Today we created a breadboard circuit closed via a push button switch - power was USB fed through the USB power supply. I used a photoresistor to create a "normally on" switch which disconnected the circuit when light was completely blocked. I decided to 'experiment' with a 9V battery with a regulator as a power supply instead of the USB power we tried in class.
There were some great ideas in Norman's chapter from Psychology of Things. The ideas he drew out for us of the conceptual model and the relationship between the user model and the system image resonates - it in itself is a great design. Another new and valuable idea for me he articulated was the idea that users go through life and the world clumsily interacting with objects and interfaces and feeling bad about themselves. Norman argues that the burden falls upon the designer to ensure that the user's needs are met - not just that the designer's vision and original parameters are achieved. This is achieved through trial and error, observation, revision, and open-mindedness. Norman claims many designs fail because a design team never actually tries to use their design. I love his discovery that bad designs persist because consumers accept them - businesses create huge commissions or orders for a system without collaborating with the designer to test them, users continue to quietly buy badly designed goods because they feel it's their own fault they cannot use them well.
I think two topical points are in order here: consumer/user self-blame is partially due to designer arrogance or ignorance but it is also due to isolation of individual experience. In today's hyper communication trends someone should design a better way to collect information about design issues! And not just Apple collecting bug information. Cars, anvils, cameras, retractable dog leashes. Another issue which Norman doesn't go into in his chapter the Psychopathy of Everyday Things is the need for better design for its impact on the earth, for people/populations/beings other than the direct users. Noise pollution, chemical and solid waste pollution, energy consumption, use of non-recyclables. These should be be taken into consideration just as much as an individual or business' concerns.
Another interesting aspect of this particular reading was his mention of the former title The Psychology of everyday things and the business community's (at least contemporarily) rejection of the implications of the term "psychology." It speaks to an author's responsibility to the reader (user) as a designer of words.
I visited the W4 street station's interactive touchscreen MTA kiosk.
Overall I think it's a useful tool - riders can check their route/directions, get detailed destination neighborhood walking directions and layout, as well as catch updates for the various train lines arrivals.
I observed about 7 people using the kiosk - not as many people as I would have at first thought.
When I tried it out myself I realized a couple of things:
Not many people where using it because they probably already know where they are going. Especially since peak tourist season is ebbing. Regular commuters don't need that level of detail.
The most useful and desired function in my mind after using MTA for 6 years is train arrival timetable. It really relieves tension and everyone I know loves it when the red LED tickers are installed and working in one of their usual stations. However, this info kiosk only intermittently displayed this information - the user was unable to call it up voluntarily - which sort of defeats a large part of the overall objective. Annoyingly there was more screentime devoted to advertising. A solution to this would be to have the arrival time table on one side of the kiosk at all times paired with brief full screen or constant banner ad - this way everyone on the platform could have access to the timetable while some one was using the otherside for directions.
Other concerns where of a sanitary and privacy/safety nature. The kiosk is a giant touch screen and so required constant tapping. No one really relishes touching any surface down in the subway stations or inside cars. Especially not something that strangers are constantly also touching with their fingers and who-knows-what-else. Reducing the requirement for this and improving the efficiency of the flow is a possible solution. Maybe it's zany and impractical but also an antimicrobial UV light or mist or wiper could help.
The privacy concern occurred to me after I left the platform on my own train home at night. I had seen a woman use the kiosk and there were a couple of people behind her waiting to use the kiosk or just watching. What if a vulnerable tourist or other passenger tapped through the different levels of details for his/her exact route home while a predator waited and looked on? The predator would then know exactly where their prey was planning to go - possibly even all the way to the street they where planning on ending up on - and then on to their hotel or home. I noticed that users have to 'tap out' of their directions to erase this evidence.
With regards to this safety issue - an improvement could be one of the angle-of-view narrowing microlouver films or even a function wherein the extant recessed camera at the top of the kiosk could sense when a user has moved away from the screen and automatically refresh to the 'home' screen.
As Chris Crawford instructs: interactivity is ongoing conversation between at least two actors. In a semi-metaphorical breakdown he uses speaking, thinking, and responding as three basic steps that are exchanged in a dynamic, continuing way. In more concrete terms these seem to stand for Actor A's output; input to Actor B who processes which and generates output which in the interface between the actors becomes Actor A's input which is processed and then produces a new output and the cycle repeats itself. In the current sense this involves digital and analog sensors and processors, which can either interface with like, or, with an organic system— such as a vertebrate's CNS.
Playtime with my cat or calling a friend on the phone or playing a computer at chess is interactivity with wildly varying degrees of physical engagement. As Crawford remarks, a tree branch falling and your reaction to it are not interactive— unless you lived in the Wizard of Oz universe where you could have a retaliatory apple throwing fight. It's a simple and good point, however any interactivity experience with an actual tree would be on a timescale that Crawford might find unsuitable if one goes by his reference to the first commercial computers which took hours for a perceptible response. Plants have recently broached the scientific conversation as active, aware organisms and are capable of interacting with each other in decent time (e.g. potent interplant and species pheromones or an auditory/vibratory response system to predators like aiphids) - it's more about what other kinds of inputs we can detect; and in turn use to build corresponding sensor interfaces. To speak to Crawford's other point, it's true that a traffic-schematic children's rug, or a fridge door light sensor is not interactive, since it's a monosyllabic exchange which ends and never changes and is only ever initiated by a human actor.
