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CMT 7^th, 14^th, 21st April’08

In these last sessions we had on Current Issues in Interaction Design, we mainly reviewed the following papers on:

• Activity Theory and Expansive Design by Y. Engestrom,

• Journey to the Interface,

http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/thejourneytotheinterface

• Subtle Redistribution of Work, Attention and Risks: Electronic Patient Record and Organisational Consequences by Signe Vikkelso

In these papers, we touched up on several issues and how the papers are linked to some of the topics we discussed in our previous sessions like; digitization of the NHS, the functional relationship between the practice to be redesigned, and the rest of the organisation, the implications of redesigning an existing practice, the model of practice underlining existing assets, and the kind of knowledge required for redesigning a practice.

Also, we looked into what extent the study allows the reader to decompose the system of activities without losing the real picture and at what degree of focus on interaction can be conceptualised as part of layers of interaction.

Furthermore, we discussed Observable behaviours and less Observable (internal) behaviours, and Addressing and Defining the needs and expectations of those the products are design for.

Finally we looked at the criteria for evaluating success, and ways to integrate the goals and needs of all the stakeholders.

PDE 11th, 27th April ‘08

These sessions were mainly project advisory tutorials with Bob and Andy-Interaction Design Practice held at the ‘Product Design and Engineering’ workshop.

CMT: 31st March ‘08

PDE: 4th April ‘08

This was the first session we had soon after the Easter break. Dikshit started with Bob, Andy and I, though most of the other team mates came in as he progressed with the presentation on his idea of applying AR blocks towards client/Architect meetings. After a few minutes of some useful digression, David then went ahead with the lead user innovation in social media toolkit.

The session continued after the break with Madushani showing some developments on the drum sequencer she is working on for her project, she also applied augmented reality toolkit in the design. Halil discussed how he is getting on, and I finally showed some entity relationships based on my project design — web based technical service.

We all received useful feedback on our work so far, Andy also suggested that the project final report should have certain characteristics and pattern.

For our usual seminar session today, we had to attend a workshop on “Soft Technology, Creativity, and Innovation”

WORKSHOP – School of Computing Science, Middlesex University, London

VENUE: Room WG17, Williams Building, Hendon Campus, 13:15-17:00

Organiser: Satinder P. Gill Senior Research Fellow, School of Computing Science, university sattisan@yahoo.com

Soft technology examines the symbiotic relationship between technology, creativity and innovation that builds on the societal knowledge (social, cultural, institutional) and utilises this to design processes, products and services for sustainable innovation. The importance of understanding and applying the concept of Soft Technology is nowhere more apparent than in China. China is currently faced with the challenge of leapfrogging towards a knowledge society where culture becomes crucial. The workshop will introduce the concept of Soft Technology and explore its implications for the future of China in the globalising world, and it will discuss the importance of the cultural heritage industries and human centred innovation within broader contexts of Soft Technology.

Workshop Chair: Martin Loomes Dean of School of Computing Science, Middlesex University, London.13:15-13:30

Introduction: Satinder P. Gill13:30-14:00 Plenary Talk: “Soft Technology— The Source ofCreativity in the 21st Century”

Speaker: Zhouying JIN Director, Center for Technology Innovation and Strategy Studies of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; President, Beijing Academy ofSoft Technology, China.

Discussion14:15-14:35 “New Business Model & Corporate Responsibility”Speaker: Shihong HAN Chairman of the board, Beijing Meridian Sun Co. Ltd., China.

Discussion14:45-15:00

Tea Break

Workshop Chair: Zhouying JIN15:00-15.20 “Boundaries of Cultural Heritage Industries”

Speaker: David Smith Professor and Director of Research, Newport College of Art, Media and Design, Wales.

Discussion15:30-15.50 “Human-Centred Innovation”

Speaker: William Wong Director: Centre for Interaction Design, School of Computing Science,Middlesex University. London.

Discussion16:00-16:30 Reflections on Soft Technology and Future Collaborations

Closing Remarks

Biography Prof. Zhouying Professor Zhouying Jin is a senior researcher and professor of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences(CASS); Director of Center for Technology Innovation and Strategy Studies (CTISS) of CASS; President and Founder of the Beijing Academy of Soft Technology.

She has been visiting professor of Case Western Reserve University and University of Nebraska-Lincoln, U.S.A(1993-1994); Senior Research Fellow, Institute For The Future (U.S. CA, Menlo Park 1996); Special researcher, Institute of Science and Technology policy of Japan (2002); and Visiting Professor of University of Aix-Marseille III of France(2003).

For the past ten years, she has focused her research on “soft technology”. She was invited to attend the First ‘Festival of Thinkers’ as one of ten selected World Thinkers with ten Nobel Laureates in 2005.

She is also Chairman and founder of the Future 500(China) devoted to stakeholder engagement to maximizing the “the triple bottom line” in China. The Future 500 mechanism is aiming to improving sustainability and harmonizing economic profits with social and environmental benefits in enterprises dimensions. She holds two personal copyrights on Enterprises Evaluation and Benefit & Risk Evaluating System for Technological Project.

PDE: 14th March ‘08

Today’s Interaction Design practice session was held as usual, I could not attend for some personal reasons. On enquiring from colleagues, I understand that it was presentations and supervisory advice on individual projects as usual.

Today’s Current Issues in Interaction session coordinator Paola urged the team members present today to engage more with the weekly tasks that she gives out.

