Friday, March 20, 2009
"Web Meets World": User Experience of Embedded Systems and Interactive Wireless Sensor Networks...
In my opinion, HCI/Usability/UX intervention is sorely needed in the converging fields of embedded systems and wireless sensor networks. I fear what the future will hold if usability and user experience factors do not receive attention.
I think there is hope, despite my quote in a previous post about some usability issues related to the SmartGrid City project.
For a good overview of the future of sensor networks and ambient technologies, read the transcript of Tim O'Reilly's "Web Meets World" keynote presentation from the 2008 Web 2.0 Expo, or watch the video below:
O'Reilly asks, "What are our best and brightest working on?" and "Are we working on the right thing?" (He even touches on Richard Bookstaber's "A Demon of our own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation", a book published in 2007 that discusses how the best and brightest developed innovations that made investments more risky. We now know the outcome of those innovations!)
Summer Reading?!
A number of different system concepts have become apparent in the broader context of embedded systems over the past few years. Whilst there are some differences between these, this book argues that in fact there is much they share in common, particularly the important notions of control, heterogenity, wireless communication, dynamics/ad hoc nature and cost.
The first part of the book covers cooperating object applications and the currently available application scenarios, such as control and automation, healthcare, and security and surveillance. The second part discusses paradigms for algorithms and interactions. The third part covers various types of vertical system functions, including data aggregation, resource management and time synchronization. The fourth part outlines system architecture and programming models, outlining all currently available architectural models and middleware approaches that can be used to abstract the complexity of cooperating object technology.
I wonder how much of this book is devoted to usability and user-experience topics!
Graphics for Embedded Systems
Niall Murphy's PanelSoft : User Interfaces and Usability for Embedded Systems Articles
Dr. Kristof Van Laerhoven (Multimodal Interactive Systems)
TinyOS (free, open source operating system for wireless sensor networks)
Siftables: Physical, Natural Way to Interact with Information and Media
My post: Tangible & Fluid User Interfaces Part I: Siftables
Link to previous post:
The UX of SmartGridCity: Control Your SmartHouse Remotely, Online
The UX of SmartGridCity: Control Your SmartHouse Remotely, Online
My interest in interactive wireless sensor networks has been growing over the past several months. This technology supports how we will interact with our "things" in the world. It sounds futuristic, but the technology is here and is in the implementation stage in Boulder, Colorado, known as SmartGrid City.
There are some issues facing the usability of this system for homeowners who participate in the SmartGrid City project. Here is an example from an article in the Wall Street Journal:
"...The Petersons' experience with the smart grid has not been entirely smooth. Mrs. Peterson says it can be cumbersome -- and "boring" -- to use the smart-grid Web site to manage her home's energy use. She has to set more than a dozen data points just to get her bedroom temperature where she wants it through the week.
Her husband finds some of the online charts that track his home's energy use too abstract. "If I told you that today you saved four pounds...of carbon emissions, what does that mean to you?" he asks. He prefers when the software serves up analogies he can visualize: He's saved enough energy to microwave 9,550 frozen pizzas or to light a major-league ballgame for three innings."
The system, of course, was designed by engineers, right?More Information:
If you click on the graphic below, you will link to an interactive graphic from the Wall Street Journal that gives a good visual overview of a house that is linked to the SmartGrid City:
"SmartGridCity is the nation's first fully integrated smart grid community and will boast the largest and densest concentration of these emerging technologies to date."
More information from the Xcel website:
SmartHouse Graphic and Description (pdf)
"Xcel Energy's SmartGrid Consortium is imagining a future that would allow you to communicate your energy choices to the power grid and automatically receive electricity based on your personal needs".
- Advanced sensors distributed throughout the grid and a high-speed communication network tie the entire system together
- Smart Thermostat
- Smart Appliances
- Smart Meter
- Plug-in Hybrid Electric Car
- A dynamic system rich in information technology
- High-speed, real-time, two-way communications
- Sensors throughout the grid enabling rapid diagnosis and connections
- Decision making data and support for peak efficiency
- Distributed generation technologies (such as wind turbines, solar panels, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles)
- Automated "smart substations"
- In-home energy control devices
- Automated home energy use
Friday, December 19, 2008
More for the Interactive Usability Hall of Shame: BMW Features (Via Roland Smart, Adaptive Path); Solution: MX 2009
Roland Smart, of Adaptive Path, recently posted an article about his experience attending at the BMW performance driving school, where he had a chance to see how BMW uses the Microsoft Surface in the showroom. (See my previous post, BMW and Surface Computing: Video of Tabletop Interaction, on the Interactive Multimedia Technology blog).
Later in his post, Smart discusses the problems he encountered with the BMW iDrive, a computer system that combines an LCD panel on the dashboard and a controller knob on the center console.
Smart cited information from James G. Cobb's article “Menus Behaving Badly“ (NY Times, '02), regarding his user-experience with a couple of features of the BMW 744i:
Unanticipated Headrest Action
"...A block away, I adjust the seat forward. The electric head restraint rises, inexplicably, to its highest position. I readjust the headrest and move the seat again. Again, the headrest zips up, as if programmed with the wisdom that tall people have short legs.
