UCI Informatics 282 | Fall 2018
Introducing ArtifactQuest, the interactive augmented reality game for children of all ages. Using Balboa Park as our first test site, we have created a new educational tool to explore and link together all the different museums and historical sites from the area.
A Thanksgiving Eve poem for our neighborhood cat. We have named him George.
(Based off ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’)
I did warn everyone in one of my other assignments that I will probably have a lot about Balboa Park in these location assignments. It’s far too close to my house and convenient to explore. One of my favorite things about this assignment was that I got to explore places of the Park that I have never been before. I thought in all probability I would end up over in the main area closer to my house and that I have done some other assignments about. However, one of the first things that happened was a trip down into the valley and over to the other side of the Park. I don’t spend as much time over there and because of that, it brought me to all sorts of interesting spots that I hadn’t visited often, if at all.
Most of the noise came from traffic. Human noise really only came into play when I went through the disc golf course which was hopping on a Friday afternoon. The terrain ranged from shady tree-filled valleys to very open dirt trails along the ridges of the major hills. I started to worry about getting sunburned once I reached the point of no shade at all.
One of the things I noted was that there was not as much tourism on this side of the Park. There really aren’t any large attractions like the Zoo or Museums to visit. The areas were mostly locals and therefore much more quiet and serene. People were out for a picnic, a jog or just reading a book. A few times I found myself on larger roads but for the most part, I was on trails that wound behind and around the public recreation areas. I went past the municipal pool, a second archery range, baseball fields, tennis courts, picnic areas, the golf course, disc golf and finally ended in the vicinity of the velodrome. Yes… there is one of those and they do amateur races!
At the end of the trip, the Park had once again amazed me how it managed to fit so many diverse activities into an area while still managing to maintain quiet and nature filled spots in which to lose yourself. I did have a bit of an adventure getting myself back home as well and stumbled upon more unique areas in the process.
Some photos from my travels:
Shown here are three different scaled images around the Balboa Park playhouse. Spoiler alert for future assignments… I love the Park and there’s so many different areas I can talk about! View the full pdf here.
I chose Balboa Park as the area for this project. It is literally right across the street from my home and is a huge part of the city center in San Diego.
One of the first things you will notice is it is massive and includes a lot of different things within it. It has many museums, activity areas, the Navy medical center and also the San Diego Zoo! I narrowed my area of focus to the central section of the park as that is more easily walkable.
In a town frequently plagued by drought and with a dry desert-like climate, things tend to be relatively brown throughout the city. Water is expensive and gardening in the sandy soil can be difficult. Balboa Park presents an array of greenery that is often not seen elsewhere in the city.
The Park houses a rose garden, Japanese Friendship Garden, Botanical Building, desert garden, Spanish garden and several others. There has been much time and money invested to keep these plants alive in the dry and sunny climate.
Balboa Park is a tourist destination in San Diego. The draw of the world-renown zoo and large variety of museums along with the unique architecture ensures there is always a tour group to be seen. Tour guides are easy to spot as they generally have some sort of small unique banner on a thin pole. Occasionally there will be larger crowds of people being loaded onto or off of tour buses. A wide variety of languages can be heard throughout the crowds both in organized tour groups and smaller groups of visitors.
There are four parking lots in the center area of Balboa Park, the largest being next to the San Diego Zoo. Despite all being rather large, there is always a shortage of parking spaces, especially on weekends. People regularly have to find street parking along one of the main streets or in a surrounding neighborhood. Because of the number of people who enjoy the various activities and the good chance that there will be a long walk between parking and destination, there have been additional transportation options established. One option is a shuttle tram which takes people between several stops. The electric scooter system that is used around the city as a whole as well as bicycles are popular options as well and also allow one to use them in areas of the Park closed to vehicles.
Throughout the hallways and plazas of the Park you can hear all different kinds of music. People come and play their chosen instruments for visitors. I have heard people singing, playing guitar, flute, violin, drums and other instruments. There is also the Spreckles Organ Pavilion which is home to an outdoor organ where organists play concerts weekly as well as for special events such as holiday celebrations.
Despite hosting such large groups of people on a regular basis, the size of Balboa Park allows pockets of space around corners and down hills to remain relatively isolated. They are just far enough off the regular path, often down hills and away from the main attractions.
Aviation charts are a great example of how much information you can pack into a map and have that map represents a three-dimensional space that one can navigate through.
