Infx 242 Spring 2007

Culturally Embedded ?

2007-05-31T10:06:29Z

In the paper, “Culturally Embedded Computing,” the author developed the Trigger Spray Bottles to meet user’s need. To increase its accessibility, the shape of the bottle is designed like a book. The idea looks very good. However, is it a really good design practice for designing ubiquitous technology? I think the design of the Book Bottles has already broken current culture, even though it is designed to fit a user’s need. For example, many people have put a Windex in their pantry or cabinet intuitively when either they get a new one or after use it. And, when they need it, they may go to the pantry to find a Windex without thinking. Absolutely, I think if I got a Book Bottle Windex, I would put it in a bookcase where I can easily remember and reach. However, when I need to use the Windex, maybe, I will go to a cabinet first because the Windex has been supposed to be in there for long time, and then I may realize that I put it in the bookcase. And, after do this again for several times, I think I will move it into the cabinet from the bookcase because it should be in there.

Culturally embedded design

2007-05-31T07:29:49Z

While I was reading the paper, I almost continuously kept smiling. I guess the craziness in their designs produced that effect. Anyways, try to involve the user into the design is what all companies are trying to do today. But they do it later stages of the development, where it more testing than designing. As we see in the paper, users can be quite innovative and helping during the design of everyday simple appliances. Although I agree to the potential help that could come from the users, I think it can only mainly be at the user interface level in complex technologies. Obviously, you cannot expect a user to come up with a new pipelining algorithm for the small CPU in their cell phone! But they may productively comment and invent on its functionality and interface which I find it useful

On the other, I had this weird feeling when reading the paper. Culturally embedded computing! I don't want computers to understand my emotions! I want them to ask me how I am! and certainly don't want them to behave according to my mood in the general mood in the office. I have friends, family and other people to share emotions and talk to and cannot understand why would somebody want to be a friend with a computer! I just want it to work fast and do what it is supposed to do. Trying to embed something into culture or into people's sounds crazy to me. I agree that the artifacts should be usable but certainly don't want them to be unpredictable (e.g. responding to my mood). They are tools to get things done and I wouldn't like something unpredictable on the way to achieve the main goal. Embedded here may mean extremely usable so that it smoothly fits into our lives without any noticing, but this is simply not possible for every brand new technology. If it is not directly interacting with the user (such as electronic stability control in cars) it may be embedded without a notice but if it directly interacts with the user and It was not there before, it cannot be embedded no matter how it is designed but needs to be getting used to. Involving people into the improvement process of a product makes sense (such as a spray bottle they are using for years) but it is quite questionable how much they can help on inventing a quantum computer. I can just see that they will try to make its user interface similar to today's computers so that they can easily understand and use but this kind of help can just slow down the improvement in technology by preventing any dramatic change and big innovations.

heavy emotional stuff

2007-05-31T07:24:12Z

going over these articles again I found one thing that I am confused about. While I enjoy and happily agree with and embrace notions such as complex engagement, strangeness, value-sensitive, and engaging and being engaged in an ongoing process of reflecting, designing, idea generating, creating,..., I am not sure what to think of the "designing for an emotional climate" - "the information we want to portray, emotional climate, is qualitative, ambiguous, and nondiscrete." Yup makes sense I would say - however compared to what Marisa mentioned earlier about the other systems, that they shared more than the actual strategies, the related system design, miro doesn't speak to me. I understand the intentions, I like the idea with the survey and emotional journals, but I am not quite sure how that all comes together in the reflection of an emotional climate. I am wondering then, when do system designs and when do strategies speak to us? I would like to see them as a complementary system - one won't work without the other. I liked what comes after the description of Miro: the whole design process drew attention to the affect and engaged in discussions and reflections.
And again - the miro system, maybe exactly because I didn't like it that much when I first read about it (especially compared to the other design ideas which I found really interesting), it made me think a lot, it made me mad and frustrated, and consequently kinda heavy emotionally involved - probably more than the other designs that I quickly embraces as 'hey cool idea'...

