Oct 22 - Communication Interfaces

Why would a user want to use video conferencing instead of audio conferencing or text chat?

A user would most likely want to use video conferencing rather than audio or chat during those times when the communication is improved by having access to the richer amount of information provided by body language and other non-verbal signals.

How would you solve the message overload problem with email?

If I could solve this I would probably die wealthy beyond my wildest dreams. That said, the first thing I would do is move all my email systems over to a gmail-style interface mostly because of the automatic grouping of messages into conversations, archiving, the search functionality, and tagging. Integrate this email client within a broader suite of archived, grouped, searchable communications tools including chat, audio and video conferencing, blogs, wikis, to do lists, project workbacks and calendars. Most things email is being used for are would be far better suited to other channels. If messages were sent in the most appropriate channel it is likely the overload decrease. 

If content could flagged easily for obsolescence or even track itself as an issue that could be marked as “resolved” then archive itself, I’d be happier.

Oct 15 - Navigation Design

Consider your projects, and discuss some of the issues that may arise when designing a navigation structure for the interaction. 

My project is an interactive installation designed to involve users standing in a queue. It features a very simple concept requiring a relatively flat learning curve due to the short time available to learn the interface and enjoy a satisfying experience. 

As such:

That the piece is interactive needs to be readily inferable, interacting an attractive and enticing proposition, and the intent of the interactivity readily deducible from the layout and any exploratory interacting.

The availability of actions and options need to be constrained to a minimum, and those options and their outcomes made readily apparent or easily undoable.

The motions need to be simple and natural as there will be little time for new motor skill acquisition

Because it is possibly a one-time only experience, and it occurs in a public area with distractions and quite probably an audience, the cognitive load should be kept low, “terminal” mistakes should be prevented, choices made recoverable, and successful action made easily attainable.  Options should appear only as needed and vanish from the cognitive load afterwards. 

Also to be considered, though, is that many of the users frequent the Tim Hortons regularly if not frequently and therefore may have a number of repeat exposures to the piece. If there can be a level of meaning or outcomes revealed to those who come many times, that would add depth and perhaps longevity by defraying the sense of “I’ve seen all there is to see here”. 

In a smart home scenario, discuss some of the problems with designing help systems, and some potential solutions. 

Some general problems with designing smart home systems include:

Distracted users – the home is a busy place and users may not be paying attention either to input or feedback. 

- possible solutions here include alerts, utilizing sight-lines to locate affordances and feedback mechanisms, timing feedback to occur directly with input and direct the feedback at a sense that corresponds to the input (i.e. tactile such as vibration or force-feedback corresponding to manual input).

Users are frequently engaged in the task and it occupies some of their ability to give input or receive feedback – either with filled hands/mouth/eyes, inability to leave a location, cognitive load. Input/Feedback devices that were built into the tools or the location that correspond to the smart tools that the user desires to recruit could help with this. Additionally, the house could be “smart enough” that – through observation of the activities of the user could offer help. 

Misinterpreting signals – the smart home could misinterpret signals and act to implement actions the user did not wish to have happen. This could be prevented by having the house offer help and require the user to approve but I can imagine this being quite annoying if not done quickly and subtlely.

Security – a computer system produces its own set of insecurities which could be exploited by someone seeking to gain entry to the house, vandalize, or defraud. Most breaks in security systems are human failures – leaving locks unlocked, passwords besides keypads, etc. Designing the security system for human usability could help.

System failure/lockout – a failure in the system could lock users out of their media, appliances, or home. A failure could result in safety mechanisms not operating. Care would have to be made to design systems to announce their dysfunction as a failure-default mode (i.e. “no power” draws power from a batter to announce a power failure). Essential systems should have redundancy and software failure should return machines to “dumb” functionality so that, even if you can’t program the oven you can use it.

Some of the categories of things “smartened” in a Smart Home include:

Lighting – controlling which lights go on when and in response to what environmental or user conditions.

Home Theater/Music – controlling show recording or media acquisition (watching blogs or ratings lists for things the user likes), playback conditions (mode, zones, channels/media changing/playlists, volume).

Heat/AC – home environment temperature in response to weather conditions and occupancy

Cameras/security – monitoring the premises for intruders, alerting the occupants, triggering alarms or authorities

Fire/smoke/evacuation – monitoring for evidence of fires, alerting emergency response crews, highlighting exits, providing evacuation instruction, identifying the source and possibly cause. Preventative monitory – i.e. watching for “hot spots” or other problems and alerting the user before there is an emergency.

Kitchen – restocking and remote cooking

Irrigation systems – water plants in and out of doors

Maintenance and repairs – tracking maintenance, booking servicing, announcing possible problems. Seeking replacements. Monitoring upgrades.

Oct 8 - User Interface Components

What potential impact will pervasive and ubiquitous computing have on the way we use our desktop computers?