My beagle, whose job description is ''scan roadsides for squirrels,'' is in the back, moving from one side window to the other. Each time he shifts, sensors in the seat take note, and the right rear headrest whirrs up as the left one whirrs down. For the next two hours, the headrests dance in tandem, as if trying to provide comfort for restless spirits."
Dangerous Radio Station Control While Driving: The iDrive Controller Menu
"Pull the iDrive knob back to select the ''entertainment'' menu.
Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click ''memory.''
Scroll to the top of the next menu and highlight ''M FM.''
Scroll to the right and click ''manual.''
Twist the knob to tune in a station.
Click ''memory'' -- twice -- to store it.
In a lesser car, you might simply twist a knob. In the 745i, tuning the radio is an interactive experience at 75 m.p.h. After a bit of this, you may wonder what's the fuss over handheld cellphones."
Smart also pointed to Jasper van Kuijk 's (12/24/07) post on the Uselog.com product usability weblog, “More iDrive Reviews; the Evolution of a Bad Idea“. Here are some excerpts:
The Truth About Cars: BMW iDrive Editorial (Robert Fargo)
"...If BMW believed that iDrive was the intuitive future of driver control, why did they equip the new Seven with two CD players? Maybe it's because the dash-mounted single CD can be operated manually, while the six-stack system requires iDrive."
Technoride: Mid-Course Correction for BMW's iDrive (Bill Howard)
"...This third variant adds the function buttons, much like programmable PC function keys (they can be programmed, you know, just that no one does anymore) or radio buttons on your car audio system, to the four-way iDrive controller."
Mobile Experience: BMW iDrive Really Sucks
"The iDrive is so freaking useless..." (My quote from the van Kuijik's source, Andy, author of the The Mobile Experience blog)
Related
Driving It: Car Interfaces and Usability (Wayne Cunningham, CNET)
Discusses Jacob Neilson's basic principles of usability and how they can be applied to car interfaces. Touches on BMW's iDrive, Audi's Multimedia Interface (MMI), the Mercedes-Benz Cockpit Management and Navigation Device (COMAND), and touchscreen LCD's.
Although Cunningham reports that he most usable interfaces he's seen in cars are touch screen LCD's, I beg to differ, given my experience with my Honda's navigation system! (I'm saving that one for another post.)
(Picture of the iDrive, from Cunningham's post)
MX 2009
For those of you interested in the managment of user experience, Adaptive Path is putting together a conference that addresses the business side of the UX equation:
MX San Francisco: Managing Experience through Creative Leadership March 1-3, 2009
Speakers:
Sara Beckman, Co-Director of the Management of Technology Program, Haas School of Business
Margaret Gould Stewart, Manager, User Experience, Google
Margret Schmidt, VP, User Experience Design & Research, TiVo
Bruce Temkin, Forrester Research
Marty Neumeier, President of Neutron
Khoi Vinh, Design Director for NYTimes.com
Dan Roam, founder of Digital Roam
David Butler, VP, Design, The Coca-Cola Company
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Green IT, Carry Small, Live Large Concept Update: Nokia's noBounds Project, via Internet Tablet Talk
Roy Want wrote an interesting article, Carry Small, Live Large, for the introduction of the IEEE Pervasive Computing Issue 3, 2007. In this article, he discusses applications for large high-quality displays in urban public spaces, taking advantage of UltraWideBand for Wireless USB. In the future, Roy portends that our mobile devices- SmartPhones, will interoperate with large wireless displays, furthering the dream of pervasive computing.
Nokia Research Center in Germany is woking towards the "Carry Small, Live Large" concept. It is also an example of "Green IT". This is good news for me, a proud owner of a Nokia n800.
Here is the video of the noBounds project:
noBounds! - blast Smartphones display bounds! from Bernd Steinke on Vimeo.
According to a post by Reggie, on IInternet Tablet Talk, noBounds provides a low-power solution for mobile users to expand Smartphone and Internet Tablet screens to higher resolution external displays such as high definition (HD) panels, projectors, and near-to-eye displays (NED). The project aims to output video at FullHD (1920×1080p) at 30 frames per second (faster on partial display changes) via USB or WLAN. Connect a USB keyboard or a mouse, an you have a mobile personal computer anywhere you go."
"...noBounds allows not only to attach an external high resolution display to a mobile device very efficiently, but allows also to seamlessly use available input devices such as a keyboard or a USB mouse. Thus, it can act as a complete Laptop or PC replacement for the majority of PC applications. Since the solution has a ultra low power dissipation (no fans needed & longtime battery powered) it has the potential to revolutionize the classical IT environment (Green IT): The users have all their data and processing capabilities in a mobile device, yet are able to use the ergonomic peripherals they are used to in a PC environment."
A fully mobile usage with a single 1200mAh phone battery powering the phone, USB and an Near to Eye Display (NED) estimates to allow more than 6 hours typical office application usage time without a power supply."
