Paper Reading #11: Hands-on math: a page-based multi-touch and pen desktop for technical work and problem solving

Comments


Reference
Title: Hands-on math: a page-based multi-touch and pen desktop for technical work and problem solving
Author: Robert Zeleznik, Andrew Bragdon, Ferdi Adeputra, and Hsu-Sheng Ko
Venue: UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology

Summary
This paper details the use of multi-touch technology in teaching algebra. Students use a stylus to write equations, which they can then manipulate using a touch screen interface. Dragging to terms in an equation together will simplify them, while moving a term to the other side of an equation will either add/subtract it, or divide/multiply as appropriate. Additionally, users can create multiple pages and access them like they would on a real table.

Discussion
I liked this idea, as I know my work has a tendency to be hard to read when I am working math problems, especially if I make mistakes. This system would of course not allow students to make mistakes, but it would also keep the work tidy. Unfortunately in its current form the technology is really only applicable to high school students, as algebra is very basic math (even basic calculus is second nature to most computer oriented majors I think). I suspect that for this technology to have an impact on college level math or even Jr and Senior level high school math that the software will have to evolve significantly. It would be interesting however if the table was able to incorporate elements from say matlab along with text recognition from a stylus in order to make an easy to use interface capable of advanced calculus and Laplace/Fourier transforms. Such technology would be applicable even in the business environment.

Design of Everyday Things (Complete)

Summary
Donald Norman explains common misconceptions regarding the design of everyday items. These range from microwaves, to VCRs, and even simple doors. The author explains that it is the designer's job to ensure products are intuitive and obvious to the user. Prime examples of where design fails include doors that are perfectly symmetrical, so that users cannot tell which way they swing open. To better understand how such seemingly simple designs fail, the author also discusses human memory and concepts such as natural mapping. Norman suggests that designs should make things visible, allow users to easily determine their state, and communicate possible actions to the user easily. Using the example of a VCR, all of the controls should be clearly labeled and obvious. If the VCR is in a particular state, such as if it was recording, this should also be obvious, and finally the possible actions should be apparent, such as pausing or stopping the device. When these things are contrasted to real VCRs, most of these conditions are not met.

Discussion
I enjoyed this book most of all because it was interesting, but also because the concepts inside it are genuinely important concepts frequently overlooked by designers. As technology becomes more complex, designers have a tendency to pass that complexity on to the user. This approach is poor however, as users hardly have the time or ability to become familiar with every piece of technology in the world. If you design doors or light switches for public locations, it should be your goal that no one notices your design at all.

Paper Reading #10: PhoneTouch: A Technique for Direct Phone Interaction on Surfaces

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Reference:
Title: PhoneTouch: A Technique for Direct Phone Interaction on Surfaces
Author: Dominik Schmidt, Fadi Chehimi, Enrico Rukzio, and Hans Gellersen
Venue: UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology

Summary
This paper discusses a technique the authors term 'PhoneTouch', which allows users to use their phones as a pointer or stylus on an interactive table. The table is similar to a light table, but uses a projector underneath instead of a light. Contact with the table is determined using a camera. Images are ran though several filters, so that the program can easily verify if a phone or a finger touched the table. Phones communicate with the table using Bluetooth.

Discussion
Although the image processing used in this project has potential, I think the idea to use phones is poor. . You could easily use any other object to preform these tasks, including your fingers. Of course the paper does explain the use of fingers and phones together to form a more complex method of communication, but I don't really see the need. You can preform just about any task necessary on a normal touch screen without requiring multiple types of pointers, and even if you did, finding a way to simply distinguish different fingers from each other would be much more useful. A large part of the project was also displaying the contents of the phone on the table. This is a good idea, but it does not require you to use your phone as a pointer. At its most basic level, this project is just a computer wirelessly reading data off of phones and displaying it on a touch screen, which is far from innovative.

