Informatics 282 | Fall 2017 | UCI MHCID | Jesse Colin Jackson
Video Recognition Concept: http://www.bu.edu/ids/research-projects/action-recognition/
Key Feedback Received:
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demographics age: 34 |
device:
computer: IBM Thinkpad (2013) |
scenario: Andrea is tasked with tracking the progress and progress of many projects. She doesn’t manage any of the teams that work on the projects, but interacts with them daily and is responsible for them in the context of the project. Andrea sees productivity decreasing and stress increasing as the end of the release cycle approaches. She wants to take the team for a quick outing, but doesn’t want to proscribe a destination but have them decide organically.
storyboard:
rice
little grains of rice
thousand pieces of rice
rice from here to there
rice where I go
trail of rice
where i walk rice
charnock, national
palms on expo more grains
grain step
grain step step
from the field
across the field
grain step
where I walk
how I walk
For my mapping project I picked three forces as recommended in our critique session. I choose Enforcement, Transit and Greenery. All these forces combine to create flow and pathways to channel human activity. Enforcement monitors us to control the flow of people into the center of the plaza and watches the dedicated paths. Transit draws through the path. Finally Greenery creates barriers and softly signifies the path the designer intends for you to take.
The Path created become more clears and articulated with an abstracted white space map. You can see where we “should go” and how outlined these paths are.
Overall, I would say I enjoyed this exercise, it got me to go outside and see my neighborhood in a new way, like many I never stopped to looks at where I lived turn by turn, frame by frame. For me the time of day was interesting, it was a relatively quiet afternoon, it seemed so quite and ready to be observed. I learned how formitiable force cars are in my neighborhood. I know we all think of LA as a car centric city, but I had become blind to them in my neighborhood. They are everywhere, in each of my frames of observation. To me this was disconcerting, cars have become ubiquitous and they do so much harm.
Enforcement: This map is meant to represent the enforcer of rules and order in the space. I represented their view and zone of control using the shaded zones.
Transit: I represented the arrows and colors to represent transit traffic in the Watergarden. The Metro station, the pick-up roundabout both draw and shape the space.
Time: I represented how people use the during different times of the day. In the morning people are flowing into the center, similarly evening hour shape the outflow of people and bikes. One thing I regret missing writing this reflection was the flow of people during lunch to restaurant row.
Branding: The “Watergarden” charges a premium and relies on branding to show itself to be a modern working space. Prominent concrete signs anchor the outer edges marking the space, and the stand-up signs attempt to keep and engage workers and passerby in the area.
Controlled Nature or Controlling Nature: You can see the concrete lines surrounds and controls the spread of greenery. Originally, the Watergarden central plaza was mostly water, following a renovation and re-branding most of the space was paved over.
Combined Map – I combined all my map on this image, it looks a little messy and slightly ugly. Though it does all come together, you can see the ways forces interact and inform one another.
My Guest Room at My Parents Home
Parents Home With Heat Map and Paths
Neighborhood Map
I see a few other did office plazas! Sorry to add another one, but hopefully I can keep this interesting. Here is a passage from my observations at around noon on a Thursday. I was spending the end of afternoon with my mentee from the volunteer program I participate in though work. It is about 4 pm.
Two giant games of Jenga are step-up on two concrete benches, beside them a game of cornhole. The stacks of Jenga are immaculately placed opposite on another. My mentee is showing me a trick on a skateboard I have lent him, he moved around between the bench and around my toward the tables around me. A few of the other mentors have emerged from the glass building lobby. Two of the pairs start playing Jenga, the other two play cornhole. There are few workers leaving the buildings around and exit toward the pick-up area and to the pathways closest to the Metro Station. A few times my mentee almost stakes into the passers by. The space is clearly not one conducive to staking. Shortly after a security guard comes by and tells us he can’t skateboard here. I had a feeling.
Video of him skating around here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/LhzQ1tsfaVpBlf0R2
Sketch of Watergarden showing common exit paths from the building I work in.
Enforcement – During my skateboarding experience I clearly saw the role of rules and enforcement in the space. We were told that skateboard leaves marks on the special water porous pavement. Interesting. On another occasion I was flagged down by a shouting security grade as I was riding my bike through the space. There is clearly a strong enforcement regime at work.
Time – Time is clearly a shaping force. when I was observing in the evening versus at lunch the norms and bounds of the space were clearly different. Though only an couple hours apart the space was transformed from a place of gathering and interaction from more of a space oriented to transit and transition. The primary function of the space changed based on time.
Branding- Part of the enforcement force intersects with brand force, a parade of bikes and skateboards clearly do not fit the brand of the space . On each of the Jenga blocks there were logo of the Watergarden., the cornhole game also featured the logos. It is important to owners and proprietors of the plaza to know what they work in the Watergarden and not perhaps any old office park.