Understanding culture...

2007-05-31T07:08:00Z

I’m really interesting about cultural issue and personal experience because I am international student. Sometimes, I felt cultural differences in my campus life. Two instances which are somewhat different domain show cultural difference.
The first, the Samsung cell phone’s brand name is “Anycall” in South Korea which means people can call anywhere. However, they do not use this brand name in the United States because “Anycall” have completely different nuance. So they gave up using this brand in the United States. If they did not consider cultural difference, maybe they could not sell their phone a large numbers as now.
The second, I read the news about baseball pitcher’s birth vacation who is a foreigner sportsman in South Korea requests about birth vacation to see his new baby. The Korean head coach did not understand his birth vacation for 3weeks, but the coach admitted the vacation because he thought it is a cultural difference. If the head coach did not understand cultural difference, the player did not play anymore in baseball team in South Korea. As I mentioned as above, the cultural issues are as important as technology. Although “Culturally embedded computing” paper shown us nonsense example such as cleaning device, I like their basic concept.

Interesting ...

2007-05-31T05:28:35Z

A graduate of the ITP program at NYU, Fiona Carswell's most recent work involves "exploring reflective design as it relates to the body, behavioral choices, and information displays." The Smoking Jacket features a pair of lungs that fill with smoke every time the user inhales, becoming a literal visual representation of what's happening inside the body. The Malignant Mole Bikini looks just like any other two-piece until the user steps into the sun, exposing the material to UV light, which triggers random moles to appear all over the suit.

Two sides of the design coin

2007-05-31T05:20:19Z

Let's assume for a moment that the "goodness" of a design is inversely proportional to the cost of change. In other words, if a team makes a change to some software and that change is easy to make, the design is "good." If the change is hard to make, the design is "bad." (Let's also assume that the software works, is scalable, performant, etc: we're talking about internal quality here, not external quality.)

An interesting side-effect of this definition is that the quality of a design is context sensitive. It depends on the feature you're being asked to implement and the team that's doing the implementation. A design that's good for an expert team isn't necessarily good for a novice team, and a design that's good for one kind of change isn't necessarily good for another.

Pretty straightforward stuff, perhaps even obvious. Now let's talk about what this means for design. Most people, when they think of design, think of predictive design. In predictive design we:
anticipate future needs,
predict how the design will change,
and invent a design that can accomodate those changes easily.

Because predictive design focuses on predicting the future, it values experience and forward thinking. To become better at predictive design, people study design patterns, which at their best are the condensed wisdom and experience of dozens of programmers. When utilizing predictive design, designers will think about what is likely to change and create abstract classes, interfaces, and plug-in points to allow programmers to easily add classes to support specific kinds of new features.

There's another side to design, though, one that experienced designers use every day. We just don't talk about it much. Reflective design - In reflective design we:
analyze existing code,
identify design flaws,
and fix them using refactoring.

Reflective design focuses on analysis and modification of existing code, so it values code clarity and refactoring. To become better at reflective design, people study code smells, which at their best are concise heuristics for recognizing design flaws. When utilizing reflective design, designers will create simple code that has no unused infrastructure and eliminates duplication, allowing programmers to easily modify existing classes to support arbitrary change.

Two Sides, One Coin: These two approaches are not only compatible, they can be used concurrently. A project can use predictive design at the high level while simultaneously using reflective design at the low level. According to Lean Software Development, Raymonde Guindon studied design in 1990 ("Designing the Design Process") and found that experienced designers constantly reviewed and modified their design as they designed an elevator control system. This matches my experience with programmers as well. I would argue that programmers have always used reflective design.

Neither one of these approaches is necessarily better than the other. Both predictive and reflective design are equally valid approaches to design. Good designers use the same underlying heuristics to judge "good" design regardless of the approach they're using.

Reflection and Diffraction

2007-05-30T19:27:40Z

Since we mentioned Donna Haraway and diffraction - I found a paper that might be interesting in that regard: http://csc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2/4/460
he calls it reflexivity not reflection though and describes it in relation to ethnographic practice

What if the prefect design is not easily available for society to use?