As I mentioned previously, I do think that the projection style interface using a camera to check for contact has potential though. Touch screen are still expensive, especially large ones, and this technology could be used to make large tables that would be useful in conferences, or even just dynamic user interfaces. For example, you could design a table that would function as a keyboard and mouse, but could double as an additional display/touchscreen as well.

Paper Reading #9: Imaginary interfaces: spatial interaction with empty hands and without visual feedback

Reference
Title: Imaginary Interfaces: Spatial Interaction with Empty Hands and without Visual Feedback
Author: Sean Gustafson, Daniel Bierwirth, Patrick Baudisch
Venue: UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology

Summary
This article is about "imaginary interfaces", or interfaces without visual feedback. Additionally, in the examples given in the article, there is no physical interaction with the device by the user either. Instead, the device monitors hand movements and determines what command the user is trying to convey. These commands are manifested by drawing with one hand, while using your other hand to anchor the virtual space. This gives the device a point of reference. The article states that users had some difficulty with remembering the different gestures they needed to make to accomplish things, as they have no visual cues to aid memory.


Discussion
I thought this article was really interesting, but it also has limited potential. This potential could be easily rectified with the addition of a visual interface possibly in the form of a projection. This would of course be counterproductive with regards to what the authors are attempting to research, but without a visual aid the system will be limited to simply applications. For example, this could have real application in cell phones and music players as a hands off alternative, but these devices are likely to still require a visual interface that users can use for more complicated tasks.


All things considered, I think voice recognition has a larger potential than this system. Voice recognition relies on our already huge vocabulary, where as this system essentially requires users to learn a new language. With the addition of a visual aid there could be some application as a replacement for keyboards on computers.

Week 2: Ethnography Results

This week both myself and Angel rode different routes. I made observations on route 31, shown below:

Observations

• Most people avoid talking when on the way to class, although this can vary if they know other commuters.
• Commuters on the return trip from campus made much more use of their cell phones to have conversations and text.
• The majority of people on the bus had class materials with them.
• Very few people eat on my bus route.

I have yet to ride this route either very early or very late, so my observations are very narrow in scope currently. I hope to make more observations at different times, and to gather more quantitative data.

Paper Reading #8: Early Explorations of CAT

Reference
Title: Early Explorations of CAT: Canine Amusement and Training
Author: Chadwick Wingrave, Todd Langston, Jeremy Rose and Joseph LaViola Jr.
Venue: CHI 2010, April 10-15

Summary:
This article is about how improvements in technology can be applied to other species, specifically dogs. The authors theorize that using computers to help train and entertain dogs will improve the canine-human bond. This project included a projector mounted on the ceiling to project different colored circles on the floor, and a tracking device attacked to the dog. The human can then select one of several modes to play the game. These modes are focused mostly on basic training, such as teaching your dog to come to you or stay.


Discussion:
I thought the whole thing was a bit silly. Training dogs is much less expensive when you use a bag of treats. Furthermore, the colored circles are largely pointless for the dog, as dogs can't see color, so they only server a visual aid to the human. Additionally, I'm not really sure why they didn't just place a couple circular colored mats on the floor. Its possible they wanted to keep the whole project electronic, but if you expect your system to make it into the consumer market, you can't expect everyone to put a projector on their ceiling.

Ethnography Proposal

The Culture of Public Transportation

For the subject of this ethnography we intend to study the culture surrounding public transportation services. A&M in particular has an intricate culture embedded in the bus network. Unlike similar services, the one provided by A&M is free to everyone in the Bryan-College Station area, making this culture even more dynamic.

While the most obvious use of the A&M bus system is for students to transit between home and classes, the bus system is used for a large number of other activities. These other activities are the main interest of this ethnography, but the focus of the ethnography is intended to be left open ended. This is important, as it will help us to avoid biasing our methodologies To this end, we hope to make objective observations on the culture of different bus routes. Following periods of study, we will attempt to draw conclusions from the data as opposed to forming goals prior to these experiences.

