in the experience based on another’s expression, is allowing for the experiencer to draw upon their past experiences–their life world. It’s definitely personal as well as impressed upon/affected by the world around it. This does leave me to question what are the similarities and differences between ‘an experience’ based on Turner, Victor. Dewey, Dilthey, and Drama: An Essay in the Anthropology of Experience and G. definition of life worlds?
“Formative experiences are highly personal (pg35)
“Meaning arises when we try to put what culture and language have crystallized from the past together with what we feel, wish, and thinking about our present point in life.” (pg33)
“Experience urges toward expression” (pg37)
Maybe it’s that lifeworld is more static like a noun where as An Experience is more a verb (based on quote 37). Would love your thoughts on this as well.
As you all know I am big on experience particularly subjective experience and meaning making. I loved this Ted Talk because he has accomplished my ultimate particular. He and his team have created an opportunity to do meaning making via design—with and for the ‘receiver’ so to speak.
Objectivity in my expert opinion :) is the ability to articulate not just the quality of the text based on how one felt but draw parallels, contrast, and make inferences on interpretation that can be supported by credible sources. This is definitely a much more outward reaching agenda to validate and persuade. Whereas the other is to reflectively express. I’d take any criticism on this topic.
In closing, when we were concluding our discussion on both these terms we talked about how you can’t really have objective without subjective—moreover, everything is subjective. We concluded that it is not just one or the other but how we merge and appropriate both together. It is in the quality of the harmony that we pinpoint rigor. What I love about the prosthetic interaction in the Ted Talk is that they are bringing that personal into the general. And I completely concur that this is capturing the spirit of the designer as well as the designed for. This is me to the utmost!
Bret Victor is a brilliant designer who was working at Apple for a while (he was instrumental in designing the iPad interface) who has done a crazy amount of awesome writing, designing, and analysis on his site. I don’t want to go into an analysis of these articles, since I think they’re already in-depth enough that they stand on their own. But, I think this particular article on graphics and communicating ideas through graphical interfaces ties together aspects of all the things we’ve discussed so far in this class (creator/user/artifact/critique/writing style). It’s not a short read by an stretch of the imagination, but all his articles are worth reading.
In the past one and a half years, we came across different design guidelines and heuristics. Besides the nineteen use qualities from the Lowgren reading, popped out in my mind are the Seven Themes of Good Design from Professor Marty Siegel and Ten Usability Heuristics by Jacob Nielson. Of course, there are many more.
I would like to know how you construct your “knowledge database”, and when you are store such knowledge, what background information do you take along.
Because for me:
They all look good separately.
But when together…
I do want to manage them well.
And within the nineteen use qualities, I’m particularly interested in parafunctionality.
The term parafunctionality was coined by A. Dunne in his PhD Thesis… Parafunctionality deals with critism since it aims to make you stop, make your senses react to something that only apparentely seems to be useful. A parafunctional object has a clear function that you can understand in a while. But after that, your brain starts to work and tells your stomach that there’s something wrong…
This reminds me about the capstone presentation. A special thought I heard was taking the presentation as a stage to present a problematic design. The purpose was to stimulate critics, and by reacting and articulating, the designer got to know more about his own thought, as well as people’s concern, i.e. what the audience care about. Thus, the designer got to know specific directions to dig.
I think the article itself has the parafunctionality quality. Maybe all papers, more or less have this quality. So readers would have both takeaways and brainstorms in situ.
P.S. Links to some examples from this reading
Hey everyone I was curious to get some input on the topic I was thinking of doing for the final paper. The interactive technology I was going to look at are a few of the food apps that are out there. Things such as Yelp, UrbanSpoon, Open Table, Google places, Local Eats, and Foodspotting. What I am looking at is the kind of behavior they promote and whom they are geared towards. I’m looking at healthy and sustainable eating habits. I have worked some on this with Gopi already in a different context.
I’m not sure what techniques I might be using to critique these with yet. I haven’t started to dive into the topic.
I was curious what everyone’s thoughts on this were. I’m also kind of on the fence if I should perhaps deal with only 1 of these apps, or deal with them as a group. I’m not sure if dealing with them as a group will be too much or not. For what I want to look at I prefer to deal with them as a group. Any feedback is appreciated.
Recent Comments