As pervasive and ubiquitous computing becomes more prevalent we are likely to see an overall decrease in the amount of time spent working at a computer; users will be freed from the artifact to go where the activity. Only certain kinds of action and certain habits of work are likely to be continued. Those users who are habituated to write or research are likely to continue to do so. Collaborative work where the users are geographically close may move to platforms more supportive of teamwork – table tops or walls. Personal work may be accomplished on intimate devices most appropriate to the task and will follow the user to their most comfortable place to work. Devices are likely to adopt a thin-client format accessing a cloud computing environment with ubiquitous access to personal data and tools, and the form factor will be selected based upon appropriateness to task and preferred use-context.

Why is form factor such an important consideration when designing i/o devices and techniques? 

Form factors affect use frequency, effectiveness, location, ability, and skill acquisition. A device that is easy to learn or that bridges a lack of skill is one that will be appealing to novices. A device that enables an expert to perform at a higher level of efficiency or effectiveness will be well favoured. The device form needs also to consider the context of use – the environmental, social, geographical, and kinaesthetic situations that the device is to be used in. 

However, the more design that goes into developing a device may increase it’s cost or make it so specific to the task that It does not find a sufficiently large audience to support it’s development. 

Oct. 1 - Narrative and Colour

What type of storytelling devices do you see in webpages? Give some examples.

Narrative suggests a perspective, one that is guiding the story recipient through the tale. With interactive environments, and as suggested by Brenda Laurel in Computers as Theater, the story being told is one of action by the user towards a goal.

From Laurel's original perspective, much has been accomplished in software design to move the user's focus from how the machinery needs to be told to get things done to what the user wants to do. The standard icon-driven website desktop and website gui permits what is effectively a branching/threaded/pathed experience through a content-space to arrive at an outcome; a piece of information found, an experience had.

While avatar guides still tend to occur, they tend now to be restricted to children's sites or to advertisements in the form of a Flash-video overlay that interrupts/invites the user to another site. Online games have a lot of this and - given the explicit use of characters in these true interactive narratives, it is in my opinion a better application of the device than as a help function on a website.

There is a dialogic charater to the "wizard" and being guided to complete online memberships.

This is especially true as accomplished in Linkedin, with a visible completion bar and guiding the user to the next action one should take to achieve "completeness". The experience of setting up an online profile here is much like creating a character in a narrative-based roleplaying game and is an excellent example of narration of action in the web environment.

Linkedin also uses the actions of the users network - so and so "joined the group" - as an opportunity to inform the user of options and to start new actions for the user with a story-like hook to "(f)ind a group for you".

The process of joining a group/site or making an online purchase tends to involve increasing revelations of the power of the network/tool (foreshadowing) while asking for ever more personal information and presenting legal responsibilities and disclaimers. There is a story-like build up with the awareness of costs and benefits to the user becoming apparent. Then there is the crux moment of hitting the "join/buy" button, when the process locks in and the action is completed. Aspects of narrative resolution occurs in the "thank you" and new story possibilities are introduced as possible actions by the site's narrator.

Do you think that all devices are appropriate on-line (why/why not)?

Aristotle's Poetics describes two types of drama, the representation of action; comedy and tragedy (it also provided the theory of dramatic narrative which has continued with minor modification to the 20th Century and formed the basis of Laurel's Computers as Theater). Comedy is a reversal of fortune from ill to good; tragedy the reverse. In Laurel's model, then, the successful interactive experience that designers are looking to create is interactive comedy. The user comes with a problem and - through their own actions towards a goal mediated by the technology - it all works out in the end.

Wikipedia has an extensive list of literary techniques, devices which are employed by authors to deliver their narrative. Many of them are quite appropriate to the question/search/answer use of the Web such as foreshadowing (anticipation), backstory (context), emplottment (delivering information as needed/for effect), catharsis (emotionally satisfying resolution of action).

Many of the techniques don't fit the "looking for information" model that well, but I can well imagine situations for nearly all of them where they would be appropriate online for delivering certain types of user experience. For example - "plot twist" is one of the key dramatic techniques recommended by Aristotle. Emplottment delivers information to best (dramatic) effect, with one piece of information delivered at a climactic moment suddenly "reversing" the understanding of the accumulated knowledge (Oedipus learning that he has killed his father and married his mother; tragedy!). For online use - learning, (re)searching, community participation - the plot twist may not be desirable. However, you can well imagine its use in search queries designed to inspire innovation by twisting the results, or by using juxtaposition and defamiliarization to help see things differently. Brechtian techniques of alienation or distancing could be very useful for breaking community/communication silos to aid non-partisan interaction in online political forums.

Find an example website and analyze whether colour choices reflect psychology. Explain your analysis.

Google's branding and interface is blue and white, with accents of red, green and yellow. Initially launched just over a decade ago to predominantly NA/Western audiences, the colour psychology chart appears to be quite an accurate reflection of the site intention: simplicity, accuracy, reliability. These primary attributes are all well supported by the white and blue colours. Accents of red, green, and yellow bring hints of power, luck and optimism, very well suited to the mind-space surrounding Internet search.