Research
I am trying to define mutual modeling as something more process-oriented. I defined it earlier as the "representation of the partner cognitive state, namely inferences an individual make about his/her partner’s goals, purposes, intents, understanding".
Now that I read some claims about Sperber and Wilson (1986), I would say that mutual modeling includes 2 processes
but what about mutual influencing, perspective taking, mutual modeling?????
Engestrom, Y. (1990). Learning, working, and imagining: Twelve studies in activity theory. Helsinki, Finland: Orienta-Konsultit Oy.
I am currently using it to describe the CatchBob activity.
Engestrom (1990) proposes a schematic view of activity involving mediation. &&In the model, the subject refers to the individual or subgroup whose agency is chosen as the point of view in the analysis. The object refers to the &raw material' or &problem space' at which the activity is directed, and which is moulded or transformed into outcomes with the help of physical and symbolic, external and internal tools (mediating instruments and signs). The community is composed of multiple individuals and/or subgroups who share the same general objective. The division of labour refers to both the horizontal division of tasks between the members of the community and to the vertical division of power and status. Finally, the rules refer to the explicit and implicit regulations, norms and conventions that constrain actions and interactions within the activity system.''
Engestrom, Y. (1990). Learning, working, and imagining: Twelve studies in activity theory. Helsinki, Finland: Orienta-Konsultit Oy.
I am currently using it to describe the CatchBob activity.
Engestrom (1990) proposes a schematic view of activity involving mediation. &&In the model, the subject refers to the individual or subgroup whose agency is chosen as the point of view in the analysis. The object refers to the &raw material' or &problem space' at which the activity is directed, and which is moulded or transformed into outcomes with the help of physical and symbolic, external and internal tools (mediating instruments and signs). The community is composed of multiple individuals and/or subgroups who share the same general objective. The division of labour refers to both the horizontal division of tasks between the members of the community and to the vertical division of power and status. Finally, the rules refer to the explicit and implicit regulations, norms and conventions that constrain actions and interactions within the activity system.''
In order to keep track of interesting stuff, I report here the discussion we had with Alex about user-centered design on Future now.
One of the perogatives of being a blog author is that you can elevate interesting comments to the level of posts. When I saw that John Thackara had left a comment on my post on "Design books as weak signal" I figured this was an opportunity to invoke that privilege. Not uncharacteristically, Nicholas Nova comments first: I think your're right, something's happening out there. However, even though I found all those books nice, interesting and relevant, their conclusion are somehow all the same: focus on people/context/processes and not on technology... Well of course, there are some differences but since Donald Norman's "the design of everyday things" or "things that make us smart", this is a known fact... maybe I'm wrong and taking user into account is obvious for us but not for others (in the cscw course we give here at EPFL, it's crazy to see the engineer-approach of design, so technology-driven).
From a quantitative point of view though, the number of books about this is impressive, it means, as you mentioned, that there is a global move.
A couple days later, John Thackara replies: When I see the words "nice" (Nicolas) and "sensible" (Alex), it's like a dagger in the heart. I live in fear that we people-centered design persons are going to get denounced and/or ridiculed for:
a) being social engineers without a mandate; b) lacking a sense of humour.
If post-tech-push social innovation is about being "good" it will fail, and deserve to do so. It needs to be edgy, controversial, upsetting, and funny.
I suppose there's always the danger in theory that a critic will actually be noticed by an author, but you never really expect it. (Or I never do, anyway.)
So to clarify. My reaction to this literature has the same roots as Nicholas': I agree with their arguments, and find them logical enough to wonder why they need to be made at all. After all, you want to make things that people will buy; you do that by making things that people will use; and you make things that people will use by making them (to quote the Roman poet Horace) dulce et utile, beautiful and useful. (Latin scholars out there, if I've misspelled that, please let me know.)
I mean, what's not to agree with there?
