Commented On:
Brad Twitty
J Chris Elgin
Jared Wright
Summary:
Fitts's Law is a + b * log(1 + D/W). This law is used to describe how long it takes humans to use a device. A is the start up time, b is the movement speed, d is the distance to the target, and w is the width of the target. This law can be used to make your device faster to use.
Discussion:
Fitts's law has been in use for over half a decade. Clearly his law has use and is useful. The law is easy enough to understand and interpret. The key to the law is what you can gain from it. You can either make objects closer or bigger to make things faster. It doesn't matter that there is a logarithmic function in it. Simply the D/W is what matters.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Usability Evaluation Considered Harmful
Commented On:
Brad Twitty
Jared Wright
(No one else has written on it)
Summary:
This paper takes shots at people who say that all things should be usability centered. They are not pushing that usability design should be stopped, but rather it has a time and place and that is not every time, everywhere. The author makes many points that Don Norman does in Human centered design harmful. He talks about things such as cars that were not originally designed for usability, but rather for someone's grand plan.
Discussion:
I liked this paper. I think the authors do a great job of pointed out times when usability centered design is not the best choice. He points out patters of when it won't be a good time instead of just pointing random cases out. As with the other 'harmful' papers the authors just push to use different approaches in different situations. He even goes so far as to point out different parts of the life cycle that could use different design approaches. I thought it was a good read.
Brad Twitty
Jared Wright
(No one else has written on it)
Summary:
This paper takes shots at people who say that all things should be usability centered. They are not pushing that usability design should be stopped, but rather it has a time and place and that is not every time, everywhere. The author makes many points that Don Norman does in Human centered design harmful. He talks about things such as cars that were not originally designed for usability, but rather for someone's grand plan.
Discussion:
I liked this paper. I think the authors do a great job of pointed out times when usability centered design is not the best choice. He points out patters of when it won't be a good time instead of just pointing random cases out. As with the other 'harmful' papers the authors just push to use different approaches in different situations. He even goes so far as to point out different parts of the life cycle that could use different design approaches. I thought it was a good read.
Ethnography Considered Harmful
Commented On:
Brad Twitty
Jared Wright
(No one else has written on it)
Summary:
Ethnography considered harmful talks about the flaws in ethnographies. Similar to Norman's on human-centered design, they are trying to say that we use ethnographies too often. We do not realize the flaws of them and so we use them when there may be better alternatives.
Discussion:
This paper is similar to Norman's but on a different topic. It seems that complacency is their main complaint. I don't have a lot to say on it since I don't really know the extend of ethnographies in the field. I did not think it did as good of a job in its argument though as Norman did. It did not really convince me there was some grand flaw with ethnographies.
Brad Twitty
Jared Wright
(No one else has written on it)
Summary:
Ethnography considered harmful talks about the flaws in ethnographies. Similar to Norman's on human-centered design, they are trying to say that we use ethnographies too often. We do not realize the flaws of them and so we use them when there may be better alternatives.
Discussion:
This paper is similar to Norman's but on a different topic. It seems that complacency is their main complaint. I don't have a lot to say on it since I don't really know the extend of ethnographies in the field. I did not think it did as good of a job in its argument though as Norman did. It did not really convince me there was some grand flaw with ethnographies.
Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful
Commented On:
Brad Twitty
Jared Wright
Kevin Kwan
Summary:
Norman talks about how human-centered design is not always the best way to design. He gives examples of times when very common things were not designed with the user in mind and how they have worked out. He talked about how design for function sometimes needs to be done to achieve the early goal of a project. The main point he is trying to make is that if designers get complacent and just accept that things should be done only one way, then it is hurting the design in the end.
Discussion:
As I said above, I really believe the main point of this paper was that there is no end all way to design. If we stick to one way of designing, it can be just as bad if we use poor designs to begin with. I don't think Norman is trying to really say that Human-centered design is harmful at all, just complacency.
Brad Twitty
Jared Wright
Kevin Kwan
Summary:
Norman talks about how human-centered design is not always the best way to design. He gives examples of times when very common things were not designed with the user in mind and how they have worked out. He talked about how design for function sometimes needs to be done to achieve the early goal of a project. The main point he is trying to make is that if designers get complacent and just accept that things should be done only one way, then it is hurting the design in the end.
Discussion:
As I said above, I really believe the main point of this paper was that there is no end all way to design. If we stick to one way of designing, it can be just as bad if we use poor designs to begin with. I don't think Norman is trying to really say that Human-centered design is harmful at all, just complacency.
Inmates are Running the Asylum
Commented On:
Brad Twitty
Kevin Kwan
Tony Gu
Summary:
This book discussed ways that programmers fail at design. It also went into some of the reasons that current software is set up wrong that causes poor design. This includes having the wrong people do the designing. He then went on to discuss ways and techniques that can be used to create better design in software.
