Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Paper Reading #17: Language Complexity

Comments: 

Reference Information: 
Title: Using Language Complexity to Measure Cognitive Load for Adaptive Interaction Design
Authors: M. A. Khawaja, F. Chen, N. Marcus
Presentation: (Conference Paper) IUI'10, February 7-10, Hong Kong, China.

Summary: Cognitive Load is the mental load that a persons' memory carries when the person is performing a problem solving task. There is a limited capacity a person can maintain in order to process new information, so when a person is going through a process with large loads of information and time limitations. Such a load can be experienced by users of an interaction system. 

In this study, researches investigated patterns of speech from cognitively low and high load tasks. Their intention is to use the results obtain from the study to see how they can be used in the development of a user interface evaluation and interaction design improvements. They believe that if such a system can determine the user's cognitive load, it could adjust to the user in order to provide him or her with a better experience. 

Researches believe that the choice of words and the form of a speech is very different from written content, since there is no really much time to analyze and think about the way we want to present our ideas. Thus, it was better to carry out their studies in transcribed speeches. They obtained the data from members of bushfire management teams from Australia.

The complexity measurements they concentrated in included: Lexical Density (ratio of unique words to the total number of words), Complex Word Ratio (ratio of complex words, three syllables or more, to total number of words), Gunning Fog Index (sentence lengths and complex words), Flesch-Kincaid (estimates the number of years of education a person would require to understand text),  SMOG Grade (also focuses on the education persons require to fully comprehend text), and Lexile Level (measure of complexity).

Majority of the results obtained from the study were correct to the hypothesis they presented. With these results, they may be able to measure cognitive load of interaction systems and develop something that will aid in the interaction experience for the user.

Source
Discussion: This is the first conference paper I read that is not directly describing a technology development. In this study, researchers were interested in obtaining data that could later help in the development of a system. It was interesting to learn about the measurements that they use in order to determine the cognitive load of users. I would be really interested in reading about how the results from the study are implemented into the design of an interaction system.

When I was trying to find a relevant picture for the blog, which there weren't many, I found the following image in a scholastic website. The content of the page explained what the Lexile Level is, and how it is used with kids in order to measure their reading levels. It was interesting to read about how they are using these complexity measurements in the education field.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Ethnography Results, Week 7

Paola Garza
March 27th, 2011 (Sunday)
6:00-8:00pm

·         Guys: 6
·         Girls: 7
·      

Interesting Facts:
There was a police car outside when I first got there with the lights on. I wasn’t able to figure out what he was doing, I didn’t see anything out of the order.

There were around three of four girls who place a table outside, close to the main door who were representing Coffeemate. They were giving out promotional items including notebooks, t-shirts, etc.

My Location: Mirror’s Room
I first sat in the very back of the middle room (close to the restrooms) but then I saw a person leave from the first middle room, so I decided to change locations since I wanted to see the experience the place from this different space where I hadn’t been before.

This little space is in the heart of Sweet Eugene’s. It has two main entrances, one is big, one whole wall is open and connected to the hall where the counter is. The second entrance is part of a wall, connecting it to the middle room.

In this room there are four couches; one for three people, one for two people and two for one person (I’m sitting in one of them).  There are also two “living room tables” which in reality are chests. As decoration there are 22 mirrors in total, hanging in the walls of this small space, they are all different sizes and different styles. Very original. In addition to the real mirrors, there are two open spaces in the wall, which may very well give the impression of mirrors. There is only one painting in this room, and it’s a really abstract one of a man dressed in red.

I don’t think I had noticed this from any of the other places, but in part of the shop there is a big speaker in one of the corners playing some soft music. Not boring, but the kind that you don’t really notice when you are doing something else. From this room I have view of spaces of the coffee shop that I didn’t have a view before, like the bar next to the counter, the tables next to the entrance and a few tables in front of the counter. And of course, this space itself.

This small room invites patrons for reading or just working on a computer, like I was doing and a girl in another couch was doing as well. I don’t think students could really work in here with study materials and all. It is a really dark room, there are only three lamps (which do not really give very much bright light) lighting the room.

The Employees:
Employees are always nice and friendly, but do no really make much conversation with customers, at least not with me.

The Customers:
In the room there is a guy reading The Hobbit, he seems pretty interested in the reading and the music doesn’t seem to bother him. As I said, I think this kind of music can actually help you concentrate in what you are doing.

There is another girl with a mac computer in one of the other couches. All she has with her is the computer. Not study materials.

From inside the room I have a view of some tables between this room and the counter. Three tables to be exact and, one more from the very entrance. In these tables I see students working on  their computers and study materials. 

I hadn't had a chance to observe the bar next to the counter. Throughout the whole time I was there, there was always at least two people sitting there with computers out. Majority of them seemed to be there alone, and did not stay there for very long. I don't think it is a very comfortable place to be studying. 

After the other girl left, two more girls came in and left their stuff there. Then two more guys came in and sat in the same couch. Apparently, they were together. There weren't there for studying, only for chatting. One other guy came in afterward and sat in the same couch where the other guy was sitting. He also started reading.

It was a really interesting and different experience from the previous weeks of study.

Ethnography Results, Week 6

Paola Garza
March 21th, 2011 (Tuesday)
5:15-7:15pm

·         Computers:  ( M 1 P 4 )
·         Visiting: 7 (1 group of 7)
·         Alone  (I could see from where I was sitting, including me): 3
·         Two or more  (I could see from where I was sitting):   5 groups
·         Guys: 7
·         Girls: 15

5:45pm – 6
6:15pm – 20
6:45pm – 30
7:15pm – 28
7:45pm – 15

My Location:
I was sitting in the living room space, next to the back door. There is a new attraction to the room, a mannequin sitting on the ceiling bar. It looks like they just put it up because many students come in and make reference of it.

The Employees: I saw many people having dinner, so I noticed more employees going around bring in the food. Something I have noticed throughout the weeks is that if they are not bringing food, they do not really notice there are things they need to pick up from the tables.