To some degree, Kim Vicente's book does a better job of being usefully controversial by scaring you: he makes a great case for just how dangerous bad design can be. Tens of thousands of people die in hospitals every year from preventable medical errors, many of which could be avoided if hospitals and hospital technology were designed so that overworked nurses and sleep-deprived residents could use them more reliably. Leonardo's Laptop also takes a stab at arguing how users should rebel against bad design, but ultimately (to my mind) is overwhelmed by its own reasonableness.
From what I've read of Thackara's other work, though, I suspect that In the Bubble won't suffer the same faults. I certainly hope not. As I wrote last year, I thought "The Post-Spectacular City" was "deeply opinionated, pointed, and infuriating. Probably the best thing I can say about it is that it's not something to be consumed passively, but engaged and interacted with. It's the kind of writing with which you can fruitfully disagree." Rereading the piece again now, I have the same reactions: some of it bugs me, some of it I agree with, and all of it makes me think.
John's right: "post-tech-push social innovation... needs to be edgy, controversial, upsetting, and funny." Let's hope he usefully stirs the pot.
Mogi Mogi, the french game tested in Japan works pretty well. Here are few results (I am to lazy to translate it in english) they delivered at the FING (pdf, in french). I also found that this company is partly owned by france telecom.
A propos des joueurs:
- Ce sont au départ des joueurs très occasionnels, ils se connectent la première fois parce qu’ils ont 5mn à tuer : c’est lié au mobile et à l’expérience « interstitielle »
- Limiter à 10% du jeu les nécessités de détour (mais la qualité de l’expérience lors de ces moments est essentielle) ; il faut prendre en considération que les joueurs peuvent être pressés, qu’il peut pleuvoir, qu’il peut ne plus y avoir de métro, etc.
- Nécessité de connaître leur mode vie et leurs attentes, afin de voir si un nouvel élément du jeu va être apprécié.
- Les joueurs sont souvent nombreux à passer aux mêmes endroits (ce qui facilite les interactions immédiates ou différées). Il y a une forte contiguïté géographique : aux concepteurs de mettre les ressources là où les joueurs passent souvent.
- Des phénomènes d’addiction peuvent exister, avec des anecdotes : on joue en conduisant ; on fait le tour de la ville en métro dès qu’il y a de nouveaux objets... Un joueur s’est plaint parce qu’il a fait un voyage pour rien, pour un objet qui n’apparaissait en fait que les soirs de pleine lune.
Les difficultés de la création du jeu :
<li<Attention à ne pas envoyer les joueurs dans des endroits dangereux et inaccessibles
- La densité des éléments de « décor » (ville / campagne...) varie beaucoup et complique la création du jeu
- Des écarts culturels sont constatés : les Japonais ne se rencontrent pas physiquement, même s’ils sont proches, à l’inverse lors d’une expérimentation en France (avec Nokia, auprès de journalistes), des rendez-vous se sont pris tout de suite !
- Différences de géolocalisation entre opérateurs : faire cohabiter deux topographies (GPS ou Cell ID)
- La protection de la vie privée est un problème de game design : on ne peut pas tracer les joueurs, il faut le laisser être déclaratif dans sa position, mais en même temps il faut éviter la triche.
Güttler, C. and Johansson, T.D. (2003) Spatial principles of level-design in multi-player first-person shooters, Proceedings of the 2nd workshop on Network and system support for game, Redwood City, California. ACM Press: New York, pp:158 - 170 .
