Deconstruction Activity - 'Bad' Interface Design

The most ubiquitous example of 'bad' interface design is a city's CBD. A CBD is so familiar to us, we don't realise how terrible it is!

Why is the experience of landing in a new city so exciting and disturbing at the same time? Because we don't know where anything is, what the social norms are, where the social enclaves are for each subculture: each of these has to be learned over time, through trial and error, and through investigation. This is true for a city within our own country as well as ones in other countries with completely different cultures.

Before technologies such as online maps and searches, we had maps of roads, some with a red + sign to indicate where the hospitals were. Sometimes the city installed blue street signs to point to places like a museum - but you found these by chance. What about finding a toilet in a hurry if last night's seafood revisited? Even this is difficult in 2011.

A more friendly design interface for any CBD would be numerous information points that could pinpoint shops and services and provide advice, catering for the lowest common denominator. Not everyone has an iPhone, and my grandma wouldn't even know what one is.

Distributed Cognition - A load of academic boondoggle?

Sometimes academics can get so wound up in semantics that it is easy to lose sight of a broad concept. The research on 'distributed cognition' seems to be such an area - it is an attempt to make sense of a cognitive unit's environment and how that influences that unit's cognition. It is a noble endeavour, but one that is possibly clumsily named.

Hutchin's paper 'Distributed Cognition' (Hutchins, 2000) discusses the principle that not all cognitive events are "encompassed by the skin or skull of an individual". Broadly, it relates how external social and material factors take some of the cognitive load of an individual. These external factors are called 'cognitive artefacts', which can take the form of a calculator, a nomogram, or even another person. It is careful, though, to delineate between "the cognitive properties required to manipulate the artefact from the computation that is acjieved via the manipulation of the artefact" (ibid).

This is a crucial point. If the classical notion of cognition comprises sensing, memory, deduction, and environment, then these 'cognitive artefacts' are simply part of the 'environment'. To say that these environmental factors comprise part of the cognition, or do the thinking, of an individual is misleading. While it is important to take these factors into account, they are simply tools. If a person gains new knowledge by interacting with another person for example, then the second person has simply been sensed - any judgement or reordering of thoughts by the first person still take place within that person. Cognition in this situation is not distributed, but remains singular.

The only way that 'distributed cognition' can make sense, is if the cognitive unit is not one person, but ALL people within a specified unit, such as a society. People learn from each other (but think themselves), and the actions of the social group can often exhibit emergent properties that were not evident initially, or individually. These emergent properties can then be incorporated by an individual within that group. In this case, the individuals still think for themselves while interacting with others - the cognition has remained within 'individual skins'. In the same way, different parts of the brain can interact with each other to form an emergent behaviour or action of the whole brain (person), so the brain is a product of distributed cognition, as Hutchins discusses. The cognitive unit here is a localised set of neurons.

It is clear that cognition occurs by an individual. But an individual what? An individual set of neurons, a person, or a society. A casual reading of this subject might lead one to think that a person's thinking is done by another person or a machine, but that is not the case. Any cognitive unit's cognition is all done within itself, to the extent it is equipped to do. To say that another unit thinks for, or in place of, another is boondoggle. At the most, units can simply provide stimuli for each other to think for themselves.

Hutchins, E. (2000). Distributed cognition [2001].  Retrieved from http://files.meetup.com/410989/DistributedCognition.pdf

Esoteric Word Activity

The response to this activity could be anything! The websites I have chosen have one thing in common though - helping me think about the ideas with a mix of images and text.

Abstract Thought
http://www.babelsdawn.com/babels_dawn/2009/01/abstract-thought-predates-homo-sapiens.html
This page highlights how abstract thought is a basis of our own nature, beginning way back..

Aspiration
If aspiration precedes inspiration and is characterised by a 'burning desire', then this page acts as a guide and explanation.
http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/cultivating-burning-desire.htm

Aura
Colours and sounds are frequencies, and frequencies carry information and presence. This images on this page speak to our intuition, while the text speaks to our mind.
http://www.crystalinks.com/colors.html

EDGE903 Assessment 2 - Activity-Centered Design

The response to this assessment has been made as a prezi presentation, with permission.

http://prezi.com/qak84pqnd5hq/activity-centred-design/

Activity 2 - Accelerometers in iPhones and iPads

The iPhone has a device called an accelerometer inside, which is able to tell the main processor(s) which direction the phone is orientated. Like the cochlear, it measures movement, and senses if the phone has moved in any of the x-y-z axes. (Wikipedia, 2011; STMicroelectronics 2011)

This allows app designers to detect the phone’s orientation, adjusting the display accordingly. It also opens the way for movement gestures (such as shaking, tilting, L-R movement) that can operate a function of the phone, which would be very helpful for language-independent use. Imagine in five years, everyone could simply shake the phone to end a call.

References:
STMicroelectronics, 2011. 'LIS302DL - MEMS Motion Sensor'. Retrieved from http://www.st.com/stonline/products/literature/ds/12726.pdf on 14 August 2011.
Wikipedia, 2011. 'Accelerometer'. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerometer on 14 August 2011.

Assignment 1 - Learning is an infinite experience

The Evolving Interface - Reflecting on Pattie Maes' 'Sixth Sense' technology

Back when we first started to use the first websites, the hyperlink was revolutionary: it turned static text into active text, so that when touched, we would be presented with new information. This was the first interaction we have ever had with text, ie making text DO something. To access this though, we needed a computer, an internet connection, and a knowledge of how to use a computer.

Pattie Maes' group has now produced a device that allows us to take that hyperlink and to put it onto any surface in front of the user (Maes, P., 2011). Additionally, the user is now able to turn an object in the real world into a hyperlink: a person, a packet of cereal, and even hand gestures. The interface has now evolved from a computer and keyboard to the air and object in front of the user, anywhere. Furthermore, you no longer have to 'click' the hyperlink to activate it - the information just appears when the object is presented. Can you imagine meeting someone at a conference and pushing their chest to display their bio?

The trap of this technology, though, is that one can be presented with too much (irrelevant) information. To work effectively, this technology will have to allow the user to filter or select what action/information comes from its use. To turn humanity into information processors would remove us from a quintessential human experience - feeling and intuition. If this technology is used in education for example, studies will no doubt show that the technology per se is not what improves learning, but the tried and tested educational principles that are incorporated into its design. It is, after all, simply a virtual keyboard and a projector.

Reference:
Maes, P. (2011). Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry demo SixthSense. Retrieved August 8, 2011, from http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html