Thursday, February 26, 2009

Lineogrammer: Creating Diagrams by Drawing

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Robert Zeleznik, Andrew Bragdon, Chu-Chi Liu, Andrew Forsberg


Lineogrammer is a program that uses a touch screen and pen input to create diagrams and drawings. There are a few programs out there that are similar, but lineogrammer is trying to be more innovative. The concept behind the program is to find a way to be able to use the program the same way you would be writing with a pen and paper. There are no different modes for example. There is no need to explicitly switch between a drawing mode and editing mode. 
The idea is to use special pen strokes to differentiate between a stroke for drawing and a stroke for editing. The picture above demonstrates how easy it is to flow between drawing and editing. The user is able to draw simple shapes, then remove lines by squiggling over them. They can format text by underlining it, and zoom in on a region by circling it twice. The developers had to find a set of pen strokes that would not be used for drawing. This took lots of time and many focus group sessions.

Although they only have a simple set of editing tools, it allows the user to create complex pictures and diagrams. This complexity mainly comes from their line snapping concept. When a user draws a line, it is snapped to a grid or another line, usually at 90 degree increments. The user is also given one alternative that best fits the line that they actually drew. Many other programs offer sever alternatives, but they found that users did not like having more than one alternative.

They attempted to make selection and fine editing natural as well. Selecting a line or vertex is very straight forward. All the user has to do is simply tap a line or point and it is selected. When a user wants to select a polygon, all they must to is tap inside the polygon and the whole shape is selected.
When there are multiple polygons in the same region that user taps, all the polygons will be selected. The user may then refine their selection, by taping inside the polygons that they wish to unselect.

Another feature they added was a floating toolbar. This toolbar allows for more complex editing that cannot be achieved with simple pen strokes. The users are able to copy and paste and edit different properties of the shape. They can change the color or thickness of the line stroke. They can do advanced things like copy-dragging where a user selects a shape, or set of shapes, then can make multiple copies directly in a row.

One feature that users enjoyed using was the ruler. Instead of having a traditional ruler along the edges of the screen, they decided to make the ruler floating, like a person would if they had one placed over a sheet of paper. The ruler allows users even more editing options. They can take a shape and mirror it over an axis.

 They are able to stretch a shape in any direction linearly using the distribute feature. The best feature users like was the ability to snap multiple shapes to the rule. When users select multiple shapes and the ruler, they can align the shapes along the same edge along the ruler.

All in all, the lineogrammer programs looks very promising and is certainly a step in the direction pen based programs should be going. By attempting to make the program as easy to use as drawing on paper, they allow the users to just start using it very intuitively. If I had a touchscreen computer, and the program was widely available, I would certainly get it to give it a try.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The Design of Future Things

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The Design of Future Things

This book by Don Norman was certainly easier to read and relate to than the previous book I read (The Design of Everyday Things). Since the book was published within the last decade, it was easier to understand some of the points that he was making in the book. Overall though, the book was essentially only about two things: cars and houses. 

He started by talking about how automation is cars is both good and bad depending on how it is implimented and used. This is OK by itself, but with nearly half the book being about automation in cars, it began to feel like he was just running out of ideas and only trying to find something to write about what he already knew. The book is supposed to be about future THINGS, not future cars and houses.

The other half of the book was about future houses. I would have to say that it is about a 50/50 split between the two, but intertwined. He talks about how the fridge will know what you're supposed to be eating by talking to your doctor, looking at your medical records, and even talking to the scale. I found that a lot of the things he states would be possible, but not practical. I cannot see a company spending thousands or millions of dollars to build a fridge that would tell you what you can and cannot eat. If they do, I certainly can't see it actually being marketable.

People do not like being told what they can or cannot do. Even if I am told that something is unhealthy or bad, I still might do it anyway, just because I am human and I have the choice to do so. I can see how cars being automated would be likely, but I do not like the idea of a car going somewhere of its own choosing because it thinks it would be better for me, or because some advertising company talked to my car from a bilboard and said it would be better.

Overall, the book is a nice read, as long as you stick to the first few chapters. After that, it is essentially the same ideas but only with varying concepts.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Friday, February 20, 2009

The Mole People

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The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City by Jennifer Toth is an ethnographic look at the homeless inhabitants that dwell in the tunnels that snake underneath New York City. Jennifer writes the book in from an outsiders perspective looking in on the people. She visits several camps and gathering places and interviews lots of different people from each location. She also writes sometimes from her point of view and her understanding of what is going on. Mostly though, she is only retelling the stories that she is told and essentially a play-by-play of different situations that she found herself in. Overall, the book is a nice read and is not technical at all. The problem I thought though is that she seems very removed from everything. I understand that is what an ethnography is about, but even her descriptions of her encounters with various people are told as if she is not even part of the conversation that they are having with her.

I did learn a lot from the book as well. I knew of people living in tunnels beneath the city, but I was not aware as to the extent. I thought it was very interesting of the size of the groups of people in the tunnels. Even to go as far as having a mayor, police, and a school all for people with no houses or jobs. The way that these groups of people can band together and accomplish this stuff is certainly something to think about. If all these people can organize like this, what is really stopping them from leading a successful life on the surface? She does state that lots of people are in the tunnels because they choose to be. From her descriptions and tales of others, the tunnel life does not seem as bad as surface dwellers would make it out to be, but it is not for everyone. Even with having such a tight knit community, there are still lots of dangers in the tunnels. Many people are there on their own trying to get by and searching for ways to get drugs. If you seem weaker than they are, or even only slightly stronger, they will not hesitate to kill you.

