Full Blog On Coming Of Age In Somoa

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Paper Reading #19

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Reference Information
Title - Vocabulary Navigation Made Easier
Author - Sonya Nikolova, Xiaojuan Ma, Marilyn Tremaine, Perry Cook
IUI 2010

Summary
   In this paper, a system that would help vocabulary navigation  a lot faster. The goal was to find words a lot easier, especially for those users that have lexical access disorders. Right now, inferior systems, simply use categories of words into hierarchical systems. Which means a user has to know exactly which category category this word belongs in order to locate this word. ViVa, Visual Vocabulary for Aphasia system is used here. Words would be organized into a semantic type network. Past vocabulary searches and human associations help to make relations. The software attempts to structure the search engine toward how the brain structures searches on words.

Discussion

I really enjoyed reading this paper about the vocabulary system. I'm sure it is very hard for lexical impaired users to search and use the computer efficiently. It seems that it would be very useful for dyslexic users. I also liked that they changed the search method from hierarchical structure to a more semantcic type. It seems that if the users are having trouble with lexical information that restricting the search more would be very inefficient. I really like the idea of technology being used more and more to help those who are physically impaired.

Mircoblogs for Things That Make Us Smart

Reference Information

Title - Things That Make Us Smart

Author - Donald A. Norman

Editors - Broadway Books(1993)

Chapter 1

Summary

Norman, in the first chapter, talks and discusses exactlly how and why technology today needs to be more human center. It can really help people, but also hinders brain growth at the same time. He discsses some technologies out there that are intended to aid peoples but usually with just confuse the thought process.

Norman goes on to discuses hard and soft sciences. The soft is about observation and classification, while hard is on physical, accurate measurements. Cognition is also talked about in two types: experiments and also reflective. Reflective deals more with decision-making and thoughts. Experimental is more about reaching people quickly

Discussion

I thought "oh great... another book by Norman" but it turns out this one might be interesting.I like the concept of discussing different technologies and how they help/hinder humans at the same time. I have always felt society is being held back by computers, as far as cognitive groth is concerned.

Chapter 2

Summary

   Here, in Chapter 2, Normans starts discussion Museums. Basically, they are intended to give visitors informative information, but they actually aren;t doing their purpose in teaching. He brings in the experimentsl and reflective cognition from the previous chapter. Norman is hoping that we can find an equal ground between the two instead of favoring one or the other. He brings in the discussion about 3 types of learning: restructing, tuning, accretion. Restructuring is forming a conceptual model, tuning deals with practicing a skill to be an expert, Accretion is being knowledable about facts.

Discussion

   I also really enjoyed this chapter by Norman. I liked his perspective of the Museums and how they are doing very little to help teach us about the past. Also, looking at those 3 times of learning was also veyr interesting to me.

Chapter 3

Summary

     Norman, in chapter 3, talked about different things and how they are represented. He also went on to talk about the effect this has on usage and also memory. The idea of using objects that are unrelated to another object that it represents is also talked about with the idea of cognietive aids.  Representations are very helpful to help capture the world around us in our own personal model. 

Discussion

   I liked Norman's views in this chapter. Cognitive aids are something unique to humans, and seem to be very useful. Personally, i use cognitive aids all the time, especially while studying. Cognitive aids could also come back and be related to object oriented programming

Chapter 4

Summary

    In the 4th chapter Norman talked about different possible cognitive artifacts. He uses several examples such as: passive vs active artifacts, and surface vs internal representations. He discusses for example, that several of these artifacts might be designed incorrectly and cause misuse. It is crucial that these artifacts enhance mental capabilities. 

Discussion

   I thought this chapter was pretty decent. I did like when Norman started talking about surface vs internal representations. It was cool so see his view on the difference between the two. 

Full Blog on Emotional Designn

Reference Information
Title: Emotional Design
Authors: Donald Norman

Publisher: Basic Books 2006

Summary

   In the open Chapter of this book, Donald Norman discusses why attractive things just work better. He explains that positive emotions help boost work ethic due to morale. He talks alot about creativity being influenced through happy thoughts   He explains that there are three levels of processing: visceral, behavioral, and reflective.