Basing itself on a theoretical discussion and experiments, this paper outlines the basic spatial principles of level design in multi-player first-person shooters with special reference to Counter-Strike (Sierra). In this manner, the paper seeks to outline a heuristics of level design in firstperson shooters. The thesis of the paper is that a consistent examination of a game’s gameplay, its agents, and spatial components is necessary for the development of a design method that will lead to ultimate level design. Setting off from a theoretical discussion of the terms gameplay and emergence, the paper starts by establishing some basic characteristics of multiplayer shooters. The concept of emergence leads to a distinction of the unique features of multi-play and teamplay, and notions of gameplay help us to map out the basic spatial properties of the game environment and its staging of player strategies and tactical choice. The key concept in the principles of spatiality in level design advanced here is the socalled collision point; the location that marks the clash of players and hence by the set of relevant tactical choices to be made by the teams. To demonstrate the empirical basis and possible application in practical level design, the paper provides an analysis of a demonstrate the pros and cons of various design solutions and point at the basic spatial principles referred to above. The paper affirms that it does make sense to regard level design as tool for controlling the gameplay and the game’s progression. Also it affirms that it is possible by means of a critical and systematical approach to distinguish between good and bad level-design. Thus a set of heuristics is suggested as a set of guidelines that could lead to better leveldesign for practitioners.
Güttler, C. and Johansson, T.D. (2003) Spatial principles of level-design in multi-player first-person shooters, Proceedings of the 2nd workshop on Network and system support for game, Redwood City, California. ACM Press: New York, pp:158 - 170 .
Basing itself on a theoretical discussion and experiments, this paper outlines the basic spatial principles of level design in multi-player first-person shooters with special reference to Counter-Strike (Sierra). In this manner, the paper seeks to outline a heuristics of level design in firstperson shooters. The thesis of the paper is that a consistent examination of a game’s gameplay, its agents, and spatial components is necessary for the development of a design method that will lead to ultimate level design. Setting off from a theoretical discussion of the terms gameplay and emergence, the paper starts by establishing some basic characteristics of multiplayer shooters. The concept of emergence leads to a distinction of the unique features of multi-play and teamplay, and notions of gameplay help us to map out the basic spatial properties of the game environment and its staging of player strategies and tactical choice. The key concept in the principles of spatiality in level design advanced here is the socalled collision point; the location that marks the clash of players and hence by the set of relevant tactical choices to be made by the teams. To demonstrate the empirical basis and possible application in practical level design, the paper provides an analysis of a demonstrate the pros and cons of various design solutions and point at the basic spatial principles referred to above. The paper affirms that it does make sense to regard level design as tool for controlling the gameplay and the game’s progression. Also it affirms that it is possible by means of a critical and systematical approach to distinguish between good and bad level-design. Thus a set of heuristics is suggested as a set of guidelines that could lead to better leveldesign for practitioners.
A.Smailagic, D.P.Siewiorek, J.Anhalt, F.Gemperle, D.Salber, S.Weber, J.Beck, J.Jennings. (2001) Towards Context Aware Computing: Experiences and Lessons Learned, IEEE Journal on Intelligent Systems. These authors have proposed a distraction matrix in which they classify the time needed for a distraction (from a snap (extremely small amount of time) to an extended time) and look at the categories of information, communication, and creation with respect to these distractions.
Just read this: M.Flintham, R.Anastasi, S.Benford, T.Hummings, A.Crabtree, C.Greenhalgh, T.Rodden, N.Tandavanith, M.Adams, and J.Row-Farr (2003). Where on-line meets on the streets: experiences with mobile mixed reality games. In Proceedings of the conference on Human factors in computing systems, pages 569–576, Florida, USA.
We describe two games in which online participants collaborated with mobile participants on the city streets. In the first, the players were online and professional performers were on the streets. The second reversed this relationship. Analysis of these experiences yields new insights into the nature of context. We show how context is more socially than technically constructed. We show how players exploited (and resolved conflicts between) multiple indications of context including GPS, GPS error, audio talk, ambient audio, timing, local knowledge and trust. We recommend not overly relying on GPS, extensively using audio, and extending interfaces to represent GPS error.
