Week 3

Chapter 5

I think reading chapter 5 before doing the Hall of Shame/Fame nomination would have been very useful. Then again, reading the entire book before doing the essay probably would have been very useful. Chapter 5 discusses "affective behavior," and how it's becoming more important in the field of interaction design. If people don't feel good while using a well designed interface, then the fact that it is a well designed may not matter - people won't use it because they don't enjoy using it. Conversely, if people enjoy using an interface, they're more likely to continue using it.

Out of the three models of affective aspects, I think that the pleasure model is probably the most important. While it doesn't describe affectiveness biologically, I don't think it's necessarily important in interaction design. It's certainly interesting what is going on biologically, but perhaps the best way to gauge whether someone likes in interface is to have them use it and provide feedback - not have them sit in an MRI while using the interface. The pleasure model does however take into account four types of pleasure, which are all important for affectiveness.

In regards to anthropomorphism, my opinion is that computers are presently better off being limited in how they use human-like reactions. Unless of course there comes a time in the near future where computers can mimic humans so well that the difference is almost indiscernible (although I highly doubt this will happen, as there are many problems with A.I.). As for right now, I haven't seen one anthropomorphic application that I enjoyed using. Usually they're just very irritating, and I'd rather a computer's messages be short. However, with that being said, anthropomorphism is never going to get a an indiscernible point unless people continue to make better applications out of the many failures.

An interesting question I found to be unanswered, which do humans prefer: a fantastically designed interface that really irritates people when using it, or a poorly designed interface that people love using (if such scenarios can be devised)?



Chapter 6

Chapter 6 is a descriptive, although not exhaustive, list of many types of interfaces and the evolution of them - starting in the 1980s and moving through the 2000s. It's obvious that interfaces have come a long way in their design, but it's also obvious that they have much farther to go. I find the newest forms of interaction, such as tangible, shareable, and multimodal interfaces to be the most interesting. I'm sure this is probably because they are the most original ideas in a while. The 1980s and much of the 1990s all consisted of the same things, such as WIMPs. Instead of creating something new, designers only improved on old ideas. Not that I think there is anything wrong with this, in fact I think it's primarily how new ideas, such as tangible interfaces, are born. The newer interfaces are nice simply because they're something fresh.

The book makes mention in the 'augmented and mixed reality interfaces' section about an augmented map that shows flooded areas at high water areas, and what evacuation might look like during a flood. With the fires burning in L.A. and Ramona today it would be interesting to see an application developed for a similar use. I think it would also be worthwhile to design a new interface to get information to people more quickly and efficiently in case of future disasters. It's unfortunate things have to get out of hand before a solution arises.

I also agree with the conclusion of the chapter. Many of the interfaces being researched today are very interesting, but the implementation of them will depend on the situation in which they are used. I'm sure some interfaces will generally work the best as a command line, and some may eventually work the best as a robotic design. However, I think for the most part a mix of several interfaces will always yield the best result. For example, present an interface that includes command line processing and a choice of icons. Multimodal and multimedia presentations present far better options than sticking to just one interface.

Steam - Hall of Fame

Many people enjoy playing video games; a portion of which play on personal computers. With so many games, and other computer applications, available today, it becomes difficult to keep track of them all. This is what a once small company, Valve, noticed a few years ago. At the beginning, they were solely a game developing company but a few years ago they expanded their application horizon and developed Steam. Since its creation, it has changed significantly. Now people can manage all of their gaming and most of their other software content through Stream. Nearly any software application can be integrated into Steam, thus increasing the user community. However, most people still use it for Valve developed games. Everything else is just a perk. Aside from just keeping track of all games, it also lets your purchase new games through an online store. Also available is a “Friends List” option, which lets you add to a list of people you meet while gaming. Users can either chat with these friends, or join a game that the friend is playing in. Steam allows various other functionalities but these are the things that really appeal to its user community.

Among what Steam offers is a great user interface. As Steam has been continually updated and developed by Valve, it clearly shows a lot of thought has gone into its design. It is easy to use, easy to learn to use, aesthetically pleasing, and its application toward gaming is very flexible. This does not mean that it is perfect, as there are a few things that could be improved. Most of this paper is going to concentrate on one aspect of the Steam interface, although several others also get mention. Overall, it well deserves a nomination to the Hall of Fame.