     The second chapter deals more with Norman's discussion on processing. He discusses the different levels of processing and how they are able to relate to each other. He discusses more about reflective design (reasoning, interpreting, understanding), visceral design (impact of the product), and behavioral (use and experience) 


     The third chapter also dicusses the 3 different levels of design. Behavioral design is mostly centered around function and usability. Visceral deigns place more importance on how the product appears in the physical space. The basic look and feel of things is important to visceral designers. Finally, the reflective design places its importance on if the product is easy to use based on it's looks 


Discussion
    I kinda liked this book from Norman. Opoosite view from our other reading from him, The Design of Everyday Things. Norman does a very good job of giving the reader a real life example to help them relate to the topic at hand. Some authors do not explain things clearly and cause readers to do outside research to try and understand what is going on
      

Paper Reading #18

Comments
Chris Kam
Shena Hoffmann

Reference Information
Title: Automatic generation of research trails in web history
Authors: Elin Pedersen, Karl Gyllstrom, Shengyin Gu, Peter Jin Hone
IUI ' 10


Summary
   This paper discusses the concept behind research trails. this is a sequence of visited web pages in a particular sequence. A lot of people do research online, however a lot of them have trouble with correct context, according to an ethnography on this topic. This paper uses this for an idea of automatically creating these trails to allow users to figure out when they ended their research. Both semantic and activity evaluations were don't to evaluate a user's history in order to create the trail. Research trails would allow a researcher to see exactly where on the "trail" of research they currently are. In the last part of the paper, the authors discussed how the trails work. The grab topics and search histories in order to group the topics into a trail through Google. Users would be able to see search trails on a new tab

Discussion
    I really enjoyed this paper on Research Trails. I could see how this would be extremely useful. I have never been involved in any type of research but I could see how it would be useful to know where a person left off on research. Also, being able to easily navigate back and forth between research documents would also help in efficiency. I have had to search on Google a lot since college so I would be very interesting in trying this product out.

Microblogs for Why We Make Mistakes

Reference Information:

   Title - Why We Make Mistakes

   Author - Joseph T. Hallinan

   Editors - Crown Archetype 2009

Chapter 0

Summary

     A Mistake/error is a misunderstanding of the meaning/implication of something or a wrong action/statement preceding from faulty judgement. This is the definition, according to Hallinan of an error/mistake. He talks about the idea that the space we live in accounts for the reasoning behind out mistakes. He believes that the world we live in causes and encourages our mistakes

Discussion

    I enjoyed reading this chapter by Hallinan. It was nice to get a different perspective of the idea behind mistakes and errors. I also liked that he talked about many mistakes are encouraged by the world around us. Poor design is the the biggest reason for mistakes and errors in today's world 

Chapter 1

Summary

   In this chapter, Hallinan discusses the idea of human's being able to look at an object but not necessarily pointing out all of the details. This shows that we can only process a certain amount of data at a time and we only notice what we believe is the important things. This also depends on certain things about a person. Some people are very good observers and others simply  have poor vision

Discussion

    Hallinan makes some very good points in this chapter. I enjoyed his discussion on the amount of data interpreted depends on the person trying to do so. It was also cool to look at how much people actually see vs what the notice is around them.

Chapter 2

Summary
      Hallinan discusses human perception more in the chapter. He explains that humans take more importance in sight and sound than actual details of the scene around them. He uses examples like tongue errors and recall errors to explain his point. Hallinan also explains that we shouldn't have to think so hard to create passwords or they will easily be forgotten.


Discussion
     I enjoyed this chapter about memory and settings. I also liked the idea of not thinking to hard when creating passwords. I have created several passwords that at the time seemed unbreakable. They were unbreakable, even I couldn't figure them out.

 

Chapter 3

Summary

  Hallinan continues with his theme in discussion the human mind. He talks a lot about how humans make connections. He brings up the idea of voters using competence to determine which candidate to choose on a ballot. Price on a wine bottle also has an effect on preference as to which bottle people will choose.

Discussion

     I enjoyed Hallinan's take on connecting dots for the human mind. It was interesting to look at the wine idea. People think just because it's more expensive, it must be better. I'm no wine expert but there are some not so expensive wines out there that taste just as good as $50 bottles.  

Paper Reading #17

Comments
Shena Hoffmann
Chris KAm
Reference Information
Title Why UI: Using Goal Networks to Improve User Interfaces
Author: Dustin A. Smith, Henry Lieberyman
IUI


Summary
     The motive behind this paper had to deal with improving user interfaces through user goals. If an application can go as far as understanding what the user wants to do, it can predict tasks for the user and reduce time. A map network of goals is laid out with details like time to get to them are laid out. Previous use of goal networks include: processing natural language, plan recognition, and recommendation systems. Also, the paper goes on to discuss a website that uses goals and plans to grab data for the goal library.

Discussion
   I really enjoyed reading this paper on goal modeling. I really like the idea of applications knowing the goals of users. This could cut down on time used by a dramatic marker. I would really like to use one of the systems to see how smooth it could be during real time use. It seems that this could be helpful for several systems.