2007-05-30T07:47:41Z

I agree that it is not in society’s best interest to do nothing while companies shape our utopian vision with their commercialized one. However, there is a small necessity, I think, for the design to also take into consideration marketability. In my opinion a good humanitarian design, for example, can’t benefit society if no company is willing to adapt it, market it, and make it available. I’m not suggesting a large or complete marketability consideration, but some what of one. At least a small one.

Inescapable subjectivity

2007-05-30T07:26:53Z

My biggest bugbear is the oft harping about objectivity (in various 'terms') which all the researchers, writers and speakers suggest, and how we should design, think, evaluate and criticize objectively. For me, it is inherently fallacious to talk about objectivity when the realm of technology that you are dealing with is totally focused on the human 'experience' with technology. We cannot possibly be objective considering that we have to take a certain point-of-view even when critiquing a certain practice or theory which we label as 'subjective'. Prof. Dourish mentioned that one should be careful when assigning a particular meaning to the world 'progress' , but isn't it always the case ? How can one argue what constitutes progress unless there is a common ground on which we can even argue what it could be ? I say that ultimate aim of technology and thus the currency of human progress is the maximization of human potential. How could one prove me wrong unless they take a subjective stand that something else is more important than just maximization of human potential. How can Lillie talk about capitalistic and consumption-based evils of utopian technologies unless he takes a stand that an alternative is more suitable. And if so, then suitable for whom ? You always are representing a certain section of human population when taking a stand in any argument unless you stand for some axiomatic truth about the universe which all agree on.
So what does being objective mean? Isn't it a bastard of subjectivity and denial ?

Again in the paper "Reflective Design", Sengers postulates certain design strategies one of which is 'Interpretive flexibility'. Would it always be applicable ? Isn't the use of such strategy subjective as well ? What if the form and nature of a person's interaction with ta certain echnology is supposed to be deterministic, rather than totally open to interpretation by the user at any given moment? And by deterministic I mean a certain population's point-of-view shoved down the throat of the unwilling. As a functioning society, we have to agree to a certain point-of-view or semantic meaning of a situation or object when we use a common token of meaningful social exchange such as language or abide by laws and social mores. One could design for open interpretation but the field and scope has to be limited. It is like choosing a car, we all have to (though some may not) agree that the car when we are going to buy will have 4 wheels, a transmission, and a approximate physical shape. The 'design-for-experience' aspect which Prof. Dourish espouses comes to the choice of color and upholstery. So, some part fixed and some part flexible. We could debate over what that fixed part would be, but then when the verdict is reached it will adhere to some point-of-view held by certain section of politicians/leaders/designers. So subjectivity is inescapable.

With this cynical point-of-view I culminate my last blog post for this class, it was an enjoyable and learning experience.

back talk

2007-05-30T06:34:42Z

"identifying blind spots and opening new design spaces"
Is there alternative language for the purpose of critical reflection in technology design?
I find the language of the purpose of reflective design a bit odd. They say it is to identify blind spots and open up new design spaces. They talk about value sensitive design but a "blind spot" does not really feel all that value sensitive. It is simply something missed. A design process may have a very particular blind spot, but this doesn't really assign much value to that thing that gets missed. A blind spot could as easily be a set of problems or solutions missed as values missed. They seem to address when they note the limit of reflective design being "a loosely defined construct" at this point and that the strategies need more development. The 1st strategy to me seems particularly in need of further development. Defamiliarizing, encouraging ambiguity, and buiding open-ended systems, seem like just a start.
The second part of "opening up new design space" bothers me for a different reason. It seems to extend the trope of capital. Technology has its current terrain for design, but hey, over there is virgin terrain that could be opened up. Maybe I'm being nit-picky as their case studies clearly indicate more depth than these words suggest. But I think I agree with them that the project to provide language to share their strategies for reflective design is incomplete. The case studies shared a lot more than their strategies did for me.