The Customers:
There wasn’t much activity or noise when I first got here. I guess it is because of the time, it was too early. Students started getting here right after 6:00pm. However, suddenly many more students than I expected started to show up.

There was a group of around 23 students meeting there. Students just started getting there, some of them sitting down others just standing up around the couches. I kept counting them, but more and more continued getting there. I decided to wait until they started their meeting so I could a concrete count, however there was no formal meeting started. I did notice something weird, one of the girls had a money bag, and as students were getting there she would give them money for they to go buy some coffee and/or pastries.  Some of the students gathering came in with subway sandwiches but in addition bought something from the coffee shop. Around 7:30pm they started leaving, until only a few of them stayed behind.

There were three couples of students, all with computers and study materials out. Around 6:10 another group of students came in. With study materials and sat close to where the big group started gathering. But they changed from there to a different space right away. They must of thought it was too noisy . Two more groups of couples came in. They both went to the couches, with computers and study materials.

With the exception of the big group of students, majority of the other patrons were there with study materials as usual. Something different this time was that I did not see many students with headphones on. Maybe because this place invites students to come in and study in groups, not so many individuals students.

Book Reading #42: Coming of Age in Samoa

Appending III: Samoan Civilization as it is Today
Coming of Age in Samoa
Margaret Mead

Summary: In this appendix, Mead gives a description of the Samoan civilization and how it became what it was before then. She basically describes Samoa as it is in the time frame when she did her research, but describes how it became more flexible as it was before. She discusses some aspects of European and American influences which made Samoa less rigorous a more comfortable. Mead discuses things such as their way of living (describing their houses), the economy, and government structure, etc.

Discussion: The description of Samoa given by Mead in this appendix is really different from all other descriptions provided throughout the book. In previous chapter, it seemed that she was observing everything from the inside, more personal. In this appendix, it seems that she is giving a critique of their civilization, from the outside. The tone and style I think are really different, however effective. With her discussion about the things that have changed thanks to foreign influences, I can see how even though Samoans were influenced but they still learned how to keep their culture. For example, they had one American civil judge, but they also had one native judge.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Book Reading #41: Why We Make Mistakes

Why We Make Mistakes
Joseph T. Hallinan
Chapter 2: We All Search for Meaning: Hallinan discusses how we are able to better remember things when they have a meaning for us, than meaningless things. He gives various examples of such things as remember the features of a penny, remembering faces better than names, being able to remember random things by giving them some kind of meaning, and how we can mistakenly recognize a face by things that are not enough and easily confused.

Chapter 3: We Connect the Dots: In this chapter, Hallinan discusses examples that relate how individuals make choices based on "invisible" factors. For example making judgments of people based on pictures only, how a woman's physiology affects men reactions, and how students feel about chaining answers in tests (something contrary to what researchers have discovered).

Discussion: Even though these two chapters discuss different ideas, they are both very similar. They both provide concepts and factors that affect individual's choices, factors that we cannot see. In the first chapter, the meaning we give to things is one of the most efficient things to remember them. In the second, things that we do or believe unconsciously, affect our acts. On the discussion about changing answers on a test, I believe we are more aware of those questions we go from right to wrong because of our desire or idea that we could have done better than we did if we wouldn't of change the answer.

Book Reading #40: Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 14: Education for Choice
Coming of Age in Samoa

Summary: In this chapter, Mead gives a more detailed description of what the life of an American girl is, for the point of view of the girl. She is focusing on the number of choices that adolescents are presented with, and what sort of things are leading adolescents to behave as they do. As the title suggest, Mead states that parents need to decide how to educate their children, and her view point is to educate them no know how to handle the so many choices that they are presented with.

Discussion: One point made by Mead really surprised me, taking in consideration the time frame when this book was written.  Parents try to "reward" their children for their behavior, but they also use this fact as a restrain for behavior. However, as Mead explains, once adolescents are able to at least partially support themselves, parents loose the one thing they were using to control their children, instead of teaching them how to behave altogether. I think my point of view comes from the way my parents raised me, for example they didn't give me rewards because I did good in school, instead they taught me that was my obligation and I did good even with no rewards.

Book Reading #39: Why We Make Mistakes

Why We Make Mistakes
Joseph T. Hallinan

Summary:
Chapter 0: Why Do We Make Mistakes? Because...: In this introduction to the book, Hallinan discusses how frequent mistakes are done. He claims that people more than often attribute the fault of a mistake to the person who committed the mistake, instead of anything else(the car example). He also notes that we are willing to take the bad of things in order to get the good part of it, and that the world we live in is not helping us. Hallinan claims that being aware of our acts should help us in decrease our mistakes (the multiple item sale).

Chapter 1: We Look but Don't Always See: Not being able to see (observe and catch details) of things in front of us is a cause of mistakes. Hallinan claims that we only see a fraction of what we think we are seeing, our focus is in only one thing, and what is in the background is very blurry. He also states that we notice on a Need-to-Know Basis, noticing only things that are important or relevant to us, and ignoring the rest. He discusses various experiments done that demonstrate the individual's limited eye sight.

Discussion: In the introduction of this book, Hallinan touches in some points ideas I was introduced to by the Norman books. For example, the idea that the world we are living is pushing us to commit mistakes (having to learn so many PINs and passwords; we can only remember a few things at a time) and the differentiation between mistakes and errors. 

The idea that we only see part of what we think are seeing is really interesting. While reading this chapter I looked at my computer, but also tried to see what other things I could "see" in the background, but I wasn't actually paying attention too. The door experiment is really interesting, I really don't know how I would perform if I was a subject for the experiment.



Obedience to Authority

Obedience to Authority
Stanley Milgram

Summary:
Chapter 1: The Dilemma of Obedience. Chapter one serves as an introduction to the book. Milgram discusses obedience, describing it as a basic and important element in the structure of social life. He also gives a brief introduction to the basics of his experiment, and the motivations behind it (Germany), and some of the results obtained from the experiment.