The first principle I will touch on with this chart is the concept of progressive disclosure. This principle is more a part of the holistic design of aviation charts as opposed to within this one example. There is one chart that covers the entire area of southern California. Within this area there are also more in-depth detailed Terminal Area Charts (TACs) for San Diego and Los Angeles.
This is the same for most large cities throughout the US. It allows higher detail for more complicated and cluttered areas of airspace and rules. The mini-map in the legend of the chart depicts this layout of information and highlights the current chart in dark blue to alert the user to the area depicted.
Obviously in a map or chart, the principle of wayfinding is paramount in both the design and functionality of the charts. The depiction of the runways is a way this type of chart aids in orientation as well as destination recognition within this concept. The illustration of the runways actually aligns with how the specific airfield is laid out. When you have multiple airfields that are close together, it can sometimes be difficult to tell grey strips of concrete apart when viewing at a distance and height. However, if you know how the runways are going to be oriented based on the direction from which you approach, it resolves ambiguity.
The design principle of color also plays a huge role within the chart. There are three different type of color keys used to display information. One is specific to the lettering and line usage itself. Visibility of information is important when navigating complicated areas. With the volume of information displayed, having a new color for each new type of airspace or symbols would be overwhelming to the user. Therefore they have selected the shades, black, magenta, and blue, to display all of the information on the chart. They use shading and patterns more than color to differentiate areas and zones.
Another way the chart uses color is to highlight areas of dense population in yellow. This is a choice that easily maps to the brain as densely populated areas will be lit up in mostly yellow-toned lights when flying at night. The last color use is chosen with terrain. The scale for terrain coloring is in the chart on the left. This chart also easily maps with how we might see the color of terrain change from a low valley in green to a rocky mountain in red.
These are all charts for flying visually around an area (VFR = Visual Flight Rules). Instrument charts look very different as a pilot no longer has to match the look of the ground up to what he or she sees on a chart.
I was just out on the water to ride a few waves. Seemed like a simple plan. Suddenly everything blurred around me and I was in the middle of a desert headed down the side of a dune.
A cat showed up, it’s head exploded and became an angel. The sun got really bright, yellow and pointy as I became one with the water.
Then there was a man… I mean, he was a dragon man… or maybe he was just a dragon…
It was all very confusing.
Home seating
This is the couch in my living room. I love this couch. It is comfortable without being too plush and unsupportive. My cats enjoy sitting on the upper areas (hence the hair-covered blanket hung over the back of the couch) and observing my work from their vantage point. I sit here when relaxing and watching a TV show with my husband or occasionally when working on my laptop. Sometimes I put my feet up on the ottoman and work on my lap. Sometimes I have my computer sitting on the couch with me bent over my legs to type.
This is my desk chair at home. I have a gaming PC that I have built and upgraded over the years in my home office. I also occasionally work from home. I can hook up my laptop to my larger monitor and have a dual screen system to work with which is wonderful when I am working as a software engineer. I usually sit cross legged in my chairs (often with a cat in my lap) and having “floating” arms like these is hugely important for my comfort while sitting and working.
Over the years of vibrations in helicopters and pulling G’s in training aircraft, I have developed some lower back problems that make sitting for long periods uncomfortable. Because of this, my husband has turned my home desk into a sit/stand desk. He actually found a kit that would allow him to take my current desktop and add expanding legs with a motor. It has been a huge improvement in my ability to work (and play) from my home office.
I also sit on my floor a good amount in my office to read or to work on my laptop on the floor. If I want to sit but don’t feel comfortable in a chair because of my back, this is the best option for me. It allows me to stretch out my back and legs while I work. The downside is that cats like to attempt to attack the mouse pointer on the screen or lay on top of my keyboard while I work to demand attention.
Work seating
This is my chair in the office. I also have a sit/stand desk at my workplace so I only spend about half my time sitting. This chair has arms similar to my home office chair so I can sit cross legged or on one of my feet while I’m working through my most frustrating software problems.
This chair is one in the conference room we have at work. It is hard and uncomfortable with no cushion at all. An unfortunate side effect of this chair in this room is the volume of noise it makes when moved. We do a lot of conference calls with clients and remote team members. It is always painfully obvious if someone comes in late or has to move around the room at all. I think in some ways it is the perfect chair for a conference room because it encourages people to hold short meetings and also be on time for scheduled events.
Unfortunately…
Here are the other chairs in the conference room.
Surrounding the conference table of uncomfortable chairs is a series of extremely cushioned couches. Everything that those uncomfortable chairs did to shorten meetings is undone by the comfortable couches. While the microphones sit on the table with the wooden chairs, other members can sit back and extend meetings from their couch-perched peanut gallery if wanted.
