HCI Remixed: Reflections on Works that have Influenced the HCI Community
Thomas Erickson and David W. McDonald
MIT. 2008
CHAPTER 24: A Simulated Listening Typewriter: John Gould Plays Wizard of Oz
Chris Schmandt
MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Summary:
In this chapter, the author Chris Schmandt talks about some early research in the field of speech recognition in the 1980s. IBM researchers were trying to develop algorithms that would recognize the spoken words. This could be used for dictation. It was a thrill to control the computer with one's voice. However, the high cost of the equipment hindered the research. The prime focus of the research was on developing the algorithm. Small vocabulary and discrete speech input were the limitations of the algorithm.
'Wizard of Oz' as mentioned in the paper was an evaluation technique used my John Gould to evaluate speech recognition algorithm. The 'Wizard of Oz' technique involved masquerading of human as computer system, i.e. there would be a human on the other side who would be listening to the speaker and typing in words.
Discussion:
I really liked the 'Wizard of Oz' evaluation technique and it was a good idea to compare the results from the algorithm with the results obtained from this technique. Secondly, it was interesting to know about the development of the speech recognition techniques in its early days. Today, we see that speech recognition is very commonly used, especially in the telecom industry where the operators are usually speech recognizers.
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CHAPTER 25: Seeing the Hole in Space
Summary:
In this paper, Steve Harrison talks about the two artists - Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz and about their video called 'Hole in space'. Initially, the author wasn't very willing to meet the artists, however, when they met, he was surprised by their ingenuity. The artists projected images of Lincoln Center to people in New York and Century City images to people in Los Angeles. Crowds gathered quickly once the artwork was projected. People walking on the streets actually stopped and were curious about what was going on. This was the first time when people were interacting in real time with other people from across the country. 'Hole in Space' showed that media space might be a way to engage and constitute community differently.
Discussion:
I think 'Hole in Space' experiment was jaw-dropping. I was surprised that they were actually able to project images from the other side of the country in real time and this was when technologies like internet didn't exist. I realize the importance of this experiment on the development of computer supported cooperative work and collaboration.
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CHAPTER 26: Edward Tufte’s 1 + 1 = 3
Summary:
The author talks about his experience in an elevator and how he pressed the close-doors button instead of the open-doors button making him feel mortified. He soon realized that there was a design flaw in the buttons. Further, he goes on and suggests better designs for the buttons, with a wider open-door button marked with green color. It also used an icon of a person getting into the elevator that suggested the purpose. The close door button was smaller, marked in red and had an icon of closed doors on it. This design was clearly self-explanatory and did not demand a lot of thought. Further, the author talks about eliminating the choice altogether, thus solving the cognitive clutter problem. Not having a close door button won't do any harm.
Discussion:
I found this paper to be extremely interesting and very convincing. This paper was a bit similar to the articles in Don Norman's book - 'Design of Everyday things'. The elevator incident has happened with me before and it's truly disappointing. Such experiences directly point to the need of creative and self-intuitive designs. I agree with the author when he talks about reducing the complexity of the confusing elevator buttons by adding color scheme or by removing the choice altogether.
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CHAPTER 27: Typographic Space: A Fusion of Design and Technology
Summary:
In his essay, the author talks about the works on early day typography softwares. Author talks bout Muriel Cooper from MIT, who was one of the first people to suggest the use of technology in typography. She was researching on a typographic system which allowed th euser to lay out text in three dimensional space. After Cooper passed away in 1994, her graduate students carried on her work. Initially they faced issues like distortion, type size and problems with sense of space. Ishizaki, one of Cooper's graduate students propsed the idea of kinetic typography i.e. moving text, which is extensively used today in advertising and in movies.
Discussion:
It never occurred to me that moving text would have taken so much research. However, it was a creative idea and converting this idea into a reality did take a lot of effort. Projecting text in 3D space and adding text effects has tremendously helped graphic designers. It is because of these efforts that we can easily rotate and twist text in MsWord and Photoshop.
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CHAPTER 28: Making Sense of Sense Making
Summary:
Author Steve Whitaker talks about Alison Kidd's paper - "The marks are on the knowledge worker". The paper talks about two ideas:
- Memory Prosthesis: Computers are mainly used for storing passive information which not particularly useful.
- Sense Making: Computers aren't very good at making sense of the information they store.
Kidd claims that there is little value to the passively stored information because information is useful only during the act of informing. Once understood and integrated into the user's mental structures, it has little value and is seldom accessed. We need know more about exactly when and why long term information is accessed.
Kidd also claims that arranging information in the form of folders is confusing and makes information difficult to access. Folders hide information and it becomes very difficult to dig old information. Sense making implies a cognitive act of imposing understanding on information, creating new relations between formerly unconnected information. Task management instead demands a more lightweight form of organization, requiring information to be available and invoked at appropriate time.
Some of the issues Kidd claims are clearly wrong, for example, her opinion that digital memories are useless is clearly wrong. Digital memories are most prevalent in the market today. However, some issues pose a valid point.
Discussion:
I agree with the author's opinion about proper arrangement and classification of information. Arranging all the information in folders, at times does get confusing. I believe that we should learn from our surroundings and apply physics simulations to our GUI systems. For example we pin important documents to the wall. We pile up books and keep the most accessed book on the top, etc. It doesn't matter how this is done internally at the operating system level, but the user should get a visual experience that helps him to remember where the information is stored. This is somewhat implemented in GUI interface called bumptop, a video of which can be found here.
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