Chapter 2: Method of Inquiry. In chapter two, Milgram gives a detailed description of each component in the experiment. Participants were recruited from ads and mail advertising; they were required to be 'adults,' not high school or college students. He describes the learning task, which was the supposed objective of the experiment. Also, a detailed description of the shocking procedure and machines, as well as how the experiment would take place and evolve.

Chapter 3: Expected Behavior. In order to determine the expected behavior from people participating in the experiment, Milgram put together groups of people to whom he "explained" the procedures (he omitted the fact that the learner was an actor). Majority of people indicated or predicted that subjects would not go through the complete experiment, which they would stop when the learner indicated he wanted out of the experiment.

Source
Chapter 4: Closeness of the Victim. Milgram describes different ideas that affected the variation of obedience depending on the proximity of the victim. Overall, if the victim was remote from the subject, the subject was more likely to go through the experiment than if the victim was in the same room with the experimenter and the subject.

Chapter 5: Individuals Confront Authority. In this chapter, Milgram discusses some forces that affect the subject's responses, such as background and interaction with the experimenter. He then continues to relate the accounts of various subjects participating in the experiments.  

Chapter 6: Further Variation and Controls. Variations made from experiments 5-11 are described in this chapter: adding a heart condition to the victim, changing personnel (personality), how close the experimenter is to the subject, how women impact the experiment, the victim's limited contract; the institutional context (whether related to Yale or not), and whether the subject would give the same shocks if he had the option to choose the shock level. 

Chapter 7: Individuals Confront Authority II. Chapter structure similar to chapter 5. Milgram describes the interactions and how the experiment proceeded with different people.

Chapter 8: Role Permutations. Milgram questions whether the role each individual plays and how it is played would affect subject responses. For example, the experimenter was always the authority, the teacher was the subject, while the learner was the victim. In experiments 12-16 variations to these roles were changed. Hierarchy in authority is very important in choosing which authority to follow.

Chapter 9: Group Effects. Milgriam differentiates between conformity and obedience. Conformity comes from peers, the person is not proud or does not easily admit they have conform to a situation. Obedience comes from authority, hierarchical authority, the person will easily admit they committed an act because they were being obedient and following orders. Milgram describes the variations in experiments 17 and 18 (group experiments), as well as its results.

Chapter 10: Why Obedience? - An Analysis. In this chapter Milgram discuses reasons why obedience happens.How hierarchical models can explain and affect obedience, as wells as the variability involved. At the end of this chapter Milgram introduced the agnetic shift, when a person shifts from autonomy to following other individual's wishes.

Chapter 11: The Process of Obedience: Milgram discusses more in depth the agnetic state, trying to explain the antecedent conditions, consequences and binding factors surrounding it. Some of the antecedent conditions include mention are family, institutional setting (school), rewards. He also goes in detail about the binding factors, which keeps the individual in the agnetic state.

Chapter 12: Strain and Disobedience. In this chapter, Milgram explains the effect of strains and strain-resolving mechanisms have on whether the subject obeys or disobeys. When the biding factors are greater than the net value of restrain, subjects obey; when less, they disobey. He goes on by defining strain, sources of strain and techniques that attempt to resolve it. 

Chapter 13: An Alternative Theory: Is Aggression the Key?: Milgram makes note of the alternative theory of why subjects were capable of shocking the learner. The theory was aggression; the teacher wanting to hurt the learner. Milgram explains how this was studied in a similar experiment, but he assures that this is not the cause, but the relationship to obedience teachers had.

Chapter 14: Problems of Method: In this chapter, Milgram answers to three questions that were raised as critics of the experiment. In his answers he refutes any opposing viewpoints, and restates his. The critics question whether the subjects of the experiment correctly represented society at large, whether they did not believe shocks were real since the beginning, and if it is possible to generalize the results to real life experiences.


Summary:
This book seems to be very easy to read. Since we had already read a chapter about his experiments in the Opening Skinner's Box book, I already had an idea what his experiments were about. There is so much detail about his reasoning behind the experiment, the methods he used for it, and results about it. I was really surprised to learn how they prepare for the experiment, how they came up with the expected results; it wasn't just from what they believe, but what society believes. The more he discussed the experiments the more I thought about myself, and what I would do in that situation.

In the second part of this book, Milgram carries out the analysis of the experiment and his results. Milgram makes an important distinction between conformity and obedience. I think many people, including myself, would believe that if someone is instructing you to do something you don't want to, and try to resist but are not capable of breaking off, then this person is conforming to the authority's wishes. However, Milgram describes this situation to one of obedience, and not conformity.

There is a very complex explanation on how obedience is carried out, and it is really interesting to realize how so many factors are involved in the process. How he defined the agnetic shift and state. Even though, Milgram was vague with his definitions of strain and buffers (in my opinion), he was still able to explain and demonstrate their effect over obedience.

Even though aggression maybe one of the first things people thinks about when learning about this experiment, Milgram was able to prove with one of his experiments this is not such a case. However, I believe that in an extended situation such as Nazi Germany, individuals inflicting pain in other people may become aggressive the longer they stay in this situation.

I really liked the last chapter. Even though I thought this chapter was going to be a summary, it was more like a rebuttal chapter where Milgram is able to prove wrong opposite views and critics about his experiments. However, it would have been good if he had considered the effects the experiment had on the subjects. One of the first things one thinks about when learning about the experiment is cruelty and how subjects may think of themselves after they have participated in the experiment.

Book Reading #37: Obedience to Authority

Obedience to Authority
Stanley Milgram

Summary:
Chapter 9: Group Effects. Milgriam differentiates between conformity and obedience. Conformity comes from peers, the person is not proud or does not easily admit they have conform to a situation. Obedience comes from authority, hierarchical authority, the person will easily admit they committed an act because they were being obedient and following orders. Milgram describes the variations in experiments 17 and 18 (group experiments), as well as its results.

