week 4 - design principles / usability goals

Decide how far and in what ways usability goals or design principles appear to be represented in the design of your mobile phone 

Scenario

John is in the meeting and so cannot be interrupted.. This also means he has to turn his phone onto silent to avoid any phone calls and message alerts being heard by his colleagues quickly.

Function: Switch phone to silent.

To turn the phone onto silent, you have to flick the button on the side of the phone down. From previous phones, switching to silent was rather tedious. It may have involved going into the settings on your phone and finding it from there from various sub folders. It isn't very efficient as putting your phone on silent is possibly one of the most important and helpful features of a phone. And so it makes sense to create a simple button the side of the phone, to instantly put it into silent. Essentially this isn't a cultural convention as of yet. This is particular to apple phones.  

But with this slight alteration john can easily change his phone to silent without unlocking his phone and in a fraction of the time of another phone. 

Possibly if other manufactures adapt this feature, then it would be a cultural convention, amongst phones and so changing to silent will not be so tedious. 




Scenario 2
John is on the train and has to quickly look at emails on the move, and to talk to his business clients.


Function : check emails and call a person.


For john to check his emails he essentially has to connect his email account to the iphone. This is done by going into settings --> mail --> add account. He then has to sign into the account. Once completed it will a be connected to his phone. To quickly check his email, at the home screen he can press the mail button which will instantly show all his mail, and also download any new mail. Again this isn't a cultural convention. It is a learning convention. This is attended by the manufacture for you to learn, but once completed, makes using the phone much simpler, as he will always have his account connected to his phone, when he presses the mail button. It is much more efficient this way , rather than going onto the phones web browser and accessing mail.


As for calling his client, the steps he has to take involves pressing the phone button on the home screen. This opens his contact to which he can press onto, and then press call.  This in turn is a cultural convention amongst other phones, as all phones will need to go through the contacts to call a particular person you know. He will also have to hang up when finished and so within our culture , green means 'go', and red means 'stop' and so pressing the red button will 'stop' the call. And so it makes sense for this layout off the big red 'end call' button to stop the call.






Essentially the iphone's user centered design is hard to comment on has apple as looked at all areas of usability.

IDEO blog + reading week 3

PICTURE OF TOWEL RAIL

• it shows a picture of a newspaper on a towel rail
• he is using the towel bar to rest his newspaper on.
• essentially the rail isn't intended to be used in this way

PICTURE OF MAN WALKING ON LINE

• man is walking on a blue line. A blue line technically shows what direction to go to reach a certain destination i.e a train station.
• the line is also to split which way people go to and from this destination. On the left side people walk towards and on the right side people walk away. It splits up the crowd and makes it easier for people to navigate.
• instead one man decides to follow the line and walk on top of the line rather than on the left side of the line.

MY DESIGN CHANGE ON THE LINE

• my interpretation of the line is to split which direction people are going to and from a given destination.
• to make this clearer i would possibly add arrows on the floor, on a given distance to show which way you should be walking.
• this would show where to walk in regards to the line and also which side to stay between the line.
• a similar design has already been implemented with bicycle and walking lanes and so adding arrows o the floor would be effective i believe.

READING WEEK 3

'explain she and her team at IDEO uses images to inform design , and discuss one example she gives.'

The team uses images as a invitation to look, in a newly focused way, at ourselves and our everyday environments. She uses the images in a way to give a different perspecitive of what is happening , which can then inspire thpughts and design opportunites.

She also says that each image encourages the observers own interpretation and speculation about the situation.

one example she gives is of a picture in which open umbrellas resting on parking scooters in the street are shown. She believes this might suggest myriad functional opportunites and scenarios; for street furniture with shades, for vehicle seats finished with less heat absorpsive material, or for garments with insulated seats. 


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'ethnography is a natural fit with persuasive computing, why?'


because persuasive computing is about technology being a part of our lives naturally and without us knowing its there any more. We are costumed to it. Such as always having the internet wherever you are. 