In order to better study this culture, we intend to sit in on a variety of different bus routes at different times of day. Considerations worthy of mention would include bus routes that travel to significant locations (besides campus) such as North gate, the mall, or the grocery store. In addition, the culture present on some of these routes may vary significantly at different times of day. To address this, we also intend to ride the routes during various times on the weekend, and later at night.

Our group intends to collect quantitative data out of observations that are of particular interest to our ethnography. As we will describe in the qualitative data section of this proposal, our intentions are to monitor student activities that are not necessarily related to school. With that in mind, we are interesting in knowing the amount of people who ride the bus to school, and people who ride the bus to other destinations. We are interested in knowing how many commuters use their phone instead of engaging in face to face social activities. Other observations will include determining the number of grocery shoppers and the number people eating on the bus. Despite all these early ideas, it is important to mention that our research will be tailored by our commuting experience.

The qualitative data for this ethnography will involve observing the environment and describing the overall mood. This will include taking notes on how friendly the passengers are, how they are dressed, and possibly ethnic backgrounds relating different bus routes. We want to take notes on how the times (morning, noon, and afternoon) of the bus routes affect people. For example, do people only eat in the mornings? Are people more likely to engage in conversations at night? All these ideas will compose our qualitative data.

Paper Reading #7: The Coffee Lab

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Reference:

Title: The Coffee Lab: Developing a Public Usability Space

Author: Maria Karam

Venue: CHI 2010, April 10-15

Summary

The Coffee Lab is somewhat like a real coffee shop, but with several interactive systems added for usability testing. Some of these systems include the Emoti-Chair, the iGesture System, a music visualization application, and several applications relating to captions. While all of the systems undergoing testing at the Coffee Lab are projects of their own, the focus of the Coffee Lab is to explore and research the public usability lab concept. Researchers evaluated the lab in five different stages, listed here in order: exposure, experience, experiment, extension, and exploration.

Discussion

While coffee shops have a high potential for this sort of public usability testing, I personally feel that this style of usability testing is flawed in general. This idea could work with more subtle and better known technology, but I felt like some of the ideas they were trying to test would have been either sufficiently uninteresting to patrons of an ordinary coffee shop, or else sufficiently outlandish so as to discourage interaction. These factors are diminished in the article, because while the Coffee Lab aims to be set in the public domain, it is a prototype as well. The article lacks a detailed description concerning how they avoided biasing customers and patrons, which most likely means that they didn't. As a result, I feel it is likely many individuals (myself included) would approach the coffee shop as a research enviroment - this naturally piques interesting and changes behavior.

To demonstrate this, imagine we took their Emoti-Chair and set it up in a real coffee shop - one without anyone standing around giving surveys and no visible surveillance or data collection. The difference here is that the expectations of the user are different, they no longer see the chair as a prototype. As a result, the chair will not immediately stand out as special either, and users will only notice it if the chair genuinely appeals to them. In the article, the attention of users is constantly drawn the items they wish to have tested, which defeats the purpose of doing the usability test in the public domain.

Paper Reading #6: A Multi-Touch Enabled Steering Wheel

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Reference:

Title: A multi-touch enabled steering wheel: exploring the design space

Author: Max Pfeiffer and 5 others

Venue: CHI 2010, April 12-13

Summary

The article details the author's design for a multi-touch steering wheel. This means that the steering wheel is intended to serve multiple functions, namely allow the user to interact with the car radio or computer system without taking their hands off of the steering wheel. A camera was used for the multi-touch tracking, while a projector mounted in the steering wheel column was used to display an interface onto the acrylic glass surface of the prototype steering wheel.

Discussion

I liked the idea behind this article. Unlike most of the other articles I have read, I feel like this project has real application, and related directly to CHI. While the prototype used in this article does of course have serious shortcomings, such as structural integrity, these are things that would be quickly sorted out by manufacturers if the design ever made it into industry. To some degree however, making the steering wheel purely electronic would be a mistake, as this vastly increases the number of points of failure for the system. The proposed system would need to undergo an absolutely huge amount of testing.