Chapter 10: Why Obedience? - An Analysis. In this chapter Milgram discuses reasons why obedience happens.How hierarchical models can explain and affect obedience, as wells as the variability involved. At the end of this chapter Milgram introduced the agnetic shift, when a person shifts from autonomy to following other individual's wishes.

Chapter 11: The Process of Obedience: Milgram discusses more in depth the agnetic state, trying to explain the antecedent conditions, consequences and binding factors surrounding it. Some of the antecedent conditions include mention are family, institutional setting (school), rewards. He also goes in detail about the binding factors, which keeps the individual in the agnetic state.

Chapter 12: Strain and Disobedience. In this chapter, Milgram explains the effect of strains and strain-resolving mechanisms have on whether the subject obeys or disobeys. When the biding factors are greater than the net value of restrain, subjects obey; when less, they disobey. He goes on by defining strain, sources of strain and techniques that attempt to resolve it. 

Chapter 13: An Alternative Theory: Is Aggression the Key?: Milgram makes note of the alternative theory of why subjects were capable of shocking the learner. The theory was aggression; the teacher wanting to hurt the the learner. Milgram explains how this was studied in a similar experiment, but he assures that this is not the cause, but the relationship to obedience teachers had.

Chapter 14: Problems of Method: In this chapter, Milgram answers to three questions that were raised as critics of the experiment. In his answers he refutes any opposing view points, and restates his. The critics question whether the subjects of the experiment correctly represented society at large, whether they did not believe shocks were real since the beginning, and if it is possible to generalize the results to real life experiences.

Discussion:
Milgram makes an important distinction between conformity and obedience. I think many people, including myself, would believe that if someone is instructing you to do something you don't want to, and try to resist but are not capable of of breaking off, then this person is conforming to the authority's wishes. However, Milgram describes this situation to one of obedience, and not conformity.

There is a very complex explanation on how obedience is carried out, and it is really interesting to realize how so many factors are involved in the this process. How he defined the agnetic shift and state. Even though, Milgram was vague with his definitions of strain and buffers (in my opinion), he was still able to explain and demonstrate their effect over obedience.

Even though aggression maybe one of the first things people think about when learning about this experiment, Milgram was able to prove with one of his experiments this is not such a case. However, I believe that in an extended situation such as Nazi Germany, individuals inflicting pain in other people may become aggressive the longer they stay in this situation.

I really liked the last chapter. Even though I thought this chapter was going to be a summary, it was more like a rebuttal chapter where Milgram is able to prove wrong opposite views and critics about his experiments. However, it would have been good if he had considered the effects the experiment had on the subjects. One of the first things one thinks about when learning about the experiment is cruelty and how subjects may think of themselves after they have participated in the experiment.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Book Reading #38: Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 13: Our Educational Problems in the Light of Samoan Contrasts
Coming of Age in Samoa
Margaret Mead

Summary: In this chapter, Mead starts contrasting the Samoan civilization to our own, trying to answer the question about trouble in adolescence in America. There are a few main points she covers in great detail such as a lack of affection and caring, not many choices open for teenagers (which lead not not many contradiction around the adolescent), and overall the lack of privacy which leads to more open knowledge about sex, birth and death.

Discussion: Reflecting on everything Mead discusses, I just cannot imagine how certain of these characteristics from the Samoan society would fit in any way to our society. Not in the past, and not now. I think she does a great job in comparing and contrasting the two civilizations. I have heard comments that there are many things wrong with this book, so I would like to know what they are, and how they would affect my point of view about the book and the studies' results.

Paper Reading #16: The Satellite Cursor

Comments:

Reference Information:
Title: The Satellite Cursor: Achieving MAGIC Pointing without Gaze Tracking using Multiple Cursors
Authors: C. Yu, Y. Shi, R. Balakrishnan, X. Meng, Y. Suo, M. Fan, Y. Qin.
Presentation: UIST' 10, October 3-6, 2010, New York, New York.

Summary:
The Satellite Cursor is a technique developed for use of multiple cursors with the goal of improving pointing performance. The developers are able to achieve their goal by reducing input movement, how much movement the user needs do achieve before reaching the target. Previous techniques were based on Fitts Law, they tried to improve pointing performance my reducing the amplitude and width of the targets and motor space. However, these techniques do not focus on reducing distraction factors caused  by bypassed targets.

The Satellite Cursor focuses on achieving an appropriate layout of targets in motor space as well as minimum distraction. It employs one cursor per target, but only one cursor is actually on the target when the user is selecting it. In other words, there is only one cursor able to select a target at a time. Thus, there is one constrain that must be met, targets cannot overlap. When the users moves the mouse, all cursors move synchronously. The developers propose a two step algorithm, "Aggregate and Expand." In the 'Aggregate' step all targets are aggregated to the main cursor. Then in the 'Expand' step, the location of all satellite cursors are calculated in order to distribute the targets to the satellite cursors. 
In this image, there are four different satellite cursors that move synchronously, and demonstrates how only one cursors is able to select a target at a time.
In order to evaluate the Satellite Cursor, developers carried out two experiments, one was a simple pointing task, while the second one was a more complex task with multiple targets of varying layout densities. Based on their results, there are two main areas where the Satellite Cursor are successful: it can save significant mouse movement to reach a target, and it is especially beneficial for target layouts that are sparse. They concluded that the satellite cursor performance can be modeled using Fitts Law successfully.

Discussion: Even though I think this is a very creative development, and the results show that it should decrease the mouse movement to reach a target, I am not sure how effective this would be. I mean, having all these cursors floating around could cause more distraction than bypass targets. I cannot tell for sure, since I have never tried something like this before. They do discuss in the paper how clutter can affect visual aspect of it, that is why they affirm it is more effective in sparse layouts. I would like to try it out and see how confusing or not confusing it gets.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Paper Reading #15: Enhanced Area Cursors

Comments:

Reference Information:
Title: Enhanced Area Cursors: Reducing Fine Pointing Demands for People with Motor Impairments
Authors: L. Findlater, A. Jansen. K. Shinohara, M. Dixon, P. Kamb, J. Rakita, J.O. Wobbrock.
Presentation: UIST '10, October 3-6, 20010, New York, New York.