This fits into ethnography as ethnography is about observing the natural use of technology in real situations. And so this can lead onto good product design. 
Good product design is in the back bone of persuasive computing as persuasive involves technology being one with our life. And so this is only really achieved through good product design.

Reading, week 2 (Usability)

1)
Definition of 'Usability in-life.'
Usability in-life is essentially evaluating an product, item or event in the real world to see how effective it is use. For instance, self service checkout machines. To evaluate them, you would get a strong number of users, e.g 10 and give them tasks to be completed in a supermarket and a specific time e.g buy 1 banana and 1 apple and 1 bottle coke. You would note down the time taken, compared to using a cashier, the users mood e.g fustrated or satisfied and the time taken compared to using a cashier.

2)
Difference between 'usability in itself' & 'usbaility in-life'.
Usability itself is primarily focused on pre-scripted tasks which are conducted away from the 'world' such as in a lab in an controlled environment. Although you are still getting results from these tests, the users may have no real motivation or reason to do these tasks. The tasks may not be relevant to real life activities, for instance if you are testing an ticket machine, one task may be 'please buy a single ticket from Liverpool to London on a ticket machine..' Here the time may be taken from several users and then compared on a base time.

As for usability in-life, the tasks may be occur in a natural environment , but will be the same as the 'usability itself' task ; 'please buy a single ticket from Liverpool to London on a ticket machine..' But as it would be done in the 'real' world users will face other natural tasks and obstacles such as pedestrians and rush hour. The information noted, when the users are completing these tasks would be how successfully it was done, the expressions and frustrations, how many people gave up and comparisons with the 'human' service.

Reading, Week 1

Extract - ' What is everywhere?'

Having read the extract, I highlighted some quotes from which I believe some to be an definition of pervasive computing and some to be examples. 

bold = definitions

italics = examples 

_______________________________________________________________________________

Thesis 01

• "...'ubiquitous' meant not merely 'in every place,' but also 'in every thing.' "
• " Ordinary objects, from coffee cups to raincoats to the paint on the walls, would be reconsidered as sites for he sensing and processing of information"
• "And as mobiles phones began to percolate into the world, each of them nothing but a connected computing device, it was inevitable that some one would think to use them as a platform for the delivery of services beyond conversation."
• "Ubiquitous networking: the effort to extent network access to just about any place people would think to go. "
• " Meanwhile, at the human-machine interface, the plummeting cost of processing resources meant that long-dreamed of but computationally-intensive ways of interaction, such as gesture recognition and voice recognition, were becoming practical; they would prove irresistible as elements of a technology that was, after all, supposed to be invisible but everywhere.

Thesis 02

• "interactive surfaces, in which desks, walls, doors and even ceilings were reimagined as input/output devices; 'ambients,' which used phenomena such as sound, light and air currents as peripheral channels to the user; and 'tangibles,' which leveraged the 'graspable and manipulable' qualities of physical objects as provisions of the human interface."

Thesis 03

• "Many such objects are already invested with processing power - most contemporary cameras, watches and phones, to name the most obvious examples, contain micro-controllers..."
• "many embedded microprocessors we encounter elsewhere in our lives, generally without being aware of them. They pump our brakes i our cars, cycle the compressors in our refrigerators, or adjust the water temperature in our washing machines, yet never interact with the wider universe. They cant be queried or addressed by remote systems, let alone interact directly with a human user."
• "..more ambitiously, as we'll see, some designers are exploring how the possibilities inherent in an everyday object can be thoroughly transformed by the application of information technologies like RFID, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and mesh networking.
• "When everyday things are endowed with the ability to sense their environment, store metadata reflecting their own provenance, location, status, and use history, and share that information with other such objects, this cannot help but redefine our relationship with such things."

Persuasive Computing, Ubiquitous Computing, Ambient computing, Disappearing computing!