"impoverished understanding of human behavior"
I still can't help but feel that this is not enough. If we began with such an impoverished understanding of human behavior the first task may be to enrich. Maybe that is the appropriate place for HCI to be right now. But we should acknowledge that once we get to an enriched place reflection and critical practice should move beyond diversifying the diet of HCI designers and users. Again, that hunger and desire to diversify still sounds a bit to me like that of capital finding new things and terrains to bring into its reach.

Opposing functionality, efficiency, optimaltiy, and task focus with play and emotion... it just seems like a turning away. I guess I'd also like to think more about Haraway's diffraction concept that Silvia brought up. I guess I feel like play and emotion don't (necessarily) diffract, they don't diffract in the design space of functionality, efficiency, optimality, and task focus. They simply, as the authors put it, open up new spaces.

I like the idea of "back talk" from Schoen and wonder what other disciplines have identified as strategies for reflection.

Technology; the good, the bad and the ugly

2007-05-29T07:34:37Z

CoolTown paper ,in my opinion, is pretty successful on out-speaking the hidden ugly face of future technologies that are represented from a positive perspective. I have never seen a commercial of a new ubiquitous technology that claims anything like solving humanity problems like poverty but they just concentrate on individual use cases that can only be experienced by the rich that can effort to buy it. "Technology wherever and whenever you need them" is just the they want us to believe but it will just make us more addicted to it and kill the old alternatives so that we will be willing to pay more for it? It is hard to see any public phones in many countries now since people are addicted to cell phones, and even those who cannot easily afford them are forced to buy them due to the lack of any public pay phones. The more the devices get networked, the more the people can be traced and controlled. It is also never mentioned on these videos. We are presented that the Bob is congratulated by the vending machine but we are not told about another very possible scenario of his boss tracing how much drink he is spending or what he is doing on his computer. In short, all these videos that predict the future technology integration into social life are produced by companies that will make money out of it and they are all painted with the shiny gold color of capitalism. I would like to see a video created by a non-profit organization that try to protect privacy or Greenpeace or a conservative group like a church. These may provide different perspectives on how the future highly networked technologies may affect our social experince.

Augmented Space

2007-05-29T07:00:50Z

Alongside the dawn of ubiquitous computing has come the dawning of an age of technological possibility. As wireless devices and standards broaden what is used of the electromagnetic spectrum, their ubiquity in turn expands what can be made from them. Lev Manovich writes of an “augmented space” existing over the everyday as a plane of existence consisting of dynamic information applicable to specific locales. This is an interesting metaphor for understanding a kind of hybridization that occurs at the intersection of the real, everyday physicality, and the metadata-driven virtuality. Unfortunately, most technological development into systems that allow richer uses of dataspaces fall sort of flat when it comes time to think of their use in culture. Modern systems that hope to engage people in the age of ubiquitous data access will need to address deeper and more complicated needs and wants than simple availability.

There have been many attempts in vain at joining the virtual and the real in consumer products, but these too often forget the nature of being a person in either space. Boost Mobile, a cellular phone service, few months ago, launched a new product line of GPS-enabled cell phones (nothing new in themselves) that were equipped with a mapping service so that people could see where their friends were in real time. The “Where You At” branding of this phone, supports only a tired reading of technological possibility–that of expediting particular efficiency-driven interaction at the cost of disabling potentially richer self-constructed narratives. The phone breaks down all dissembling and bending of the truth that phone conversations so often rely on in practice. Especially with cell phones, able to reach any person at any time, the “white lie” is needed to maintain many sorts of social fictions. In the past, when telephones were built into structures themselves, a person was available or not, and if they were missed, it was no problem: they would be back later. By being a person partially embodied in augmented space, though, means that you should always be accessible. Having these devices constructs your presence into any site, even as this kind of proposed cellular/GPS technology will augment your physicality with a broadcast of your site specificity.