It's interesting because it deals with how they evaluated their location-based games relying on three sources of data:
In The Feature, an interview of Tomi T. Ahonen, a mobile phone guru from Finland. It's marketing-oriented (know your client stuff/market segmentation and all this sort of stuff) but he deals with the large amount of data generated by cell phone uses, collected by phone operators.
in the mobile business, we have perfect information on what a person does with their device every minute. And because we get immediate indications from our systems to suggest when that behavior is changing, we can also study how customer segments evolve. (...) The problem for the mobile operator is that there is too much data. Theoretically, we could hire a staff of sociologists, psychologists and statisticians to go through everything and try to build some profiles, but you'd only get the tip of the iceberg. (...) Operators tried to solve this with data mining (...) Some types of profiles can be developed that way, but it's usually one-dimensional. We can find out things like which customers provide the biggest amount of money for us, or which ones are most likely to remain loyal, but the data being collected from a user has about 60 different parameters.
The he thinks that one solution could be to use neural network techniques like Self Organizing Maps (hehe...Teuvo Kohonen, another finnish). This is indeed a trend and some folks at France Telecom also works on it.
here is a type of mathematics called neural networking. And there's something called the "self-organizing map" (SOM). SOMs will find patterns in enormous amounts of data. The SOM itself is stupid: it has no idea why this part of the map is green, and that corner is yellow, and that part in the middle is red. You need analysts to ask: "Why did the SOM say that this part is green and this part is yellow? Ah! These people are now very heavy users between each other, and these people have only a few different contacts, but there's a massive amount of traffic between them. These people here receive traffic, but don't really originate much." Recognizing the differences between what makes one part of the map a different color to another is where we need the human input. We come up with an absolutely fantastic understanding of real-life usage patterns. (...) One of the early things that came out was the concept of the "Alpha User" — a person who teaches everyone else how to use communication technology. The Alpha User is that person who taught you how to send a text message or a picture message. Someone either sat with you and taught you how, or else you are an Alpha User. The Alpha User concept is about two years old. (...) is kind of data has only now become available. When we start to analyze this we notice a pattern that doesn't fit the conventional wisdom. All at once, we get a really deep understanding of what subscribers are doing, what we offer them and how we can then move them further along.
BTW, I hate this 'segment' notion, are people lines? :) But it's really interesting, it's the second time SOM spots on my radar in the mobile research community and I am pretty confident this is a trend (deriving a trend from two spots is an error but knowing the potential of SOM...). Let's have a look if I can use this for CatchBob analysis...
My reading notes onva very interesting paper: Salembier, P. & Zouinar, M. (2004) Intelligibilité mutuelle et contexte partagé. Inspirations conceptuelles et réductions technologiques, @CTIVITES, n°2, Vol. 1. The authors describes the fundamentals elements of the "situated action" approach (and its main sources of inspiration : ethnomethodology).
Introduction - most of the theories used in CSCW appeared "against" the cognivist paradigm - CSCW framework inspired mostly by situated action (garfinkel -> suchman) + activity theory (engeström) + distributed cognition (hutchins) - suchman criticized the cognitivist paradigm: she questioned the notion of internal representation, the functional role of plans are too limited to structure the control of action, there should be more emphasis on context - importance of ethnomethodology in suchman's work: emphasis put on mutual intelligibility and environments resources.