Summary: This paper describes the development of four different enhanced area cursors that can alleviate some of the challenges faced by computer users with motor impairments.  In order to click with a pointing mouse, there are two phases needed: the ballistic phase and a corrective phase. The corrective phase of pointing is the one that represents more problems for motor impaired users, precision and control are very important. Their main concern was to develop something that would help users with small targets in reduced spaces.

The four enhanced area cursors developed are as follows:
  • Click-and-Cross: the users moves a circular area cursor over the area where the desired target is located. Once the the circular area is in place, the user activates it with a click. In order to make their selection the user needs to cross the cursor through the area selected for the small target. 
  • Cross-and-Cross: the user moves the area cursors to the desired location, then by crossing the red trigger act the area is activated. Then, to select the desired target, the user needs to cross the target area, just as it is done in the Click-and-Cross.
  • Motor-Magnifier: the user moves the area cursor to the desired location and clicks once. Then, a Bubble cursor appears, and the user must select the target by pointing and clicking.
  • Visual-Motor-Magnifier: the user moves the cursor to the desired area and clicks once. Then,  the area is magnified visually as well as motor magnification like in Motor-Magnifier. A Bubble cursor is used once again, and the user must select and click.
Two enhanced area cursors. Click-and-Cross: an area
cursor (top-left) transforms covered targets into crossing arcs (topright).
Visual-Motor-Magnifier: an area cursor (bottom-left) expands
visual and motor space for point-and-click selection (bottom-right)
There were two other designs that were abandoned. Even though the developers believed they were promising designs, informal evaluation demonstrated differently. In both of these designs, Ballistic Square and Scanning Area Cursor, the selection process was longer. In the first one the user must decrease the selection area manually, while in the second one the cursor would iterate through all the targets found inside the area cursor, and the user would select when the desired target was highlighted. 

They evaluated their designs with a user study involving both, motor impaired users as well as able-bodied participants. Even though they were focusing on how these cursors would aid motor impaired users, they information they collected from able-bodied participants was helpful for comparison purposes. They presented participants with a testing environment where they were given many distracting targets (grey) and one desired target (green). All the testing scenarios were presented randomly to the participants, and they tested the four enhanced cursors.

They concluded that the Visual-Motor-Magnifier and the Click-Cross cursors were the most successful of the four. They successfully eased the selection process for small, dense targets and reduced the corrective phase challenges the user faced.

Discussion: I really enjoyed reading about this research area. It is really important to develop technology for all people, and design it to fulfill the needs of those who are in physical disadvantage as well. 

I don't think they specified how easy or what the process was to use these cursors in real applications. They mentioned some testing in Microsoft Word and a website, but I wonder how difficult would it be to implement it.


Book Reading #35: Obedience to Authority

Obedience to Authority
Stanley Milgram

Summary:
Chapter 1: The Dilemma of Obedience. Chapter one serves as an introduction to the book. Milgram discusses obedience, describing it as a basic and important element in the structure of social life. He also gives a brief introduction to the basics of his experiment, and the motivations behind it (Germany), and some of the results obtained from the experiment.

Chapter 2: Method of Inquiry. In chapter two, Milgram gives a detailed description of each component in the experiment. Participants were recruited from ads and mail advertising; they were required to be 'adults,' not high school or college students. He describes the learning task, which was the supposed objective of the experiment. Also, a detailed description of the shocking procedure and machines, as well as how the experiment would take place and evolve.

Chapter 3: Expected Behavior. In order to determine the expected behavior from people participating in the experiment, Milgram put together groups of people to whom he "explained" the procedures (he omitted the fact that the learner was an actor). Majority of people indicated or predicted that subjects would not go through the complete experiment, that they would stop when the learner indicated he wanted out of the experiment.

Chapter 4: Closeness of the Victim. Milgram describes different ideas that affected the variation of obedience depending on the proximity of the victim. Overall, if the victim was remote from the subject, the subject was more likely to go through the experiment than if the victim was in the same room with the experimenter and the subject.

Chapter 5: Individuals Confront Authority. In this chapter, Milgram discusses some forces that affect the subject's responses, such as background and interaction with the experimenter. He then continues to relate the accounts of various subjects participating in the experiments.  

Chapter 6: Further Variation and Controls. Variations made from experiments 5-11 are described in this chapter: adding a heart condition to the victim, changing personnel (personality), how close the experimenter is to the subject, how women impact the experiment, the victim's limited contract; the institutional context (whether related to Yale or not),  and whether the subject would give the same shocks if he had the option to choose the shock level. 

Chapter 7: Individuals Confront Authority II. Chapter structure similar to chapter 5. Milgram describes the interactions and how the experiment proceeded with different people.

Chapter 8: Role Permutations. Milgram questions whether the role each individual plays and how it is played would affect subject responses. For example, the experimenter was always the authority, the teacher was the subject, while the learner was the victim. In experiments 12-16 variations to these roles were changed. Hierarchy in authority is very important in choosing which authority to follow.

Discussion: This book seems to be very easy to read. Since we had already read a chapter about his experiments in the Opening Skinner's Box book, I already had an idea what his experiments were about. There is so much detail about his reasoning behind the experiment, the methods he used for it, and results about it. I was really surprised to learn how they prepare for the experiment, how they came up with the expected results; it wasn't just from what they believe, but what society believes.The more he discussed the experiments the more I thought about myself, and what I would do in that situation.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Book Reading #36: Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 12: Maturity and Old Age
Coming of Age in Samoa
Margaret Mead

Summary: Mead discusses the changes that men and women go through after they are married or are considered adults (even if unmarried). She covers two major topics: the changes when individuals get married, and when they become old. When a couple gets married, they do not become a "unit" like we do; they are still under the household of either of the families, unless the husband is the son of the chief. The changes impact men more than women, since their social roles are more relevant than those of women. However, when they age, man's importance in the village is decreased, while the knowledge and power of a woman is increased.