Controlled Nature – I learned that when the Watergarden was constructed the space was mostly water. You can see in my photos and video there is a lot more concrete. Concrete dominates the space. The water in the Watergarden has become more of a accent, instead of the focal point of the space. Even the nature that remains in the space is confined to concrete boxes. Even though the old design water dominates the space, clearly each element of nature is surrounded and contained by concrete.
Transit – During my observation in the morning and the evening the two greatest forces shaping human traffic was transit. The Metro station in the west draws heavy amounts of pedestriant traffic, with an inflow and outflow with each nearing departure time. The roundabout to the north is a second draw. Transit around the plaza shapes and effects the space thought it is not directly in the space.
For this exercise I will be using a map near and dear to my daily life, the LA Metro Map!
Iconic Representation: Most maps so this but I really appreciate the simplicity of the Metro Map’s iconic scheme. Station that offer connection to other lines are empty white circle. Those that do not offer connections are colored in circles. The airport is a airplane icon and rail lines are in gray. This is where I think their iconic scheme lacks. It takes some effort to differentiate the gray bus line and the rail lines, as well the square representing bus only stops.
Legibility: My screenshot does show this well, however the map uses a clear font face and displays text in black font. On a station map the names of each stop and city are easily read.
Ockham’s Razor: The maps design is fairly clean, there are simple representation of lines and stops. There is no complicated geographical information, like freeways or parks. The designers selected the most simple model available to display system information.
Uniform Connectedness: “Elements” such as stops are represented by ” connected uniform” lines. Some variation between stops is created by changing the icon representing the stations, otherwise the analogy and model used are consistent. Station names are angled and directly correspond to the stop.
Wayfinding: I hope that all maps encourage wayfinding. In the Metro map you can trace from your stop to another stop. I would say that it does not do great wayfinding between different destinations, we see LAX but this map doesn’t help you understand what each stop might be close to. Though I would say that is not the function of this map.
I have used this mouse or some variation of it for a few years. it is connected via wireless receiver and comes paired with a keyboard.
On of my favourite features is hidden on the blue Microsoft button, pressing on it brings up the start menu. But swiping your thumb up or down navigates you back and forth on folders and webpages. When you successfully complete this action the mouse slightly vibrates . This vibration feature provides great feedback, and it makes it clear that an action has occurred. I’m not sure many read their mouses instruction booklet (do they even come with one anymore?) but I also love the discoverablity of the feature. It actually brought me joy to figure out this useful feature without scrolling through pages of instructions or working with the mouse for month and months to learn how to use it.
The indentation next to the blue button, slight indentation on the left and right click button affords and ergonomic hand positioning.
I’m not going to discuss mapping, i think we all know the issues surrounding the stove controls and all the guesswork using them entails. My issue is the lighting function and the gas flow controls. can turn the control three-hundred sixty degrees, turning in one direction to the same end point as the other direction does the same thing. None of my action are properly constrained. I have at least once turned the nob in the wrong direction saw no gas fire and assumed it was off. Sadly, it was not, and I was only able to tell after sensing the ambient room temperature after a few hours. There are not physical constraints or barriers.
This awful stove also has provide me with false feedback, I hear the “tick tick tick” of the pilot light even when the burner is fully lit. Is the pilot still on? Do I need to turn the nob a little more to turn it off?
There is something to be learned from every failure. Each iteration can yield useful idea that can be used in future iteration of design or inspire future innovations. Failure is an “essential part of exploration and creativity.” [1] By using “fail-fast” as a strategy we can begin to redefine “failure” as an opportunity to learn as opposed to just an endpoint.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NxWW4poljU&ab_channel=RaphaelD%27Amico
Example from Design of Everyday Things: IDEO on Failing fast – Ideo Founder David Kelley
” How quickly you get to the first crumby prototype and show it to people is directly related to how successful my product will be”
https://youtu.be/hQCI3zj3aIc?t=201
Example from The Web: Illustrator Kiri Leonard –
in this video from professional Illustrator Kiri Leonard talks about her journey toward becoming a professional artist. She points out how her craft really began to improve as she began to product lots and lots of sketches across many different notebooks.
Example from My life: Whiteboarding my next project
A low cost example of failing fast, I created prototypes of my next project and went through the drawing, erasing, adding and commenting with colleagues and designers.
[1] Norman, Don. The design of everyday things. New York: Basic Books, 2013.
Root-cause Analysis is a strategy used to understand underlying issues before attempting to remedy them. Conducting a Root-cause Analysis involves working to find multiple sources of “err” instead of a single course of error. This strategy helps to build a holistic picture of the incident or design problem. To a successful use of “RCA” designers should not stop as soon the first error, human or system, is uncovered and should continue until any sources of “err” is uncovered. Norman tells us as soon as we learn “why the error occurred” then learn what we can do to prevent it.
Example from Design of Everyday Things: Applying Root Cause Analysis to the Crash of an F-22 Jet in 2010, the Inspector General was able to determine that the pilot could not have been to blame to the crash as he was unconscious. This lead to change in the jet fighters design.
