Thursday, November 26, 2009
Best Thread Ever for Interactive Interface (Systems) Designers: James Landay's "I Give Up on CHI/UIST" post + 63 comments
I'm considering resuming my graduate studies in the near future, and came across this incredibly insightful discussion surrounding James Landay's November 7th post on his DUB For the Future (Thoughts on Human Computer Interaction, User Interface, Design) blog.
James focuses his work on user interaction and user interface systems. I found that his comments reflect some of my personal concerns, because I know that if I continue my studies, I will have to submit my research to CHI or UIST in the future.
At any rate, I Give Up on CHI/UIST will take some time to read, but I encourage you to do so, especially the comments section, where you'll find the opinions of Bill Buxton, Mary Czerwinski, Merrie Ringel Morris, and other important people in the land of Human-Computer Interaction.
Here are a couple of quotes from people who commented on Landay's post:
"Recent debate over how we, as the CHI community, assess the use of novel system work that tries to contribute to our understanding of how people _will_ interact with technology in the future, rather than understanding the past -that is how people are currently using or have used existing technology- has emerged, e.g. [Greenberg & Buxton. Usability evaluation considered harmful (some of the time). CHI’08], [Kaye & Sengers. The Evolution of Evaluation. CHI’07] and most recently [http://dubfuture.blogspot.com/2009/11/i-give-up-on-chiuist.html] " -Floyd
"I too am sitting on the cusp of deciding between transitioning from a M.S. to a PhD or going into industry. One of the biggest problems I see is that CHI/UIST publications are taken into heavy consideration in the process of evaluating your PhD work. Your credentials and the criteria for hiring come down to "counting" the number of solid publications you have. This means that a student becomes restricted to a handful of conferences (CHI/UIST) that forces them to work inside a system. When I am planning my next project, as a graduate student, I am forced to think strategically. What work has the best chance of getting into CHI? This means, that from the outset, before I even have thoroughly thought through my ideas, I have constricted myself to doing work that is based on expectations set forth by the CHI community. These are the expectations that lead me to pick projects that are 6-10 weeks in length, and are based around studying interaction techniques, asking interesting research questions and validating it with a “pile of t-tests, chi-squares, and ANOVAs”, or interviewing 15-20 domain specific subjects for retrieving qualitative data (that often results in “self-evident” design implications). I am not trying to de-value this type of work or methodology, but am simply emphasizing that we are placing ourselves inside a box that is less about creative output and more about working a system." -Anonymous
I came across this topic via Kevin Arthur's Touch Usability blog. Kevin Arthur is a usability analyst working with touch interfaces at Synaptics in Santa Clara, CA.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Internet of People, Things, Surfaces, and Interactions: Insights from UX 2008 & Adaptive Path
Adaptive Path is a company full of forward-looking, creative people who focus on user experience, interaction design, and information architecture. It sponsors UX Week each year, which provides participants with a refreshing update on current trends in the field. The following videos are a sample of what was presented at UX 2008. I plan on updating this post soon with a few brief notes and comments.
If you are interested in learning more about all things related to UX, take some time to go through Adaptive Path's reading list!
Don Norman
Don Norman | UX Week 2008 | Adaptive Path from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.
Dennis Wixon
Dennis Wixon | UX Week 2008 | Adaptive Path from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.
Dan Saffer
Dan Saffer | UX Week 2008 | Adaptive Path from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.
Dave Wolf
Dave Wolf | UX Week 2008 | AdaptEDive Path from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.
Dave discusses his company's philosophy of software design process: "Right Software, Right Device, on the Right Area on the Network, or Not on the Network at All". He highlights how this philosophy was incorporated into his company's contribution, "Ben", to the Microsoft Phizz Pop Design Challenge competition. The visualization about on-line news is interesting, incorporating the little video comments, which enriches the understanding of commentary.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Dance Interaction, Gestures, Patents, and Technology: Doug Fox, of Kinetic Interface, poses some good questions...
Doug Fox, of Kinetic Interface, is the author of the blog of the same name, which is part of the GreatDance website.
From looking over Doug's posts, it is clear that he has spent quite a bit of time pondering issues related to dance and technology interaction. According to Doug, Steve Jobs/Apple is working with the Ohad Naharin, a choreographer. He points out that "choreographers are essentially rapid-prototypers who can create the basics of new movement vocabularies in a few hours."
Reflecting on my previous dance training, I think Doug is on to something.
Here are some excerpts from the Kinetic Interface blog:
"The Kinetic Interface blog on Great Dance starts with the premise that by focusing on the body and movement we can better understand, engage with, and contribute to many of the technological and scientific changes that are reshaping our daily lives."
Gesture Patents Point Way to Full-Body Interfaces
"To ask a bit of an improbable question, will dancers be prohibited from certain movement sequences because they are protected by the US Patent and Trademark Office? This is not likely to happen. But what might happen is that the most natural of human gestures and movements may eventually become proprietary instruments of interface designers.
On another front, I would like to create a video contest where dancers were invited to create their own series of gestures and movements that were intended to control new PC and mobile interfaces. I think that dancers would come-up with some highly innovative approaches that had not previously been considered."
Creating Dance for Developers of User Interfaces"Say, you were creating a dance piece for a geeky audience of software developers. How would you go about creating and structuring a dance so that developers could relate to it as if it were, in some sense, the user interface for a software program?.....I would find it very interesting to speak with choreographers who have pondered some variation of my questions connecting dance to user interface design. Or who have created dances for non traditional dance audiences."
For related information about interfaces, Doug Fox recommends reading Alex Iskold's article, The Rise of Contextual Interfaces on ReadWriteWeb. Be sure to read the comments to Iskold's article, if you have the time.
PART TWO
I studied dance formally when I was young, and even through my college years at the University of Michigan. (This was a long time ago- Madonna was in one of my classes!)
Despite all of my dance training, I really did not think about the way dance interaction relates to technology until recently, when I came across Doug Fox's Kinetic Interface blog and the Great Dance website. Not long after that, I had the opportunity to see a performance of Exquisite Interaction at the Visualization in the World symposium. The performance was part of the Dance.Draw project, a collaboration between the Dance and Software and Information Systems (HCI) departments at UNC-Charlotte.
![[ExquisiteInteraction.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHgdHs-M0M_fXtuka0iTsRxZJbTpjX9PCxGyVqCEaXZABt3Vb2lr93M3JNQt36oq0UdwAACsf2xtAU2b08sSzuFelBziegQz3XUcrT5kNVnKn8M3vAERU_Mvw1PXN1pXDR1G_f6xDaTIA/s1600/ExquisiteInteraction.jpg)
- GestureTek, a company that reportedly developed patents for gestures as early as 1991.
- Jeroen Arendsen's A Nice Gesture "Stories of gestures and sign language about perception, semiotics, and technology". Jeroen is Ph.D. student and also an interaction designer and usability specialist.
- Merce Cunningham, a famous choreographer, collaborated with software developers to create the DanceForms choreography software. (Also see the Character Motion website.) "DanceForms 1.0 inspires you to visualize and chronicle dance steps or entire routines in an easy-to-use 3D environment. For choreography, interdisciplinary arts and dance technology applications."
Merce Cunningham Dance Company
- PBS American Masters Documentary on Merce Cunningham, and also John Cage, the musician he collaborated with from 1942-1992. Both were connected with R. Buckminster Fuller, the guy who revolutionized the field of engineering.
- Cycling74 is the software company behind Max/MSP/Jitter and other cool stuff -Cycling74 products are used by musicians, multi-media artists, and dancers. Academic/student discounts are available.