The physical aspect of interactivity is vital when considering the mind and body as a cohesive entity— which Western culture, crippled and maladapted to reality as it is— often ignores. The degrees of interactivity Crawford and Victor each outline essentially relate to the input sensor resolution, and the depth, breadth, and dynamism of the processing, as it is adapted to and exemplified by the natural evolution of the animal body (humans) as a basis for the logic and processes of interactivity. Interactive technology is perhaps best seen as glove that fits the mind and body as a unified hand. A human tongue has some millions of tastebuds - a complex and dynamic set of sensors. Hands, nose, eyes, and other nerve termini are sensors/output receptors. To create the ideal interactive physical experience you might create a system, or an artificial "actor" with a higher resolution of sensors to keep up with the conversation with the entire, complete organic/animal/human actor - a complete organism as it were.
If we look at a physical interactivity-continuum of the possible, Bret Victor seems to say that the plethora of screens we pour ourselves into is basically the antithesis of physical interactivity, and physical interactivity is it - as our bodies are an extension of our brains, and there is much more left to imagine and actuate. Bret Victor's 'Rant' on the current fad of screen swiping as the main mode for interactivity is spot on, as well as disturbing (e.g. "finger-blindness")— especially relevant as the heavily brand-incorporated AppleWATCH presentation video was unveiled yesterday. On the one hand, it may pull the consumer populace farther from physical interactivity with their world and into a myopia of wristbound tiny screens - creating widespread stilted, narrow skeletal and social positioning. On the other hand, as it is motion-oriented and equipped with various inbuilt sensors— it seems like a rich tool for developers, makers, and everyday consumers to build upon in expanding the interactive sphere.
My understanding from life, my narrow sample core of human experience, knowledge and thought before me, and as recently as supplemented by Crawford and Victor's writings, tell me that physical interactivity has the potential to bring body and mind together, and to bring this body-mind-entity in closer contact with the reality of the planet and human and animal systems around us - a compensation for recent millenia of 'progress' which has brought us so far to start from the beginning again. Physical interactivity could be viewed as a rejection or workaround or heavy supplementation of the mostly verbal interface which acts as a barrier between us and the truth of concrete reality, consciousness, mindfulness, balance, and pure experience (Attribution: science fiction, ITP atmosphere, the zeitgeist, yoga, my brain, Crawford, Victor, et al.). Good physical interactivity, given our body is a collective of physical termini, can help us learn (play is learning), communicate, community build, explore, express, empathize, and problem-solve because it feeds our brain-body with rich dynamic information and in turn receives as much as it can handle and process and act on from the brain-body. Let us be in touch with the planar surface of perceptonium which we share with all self-aware matter.
A spatio-temporal experiential replicator: User A moves through life in "broadcast" or "pick-up" mode - allowing the wearable brain-computer interface to assemble a geo-tagged set of discreet signals comprised of input from various brain areas.
Emotions, physical sensations, and sentiment are transmitted to User B's wearable when she happens upon the scene of an experience User A chose to broadcast at a previous time in the same location.
Example scenarios:
A waterfall - User A has broadcast feelings of pleasure and the sensation of water droplets on his skin. When User B visits the same waterfall a month later she can access the index of experiential data from User A's broadcast.
Or, perhaps User A experiences a rancid candy at an established chocolatier while touring Paris. When User B visits the same shope the next day she can choose to receive the experiential 'review' before going in or making a purchase.
The idea for the XP Dub developed as the result of a discussion touching on time travel. This is a work-around of sorts as the directness of the brain-computer interface plays with individual experience across space and time.
Collaborators: Renata Kuba and Hugo Luce.
My first Processing sketch. All very manual. Triangles not totally natural yet.
//midnight sky, how to do a gradient? maybe multiple rectangles?
size (500,500);
background (21, 21, 137);
//stars
fill(255, 255, 255);
point (0, 100);
//manual sun rise/set iterations
noStroke();
fill(255, 255, 255);
ellipse (150,75,25,25);
noFill();
fill(255, 254, 224);
ellipse (155,80,27,27);
fill(250, 246, 174);
ellipse (160,85,29,29);
fill(255, 218, 124);
ellipse (163,90,32,32);
fill(255, 197, 124);
ellipse (168,95,36,36);
fill(255, 187, 103);
ellipse (179,110,40,40);
fill(255, 178, 103);
ellipse (190,130,45,45);
fill(255, 165, 80);
ellipse (200,150,47,47);
fill(255, 157, 72);
ellipse (220,187,52,52);
fill(255, 146, 72);
ellipse (238,235,60,60);
fill(255, 139, 72);
ellipse (238,235,60,60);
fill(255, 128, 72);
ellipse (260,310,80,80);
fill(255, 100, 50);
ellipse (300,400,100,100);
//da sharp mountains of the west
noStroke();
fill(255, 255, 255);
triangle (0,500,300,500,100,370);
triangle (320,500,400,390,500,500);
triangle (400,500,475,450,600,500);
triangle (150,500,400,500,280,400);
//light blue shadows
fill(188, 225, 255);
triangle (250,500,300,500,100,370);
triangle (470,500,400,390,500,500);
triangle (490,500,475,450,600,500);
triangle (270,500,400,500,280,400);