Control of the activity - unlike classical cognitive psychology (which state that the actor is in charge of controlling the actions), the 'situated action' theory states that the actor shares this control with artefacts (technological or organisational) and people: - 3 kinds of artefacts : objects (1. their physical affordance (gibson) 2. environment spatial organisation: it gives information about the state of the process (kirsh)), prescritpion (procedures), other agents (then the control is operated through explicit demands (direct or indirect communication acts)) or non-intentional. - coordination is the production of mutual intelligibility + verification of the production of this mutual intelligibility. The best condition is co-presence (because everybody access the same resources). - coordination needs: agents have to interprete what's happening (actions, traces, spatial arrangements of objects) so they need a specific knowledge for this, agents needs to be available, agents needs to determine which information should be transmitted
Accountability - The concept of “accountability” (Garfinkel 1967) is central to ethnomethodology and then CSCW - accountability = observable-and-reportable, i.e. available to members as situated practices of looking-and-telling. Being accountable, people’s actions and statements are inevitably subject to evaluation by others. By observing the social situations in which they find themselves, people continuously analyze the actions of others for their sense. People then design their own actions in a situation based in part on their emerging analyses or “accounts” of what the other people on the scene are doing. - in CSCW accountability is represented by the concept of "mutual awareness", awareness = monitoring other's + displaying one's activity
Use if shared context - having a shared context allows: efficient interaction processes, action coordination, joint problem solving, interaction regulation - discussion of the "common ground" notion, comes from psycholinguistics (Clark), for this framwork, sharing information needs having the same (or compatible) knowledge and beliefs. -> Mutual knowledge: some theorists (Clark; Schaffer) argue that mutual knowledge of some type is require (A and B mutually know p) Sperber and Wilson claims that it's not possible because it's a kind of infinite regress (hence not cognitively possible):
A and B mutually know p: A knows p B knows p A knows that B knows p B knows that A knows p A knows that B knows that A knows p B knows that A knows that B knows p ad infinitum
- Schmidt proposes a distinction between "Mutual" and "reciprocal"
Mutual manifestness - notion by (Sperber and Wilson 1988) to adress the pb of the "common ground" infinite regression, not cognitively possible, then the hypothesis of "Mutual knowledge" cannot be validated. - Sperber and Wilson states that human communication needs a shared knowledge but they describe a notion weaker than Clark's common ground. - Sperber and Wilson 1988: "A fact is manifest to an individual at a given time if and only if he is capable at that time of representing it mentally and accepting its representation as true or probably true" - various degree of manifestness depending on cognitive and perceptual skills: a phone rings in a room where is A; at the same time a car pass by in the street: the ring is more manifest than the car's noise. - Drawing from this notion of "mutual manifestness", Sperber and Wilson define the concept of "cognitive environment": "a cognitive environment of an individual is a set of facts that are manifest to him" (him = the individual): all the fact the individual can perceive and infer. Certain facts may be more manifest than others. For instance, facts that are relevant to an agent's goals are more manifest to her/him than others. - The same facts may be manifest in the cognitive environment of two people. In this case, these individuals share a cognitive environment which represents all the facts that they are capable of perceiving and/or inferring: "Mutual Cognitive Environment". In this environment every fact is mutually manifest. Thus, in a mutual cognitive environment, the identity of agents who share it is mutually manifest. For example, in an environment (for example a room) in which a telephone has just rung, it will be mutually manifest for the agents who share this environment that the phone has just rung. As in the individual case, events may be also more or less mutually manifest. In other words, there are degrees of mutual manifestness of events. The degree or level of mutual manifestness of events depends also on the perceptual and cognitive abilities of individuals and on the situation. In the model, Shared Context is viewed as a sub-set of events that are mutually manifest to a set of agents in a given environment. Shared Context can be considered as a sub-set of the MCE (some elements which are actually parts of the MCE will not be considered as relevant in the context of the work situation : for example the fact that an identified agent wears blue trousers can be manifest, but as far as we know this has little to do with the task at hand (which is, controlling the aircraft)-, and thus will not be taken into account). - The point is hence to identify, among all the manifest elements that happen in the situation, which are those that should be considered by the actors.
A CHI2005 workshop that might be relevant for my research: Usage analysis: Combining logging and qualitative methods
a combination of (event) logging approaches and qualitative measurements seems promising. Most current logging methods focus mainly on usability or usage evaluations through rule-based (e.g. by guidelines) or model-based (e.g. GOMS models) analyses or simply provide summary statistics. These methods are not applicable for other goals than usability evaluations or creating general overviews of usage. To study the usage of services more thoroughly (e.g. gain insight in social structures of logged communication or explore temporal behavioral patterns) other methods are needed. Furthermore one would like to combine the results of log studies with more qualitative results from e.g. questionnaires or the experience sampling method, to fully understand the meaning of the measurements. We therefore propose an integrated approach of log studies combined with qualitative studies as the most fruitful approach for future usability and usage research.
