BLUI - UIST 07

Comments: first, second, third

Summary:

By using a single microphone near a computer monitor, they can detect where on the screen you are blowing. This can be used for games, scrolling, selecting, etc. This could especially be useful for disabled people that can't use a mouse and keyboard.

My Thoughts:

I think Blui is awesome. It doesn't seem practical as the only method of input, but along with a mouse and keyboard, it could come in handy. I think it would be great for scrolling. While viewing a webpage, scrolling is usually the most difficult and annoying part. By blowing slightly at the screen, you could scroll with ease. It would be amazing. Also, it doesn't need to be precise. If you blow down, then it scrolls down, and the same for up, and possibly left and right.

Inmates

Comments: prev, this, next

Summary:

Programmers are given way to much control over design decisions. Programmers should be the last people to have control over design decisions. As seen from our other readings, programmers usually think their design is perfect, and if no one in the world knows how to use it, then it is the users fault for being too stupid. The book went into detail about this and a variety of other topics such as managing and software engineering. It was another one of the books that has a ton of words, but doesn't actually have that much information in it. Im starting to think people write long boring books just so people think they are smart.

My Thoughts:

Again, it was long and boring. It had some good points. Programmers usually do make awful designers. From my experience, I've been in groups were people make stupid design decisions, although they think they are great decisions. I probably make some stupid decisions as well. If I were to make enough good design decisions that my future employer wanted me to continue to do so, then that would be fine, but until one proves themself capable, they shouldn't be in charge of such an important area.

Donkey Konga! - CHI 08

Summary:

People prefer using the drums in Donkey Konga over a regular controller. That's pretty much all the paper said. It went into detail about how users tend to communicate more when using the drums over regular controllers. It went into detail about the type of communication (eg. verbal vs non-verbal), but they didn't say what the users actaully talked about. The users could have been bad mouthing the drums while using them. Even if it was all positive communication, it doesn't mean it applies to all games.

My Thoughts:

Whatever this paper "proves," it doesn't really mean anything. You have to look at games on a case-by-case basis. Using the guitar hero guitar to play halo, for instance, is very difficult and would be frustrating if it was the only means for playing halo. This paper didn't prove anything, and it is amazing to see what can get excepted in CHI.

Useability Evaluation Considered Harmful

comments: a, b, c

Summary:

This paper talking about how too much emphasis is put on useability evaluations. Useability evaluations can be very useful, but too often they are put together at the last minute, because even good ideas are considered bad if they don't have a useability study. This leads to useability studies that only use a handful of people, and those people could be close friends of the researchers leading to bias. In addition, there are potentially good ideas that do bad on useability studies because the researchers don't have time to implement a complete program utilizing the new interface. They usually have a prototype or "sketch" and so if it fails during an evaluation, it could be that the program was incomplete, not that the interface is bad.

My Thoughts:

I agree with this paper. In many fields outside CHI, it is the same way. They do studies that have many biases just to prove their point. Whenever I hear about a study that proves something, I never trust it unless I hear exactly how the study was performed. That's how CHI should be. If someone conducts a study, it shouldn't mean anything unless you look at how the study was perfomed. You also need to consider that biases are most likely involved. One great point the paper made was that studies are hardly ever repeated. A key point about using a study to prove something, is that you need to be able to repeat it and get the same results. Since people don't repeat studies, researches can get away with using a ton of biases in their usability studies.

Stanley Milgram

Summary:

Stanley Milgram shocked a bunch of people. He did a series of experiments to measure how far people would go if a person of authority asked them to do so. People ended up thinking they were shocking people for an experiment, which shows that people are capable of doing bad things if a person of authority asks them to. The book also talked about his life, and other experiments he did such as the 6 degrees of seperation and the mail thingy.

My Thoughts:

I love his experiments. I think that the show a harsh truth about humans. We are capable of bad things. When talking about WWII and the nazis, I feel as though a lot of people think that only the germans would have acted in that manner, but the truth is that it could have been any country, even the US. His experiments show that humans tend to act in this way, even though there are some cultural differences. His work was controversial, but it lead to a lot of rules to protect people being experimented on.

Human Centered Design Considered Harmful

Summary:

Don Norman talked about how we always rely on what the user tells us in order to design our products. This leads us to change our product, even if we think it's ok. This leads to other problems coming up just because a few people didn't like something. We, instead, need to think about the changes we are making. We can't do something just because a few people may like it. The solution could be worse than the problem.

My Thoughts:

I completely agree with him. Designers too often take the user's word, even when their word is stupid. Users tend to see things from one perspective. It is good to see things from their perspective, but following them blindly doesn't help anything. One thing I disagreed with him on was the users adapt to technology, so it's ok to make things that are hard to use. I partially agree in that we do adapt to technology, but only if it is something really useful, and there isn't a better version available. If you want to sell a product faster than your competitors, then you had better have it adapt to the user.

Ethnography Considered Harmful

Summary:

The writers were just trying to follow in the footsteps of the other considered harmful papers, but this time, they were talking about ethnographys. This was a really boring paper, which just said that ethnographys can be missused to say what people want them to.

My Thoughts:

This paper sucked. It didn't help knowing that it was a joke paper while reading it. I usually hate reading assignments that talk about nothing, so reading one and knowing it was talking about nothing before I even starting reading it sucked. 

Bigger is Better - Fitz Law

Summary:

Fitz law is basically a rule for how bigger buttons that are not far away increase usability. This makes sense because small buttons are hard to position the mouse directly over, and if a button is far away, it feels like it slows you down a lot. This is an important law because interfaces that can increase width and decrease distance are a lot more effecient. An example is the wheel selection. You don't have to move the mouse far, and the area the mouse has to be in to select a piece is pretty big.

My thoughts:

This law seems really useful. Whenever I make an interface, I will definitely consider this law to insure that it doesn't take someone forever to use my interface. I especially like how games often use this law. When playing a game where speed is important, you can't have people slowing down to use your interface. The wheel interface gets used a lot to speed up weapon selection and such. Usually when a game gets criticized for a bad interface, it is because it doesn't follow fitz law.