Week #1: Ethnography Results

Week #1: Ethnography Results

Due to some confusion about how groups would be assigned, my group formed this morning. We decided to go with my second idea regarding an ethnography of the A&M public transportation system and the culture surrounding it. Currently our team has only two members, myself and Angel Narvaez.

Book Reading #13: Microblog for Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 3
Summary
This chapter relates the experiences of Dr. Rosenhan while running an experiment to fake a mental illness in order to be admitted to a psychiatric ward. The author then repeated this experiment her self, and relates her own experiences. In contrast to Dr. Rosenhan's results, Slater was unable to convince psychiatrists that she should be admitted to a ward, however she was prescribed several medications, including anti-psychosis drugs.

Discussion
While this chapter was interesting, I can't help but feeling like Dr. Rosenhan's experiment was just some sort of silly bet with some friends. Following some google research, it appears that there are also some doubts that Slater actually preformed the experiment that she has never addressed. This also brought up some other points regarding the accuracy of previous chapters in the book (especially the first). All things considered, I am much less impressed with the author following this chapter.

Book Reading #12: Microblog for Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 4
Summary
The focus of this chapter was on the samoan family hierarchy. Hierarchy is mostly determined by age as opposed to sex, although the matai, who is head of the household, is typically male. Additionally, the matai is sort of outside the age-based hierarchy.

Discussion
Probably the most interesting aspect of samoan hierarchy is that status is largely independent of sex. This is not completely true, as the majority of matai's are men, and women, even as children, are typically expected to raise children and so forth. However, in contrast to most of the other well known cultures, samoa is remarkably close to equality between the sexes.

Book Reading #11: Microblog for The Design of Everyday Things

Chapter 4
Summary
This chapter focuses on the constraints commonly faced by designers. These include physical, cultural, and semantic constraints. The author uses the example of a lego motorcycle to demonstrate these concepts by pointing out that while the components of the motorcycle are largely interchangeable, the cultural and semantic constraints would not be met and most people would no longer recognize the toy as a motorcycle. A discussion of logical constraints is then included later. Norman then returns to the more specific topic of door design touched on in earlier chapters, and closes the chapter with some insights on how to improve light switches so that they are less ambiguous.

Discussion
Norman has some excellent points in this chapter, although I feel in general most doors are apparent in their use. The cases where poor design was used however do stand out in my mind. Light switches are a slightly different manner. Having unlabeled switches is generally alright, provided that there aren't a great number of lights in the vicinity of the switch. I can think of maybe one or two instances in my own apartment where the switches could be labeled, but in general it is not necessary as most people learn very quickly. Switches in public places however could stand to benefit greatly from improved design, and would probably be more worth the investment.

Book Reading #3: Microblog for HCI Remixed Ch. 1, 4, 5 ,18, 20, and 23

Chapter 1
Summary
The author describes his work with digital music in this chapter.While the content of his story is mostly about the machine used to create the music, he relates the moral of the story with the machine having been very user friendly.

Discussion
This chapter was alright, although the author's choice of diction in several places seemed somewhat strange. To say that he was biased in regard to this machine would be an understatement. I am not sure if there is a word to describe love for an inanimate object, but it would be appropriate here.

Chapter 4

Summary

This chapter details the program Sketchpad and its influence on HCI. Sketchpad is a drawing program that utilized unique input devices (for the time), such as a light pen and a display with a resolution nearly as high as modern LCDs.

Discussion

Each chapter in this book seems to have a moral presented by the author for the reader to take away from it. In this chapter, he finishes by telling the reader that we need to be on the look out for the next Sketchpads of our generation so that we can properly nurture them. This mentality is fine I suppose, but I guess I expected something more instructive, such as the content in the book The Design of Everyday Things.

Chapter 5

Summary

This chapter details some of the origins of the mouse and the difficulties Engelbart had finding an audience for it. There is also some reflection included by Engelbart himself in the chapter, where he laments that the mouse has become to easy to use.

Discussion

The nostalgia trip is continued in this chapter by a different author. There are a lot of parallels between this chapter and the previous one, and the moral content is the same. While it may be interesting from a historical perspective, again, I didn't find this chapter particularly instructive.