This is not to say that technological development is inevitably moving towards broad spectrum surveillance of our ever-expanding digital bodies. It is beholden on us as technologists, designers, and futurists to imagine a future where this is not the case. I prefer to think of technological design into a space that is not the “always on” vision implied by Manovich’s augmented space, but is instead more of “opt in” construction within the ever-present frame of the electromagnetic spectrum. “Augmentable space” perhaps describes a new kind of development approach that will use the information stream in ways that will promote a richer understanding of what it means to be human in this realm beyond the physical, as well as broadening perspectives of how the augmented space can recontextualize the real.

In modern technological development, everything is made to be bigger, brighter, faster, and better than before. The social benefits of informed criticism that could be coming from technological development are being subjugated by a market that demands ways of doing things more efficiently, simply, and unquestioningly. "Critical technical practices" and critical design processes essentially infuse critical theory into products as they are being developed in order to question the fundamental validity of preexisting practice. Intrinsically, critically designed objects would make a cultural spectacle that serves as an embodiment of particular social ideologies that allow reflective uses and critical understanding of technosociety through interaction. Rather than large-scale data screens, such as the ones in Times Square and elsewhere, serving up information to passive, apathetic consumers, technological intervention into augmentable space should be a response to passivity, actively provoking a reaction.

Recognizing that the choices designers make in shaping systems are guided by their conceptual understandings of the values at play, work must be done to ensure technical designers possess the necessary conceptual tools to foster critical reflection on the hidden assumptions, ideologies and values underlying their design decisions. This is best accomplished by fostering “critical technical practices” within the design community. Formulated by Phil Agre, critical technical practice works to increase critical awareness and spark critical reflection among technical designers and engineers of the hidden assumptions, ideologies and values underlying their design processes and decisions. An example of critical technical practice in action today is the Culturally Embedded Computing Group at Cornell University, which seeks to elucidate the ways in which technologies reflect and perpetuate cultural assumptions, as well as design new computing devices that reflect alternative possibilities. Their work provides a model for integrating critical technical practices into the technical design communities of networked vehicle information systems and web search information infrastructures. In essence, embracing pragmatic tools such as “value-sensitive design” and “critical technical practice,” will ensure attention to political and ethical values becoming integral to the conception, design, and development of technologies and not merely considered after completion or deployment.

Another company..

2007-05-29T06:47:15Z

another vision?

It claims to let me be me...

intel youtube

cooltown video

2007-05-29T04:07:57Z

Hi all,

Here is the link for the original CoolTown video that the paper analyzes.

video: http://www.ibiblio.org/jlillie/cooltown/lillie_files/cooltown7.rm

-Ersin

Freewill and Love

2007-05-29T00:58:16Z

I do discuss the concept of AI's love and loss in my term paper and when I was reading the 'Cooltown' paper, a line resonated with what I am currently thinking : "it is possible that children raised with such interactive machines might be socialized to be able to have emotional relationships with them". It is also related to the example of Bob wherein he is very happy that a printer has called him his favorite human. I have an objection that story. I do understand that small children when growing up with these human-mimicking robots or almost-AI constructs will place them at the same level as of human consciousness but I doubt whether grown-ups will attach the same value to their interaction with AI. I mean, kids even project their vague concept of life-blood entities to teddy bears, they talk to them, love them and care for them. And teddy bears do not even possible the remotest characteristics which future AI would possess, so the experience of small kids should be taken out of the equation.
Talking about grown-ups, I think that humans would never attach any real emotional meaning to what AI or machines say unless they believe that the AI has free-will. Now if a door-knob tells bob that he has been voted the MVE that quarter, he has a reason to be happy as the AI is just regurgitating a real-world fact which has real significance for Bob. However, when a printer says that he is that printer's favorite human, then that is not significant. What is the significance of love without basis and free-will ? Love without reason is meaningless and love without free-will is fraud. Unless future AI develops free-will, I do not think that a robot's sultry voice saying "I like you" would have any significance for any human, rather it saying that 'Statistically, you are a better driver than 95% of other humans" will definitely bring out a smile.