Discussion: In this chapter Mead makes various comparisons to our own civilization. For example, wanting to have one's own home and family when we get married; or the so known arguments and jealousy between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law. I don’t think there was any sense of independency in Samoa, like we have in our society. The fact that an older man’s knowledge is not given much importance is also very different from our own culture, or at least how we think is supposed to be.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Openning Skinner's Box

Opening Skinner's Box
Lauren Slater

Summary:
Source
Opening Skinner's Box is a recompilation of some of the most famous and controversial psychological experiments done during the twentieth century. In each chapter, Slater gives a short description about the life of the psychologist (s) who developed the experiment, a description of the experiment and how it affected the Psychology field and any other related fields.

In chapter one, B.F. Skinner's Rat Race, Slater discusses much of the work and life of B.F. Skinner. Lauren emphasizes the areas where he had most recognition in, but also those that even though not recognized, he did influenced greatly. Even though she starts the chapter by describing what many people think of him, and how they describe him, she gives a turn and starts describing his work and life from her own point of view, and the information she gathers from his daughter Julie.

In the second chapter of her book, Obscura, Slater relates the story about Stanley Milgram, and more specifically on the experiment of obedience to authority. Milgram wanted to study the reaction of people and how obedient they would be even if they were being asked something that was against their morals. The results of the study: 65% of the subjects followed the experiment through. However, Slater researches more about some of the people who participated in the experiment, and finds a very ironic result when she finds out that the experiment not only had negative, but also positive results in some people who were expected to react differently.

In the third chapter, On Being Sane in Insane Places, Slater talks about the experiment done by David Rosenhan during the early 1970s. He and eight of his friends went to different psychiatric facilities all across the country, and admitted to have heard a voice, then be honest about the rest of their "symptoms", be normal. Their objective was to see how many of them would be admitted to the hospital and given a diagnose, based on the context of the patient instead of an analysis of their symptoms. The results, all of them were admitted and stayed there up to fifty-two days. Slater discusses the reactions that this experiment had over the psychiatry field, and how much psychiatrists tried to refute Rosenhan's claims. 

In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing is the fourth chapter of the book. Slater describes the five-stage helping behavior developed by Darely and Latane: 1) notice an event is occurring; 2) interpret the event as one in which help is needed; 3) assume personal responsibility; 4) decide what action to take; 5) take the action. Darley and Latane performed two experiments that wished to study the behavior of individuals witnessing an event where help was needed, the seizure and the smoke experiment. They concluded that much of the results were dependent of whether the subject believed he was the only helpful resource, or if there were others that could be helping instead of them - "diffusion of responsibility."

In chapter five, Quieting the Mind, Slater presents some of the experiments and main concepts introduced by Leon Festinger. She focuses on his experiments about Cognitive Dissonance, and how individuals are willing to adjust their own beliefs for those that better fit or justify one's behavior. In a major part of the essay, Slater discusses her own interactions with a woman that fits the characteristics studied by Festinger and tries to understand if in reality she was interacting with a person reacting to cognitive dissonance.

The sixth chapter of the book is Monkey Love. Slater discusses the life and experiments of Harry Harlow. Her main topic is the experiments involving primates and the effects they had in the psychology field. According to Slater, Harlow was the first scientist who would make experiments about love (attachment, proximity, etc. were the words other scientists preferred). Harlow is described as someone cold, since his experiments could be seen as crude; however, his son describes him as someone who loved his family very much. The idea of animal cruelty is discussed, bringing the question of giving value or preference of human lives of animal lives. 

In the seventh chapter, Rat Park, Slater relates research  done in the area of addiction. She first describes research where animals where caged and with doses of drugs at their reach where they on their own would press a button when they wanted to receive a doses. Alexander claimed the behavior of the animals was not due to a physical addiction, but that is more psychological since they were caged. With the help of other researchers, Alexander created a Rat Park, a "normal" environment to prove his point. In fact, the addiction of the rats decreased compared to those in the cages (even to a minimum). However, towards the end of the chapter Slater claims the Rat Park was not a "normal" environment, but a perfect one; one that humans will never be able to obtain on earth.

In chapter eight, Lost in the Mall, Slater discusses experiments regarding memory. She presents part of the life of psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, how spent much of her career trying to demonstrate that fake memories can be created by suggestion. She wanted to prove this idea scientifically in order to help individuals she thought may be innocent about crimes that were supposedly committed years ago, and their accusations insisted they had just remembered about the event. 

Memory Inc. is the ninth chapter of the book. In this chapter Slater relates the life of Eric Kandel and his work in the neurology field. The idea that memory is dispersed throughout the brain was proved incorrect when the case of HM proved that the removal of his hippocampus. Slater discussed CREB, a protein that can aid in memory loss.

The final chapter of the book is Chipped. In this chapter, Slater relates the history of psycho-surgery and in specific lobotomies. She relates the life and work of Anonio Egas Moniz, the father of lobotomy. His experiments and his contributions to this field. Slater discusses some of the experimental cases, and later cases when psycho-surgery was already recognized as a procedure. She discusses the positive and negative effects that such a procedure can have in people's lives, but noting that many of this people rather face the negative effects than continue living with depression, anxiety and the related issues.

Discussion: 
Majority of the experiments covered were unknown for me until I read about them in this book. Slater had a very peculiar way to present them to the reader, they were not only easy to read, but also interesting. Her writing was able to catch my attention from the beginning of each chapter until the end. Her narrative style and her interaction to people close to the psychologists allowed me to picture and put faces to the stories. 