Brown, B. and Perry, M. (2002). Of maps and guidebooks: designing geographical technologies. In Proceedings of the ACM conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques, pages 246 – 254, London, UK. ACM Press: NY.
Brown and Perry criticizes here the notion of 'Space and Place' defined by Harrison and Dourish (1996). According to D&H, a place is "a space which as a meaning".
"Specifically, to call something a “place”, brings attention to its located, embodied, personal, human nature. And to call something “space” is to bring attention to its abstract, objective, global, general, inhuman qualities. A tension is therefore then set up between “place” and “space”, the difference between these terms bringing out the conflict between (respectively) the local and the contingent and the abstract and distributed. (...) place and space are strictly geographical – ‘space’ refers to the abstract processes that organise and arrange the material world. Place refers to the fact that we never escape the everyday physical world we live in: we still walk down the same streets every day, even if the organisation of cities into streets can be described more abstractly as a historical process which has developed over many years."
A quick reminder I used to explain stuff to our students:
If the populations from which data to be analyzed by a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were sampled violate one or more of the one-way ANOVA test assumptions, the results of the analysis may be incorrect or misleading. For example, if the assumption of independence is violated, then the one-way ANOVA is simply not appropriate, although another test (perhaps a blocked one-way ANOVA) may be appropriate. If the assumption of normality is violated, or outliers are present, then the one-way ANOVA may not be the most powerful test available, and this could mean the difference between detecting a true difference among the population means or not. A nonparametric test or employing a transformation may result in a more powerful test. A potentially more damaging assumption violation occurs when the population variances are unequal, especially if the sample sizes are not approximately equal (unbalanced). Often, the effect of an assumption violation on the one-way ANOVA result depends on the extent of the violation (such as how unequal the population variances are, or how heavy-tailed one or another population distribution is). Some small violations may have little practical effect on the analysis, while other violations may render the one-way ANOVA result uselessly incorrect or uninterpretable. In particular, small or unbalanced sample sizes can increase vulnerability to assumption violations.Potential assumption violations include: • Implicit factors: lack of independence within a sample • Lack of independence: lack of independence between samples • Outliers: apparent nonnormality by a few data points • Nonnormality: nonnormality of entire samples • Unequal population variances • Patterns in plots of data: detecting violation assumptions graphically • Special problems with small sample sizes • Special problems with unbalanced sample sizes • Multiple comparisons: effects of assumption violations on multiple comparison tests
V. Roto, A. Oulasvirta, T. Haikarainen, J. Kuorelahti, H. Lehmuskallio, and T. Nyyssonen, Examining Mobile Phone Use in the Wild with Quasi-Experimentation (.pdf). HIIT Technical Report 2004-1, August 13, 2004.
While increasingly better tools are available for examining human-computer interaction in a laboratory environment, we are only just starting to develop the methods and appropriate portable equipment within the mobile context. One problematic issue has been that current methods are not suited for attempting to establish causal relationships between context variables and interaction. In this paper we describe an experimental method, called quasiexperiment, and apparatus for recording mobile phone usage and the environment in a mobile context. Quasi-experimentation is based on 1) the best possible control over nuisance variables in the mobile test environment and 2) recordings of the user, interaction with the device, and the environment. It requires changes in the way we design, prepare, implement, and analyze interaction experiments. We learned that conducting a quasi-experiment is laborious without special tools that would decrease the amount of manual work. Quasiexperimentation is a promising investigation and evaluation methodology for the developers of mobile computing systems and applications.