The first thing to notice is the logon screen. It is very simplistic and consistent with many other logon screens – making it more familiar to users. All a users needs to input is a username and password. There is also an option to save the password, so users don’t need to be burdened with entering their password each time; usernames are automatically saved. This is beneficial for users because they already have to remember so many usernames and passwords for other programs. Users can only remember so much information. Incase of a lost username and/or password, the option to recover them is available. Users can also create a new account if they do not already have one. All of these options are similar to other logon screens, making it familiar to users. The way the buttons are laid out also makes things easy on the user, as they are clearly marked, and areas are not overcrowded. Also included is error prevention and feedback. If a user logs in by mistake they have the option to cancel the login process. If the user enters a username that does not exist or an incorrect password, they are prompted with a message indicating so. The only poorly designed thing about this, is that if the user is entering a username they think to be correct, the error message only responds saying “that username may not exist.” To be more useful to the user, the message should indicate whether or not the username really does exist or not.

Another simplistic and consistent part is the Windows system tray icon, which is always displayed. Aside from being familiar to users, it also provides feedback to the user about Steam’s current status. If the user’s internet connection goes down the tray icon turns from a white box into a white box with a red X in it, to indicate loss of connection. This not only provides the user with information about Steam but also provides useful information that the internet is down in general. However, in the event that the internet is up, and everything is working correctly, a right click on the icon brings up a menu with several options. The option most important for Hall of Fame nomination is “Games.”

The “My games” section is perhaps the best designed part of Steam. As depicted in the picture above it comes first on the tray icon list, as it is probably the more frequently used. This is helpful to the user because they do not have to scan a list of items – they need only to glance at the top one. Once in the “My games” section, there are many things a user can choose to do. To make things easy on the user Steam has everything labeled, and has applications categorized so they can be easily recognized. This not only makes Steam aesthetically pleasing but allows for cognitive offloading because users do not have to remember where everything is. They can simply glance at the interface, and easily determine what they want to know. It also makes for much less memorization by the user because everything is labeled and has a natural feel. With only a few glances the interface is comfortably recognizable.

As mentioned previously, every application is categorized. They categories are: installed, not installed, and favorites. The applications in categories are alphabetically listed, which makes searching for them much easier. Each category is also collapsible, so users do not have to sift through a large numbers of applications. They can simply go to which category they want and then the application name. To make it even easier, users can add games to their favorites list, which puts them in a separate category located at the top of the Steam interface. This is much like the real world – people tend to keep things they use often in the most easily accessible area.

Moving applications into a favorite category is not the only control and freedom Steam offers users. Users can do almost anything they want regarding games and applications. They can install or uninstall anything, activate products not purchased through the online stores, create desktop shortcuts for games, view help and documentation about specific games - the list goes on and on. Unfortunately the interface itself is not customizable but it would be unwise to change anything anyway. Everything is designed well already, including if a user happens to make an error while customizing their application needs. It is difficult to get lost in a loop of errors within Steam. Almost every button press presents a conformation window, or with other important information about what might happen. Some may think this would get irritating after a while, but it is far better than having no error protection whatsoever.

While on the subject of errors, there are some Valve should fix regarding the few poor design flaws Steam does have. The first of which, is that no help or documentation is available to the user when the internet connection is down. Applications can still be used, but there is no documentation incase something unexpected might happen within Steam, or if the user needs help figuring something out. However, considering Steam is rather intuitive for new users, this is only a minor problem. A more important design flaw has to do with the “My games” section. Consider a user with five-hundred applications installed. Although applications are categorized and alphabetized, searching for a specific one could take some time for the user. By implementing a search function, such as Apple’s Spotlight, this could be fixed.

In conclusion, I believe that Steam is well worthy of admittance to the Hall of Fame for its interface design. It seems obvious that much thought has been put into it to make the users’ experience as enjoyable and as painless as possible. Out of the things that could be improved for the interface, none of them are that significant and could probably be easily fixed. Overall it is a very solid design, well worth entry into the Hall of Fame.

Week Two

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 began to make it apparent how poorly designed many interfaces are. Even though many interfaces are poorly designed, I think it would be difficult to hold anyone really accountable for it - unless the design is just blatantly bad. I say this because interaction design is a relatively new field; just as cognitive science. In my opinion, this chapter shows that it's really not known what's exactly going on in the mind/brain. We have a pretty good understanding of what we think is going on, and plenty of great theories that are probably correct, but plenty of things aren't complete fact yet. Most importantly, we don't know why something is happening, or why some design looks better than another. Otherwise there wouldn’t be so many models and theories of cognition – many of which are mentioned in this chapter. So if the brain hasn’t been figured out yet, how can we expect someone who doesn't understand the mind/brain to design something that will appeal to it?