Discussion:
This was my favorite book we read. This is probably due to the fact that it was all of the design concepts we read but applied to software. I wish he would have given some more concrete examples of his design so that I could see patterns, but you only have limited space. I feel that is one of those books that is giving good advice, but if I tried to go out and use it I would mess up and be no better than when I started. I would definatly suggest it be read by all computer scientist.
Brad Twitty
Kevin Kwan
Tony Gu
Summary:
This book discussed ways that programmers fail at design. It also went into some of the reasons that current software is set up wrong that causes poor design. This includes having the wrong people do the designing. He then went on to discuss ways and techniques that can be used to create better design in software.
Discussion:
This was my favorite book we read. This is probably due to the fact that it was all of the design concepts we read but applied to software. I wish he would have given some more concrete examples of his design so that I could see patterns, but you only have limited space. I feel that is one of those books that is giving good advice, but if I tried to go out and use it I would mess up and be no better than when I started. I would definatly suggest it be read by all computer scientist.
CHI 2009
PlayByPlay: Collaborative Web Browsing for Desktop and Mobile Devices
Commented On:
Adam Griffin
Ben Carsten
Brad Twitty
Summary:
PlayByPlay talked about a way for someone on a cell phone to interact with someone on a computer for the same session. It used a chat program for the interaction. Its main feature was it would convert actions taken to human text and send the message to the other person. This way the person on the other side could follow along also. Its other main feature was the ability for a person to effect the browsing session of the other person. If one person needed a password they could send the field to the other person how could enter the password for the person.
Discussion:
This was probably one of my more favorite papers I read. I am sure most people at some time or another called someone to get directions. With this data could be transferred back and forth easily. It also would make helping people much easier. Instead of guessing if the person on the other side is actually doing what you are telling them to, you could see what they were doing. While I am fairly certain that this would not be needed by everyone, I am sure there are plenty of niche cases in which it would greater make life easier for the user.
Commented On:
Adam Griffin
Ben Carsten
Brad Twitty
Summary:
PlayByPlay talked about a way for someone on a cell phone to interact with someone on a computer for the same session. It used a chat program for the interaction. Its main feature was it would convert actions taken to human text and send the message to the other person. This way the person on the other side could follow along also. Its other main feature was the ability for a person to effect the browsing session of the other person. If one person needed a password they could send the field to the other person how could enter the password for the person.
Discussion:
This was probably one of my more favorite papers I read. I am sure most people at some time or another called someone to get directions. With this data could be transferred back and forth easily. It also would make helping people much easier. Instead of guessing if the person on the other side is actually doing what you are telling them to, you could see what they were doing. While I am fairly certain that this would not be needed by everyone, I am sure there are plenty of niche cases in which it would greater make life easier for the user.
CHI 2008
You Can Touch, but You Can't Look: Interacting with In-Vehicle Systems
Commented On
Adam Griffin
Ben Carsten
J Chris Elgin
Summary:
This paper wanted to test different ways of interacting with a car radio. They used three types of input: buttons like in our cars currently, a touch screen, and gesture based. They then tested the driver for how long they took to finish the task, how many mistakes they made, as well as how many driving mistakes they made while attempting the task. Tactile input (our current way) caused the driver to make by far the most driving mistakes while at the same time taking the longest to complete the task. Touch based allowed the user to complete the task the fastest, but they had to look away from the road more often than gesture based to do it. Completion time for gesture based was almost as long as tactile, but the driver did not have to look away from the road for long periods of time.
Discussion:
This report was interesting because it could make driving safer. Just like cell phones are dangerous while driving, looking at the radio is also dangerous since you aren't looking at the road. It was interesting that touch causes so fewer errors than tactile since both require you to look away from the road. I would like to see some kind of combination of touch and gesture to see what results happen. They could use the touch for more advanced commands while using gesture for simple commands.
Commented On
Adam Griffin
Ben Carsten
J Chris Elgin
Summary:
This paper wanted to test different ways of interacting with a car radio. They used three types of input: buttons like in our cars currently, a touch screen, and gesture based. They then tested the driver for how long they took to finish the task, how many mistakes they made, as well as how many driving mistakes they made while attempting the task. Tactile input (our current way) caused the driver to make by far the most driving mistakes while at the same time taking the longest to complete the task. Touch based allowed the user to complete the task the fastest, but they had to look away from the road more often than gesture based to do it. Completion time for gesture based was almost as long as tactile, but the driver did not have to look away from the road for long periods of time.
Discussion:
This report was interesting because it could make driving safer. Just like cell phones are dangerous while driving, looking at the radio is also dangerous since you aren't looking at the road. It was interesting that touch causes so fewer errors than tactile since both require you to look away from the road. I would like to see some kind of combination of touch and gesture to see what results happen. They could use the touch for more advanced commands while using gesture for simple commands.
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