In the CSCW Journal, People-to-People-to-Geographical-Places: The P3 Framework for Location-Based Community Systems by Jones, Sukeshini, Gandhi, Terveen and Whittaker., there is an interesting discussion of location based annotation systems. They coin the term People-to-People-to-Geographical-Places to refer to those systems.
In this paper we examine an emerging class of systems that link People-to-People-to-Geographical-Places; we call these P3-Systems. Through analyzing the literature, we have identified four major P3-System design techniques: People-Centered systems that use either absolute user location (e.g. Active Badge) or user proximity (e.g. Hocman) and Place-Centered systems based on either a representation of people’s use of physical spaces (e.g. ActiveMap) or on a matching virtual space that enables online interaction linked to physical location (e.g. Geonotes). In addition, each feature can be instantiated synchronously or asynchronously. The P3-System framework organizes existing systems into meaningful categories and structures the design space for an interesting new class of potentially context-aware systems. Our discussion of the framework suggests new ways of understanding and addressing the privacy concerns associated with location aware community system and outlines additional socio-technical challenges and opportunities.
Science fiction already dealt with ubiquitous computing, it seems that some university classes addresses this issue. metamanda have put a brief follow-up of her class' examples. I think the topic deserve an entire book! I am wondering if some paperwork deals with scifi and HCI... anybody here knows a good reference?
-MIB2 -- badass car: AI, communications. -james bond, i robot. -- sooo many movies have the self-driving car. voice rec. cell phones now do voice rec. -star trek, the wrath of khan: location awareness. the computer address him personally where he is. (through the communicator?) - crichton(?) book. flying cameras. distributed sensing, compile big picture from many limited cameras. there are real calls for paper along those lines. - invisible sensors in clothing. adjust warmth. (that would be great... though layers give you more fashion opportunities) - i robot: robots. no specialized machines, robots (AI) can do just about anything. walk up and use, no learning. japan big on home assistants. - holographic display. (matrix 2) people were actually in a mini-matrix. - rfid tags for refrigerators, kitchen. antibiotics automatically deposited in old milk. (ew) so no need for expiration date. (um... antibiotics aren't good for you.) - blade runner(the book) pkd. replicants. mood change on demand. artificial pets. - i robot. again. heads up display. - the 6th day (arnie)... human cloning. mirror display. machine says happy birthday (what are the emotional effects of that? does it make you feel good to get an automated happy birthday?) - i robot. human dependence on their machines. 30 years? (yeah, right) - roger moore james bond... 3x the size digital watch. existenz... bio-mechanical console, plug into spine, your world shifts into the game, blending, smooth transition. overlays onto existing world is an interesting idea. newer one: invisible aston martin. his own idea: fridge with screen... show you what's in there. (save electricity... but how much does the display use?) - back to the future #2 (i am soo old): multiple tv displays, fruit tray retracts into ceiling, fingerprinting to get into house, video conferencing. - advanced prosthetics, invisible suit (reflecting the right color) - back to the future. shoes and jackets. shoes fit yr feet (heh... i thought it was cuz the 80s are in again.) teleconferencing... goggles for privacy. (nice) - simpsons halloween episode: 2001 spoof. omnipresent computer in house, choose pierce brosnan personality. scent. dinner... knows favorite foods by analyzing their shit. homer's BAC. then becomes possessive of marge. - the matrix. base premise... ubiquitous computing (gone very very wrong!) with computers totally in control, and people with none. ultimate ex. of being in the periphery, because you're utterly deceived as to their presence. (nice.... what *is* ubiquitous computing) is it virtual reality if there's nothing else? - demolition man. utopian non-violent society... throw in a villain, and a cop to catch him. computer system monitors (obscenity monitor). prints ticket on nearest printer. - AI. robots... everything feels like the 90s except the robots. no special technology visible. the future: robots have inherited the world. molecular robots (nano). - 2001. HAL. chess thought to be hard and speech easy, but it's actually the reverse. - 5th element. pessimistic about ubicomp... not going to do quite what you want. cameras don't function. the car theme.... tells you how many points are on yr license (auto detected infractions). what appeal system would you need for this? realistic depiction of user frustration. - me: code 46 - fairy tales: from bonnie nardi's book. movies from 75 years ago: teleconferencing, robots, etc. HP video: car knows location of nearest repair shop when it breaks... and they know to expect him. (that's cool). they took down the clip because it's been done. Ray Kurzweil: age of spiritual machines. wearable computing (talks to him). - gattaca: invalids vs genetically altered. check id a lot. - ghost in the shell: electronic brain (external cognition. cool)
Sunday afternoon reading... Barkhuus, Louise, "How to Define the Communication Situation: Determining Context Cues in Mobile Telephony." (.pdf) Short paper in the proceedings of Context '03 in Stanford.