It’s interesting that the most important part of cognition in regards to interaction design is memory. While memory is important, it seems to me that attention, perception, learnability, and many other factors are just as important. Although, I suppose it does depend on how information is presented. The phone example in the chapter does make a strong argument for memory being very important, however the Google and Apple’s Spotlight search tool make a strong argument that attention and perception are important. The difference between the phone and Google is that one is spoken and the other is graphical. I think I would argue that all aspects of cognition are equally important in regards to interaction design, although it largely depends on the situation in which the information was presented.

The wide array of theories of cognition are also interesting, considering they range from the theory of action to distributed cognition. ie: Things happen sequentially in the brain, or things happen across a larger cognitive unit.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 discusses communication and collaboration, and outlines just how important it is to society. It seems that distributed cognition should have also been integrated into this chapter, as it can be applied as a theory to most of the topics covered.

After reading the chapter I think there is a long way to go with electronic and technological mediums in communication. Things like electronic whiteboards, videophones, and BiReality may all be impressive communication and collaboration ideas, the authors make them out to be inadequate. However, that being said, the authors also discuss how face-to-face and telephone communication can be just as difficult.

What really intrigues me is how much people communicate indirectly; without even really knowing they are. The book provides examples, such as leaving an office door open to indicate you can be approached, or how a person might stare at their watch to indicate they need to leave a conversation. It would be interesting to give people some sort of feedback mechanism, that would show them all of their own mannerisms. Then to see how the people would react, and possibly even change how they act and respond to similar situations.

Communication breakdown and its repair mechanisms are also interesting. I think the most interesting part is what causes them. Why is it that some information may not be recalled, even though it's clear that someone knows what they're talking about? Or why is it easier to recognize something, and put a name to it, than try to recall something outright? It's fascinating how someone can quickly repair a hiccup in the conversation, without it causing any sort of disruption. Generally the problem is remedied quickly, and the conversation just continues as if nothing had happened.

In summation, people are always going to need to communicate and collaborate on many different things. The farther technology comes, and the more interaction design helps it, the easier it's going to be on people to do these things. Since communication and collaboration are inherent human traits, the more help they can get while performing them, the better they're going to be.

Week One

While browsing through various internet websites today, I came across Perceptive Pixel’s Interactive Media Wall, which was presented in class by Professor Hollan. Apparently the Wall is going to be available for purchase through Nieman Marcus for around $100,000. (http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/07/nieman-marcus-to-sell-perceptive-pixels-interactive-media-wall/). It’s nice to see that some of the neat, new technology is finally becoming purchasable (albeit very expensive). Hopefully in the next several years the same technology will be about 1/10 of the cost (Microsoft Surface, also presented in class: http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/31/microsoft-surface-hands-on/). It’s unfortunate that so many great gadgets are still prototypes and/or very expensive, and won’t be available for many years to come.

Reading chapter 1 of Interaction Design provided a great overview of what HCI and interaction design in. I thought that human-computer interface was a self-explanatory term, but apparently I was wrong. I had no idea how much effort is currently going into interaction design, and that companies are beginning to take such an interest in it. I also had no idea that there are so many professional fields that participate in interaction design. It takes a little help from a diverse array of knowledge to create something “user friendly.”

The way the authors laid out specific parts of what comprises interaction design really helped in understanding it. In my opinion, even the explanations of design principals and usability goals incorporated interaction design. For example: “effectiveness,” “efficiency,” and “safety” all provide an easy understanding of what each term means.

The interview at the end of the chapter was also interesting. With companies like Swim Interaction Design Studio emerging, corporations may no longer need to worry about their own user interfaces anymore. They can simply develop their product, and do all of the other required work, but leave the user interface design to someone else. I wonder how long it will be before most corporations begin to hire their own staff devoted to interaction design.

Chapter 2 was a bit more difficult to follow; not because it was difficult to understand what was being said, but trying to think in such a general/abstract way is difficult. Trying to think broadly enough about conceptual models and problem spaces is difficult when unaccustomed to doing so. The Xerox and VisiCalc examples did help with understanding though. Speaking of which, it’s unfortunate the Xerox and VisiCalc never got the recognition they deserved. I suppose it just goes to show how far interaction design has come, and how people are continuously building upon it.

It seems to me that most of the ideas in chapter 2 overlap somewhat. Each concept in the chapter differs from the other in only a small way; they’re all closely related. I think this is what’s most difficult. All of the models blend in with one another, and it’s difficult to distinguish one metaphor from another.

I’m also trying to narrow down what I’m going to nominate for the Hall of Fame/Shame. I think I’ve narrowed it down to a category: computer applications. Now I just have to decide which one…