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Conceptual Design, Interaction Design, Interface Design, Perception, Pipsqueak Articles, Product Design Strategy, Scaffolding, Users

Special Preview: Wearable Computing (Steve Mann)

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The next chapter in the Interaction-Design.org tome on human-computer interaction design is now up for an early review to my readers. This chapter takes on Wearable Computing and is written by Steve Mann. Mostly, this is a historical review of Prof. Mann’s experimentations with wearable computing devices, and for those unfamiliar with this subject area, this is an interesting introduction. On the left, you can see an early version of wearable computing: Steve Mann’s backpack based system from the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. But as always, I have a slightly different take on this topic… The Little Mac That Saved My Son’s Life Almost 18 years ago, I went into a preterm labor. At 24 and a half weeks into gestation, this was very scary. At the time, San Francisco Children’s Hospital was pioneering a program for high risk pregnancies (which mine just turned out to be). Two doctors, Dr. Kuts and Dr. Maine, figured out how to use an old Mac SE, a modem, a telephone, a subcutaneous pump, and a belt which measures contractions to allow women like me to stay at home as much as we could (as opposed to spending months in the hospital). Here’s…

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Background Knowledge, Background Knowledge Errors, Conceptual Design, Cultural Bias, Cultural Differences, Ethnographic & User Data, Pipsqueak Articles, Product Design Strategy, Users

US Rio+2.0 Breakout Session on Environmental & Conservation Education

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Below are the notes from the US Rio+2.0 conference hosted at Stanford last week. The notes are from the Education: Environment and Conservation breakout session. US Rio+2.0 Breakout Session Education: Environment and Conservation Attendees: Prof. Anthony D. Barnosky: Professor and Curator, Department of Integrative Biology at University of California Berkeley Wali Modaqiq: Deputy Director General (DDG), National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Dr. Khalid Naseemi: Chief of Staff & Spokes Person for National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Julie Noblitt: The Green Ninja — Climate-action Superhero Prof. Robert Siegel, M.D., Ph.D.: Associate Professor, Microbiology & Immunology Human Biology/African Studies at Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences Dr. Beth Stevens: Senior Vice President, Corporate Citizenship Environment and Conservation at Disney Worldwide Services, Inc. Madam Anyaa Vohiri, M.A., J.D.: Executive Director, Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia Olga Werby, Ed.D.: President, Pipsqueak Productions, LLC. Mostapha Zaher: Director General (DG), National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Our breakout group was partly the result of the conversation started the day before in the Environment session. Some of the members of our breakout group were present in that session as well. The main discussion…

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Pipsqueak Articles, Product Design Strategy, Scaffolding, Users

Compensations and Accommodations

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chair from hell

Product design is a careful balance between building accommodations for different users and hoping users would compensate for aspects of design that are not well-suited to them. The power of good design is to know where this balance is located. It’s impossible to accommodate everyone. A chair that is the most comfortable sitting for one person might not work for another at all (some people are short, some are tall, some are wide, some are narrow, some have back problems…). And even a beloved chair only works for in some situations for some particular time in our lives — the rocking chair that we used to read to our kids when they were little… I talk about a chair because we can all relate: my “homework” chair, my “lucky” stool, my “lazy afternoon” stoop, my “theater” lounge, my “reading” nook, my “power” throne… It’s easy to see how my reading nook would be different from your reading divan or surfing seat. I can come up with compensations: I can add pillows or use the little knobs to adjust the hight. But the more things I have to do to make the sitting arrangement more comfortable, the less likely I’m to…

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Conceptual Design, Cultural Bias, Pipsqueak Articles, Product Design Strategy, Users

The Trouble with Social Search

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Cultural Mix of Search Results

There have been changes in Google search and Google analytics. There have been many discussions on this topics. But there’s one big problem that I see with adding the social dimension to search: community bias or, as we’ve been referring to it in class, cultural bias. Cultural bias is one of the sources of human errors that render problem-solving more difficult. The problem comes from having one’s views on highly charged emotional topics (or social issues) continuously reinforced by the community. I’m writing this blog on Martin Luther King Day — particularly appropriate when discussing cultural bias and the difficulties of overcoming them. In the past, when we googled something, we got results based on the relevance to our query. This relevance had little to do with us personally and focused on the topic of interest. Google results to a politically polarized question looked the same whether one was a Democrat or a Republican: It didn’t matter that Democrats tended to socialize with like-minded individuals — meaning other Democrats. And Republicans preferred other Republicans, creating segregated social circles. In each such circle, people met, talked, and reinforced each other’s beliefs. BUT the Google results were the SAME for each group,…

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Conceptual Design, Pipsqueak Articles, Product Design Strategy, Scaffolding, Users

Special Preview: Social Media by Thomas Erickson

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Interfaces.com was given a free advanced preview of Thomas Erickson’s report and videos on social computing. The videos are very well produced and provide an interesting point of view and good insights on social media. Below are few of my notes based on the video content and ideas discussed on this blog in the past (my former students should find these familiar). Social Media Definitions & Ideas Social Computing: this is really about groups working together using ICT (Information Communication Technologies). I think this is a broader definition then the one offered by Thomas Erickson, as it includes all forms of ICT. Social Scaffolding: we all have a set of social scripts — culturally-specific, socially constructed norms of behavior — that help us navigate group interactions and allow for self-organization of crowds, at least shot-term and for a limited goal (like crossing the street). [Please watch Dr. Erickson’s example of street crossing in “Video 4.3: Social Computing video 3 – Face-to-face Interaction as Inspiration for Designing Social Computing Systems”.] Product design needs to create opportunities for social interaction — these scaffolds have to be built into the system: meeting spaces, places to sit down, well-lit areas, easy communication tools, games,…

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Conceptual Design, Cultural Bias, Cultural Differences, Ethnographic & User Data, Pipsqueak Articles, Users

Rewired Brain

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Our kids have grown up in the world where computers were always present and always on. They can’t conceive of a time when they can be cut off from the Internet (vacations in the Internet-dead zones are definite no go). Our kids are the generation of fully-connected always-on Internet users. What about the kids that are born right now? Not the Millennials, as they are being called, but these babies born in the age of the iPad? The iTouch Babies? How are their brains being rewired from the experience of having the iPad as their first toy? Check out this video of a baby girl growing in the iTouch World.

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