Commuter seating
This is the driver’s seat of my 2007 Honda Fit. Kemosabe (my car’s name, don’t judge!) is my first and only car since I graduated college. He has transported my life and cats across the country multiple times over the past 11 years.
Unfortunately with my back problems now, the cushion and lumbar support offered by my base model car is no longer cutting it for my body. After any long stretch of time in the car, I have pretty excruciating back pain. My husband has a lumbar roll that I have to borrow for any car trip longer than about 2 hours.
I’m now in the market for a new car. On my list of amenities?
Better back support.
This bike was how I commuted to my development bootcamp for 4 months this summer. It has a great seat for a bike and helped me maintain daily activity while I spent a good amount of time staring at a computer screen for the rest of the day.
An item I love…
This bracelet hair tie holder. As someone with longer hair who is perpetually living in a warm location, I have always been in the habit of wearing an extra hair tie around my wrist “just in case” I want to pull my hair back. Even when I’m dressed up to go to a nice event, I would often find myself still with a hair tie around my wrist because I never knew when hairstyle breakdown or sweat (or one because of the other) would occur. Often the best hair ties would be too tight on my wrist and cut into my skin slightly, leaving an uncomfortable line around whichever wrist was bearing the elastic that day.
Enter the bracelet… the solution to all of the hair tie problems!
The circular nature affords being wrapped around the wrist like any sort of cuff bracelet. The outwardly curved nature provides a constrained path for the elastic to sit and not slip off the curved surface as it wraps around your wrist.
It is such a simple and elegant solution to every issue stated above with keeping a hair tie always around your wrist. It maintains the easy accessibility by allowing the elastic to still be present around the wrist at all times. It slightly lifts the hair tie off the wrist, preventing the elastic from digging into the skin. Additionally, it appears as a simple bracelet in any attire, allowing wear in even to the most sophisticated events without drawing attention.
Some of you in the cohort may have seen me wearing this bracelet in our intensive and never even noticed it’s true purpose!
An item I hate…
The light switch in my laundry room. There is absolutely nothing intuitive about the light switch for controlling the overhead light in my laundry room.
Seems like an easy solution, right? But you notice the switch appears to the “off” despite the light being obviously on.
The initial thought since I live in an old house is that maybe the switch was installed backwards. Seems logical! This happens all the time. If you toggle the light switch to the “on” position, the outside light turns on.
Looking around the room, there is no other switch visible. If you go into the small bathroom just off the laundry room, there is only one switch which controls the over-sink light in that space. If you go into the kitchen, there is only a single switch controlling the overhead light in the kitchen. There is no visible way to turn on or off the laundry room light.
Let’s explore the space further….
There is nothing along the baseboards, no pull strings for the light overhead.
But there is a closet…
Opening the closet door yields no obvious ways to turn on the light switch.
You have to look deeper.
Yes, this is the switch to turn on the laundry room light. When we first moved into this house (we rent), the outdoor motion sensitive light was burnt out and therefore yielded no cue that the switch on the wall inside did not control the one light inside the space. After changing the lightbulb several times, we were convinced that the light was improperly wired and called the maintenance company.
The arrows in the above picture were added by the maintenance man… after he climbed into our attic crawlspace chasing wires because he also could not find the real switch.
They have been left there for posterity.
The ceiling of The British Museum’s “Great Court”
The glass ceiling of the inner courtyard, dubbed “The Great Court,” encloses the largest public indoor space in Europe. The idea was that wherever you walk in the space, you would get a different view of the ceiling. All of the panes of glass are slightly different in size due to the curved nature of the ceiling which further enhances this effect.
Why I love it
Originally the space was an open-air courtyard inside the museum. London does not always have the friendliest weather for outdoor travel so the ceiling performed the needed function of protecting from rain or snow. By choosing glass they preserved the feeling of being outdoors with natural light. It was a much more bold choice to create the entire ceiling out of glass instead of having a solid ceiling with selected skylights which would focus light into only specific locations. I say bold because it implies an openness to anyone and anything inside the museum’s walls, seeming to invite those from all walks of life and from any culture to come visit and partake in the history.
The choice of using triangles creates a view of the sky as if through a kaleidoscope. As you walk around the area, the ceiling seems to twist and turn, spiraling away from the perceiver. The lattice-work shadows also spill across the floor and shift throughout the day with the movement of the sun. The supports branching out from the central circular reading room hint at the interconnected nature of the variety of exhibits from areas around the world.