Chapter 18

Summary

As the title implies, this chapter was largely about the rise of collaboration within HCI. The author describes the 1980's, a period when computer scientists focused heavily on networking. Eventually this focus extended to human interaction across networks.

Discussion

This paper was refreshing coming from the earlier chapters. While I still felt like I was reading a history book to some extent, there was some real content as well.

Chapter 20

Summary

Articulation work is described as the extra layer of programming required when users work collaboratively. The author discusses how an earlier article called Taking CSCW Seriously influenced articulation work, and goes into details regarding early concepts of how to manage team work through CHI.

Discussion

I felt that this paper was more or less Taking CSCW Seriously rehashed with a slightly different name. The vast majority of the dialog is simply summaries and accounts from experiencing that stemmed out of the aforementioned paper.

Chapter 23

Summary

This chapter discusses the use of computers to enhance human-to-human interactions. The author encourages the use of technology in ways it was not intended.

Discussion

I liked this chapter. Unlike most of the other chapters, the moral and instructive content of this chapter was less intuitive, and therefore more deserving of commentary.

Dr. Celine Latulipe: Layered Surveillance

Reference

Title: Layered Surveillance

Author: Celine Latulipe and Annabel Manning

Summary

This article is largely a collaboration between the artist Annabel Manning and Dr. Celine in order to create an interactive art installation. This installation allows participants to explore artwork in layers using wireless devices similar to a computer mouse. Additionally, the system is designed to encourage collaboration by giving different users control of different layers. This allows each person to control the level of detail present in specific shapes or figures in the artwork.

Discussion

The interaction of this device reminded me of a previous research paper I blogged on, wherein four users were each given a mouse that was linked to the same computer as the other. Since all of the devices worked and all users had control, the result was that no one could move the cursor where they wanted it to be on the monitor, because everyone was trying at the same time. In this experiment eventually the users would collaborate and come to terms so that they would not all be attempting to move the cursor at the same time. Dr. Celine's installation is very similar, as users must collaborate if they want to see the variations or details in an element of the picture that another user has control over.

While this article was interesting, aside from as a possible teamwork building exercise the application of the project seems low. It is possible the work of these two researchers on the image layering used could be applied to a more practical implementation however.

Paper Reading #5

Reference

Title: There's a Monster in my Kitchen: Using Aversive Feedback to Motivate Behavior Change

Author: Ben Kirman, Conor Linehan, Shaun Lawson, Derek Foster, and Mark Doughty

Summary

This article deals with several concepts centric to Skinner's behavioral theories, including positive and negative reinforcement, and conditioning. The theory supporting their research suggests that behavior stems from environmental stimuli. Unlike some of Skinner's work however, this paper emphasizes something the author's term Persuasive Technologies. Systems implementing this technology use a feedback loop in order to modify routines based on the success or failure of the current routines. In this way, behavioral systems are tailored to each individual. In particular, the system discussed by the article was named Nag-Baztag.

Discussion
As mentioned in the summary, this article draws heavily on Skinner's work. Skinner, however, spent most of his time trying to standardize automated learning systems. He believed strongly in determinism, and I don't think he would have liked the idea that everyone needs a unique approach. In this regard, the approach used in this article is similar to treating the symptoms, as they say. Additionally, while I found the negative reinforcement examples humorous, I think I would quickly become desensitized to them. Unfortunately it is difficult to find negative reinforcement implementations that are not so severe as to be damaging or traumatizing on repeated application, but also not so mild as to eventually go ignored. I do think that negative reinforcement can be useful, but not in an interval based conditioning system. In general, negative reinforcement is best saved for severe lapses in judgement, and should not be used in any system where the individual is expected to learn in an ongoing process. For example, negative reinforcement works great in law enforcement, but the majority of citizens never or rarely spend time in jail. In this way, this type of reinforcement is reserved for severe infractions.

