Saturday, April 30, 2011
Book Reading #13 - Opening Skinner's Box
Chapter 3: On Being Sane in Insane Places
Summary:
David Rosenhan conducted a clever experiment which was to basically test the idea of physicatrics in medicine. He got some people including himself to go to the hospital and get admitted and then acted completely normal to see how long it took for them to recognized as normal. The same idea for this experiment was used by the author who goes to hospitals to see how things have changed. She is not admitted to any hospitals but is usually diagnosed and given pills. Later, in a conversation with Robert Spitzer, Spitzer says that he thinks that doctors just don't know when to say "I don't Know".
Discussion:
I enjoyed this chapter more than the others so far. I thought it was funny how the author says that the Rosenhan experiment is really hated in the field even after 40 years because of how it tries to discredit the idea. I thought it was interesting how the author tried to mimic the experiment and nobody had ever heard of this story before and the "thud" voice. The results were interesting to how many doctors prescribed medicine with nothing more than a 10 minute examination even if they were just "light" medical pills.
Summary:
David Rosenhan conducted a clever experiment which was to basically test the idea of physicatrics in medicine. He got some people including himself to go to the hospital and get admitted and then acted completely normal to see how long it took for them to recognized as normal. The same idea for this experiment was used by the author who goes to hospitals to see how things have changed. She is not admitted to any hospitals but is usually diagnosed and given pills. Later, in a conversation with Robert Spitzer, Spitzer says that he thinks that doctors just don't know when to say "I don't Know".
Discussion:
I enjoyed this chapter more than the others so far. I thought it was funny how the author says that the Rosenhan experiment is really hated in the field even after 40 years because of how it tries to discredit the idea. I thought it was interesting how the author tried to mimic the experiment and nobody had ever heard of this story before and the "thud" voice. The results were interesting to how many doctors prescribed medicine with nothing more than a 10 minute examination even if they were just "light" medical pills.
Book Reading #12 - Coming of Age in Samoa
Chapter 4: The Samoan Household
Summary:
This chapter talked mainly about the structure of a Samoan household. It talked about how ranks influence the household and how they change. It gave real examples of households and how ranks influenced certain things.
Discussion:
This is an important chapter because it explains the structure and how Samoans view the household. I thought the most interesting part was dealing with the taupo title. I thought the example of the beggar was interesting too because of how the guy hung around all day and did everything for the family and only at the last second before bed he expressed his desire.
Summary:
This chapter talked mainly about the structure of a Samoan household. It talked about how ranks influence the household and how they change. It gave real examples of households and how ranks influenced certain things.
Discussion:
This is an important chapter because it explains the structure and how Samoans view the household. I thought the most interesting part was dealing with the taupo title. I thought the example of the beggar was interesting too because of how the guy hung around all day and did everything for the family and only at the last second before bed he expressed his desire.
Book Reading #11 - Design of Everyday Things
Chapter 4: Knowing What To Do
Summary:
Norman talks about the constraints in design. His example is a 13 piece Lego motorcycle. The constraints on doors is discussed next along with constraints of switches. He talked about how things should be made more visible or have an immediate effect after pressing something.
Discussion:
I liked this chapter because it is very important when thinking about design. I like the examples he gives because while making me laugh they make me evaluate some of the things I use everyday and notice the same flaws and how they could be improved.
Summary:
Norman talks about the constraints in design. His example is a 13 piece Lego motorcycle. The constraints on doors is discussed next along with constraints of switches. He talked about how things should be made more visible or have an immediate effect after pressing something.
Discussion:
I liked this chapter because it is very important when thinking about design. I like the examples he gives because while making me laugh they make me evaluate some of the things I use everyday and notice the same flaws and how they could be improved.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Paper Reading #30: A Multimodal Labeling Interface for Wearable Computing
Reference Information:
Title: A Multimodal Labeling Interface for Wearable Computing
Authors: Shanqing Li, Yunde Jia
Venue: IUI 2010, Hong Kong, ChinaComments:
Comment 1
Comment 2
Summary:
This paper talked about a new way to label things using a wearable computer. This type of system is interactive and can be used out in the field for easier labeling.To label an object the user must reach out with their hand and circle the object with their finger. The computer picks up on this motion and then requires a label through speach via the bluetooth headset.
The original way to label an object was with a mouse and keyboard. Through testing it was found that using your finger to circle the object vs the mouse was much quicker. The speech recognition was also very accurate in labeling objects.
Discussion:
This type of system seems pretty useful if the job requires a lot of labeling. If its more efficient with labeling why not use it if a lot of labeling is required? I think the idea of using your body more with the computer to create a faster way of doing this task is pretty interesting.
Paper Reading #29: The Why UI: Using Goal Networks to Improve User Interfaces
Reference Information:
Title: The Why UI: Using Goal Networks to Improve User Interfaces
Authors: Dustin Smith, Henry Lieberman
Venue: IUI 2010, Hong Kong, ChinaComments:
Comment 1
Comment 2
Summary:
This paper discusses the idea that every user has a set of goals in mind and how software should be able to help with these goals. Using voice recognition the system takes in a goal and finds the sub-goals. Because there are many sub-goals for many things the system takes in some a couple of details about the goal from the user.
The idea was to have the user state a goal and have the system guide them through steps to achieve this goal. An example used in the paper was to have somebody that wanted to buy a house. The system then listed sub-goals such as details and locations local realtors from whom they could buy a house from. The authors just wanted to show how this type of idea can be implemented to greatly improve user experience with software.
I thought it was interesting how they showed an implimentation example but overal they just wanted to show that the idea could be useful. I think in many interfaces this kind of idea would be very useful. When I have problems with software I usually do not goto the 'help' section because often times I get more confused or find too much information to process. I think having sometihng that could help aid in these types of actions would be nice to deal with.
Paper Reading #28: Vocabulary Navigation Made Easier
Reference Information:
Title: Vocabulary Navigation Made Easier
Authors: Sonya Nikolova, Xiaojuan Ma, Marilyn Tremaine, Perry Cook
Venue: IUI 2010, Hong Kong, China
Comments:
Summary:
This paper talks about an application called ViVA that can be used to find words. The author discusses past work with similar interfaces that implement this system with a hierarchy of subjects. This can be confusing and lead to long searches for a single word.
This type of interface was designed help individuals with lexical disorders who would have trouble finding words normally. This is reflected in ViVA's name which stands for visual vocabulary for aphasia.
ViVA tries to use a model that most of us live our lives by daily. This kind of hierarchy used in ViVA is what the author called Lingraphica.
Discussion:
This idea is great because it helps aid people with disabilities. It could also be useful for other purposes such as little children or people trying to learn a second language.
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