The definitions of pervasive computing

1)Refers to the use of computers in everyday life, including PDAs, smartphones and other mobile devices. It also refers to computers contained in commonplace objects such as cars and appliances and implies that people are unaware of their presence. One of the Holy Grails of this environment is that all these devices communicate with each other over wireless networks without any interaction required by the user.

- pcmag.com

 2)The idea that technology is moving beyond the personal computer to everyday devices with embedded technology and connectivity as computing devices become progressively smaller and more powerful.

- http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/pervasive_computing.html

The definitions of ubiquitous computing 


1)Ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) is a post-desktop model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities. In the course of ordinary activities, someone "using" ubiquitous computing engages many computational devices and systems simultaneously, and may not necessarily even be aware that they are doing so. This model is usually considered an advancement from the desktop paradigm. More formally Ubiquitous computing is defined as "machines that fit the human environment instead of forcing humans to enter theirs.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquitous_computing

2)We define ubiquitous computing environments as learning environments in which all students have access to a variety of digital devices and services, including computers connected to the Internet and mobile computing devices, whenever and wherever they need them. Our notion of ubiquitous computing, then, is more focused on many-to-many than one-to-one or one-to-many, and includes the idea of technology being always available but not itself the focus of learning.
Moreover, our definition of ubiquitous computing includes the idea that both teachers and students are active participants in the learning process, who critically analyze information, create new knowledge in a variety of ways (both collaboratively and individually), communicate what they have learned , and choose which tools are appropriate for a particular task. ( definition in regards to learning)

- http://www.rcet.org/ubicomp/what.htm

The definitions of Ambient Computing 


1)In computing, ambient intelligence refers to electronic environments that are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people. n an ambient intelligence world, devices work in concert to support people in carrying out their everyday life activities, tasks and rituals in easy, natural way using information and intelligence that is hidden in the network connecting these devices . As these devices grow smaller, more connected and more integrated into our environment, the technology disappears into our surroundings until only the user interface remains perceivable by users.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_intelligence

The definitions of Disappearing computing


1)A vision of the future is one in which our world of everyday objects and places becomes infused and augmented with information processing and exchange. In this vision, the technology providing these capabilities is unobtrusively merged with real-world objects and places, so that in a sense it disappears into the background, taking on a role more similar to electricity - an invisible pervasive medium.

- http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DisappearingComputer

2)The goal of making the computer disappear can happen in different ways. Disappearance can take different forms such as 

• physical disappearance refers to the miniaturization of devices and their integration in other everyday artefacts as, e.g., in clothes, so that you don’t see them anymore.
• mental disappearance refers to the situation that the artefacts can still be large but they are not perceived as computers because people discern them as, e.g., interactive walls or interactive tables. Thus, technology moves mentally into the background

Essentially disappearing computing is technology evolving to become apart of our life without us noticing. Such as computer tables and tvs embedded into our walls and speakers under the floor etc.




Analyse 


1.Essentially pervasive , ubiquitous and ambient computing are the same things with very slight differences. Each involve expanding technology into all walks of life and everyday objects as well as expanding current technology to be smaller and more powerful. The main aim is so that computers and machines fit into our lives rather than us trying to fit into  theirs.


As for the differences between them, each definition emphasizes slightly different aspects of the generic term pervasive or ubiquitous computing. For instance  persuasive and ubiquitous computing essentially both mean extending the computer outside of the personal computer. I.e putting computers in the common place and in everyday activities. 
Ambient computing is a slight branch of this term in which it involves technology which responds to human interaction and presence in a electronic environment. the technology particularly plays with out senses.
Disappearing computing is another branch of the generic term in which it involves integrating computers into our everyday lives without us realising that we are using a computer. For instance computerised tables. Essentially its still expanding computers in everyday activities, but its making them a part of our lives without the realisation that they are there.


All these definitions fit into group called a paradigm where technology is everywhere in our lives.