However, when it was time to relate the chapter to technology and in specific to CHI, it was difficult for me for some of the chapter to see how it was related. But throughout our discussions in class I realized that there are more than one way to relate CHI into scenarios related to the experiments. There is no right or wrong answers, technology can help in many ways, but in some of them it was still difficult to see it at first.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Book Reading #32: Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 9: Memory Inc
Opening Skinner's Box
Lauren Slater

Summary: In this chapter Slater relates the life of Eric Kandel and his work in the neurology field. The idea that memory is dispersed throughout the brain was proved incorrect when the case of HM proved that the removal of his hippocampus. Slater discussed CREB, a protein that can aid in memory loss.
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Discussion: The part that I found most interesting was the discussion of what pharmaceuticals could do to a person's memory - which instead of enhancing the patient's life, it would affect in a negative way. I suppose that everything in excess can be bad, and everything created for a good can also be used for the bad.

Ethnography Results, Week 5

Paola Garza 

This week I decided to do one hour of observations like the previous weeks. For the second hour, I decided to go to Sweet Eugene's with the purpose of working in my homework in order to get a feel of what it is like for those students that make Sweet Eugene's their place to study.

First Hour: March 3th, 2011 (Thursday)
6:15 – 7:15 pm

Second Hour: March 5th, 2011 (Saturday)
9:30 - 10:30 am

First Hour Quantitative Information:
· Reading: 1
· Computers: ( M 6 P 3)
· Headphones on: 3
· Studying (with studying materials w/wo computers): 11
· Visiting: 2
· Alone (I could see from where I was sitting, including me): 4
· Two or more (I could see from where I was sitting): 7 groups
· Patrons that seem not be students (if any): 1
- Guys: 7
· Girls: 11
Counting the two middle sections:
6:15pm – 18
6:45pm – 18
7:15pm – 19

Qualitative Information - Both hours, compared and contrast. 

My Location:
First Hour: I was sitting in the middle section of the coffee shop. To my right I could see the section right to the door, and the Living Room space to my left. 

Second Hour: I was sitting in the Living Room space, towards the back corner so I could have a view of the complete room and partial view of the middle room.

The Employees:
First Hour: There was a girl and two guys working. The girl that took my order seemed to be nice. But I still haven’t been able to recognize them. I thought I was good with faces, but apparently not.
Second Hour: On Saturday morning there were more people working there than during the week.

The Customers: 
Having Lunch:  Throughout the time I have spent at Sweet Eugene's, I had seen very few patrons just going there with the means of having lunch. On Thursday I did see a couple of girls having lunch and chatting, sitting in the same right next to door. However, on Saturday the whole environment was really different. Many people who were there went with the purpose of having breakfast. It is important to note that majority of these people were not students, they were families or older couples. Many of the students who were there to study (alone or in groups) would eat some breakfast before they started studying.

Visiting: During the week, you don't really see many people who just go for chatting. On Thursday I was able to observe a couple of people who at first were just having some conversation, but it ended up being a study group that was just waiting for someone else. 

There was a lady sitting alone since I got there, with a computer out, but playing Sudoku. It seemed like she had had some lunch. However, after a while a girl came in and sat with her. She also pulled out a computer and they were just chatting. I couldn't really figure out what was the purpose of their visit (I don't think they were from the Education College).

On Saturday, there were many people who seemed to be there with the purpose of just meeting with people. For example, there was this lady with two kinds, her grand kids. They  were sitting in one of the couches when a the grand pa came in and took the kids to buy them some treats. After a while a family came in, they sat in the couches as well and started talking. It seems like they were waiting for this family to come in. 

Use of technology: Majority of students that are there with the purpose of doing some studying will have their computers out. However, there are some that won't. For example, on Thursday I observed a girl and a guy who seemed to be studying finance or accounting. They didn't have a computer out, only a books, notebooks, and the like. 
And it seems that technology not only appeals to students, but also to older people. The lady mentioned above had her computer out, even though she didn't seem to be using it at all. On Saturday, I observed an older man (sixty or seventy) sitting in one of the couches with a cup of coffee in the table to the side and a computer in his lap. 


Paper Reading #14: Chronicle

Comments:
Comment 2

Reference Information:
Title: Chronicle: Capture, Exploration, and Playback of Document Workflow Histories
Authors: T. Grossman, J. Matejka, G. Fitzmaurice
Presentation: (Conference Paper) USIT 2010/2009

Summary: Keeping track of operations carried out in a document is something that majority of User Interfaces do in today's technology. However, once the document is saved, there is not way to obtain that information. Chronicle is a software that supports "graphical document work flow exploration and playback." Basically it is able to store the history of the modifications done to a document, and save is as part of the document itself.

The authors discuss some related work that has been in done in the area, for example operation history and undo management, video summarization and browsing, as well as multimedia tutors however the aim of these kind of software is to aid the user not loose their information. However, Chronicle focuses on helping users understand the work flow that was applied to a certain document.

Chronicle. a) main Chronicle window, b)
the timeline, c) application/Playback window.
Chronicle was implemented in an imaging application. It allows the users to watch the video of the modifications done in the image. There are three main parts to the application: 1) The main Chronicle window which shows a hierarchy of modifications. All modifications that have been done in an image are condensed into seven steps. The user is able to select one and see seven modifications done in that one step, and so on. 2) On the bottom of the page, the user can see an interactive timeline where the user can fast-track through the history of the modifications; and 3) the main application window and on top of it the window that is playing the video.

The developers evaluated Chronicle by carrying out a short user study. They recruited eight participants that had at least three years of experience with image editing software. Participants were given a short introduction to the software, a walk-trough some activities in order to present and explained its functionality. They were then given 5 tasks to complete individually and they fill out a survey about their experience. The authors note that majority of the comments and ratings were positive.

Chronicle can be used for various settings such as team work collaboration support, as a learning or tutorial aid, and even for the user who wants to know how he got to his current state in the application. Some of the future they are considering involve memory consumption and managment as well as enhancement in display settings.