Mobile telephony is rapidly becoming a wide spread mobile technology. The technological possibilities for context-aware features are increasing, although only few services exist in real consumer settings. In an exploratory case study of high level mobile telephone users, the context measures that are relevant to mobile telephony are studied. Starting with three measures, location, time and identity, a fourth context measure is also found, leading to the measure of social situation to be important to users as well. The study concludes that the use of mobile telephony is highly influenced by this limited set of context measures but that these are not necessarily the same as the users wish to see facilitated by technology. It also suggests that when developing contextaware features for mobile communication, supporting these four pieces of information should be prioritized.
Getting Out of the City: Meaning and Structure in Everyday Encounters with Space (.pdf) by Genevieve Bell and Paul Dourish was their talk at the Urban Computing Workshop ('Ubicomp in the urban frontier') that occured last september (I'm late blogging this). I really appreciate Dourish's take on space, generally speaking. His concept of "social navigation" is definitely true and we can feel this concept in the ubicomp paper. The authors insists in on human encounters with urban (and other) environments and the layering of structure (physical, historical, cultural experience) in cities. And, infrastructures define elements of the experience of space: like the naming of streets is an infrastructure for encountering and experiencing the city, traffic flows, parking patterns, service times, regions and neighborhoods... Their point is that technology will add more infrastructure (wandering about trying to find cell phone signal, or a wirelss access point).
space is organized not just physically but culturally. (...) architecture is all about boundaries and transitions and their intersections with human and social practice. (...) new technologies inherently cause people to re-encounter spaces (...) there is already a complex interaction between space, infrastructure, culture, and experience. The spaces into which new technologies are deployed are not stable, not uniform, and not given. Technology can destabilize and transform these interactions, but will only ever be one part of the mix. We need to design not simply for settings, but for the processes by [which] practice and meaning evolve.
What is of interest for my is this notion of "infrastructures that define elements of the experience of space" with a peculiar attraction to social experiences like for instance wandering around to find a wireless access so that I could locate my partner on a map (using a lbs). That's something I would like to address in the catchbob experiment.
Through Joannie Think, a useful taxonomy of experimental task (for psychologists and CSCW researchers). It's actually taken from McGrath, J.E., "Groups: Interaction and Performance", Prentice-Hall, Inc, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1984.
1. Planning Tasks: Generating plans; Key notion: Action-oriented plan 2. Creativity Tasks: Generating ideas; Key notion: Creativity 3. Intellective Tasks: Solving problems with a correct answer; Key notion: Correct Answer 4. Decision-making Tasks: Dealing with tasks for which the preferred or agreed upon answer is the correct one; Key notion: Preferred answer 5. Cognitive Conflict Tasks: Resolving conflicts of viewpoint; Key notion: Resolving policy conflicts 6. Mixed-Motive Tasks: Resolving conflicts of motive-interest; Key notion: Resolving pay-off conflicts 7. Contests/Battles: Resolving conflicts of power; competing for victory; Key notion: Winning 8. Performances: Psychomotor tasks performed against objective standards; Key notion: Excelling