Wouldn't it be great if some of the large displays that are cropping up in public spaces were accessible to our mobile devices?
I love my Nokia n800. I love large displays... maybe I can get it all connected some day.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Think Globally, Act Locally: Exploring the Problem Space
Top-down, bottom-up, local and the global...
I've been thinking about this slogan's permutations, and how the concepts behind this slogan relate to the design, development, and deployment of interactive displays in public spaces. I've also given some thought to how the same concepts relate to the ways people interact with hand-held devices when they are out and about.
One of the biggest problems with usability, interaction, and user-experience design, in my opinion, is the failure of techies (and designers) to look at the "problem space" from multiple perspectives, levels, and ranges. (An example of this can be found in a previous post about my frustrating user-experience trying to interact with large touch screen displays at an upscale shopping and entertainment center.)
I'll be discussing this topic further in future posts.
The Norman Nielson Group's website provides a variety of examples of things that have gone wrong, and offers a variety of solutions.
I especially like Bruce "Tog" Tognazinni's article, "D'ohLT #1: Think Globally, Act Globally". Tog discusses his experience with an automatic rain sprinkler, but the points he makes apply to all forms of interactive technologies and applications.
Tog's "Interaction Design Section" is fun to browse, especially his links to articles that provide a history of design gone wrong.
According to Tog, " a D'ohLT is a person who screws up some product or service so badly that, when you attempt to use it, you end up slapping your head and yelling that famous homersimpsonian cry, "D'oh!"
I'd like to come up with a rubric-based checklist to rate applications and devices on the "D'oh!" factor!
On the Positive
Here is an example of something that might be quite useful and usable, once deployed:
The InfoGallery allows users to have control over large interactive displays in order to access information available from the web. Although it can serve as web-portal, it doesn't look like a typical website.
InfoGallery's concept embodies what I'd like to see when I'm out and about and come across an interactive display. If I knew I'd have the chance to control the display to access web content for my own purposes, I could tolerate some annoying interactive digital signage content to do so!
Note: I have not tested this application.
From the interactivespaces.net website:
"The InfoGallery is a new media that makes digital content visible in the physical space. With this media it is possible to expose digital content other places
than on the internet, and the system is a most welcome alternative to the physical poster or billboard. The content can be changed dynamically which makes a short distance from sender to receiver."
"The InfoGallery was at first designed for libraries, but we intend to deploy it in broader contexts - such as at museums, in stores or other public places."
"Think Globally, Act Locally" , as applied to various disciplines:
W3C Quality Assurance - Web Standards
"Think globally, Act Locally"
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
"Think Globally, Act Locally for SOA Security- Strategies for Securing Applications in an Insecure World"
GIS and Data Visualization
Think Globally, Act Regionally: GIS and Data Visualization for Social Science and Public Policy Research
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Interactive touch displays for ordering meals at the table? Link to article from the Sunday Times Online
Photo from the Sunday TimesAlthough this form of table-top computing is not the same as Microsoft's Surface concept, it is a move in the right direction.
Information from the Conceptic website:
"With networked LCD touch screens installed at each table, diners can - at the touch of a mouse or the screen- not only order and pay for their drinks or food, but also select music and video, play games, chat with other customers, and more."
(I'd like to test the system for usability.)
Links:
"A clever touch at the restaurant: Diners can now view and order their dishes using a touchscreen at the table"
Conceptic
Friday, February 8, 2008
Usability Link: Microsoft Design Center - Mobility (via Putting People First)
Take a look at the Microsoft Design Center's Mobility usability website.
I am impressed. I found the link via Putting People First.
Microsoft Design Center: Mobility
http://www.microsoft.com/design/work/Detail.aspx?key=mobility
Friday, February 1, 2008
Human-Information Interaction, Usability, User Interface Design Patterns, Mobile Web Design- Random Links
I've posted these links and will write about them when I have the chance!
Center for Human-Information Interaction
Cognitive Informatics: Enhancing Human Information Interaction and Decision Making http://www.pnl.gov/cogInformatics/hii_thrusts.stm
Human-Ubiquitous Environment Interaction Group
Ubiquitous Interaction
Ambient Findability
Physical, Social, and Experiential Knowledge in Pervasive Computing Environments
Lashups: Toolkit for Location-aware Mashups
Pervasive Visualization: Visualization on Mobile Devices
Howard Rheingold's SmartMobs companion website.
http://infosthetics.com/
http://www.w3.org/Mobile/
Adaptive Path Blog: Dan Harrelson's article 2008: The Year of Great Mobile Interfaces
Google's Android: Open Handset Alliance Project
Yahoo!'s Go
W3C Mobile Web Initiative
W3C Ubiquitous Web Applications Workgroup
Book: Barbara Ballard's UI Design Guidelines for Mobile Web Development
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/31/10-principles-of-effective-web-design/
Anders Toxboe's UI Patterns
Yahoo!'s Design Pattern Library