The tunnels are excellent places for crime. People can go on killing sprees without anyone finding out. Police are always hesitant to go into the tunnels when called and track workers who have to frequently enter the tunnels know the rules. If you don't try to mess with them, then will mostly leave you alone. The city has tried and failed countless times to clean up the underworld but no method has made any kind of major improvement on the situation. At this point, as long as they are not upsetting the status-quo, then it should be fine to leave things as is.

Redbox

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The ethnography that I decided to conduct was on Redbox users. I wanted to see how people used the box and how easy it was for them to use it. As a side study, I also looked at the people that were queuing to use the Redbox. I watched how the line grew longer and got shorter as well as its affect on the usage of the Redbox.

The Redbox in question that I was studying is located at the McDonald's on Texas Ave. Over a period of one and a half hours, I recorded data on fifty transactions as well as the nature of the people in line. This was also on a Friday night, typically thought of as movie night for most college students.

The majority of users rented DVDs. there were 35 groups that only rented. Their average transaction time was 2:25. 14 groups returned DVDs with an average transaction time of 46 seconds. One person only browsed, not renting or returning, for 1:22.

The Redbox has been designed to be very efficient at what it does. Returning a DVD is a very quick transaction, only requiring to tell the box that the user is returning a DVD and place it in the slot. Problems start to arise when the user places the DVD in the box incorrectly. Redbox has attempted to solve this problem by placing a label on the DVD case that states which side must be facing the user, but it does not account for the possibility of having the DVD in the case incorrectly.

Another hindrance to the transaction time is the credit card reader. Although the screen and accompanying sticker next to the reader explain the usage, it does not provide adequate feedback when used incorrectly. If the card is swiped in the wrong direction, it is not explained to the user. The only feedback the user will receive is a flashing red light for a few seconds after their card is swiped incorrectly. This is not immediate either, causing people who did use the card reader correctly to pause briefly, waiting to see if they did it correctly themselves.

One interesting thing to note about the people queuing in line is their inherent laziness. Throughout the evening, both the direction, and formation of the the line changed almost as quickly as people entered and left the line. When the line was short, people queued up very nicely behind each other. As the line grew and a bit more time passed, the line began to shift into the parking lot. At first the people were taking up a parking spot, but still remained in a relatively straight line. As even more people filed in, they has to spread out as to not stand in the way of traffic passing through. There are only six parking spots relatively close to the Redbox as well as one handicapped spot. When the six regular spots were full, some people bravely took the handicapped spot to save them the walking distance across the lot.

In conclusion, the Redbox has been designed very efficiently and allows for quick transactions but some improvements can be made. Having a separate slot for returns would allow a person to return a DVD at the same time another person is renting one. There would have to be some kind of timing system so the DVDs will not interfere with the other transaction, but should be possible. The card reader feedback could be better designed. Possible to allow the card to be read in either direction that it is swiped. The location of the Redbox could be better places, or possibly some signs can be placed to state which direction to form a line as to keep people on the sidewalk and out of the parking lot.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Media Turing Test

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The Media Equation by Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass was an interesting read about people's perception of media as real people and places. Essentially the authors describe different social rules and norms, replace people with the word computer, do some experiments to prove their predictions and report their findings. To sum things up completely, the authors essentially state that, in any given situation between two people or a person and a place, when the other person or place is replaced with some form of media (TV, computer, picture) the person will have the same reaction regardless. 

Though I agree with many of their findings, I felt that their approach to explaining how they went about their experiments was a bit dry and repetative. There were a few experiments that I was amazed at the results by. The one in particular about specialization is the one that I thought was most interesting. The rule is that people will accept certain infomation from a specialist person more readily than the same information from a generalized person. The hypothesis is that information presented by a specialist TV will be accepted and remembered more than the same information from a generalized TV. What they did to prove this was choose a clip of a news program and a clip from a movie to use as the control. For half the participants, both clips were shown on a single TV labled general, and the other half watched the news program on a news TV and the movie clip on the entertainment TV. Shocking enough, the people watching the programs on the specialized TVs though that they were more informative and entertaining.

Overall, though, the book was a different view on how emerging trends in media were starting to embed themselves into the cultural and societal rules.

Friday, February 6, 2009

I'm Sorry, It's My Fault

So I was listening to Pandora (www.pandora.com) tonight and came across this:

I thought this was an excellent example of positive feedback and design. For those who have never used Pandora, it is an Internet radio, but customizable so that it will tailor itself to your specific listening style. This post is not about Pandora as a service, but specifically about the displayed error message. Normally, the area in question would display information about the current artist and song that is playing, but unfortunately and error has occurred. Instead of coming straight out and saying "An error has occurred" or saying nothing at all, like most sited would do, Pandora takes a very nice and polite approach. The massage makes you feel nice, like there is another person on the other side controlling everything, or some other form of sentience, and they are taking full responsibility of the problem. Personally, this made me actually feel a little better about it, as if i could just say, "Hey, don't worry about it, these things happen. Go ahead and try again." Even though, I know for a fact, there is not another person on the other side the way the message is presented, makes it feel as if there is.

This is just another excellent example of a program taking on a human personality and certainly providing excellent feedback to the user.