Discussion: I would like to see this kind of software implemented in different kind of applications, for example word documents, video editing, and others. A system like Chronicle could be very useful in the education environment, for teaching students how to use the software required for their courses. 
However, I think that privacy issues could be very easily raised from the use of this software. If unauthorized users have access to the complete process of developing a certain image, or solving a problem, they could very easily replicate that piece of work. I found it interesting how this was not mentioned in the paper at all. It might be because this software is not released yet, but it could definitively become an issue.

I think the user study they carried out could of provided better or more accurate results if participants would use this tool for an extended period of time, not only a couple of hours. Even though they treated their evaluation as a usability study,  I would consider it more like a measure of how easy it is to be introduced to the software.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Book Reading #33: Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 11: The Girl in Conflict
Coming of Age in Samoa
Margaret Mead

Summary: In this chapter Mead describes the main reasons why a girl could become in conflict with society. The first reason described by Mead was that of girls who were just different (in a good way) but non traditional from their culture. Girls who wanted to study and become more than just wives were not appreciated by their community. The other type of conflict would come from girls who were "delinquent", bad girls. Mead make note that the few girls she met with these characteristics were raised in the non traditional household and with a more noticeable lack of affection.

Discussion: This chapter was really good organized, it was easy to read and understand the main points Mead wanted to make. I though it was interesting how majority of conflict with girls came from one of these two sources, which can be seen as the opposite extremes.

Book Reading #34: Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 10: Chipped
This Century's Most Radical Mind Cures

Opening Skinner's Box
Lauren Slater

Summary: In this chapter, Slater relates the history of psycho-surgery and in specific lobotomies. She relates the life and work of Anonio Egas Moniz, the father of lobotomy. His experiments and his contributions to this field. Slater discusses some of the experimental cases, and later cases when psycho-surgery was already recognized as a procedure. She discusses the positive and negative effects that such a procedure can have in people's lives, but noting that many of this people rather face the negative effects than continue living with depression, anxiety and the related issues.

Discussion: This is the first time I read about psycho-surgery. I think that if I was in the position many of those patients were in, I would risk it and get the surgery. After reading this chapter, and how many prefer medication instead of surgery, I noticed so many ads in TV promoting medication for anxiety, depression, and the related.

Paper Reading #12: Twin Space

Comments:

Reference Information:
Title: TwinSpace: an Insfrastructure for Cross-Reality Team Spaces 
Authors: D.F. Reilly, H. Rouzati, A. Wu, J. Y. Hwang, J. Brudvik, W. K. Edwards.
Presentation: (Conference Paper) UIST 2010/2009

Summary: Twin Space is a software infrastructure able to combine interactive workspace with collaborative virtual worlds that allow for remote participants. Smart Spaces have been a topic of research for quiet some years not, providing for spaces that support group work in an interactive environment. However, these spaces are design for collaborative work with all members of the team being in the same physical space. This forms a limitation since remote participants cannot access the technology available in the smart spaces. 

The creators of TwinSpace had the intent of fusing these two settings by creating a balance between both set of participants. They developed a virtual smart space, where remote collaborators can meet and use advanced technology from this virtual space. Their main challenge was how to combine both physical spaces and make the virtual space somewhat similar to the physical one. 

Their development provides four different features to the research being done in this area: a communications layer, a common model, mapping capabilities and the virtual clients for the smart virtual spaces. The developed to implementations of TwinSpace and discuss about their case studies with these two implementations. The first one was an activity mappings implementation, which currently has two modes: a brainstorming mode and a presentation mode as they can be observed in the picture below.

Source
The second case study was a cross-reality collaborative game which places to teams trying to work for a common goal. This prototype focuses on studying the asymmetry in both game controls and team dynamics.

Source
Discussion: When I first started reading this paper I immediately thought about the discussions we've had in class about Second Life. And sure enough, they do mention it later on in the paper. I was also able to picture this like a game, and at the end of the paper they describe the game implementation they developed. I am not a gaming person, but I imagine that if I was to be in a meeting like this one, then I would feel like if I'm in a game... However, I can totally see this as a useful tool since many many organizations are not global and have to interact with people across the world in a daily basis.



Friday, March 4, 2011

Paper Reading #13: D-Macs

Comments:
Comment 1
Comment 2

Reference Information:
Title: D-Macs: Building Multi-Device User Interfaces by Demonstrating, Sharing and Replaying Design Actions
Authors: Jan Meskens, Dris Luyten, Karin Coninx
Presentation: (Conference Paper) UIST 2010/2009

Summary: In today's technology, developers need to adapt or deploy application in multiple platforms: interactive TVs, mobile phones, tablet PCs, and more. If suitable User Interfaces will be design manually for each platform, this would be time consuming and repetitive. According to the authors, there is not yet a system that can automate the transformation and design of UIs across platforms. This paper present D-Macs, a multi-device design tool.

Figure 1: In DMacs,
designers can demonstrate an
action sequence, share these action sequences with
other designers and replay previously recorded actions.
Design tool Macros (D-Macs) is a multi-device GUI builder that allows designers to design a UI interface only one, and automatically obtaining the equivalent devices. It supports three major steps: 1) the designer "demonstrates" the sequence of actions that needs to be automated. 2) There is a repository where designers can share their recorded steps. 3) There are replay and edit capabilities.

D-Macs are developed in the basis of multi-device user interface design, programming by demonstration and community shared expertise. A description of the key features of D-Macs is given, an overview of interaction techniques and UI elements they offer, as well as the architecture and implementation details are discussed. 

Currently, designers need to search through the repository for the action sequences that were previously stored, and decide by themselves if it is something useful for the current design. The developers believe that this effort can be lowered by developing a recommendation system that will display relevant action sequences that designers can choose from. In the future, the designers of D-Macs want to release it as an open source software.

Discussion: In recent discussions with teammates the topic of developing software for different devices has come up. It made me realize the importance of this area, since in today's world we as users want to have the same software capabilities in every device we own (my point of view as a user!). I would really like to read more about this topic, and see how an application like this one can reduce the repetitiveness of designing UI for various devices.