Topic 6: Ubiquitous devices positive and negative usability issues

SixthSense

Sixth Sense is an inch category wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around users with digital information and allows users to use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.

The interaction type is “Exploring”.

The positive areas of usability are with simple hand gestures the users can zoom in and out, take photos and perform a multitude of tasks.

The negative areas of usability are as the hand gestures are dependent on the camera, the gestures might be able to be detected in low light or in the dark.

http://www.wired.com/2009/02/ted-digital-six/

http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/

http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology

Samsung Galaxy Gear

The Samsung Galaxy Gear is an inch category based ubiquitous device.

The interaction type is “Manipulating”.

The positive areas are that it is easy to navigate across the different menus, by swiping left or right to traverse the screen for notification or music. By swiping down the camera and be accessed and upwards will display the dial pad to make calls. The user can wake up the device by raising their arm and looking at the display. 

The negative areas are that the notifications are only in the main clock display and to access the music controller the user has to tap a miniature icon to get to the tunes.

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/gadgets/samsung-galaxy-gear-1178222/review#articleContent

Topic 5: Research paper and technical report that discuss design considerations for social media platforms

Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media

This research paper from Segal Graduate school of Business gives a good background of how to design a social media platform. It explains the basic building blocks of social media which need to be considered before designing a social media. It has identified Identity, Conversations, Sharing, Presence, Relationships, Reputation and Groups as the seven building blocks. Further they explain these using the Social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Foursquare. In addition to this, they have framed out guidelines how strategies can be developed for Social media. (He and Chu 2011)

He, J. and W. W. Chu (2011). Design Considerations for a Social Network-Based Recommendation System (SNRS). Community-Built Databases, Springer: 73-106.

Design Considerations for a Social Network-Based Recommendation System (SNRS)

This technical paper from University of California, Los Angeles has explained in detail on how to design a Social Network based recommendation system. As social networking is most prevalent, it is natural to design for such recommendation system, hence this paper was chosen for this blog entry. They have used data from real social media for experimenting and have explained the experiment in detail. They have also presented architecture for such recommendation system. Additionally, they have given how semantics in social networking can be helpful for designing such system (Kietzmann, Hermkens et al. 2011)

               

Kietzmann, J. H., K. Hermkens, et al. (2011). "Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media." Business horizons 54(3): 241-251.

               

Topic 4- Article that describes how a major company evaluates its software (UX movement- Apple)

During the product software evaluation phase it is pertinent to gather feedback on the users perceptions and experiences and if they meet the user experience goals. Usability testing and experiments using field studies, cognitive walkthroughs, heuristics evaluation, and pluralistic walkthrough are some of the commonly used methods.

This article by “UX movement”, discusses on why Apple’s evaluators do not seek solutions or product improvements from the end users but should only use evaluation to ascertain what works or does not work.

Apple the lifestyle computer company, uses an evaluation approach that seems to not pay much heed to end users suggestions on how to improve the usability of the software.  

It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.
– Steve Jobs

According to Apple’s former CEO Steve Jobs, people themselves are not sure of what they exactly need and hence are not in the best position to provide solutions. Instead users are more useful for pointing out potential problems in the software. It is the job of the designer to come up with solutions to improve the user experience.

Website: UX movement

http://uxmovement.com/thinking/interpretation-of-a-steve-jobs-quote/

Topic 3: Participatory Design for the Elderly for Managing Health Information - Designing a Personal Health Application for Older Adults to Manage Medications

Overview

This article is interesting as it discusses about how an iterative participatory design process using the various prototyping methods to develop an open source functional “Personal Health Application” (PHA) called the “Colorado Care Tablet” (CCT), that all allows older adults and caregivers the ability to manage their personal health information.

Method

There were two types of iterative design method used Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation (RITE), and Instant Data Analysis (IDA).  The think aloud method was used and the participants were being recorded.

User Needs Assessment

This was done via home interviews and the researchers were able to get a glimpse on how the older adults managed their medications.

Low Fidelity Prototype

To quickly evaluate multiple prototypes the researchers used paper based low-fidelity prototypes.

Card Sorting

To learn how the older adults do perceive the User Interface Design to be too abstract or very detailed card sorting was done to understand their mental model.

High Fidelity Prototypes

After sufficient information was obtained about user needs and interface expectations, the researchers then created the High Fidelity Prototypes for the rest of study using a Lenovo Thinkpad X60 as the hardware, software such as HTML and Adobe Flex.

Reference 

Khan, D. U., K. A. Siek, et al. (2010). Designing a personal health application for older adults to manage medications. Proceedings of the 1st ACM International Health Informatics Symposium, ACM.

               

               

Topic 2: Interaction Types - Conversing and Exploring

Interaction types:

There are quite a few methods by which the user interacts with the system. In this blog post, we will discuss two types of interaction and applications which uses them.

Conversing

The user interacts with the system as if talking to another human. System behaves likes a partner rather than a machine.

Application: Siri

Siri is an intelligent personal assistant feature in the iPhone.  The longer you use, the better it gets based on artificial intelligence. 

As a personal assistant, it is effective when it can understand our voice commands and act accordingly. In that sense, conversing interaction types perfectly suits for Siri. You can provide voice commands to it when you are driving, cooking or busy doing other things.

    

Exploring

Exploring interaction involves users moving through virtual or physical environments.  The system provides space for the users to explore as if it is a new space.

Application: SnapShop Showroom

It helps to visualize furniture in your own room or home using augmented reality. It includes online catalogue from few stores as well.

SnapShop is the perfect tool to visualize, when deciding on the various furnishing options. Hence the exploring interaction type is apt for this app.