Example from the web: The UN in a series of articles addresses Relief aid but also links (literally and figuratively) to a series of reporting determining Global Conflict as the root cause of famine.
Example from my life: JIRA Issue Tracker – This tool I use for work on resolution encourages developers, product managers and others to log root cause if known when Issues are resolved.
Norman, Don. The design of everyday things. New York: Basic Books, 2013.
Normans Seven Stages of Action breaks down action into execution and evaluation in relation to goals of the user and the world in which actions occurs. This model to “provide a framework to understand “human action” and works to “guide design.” Breaking down actions into discrete steps helps designer to capture actions they maybe consider “implicit” and design for them. The Goal – is what the user wants to do. Plan – Is the action, Specify and Perform – are sequences of action. Perceive – is the users viewed state. Interpret- is the users understand of what they have perceived. And lastly, Compare is equalization of between goal and the outcome.
Example for Design on Everyday Things: Don Norman applies his Seven stages of action to simple act of turning on a light. Here is Don doing a similar exercise in this video.
Example from the Web: In this video the designer illustrates how a simple google search can be broken into action steps to get a full picture of what “Drew” our user is doing.
Example from my Life: I made of video of me diagramming out a seven steps of action for a project I am currently doing for work. I have never done one, but this helped me understand how an end user might interpret a “submitted status” and what it means in my current workflow.
Norman, Don. The design of everyday things. New York: Basic Books, 2013.
A Conceptual Model is a simplified explanation of how something works. by applying a familiar analogy(s) or system to a new system . Strong conceptual models aid users in forming a “coherent image” of how a system work, by allowing them to anticipate potential actions. By borrowing from system that users are already familiar with as a design strategy we promote learning as opposed to memorization. Norman (a professor Hayes) uses the conceptual model of files and folders that we see on most all computers.
Example from Design of Everyday Things: The File Folder system on Computers.
Example from the Web: Trello uses Conceptual model of a Kanban board with post-it notes. You can do just about everything one would do with a physical board.
Example from my Life: I’m going to recycle an item I shared in my histories post, this remote light switch looks and acts wall-mounted switches. Thought it is a different kind of switch, conceptually it is modeled after light switches I am familiar with.
Norman, Don. The design of everyday things. New York: Basic Books, 2013.
“Design affects society” as such, designers must consider the impacts of their design on society. Often the goals of capitalism run contrary to moral design, businesses aim make and sell goods continuously to the largest number of people they can. This creates an environment of continuous consumption. Norman points out that “needless features, needless models” is in danger of making the design of everyday things into the design of “overloaded, unnecessary things.” Designers can employ Moral Design, by questioning the need for new features and iteration as well employing sustainable means of delivering new goods. He uses the video subscription services as a good example.
Example from Design of Everyday Things: A video subscription service eliminates the need for mailing DVDs or creating thousands of plastic discs.
Example from the web: This is more of anti-example, the iPhone maybe an example of immoral design, are all these iterations and models necessary? Are we delivering true usable value with each model and release? Some call this planned obsolesce.
Example from my life: In recent years I have seen an increase quality of design of reusable water bottles. These aesthetically pleasing designs make it desirable, fun to be sustainable.
Norman, Don. The design of everyday things. New York: Basic Books, 2013.
Standardization often requires the efforts of many people, organization and governments to create. Creating standards can be greatly beneficial, they can promote good, accessible design. In many cases standards can discourage silos of innovation and incentivize interoperability. While creating and following standards can beneficial, building a consensus takes time. Often by the time standards are created the technology is obsolete or the has progressed such that the standards are not helpful.
Example from Design of Everyday Things: Norman gives us this nonstandard clock to illustrate how standards are important and how ubiquitous they can be.
Example from the Web: Section 508 defined US Federal requirements and standards for creating broadly accessible websites and tools. It is a standard that many federal contractors must meet in order to win government contracts.
Example from my life: The Scale Agile Framework for Enterprise (SAFe) is an attempt to create a standardized framework for practicing Agile Development at scale. There are still many styles and versions of agile development, in time we may see a few emerge. That handbook is full of fun standards and strategies!
The five-whys method is a method that can be a mean to conducting a root cause analysis, but can be employed in other scenarios to “dig deeper.” The five ways method attempts to understand underlying causes. Analysis often stops at the first explanation, by asking five whys we continue exploring and understanding new layers of our design challenge. Though “why” is broad question and this method can lead us to fixate on a single causes it is still an improve over traditional investigations by committees that stop as soon as the first human error is uncovered.
Example from Design of Everyday Things: The Toyota Production system employs the “Five Why” Strategy to understand and improve production line issues.
Example from the Web: The Healthcare field utilizes Five Why method. In this example the Institute for Health Care Improvement illustrates how it can be applied to an incorrect intravenous run rate.
Example from My Life: It’s hard to illustrate Five Whys, so I sketched a design interview where the interviewer used “Five Whys” to get me to engage in design thinking.