Book Reading #8: Microblog for The Design of Everyday Things

Chapter 3
Summary
This chapter goes deeper into behavioral theory. The author discusses the constraints that must be met for an individual to preform actions, especially when they lack the ability to cognitively describe those actions. He goes on to discuss the benefits of control mapping and actions taken by individuals.

Discussion
I found this chapter much more abstract than the first two. Norman's perspective on the precision required to preform tasks is still highly innovative however. As a side note, I thought it was interesting how these readings have converged slightly with some of the ideas in Opening Skinner's Box.

Book Reading #7 (and #10): Microblog for Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 1
Summary
The first chapter starts with a short account of B. F. Skinner's early years and how be eventually came to be one of the most influential scientists of all time. Devices such as the classic Skinner Box are discussed, including the concepts centric to them, such as timed-interval reinforcement. The author goes on to explain how these ideas were expanded on by Skinner to his own child, and eventually to people.

Discussion
I found the initial introduction at the start of the chapter was the most interesting. To some degree I would already associate a somewhat negative perception by the public with regard to Skinner's work, but while interesting, I feel like the introduction is a bit over-embellished. In spite of this, I still enjoyed the discussion. I carry a lot of views that are very similar to Skinner, such as determinism.

Chapter 2
Summary
In this chapter the author moves on to psychologist Stanley Milgram. As with the first chapter, this chapter starts with what is essentially a short biography. Stanley Milgram is well known for his work on obedience to authority, work that is similar to some of the experiments outlined in the previous chapter by Skinner. In one experiment volunteers were consistently conditioned to the point that they would theoretically kill. This was done by asking them to incrementally apply voltage to a second volunteer when they answered questions wrong in order to shock them. The catch was that the second volunteer wasn't actually wired up, and was really a paid actor. Most people still eventually administered a lethal amount of voltage to the subject.

Discussion
While I'm not certain that the experiment really had much to do with obedience, this chapter was still very interesting. It is not surprising to me that most people have it in them to kill, on a fundamental level I think everyone does when they are applied enough pressure. People are supremely selfish and are most interested in self preservation. With the right conditioning this self preservation instinct can be developed into something much more dangerous. Take for example the Russian scientist mentioned in the first chapter who managed to disassociate salivation in dogs, and then apply the same concept to murder and self preservation.

Book Reading #9: Microblog for Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 3
Summary
This chapter was mostly focused on the education children receive in Samoa. After infancy babies are cared for by older siblings, including education. This is usually done by girls, and boys that do end up with the job usually pass it on to someone else at an earlier age than girls would be allowed.

Discussion
While the Samoa education and child raising system would obviously have problems in a modern culture, I did find it very unique. From the stand point of teaching children responsibility, it is also an excellent system. It is interesting as well that all children have someone that sort of cares for them, no matter how old they are. Children that are sufficiently old enough will of course look to the adults, and so forth. This is probably the root of the Samoa relative age system.

Paper Reading #4

Reference
Title: Blowtooth: Pervasive Gaming in Unique and Challenging Environments
Author: Conor Linehan, Ben Kirman, Shaun Lawson, and Mark Doughty

Summary
This article described a Bluetooth based pervasive game wherein players attempt to smuggle illegal goods through airport security. To do this, players are expected to enlist the help of bystanders. As the players cannot really be expected to smuggle illegal goods such as drugs, this is simulated using the Bluetooth interface. In addition to the game itself, the article details the rationale behind choosing an airport and how the game results were evaluated.

Discussion
One of the more interesting aspects of the article involved the author's rationale in where to play the game. The article states "airports have been described as constituting the most authoritarian facility designed for the use of free civilians". This carries a strong appeal for games of this nature. However, as a counterpoint, most of the high tension environment goes to waste in this game as it obviously is not possible for anyone to actually get caught. I don't mean to promote the actual smuggling of drugs for entertainment purposes, but this is a game that could essentially be played in a a 3D recording of the airport to the same effect. While we don't actually have this technology, my point is that the other people in this game will never interact with you, and you don't have any influence over their actions either, so it may as well be prerecorded.