Further to that, she complained about lack of attendance and cohesion amongst members in her sessions, she said such attitude will stunt classmates’ general progress, explaining the purpose of commitment and broader view learning to encompass complex domains

“How do you design a system that identifies problems, and then define the solutions”.

“Cognitive psychology is only limited to the individual.”

We started today quite abruptly; David already started presentation about his lead user innovation/ social networking / application/ Toolkit project. At the end, it was suggested that he can make today’s advice more useful by concentrating his effort towards narrowing down his idea to a more time realistic one.

Although I was meant to show some stuff on “service ecology”, also called map of relationships between stakeholders’ and the product/ service, plus persona’s. I was rather focused on generating more design ideas and visiting similar websites to the one I am working on. I eventually ended up showing a presentation on service design plan, project vision, who what and why design, and activity list. Andy and Bob gave examples of persona’s, and what is service ecology, they requested me to produce some flow of values and persona’s relevant to my project by next session.

In the afternoon meeting after the break, Dik-AR in architectural building developments- had a discussion on measurements, space, distance and the possibility of moving the camera around the cubes (building blocks) to capture a richer view of the area.

Madu had a talk relating to her drum sequencer, Andy told her that she must identify who, what and why’s of her design project.

Halil also got a feedback based on the presentation he showed the class. Furthermore, he also experienced some practical methods for collating and processing ideas for his AR game project.

This session rolled off with talks on human factor in the paper: There Is More to Monitoring a Nuclear Power Plant than Meets the Eye. By Randall J. Mumaw, Emilie M. Roth, Kim J. Vicente, Catherine M. Burns. Attached below:there-is-more-to-monitoring-a-nuclear-power-plant-than-meets-the-eye.doc

Paola talked about the nature of monitoring practice and implications for modelling: Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) operators are engaged in a number of tasks “Monitoring is interweaved with other ongoing responsibilities of managing tasks to generate power” pg. 37
Paola comment: Hypothesis: knowing the structural relations among these other tasks might reveal possible integration patterns. But we do not hear about this.

“Cognitive” hypothesis focused on selected processes are inadequate

• primary challenge to monitoring is operator vigilance;

• the primary demands in monitoring relate to selective attention;

• major difficulty in monitoring is one of visual perception;

• None of these hypotheses does justice to the richness of the phenomena we observed.

She further observed that individual recognition in interacting with the device also affects the way they translate the alarms. She noted that the designers have assumed the efficiency and effectiveness of the system/plant without any major emphasis on managerial or historical factors.The paper challenges that devices can not be designed based on individual cognition.

The meaning of monitoring these values and understanding the interactions among states of the components, and other variables. Absolute values does exist in isolation, there should be an understanding in relation to others.

Started as usual with a little natter before getting into the main business of the day, Andy and Bob was early trying to connect and steady the cameras, display unit the laptop ready to support/ enable project presentations.

Dikshit presented his progress on the augmented reality in architecture project; he talked about how to install multiple markers in one exe file, and how to change the colours, size and shape of the AR building blocks.

After the lunch break, Anoi briefly presented his EPG (electronic programme guide). Then I explained to the team that in order to extract some ideas, I have applied Jakob Nielsen’s ten heuristic principles in evaluating an exiting website similar to my service design idea, I also showed my storyboard. Furthermore, I prepared a hierarchical task analysis for my project. In my feedback they advised that through my research and requirement gathering, I should lay some emphasis on service ecology, service blue print and persona.

After me was David who illustrated his project progress with some graphic presentation and an article on lead user innovation in social media.

Finally, Halil got a feedback based on what he showed the team, same as Madushani who had already used the lunch break to get clarifications from Bob on the next line of action for her work.

CMT: 11th Feb ‘08

In today’s Current issues in Interaction design class, Paola asked us to think of questions that best describe the topics we have covered so far.

One after the other, we all contributed to the list of questions. We subsequently examined and discussed the topics and questions.

After we have looked at the previous topics, she then moved on to talk about safety critical systems referring to the papers she emailed to us on designing alarm systems, and a review of the different roles played by such devices. Also, we touched up on ethnographic study on how operators interpret the information provided by the alarm in the Nuclear Power Plant industry.
We particularly looked into the following papers: An analysis of problems with auditory alarms: Defining the roles of Alarms in process monitoring tasks. By Yan Xiao and F Jacob Seagull of University of Maryland School of medicine and University of Illinois at Urban-Champion respectively.

PDE: 15th Feb ‘08

We started quite early today, David started the day rolling with what he called Lead user innovation strategy-Ecology?

Andy and Bob engaged Dean on his project plan, they suggested ways he can approach his intended field study with a group of youth at the ZSL, and he also showed the team the two piece of hand-held PDA (personal digital assistant) from Orange™, and some intended replica ideas and photos.

I then told the class about the (forums) websites I have visited in the last week, and the pattern of questions/ problems experienced by the forum members, this will be apart of my requirement gathering for my project. The information’s I collate from the forums will help me narrow down and sharpen my project plan, and objective to a more realistic design target as will be seen in the next couple of weeks. I have started working on the story board and HTA- hierarchical task analysis- to be presented on the next session.

Halil and Dikshit had a joint presentation on the AR application; they showed some new discoveries regarding their projects.

Madushani invigorated her digital drum sequencers, and subsequently Anoi presented a screen shot of his EPG -Electronic Programme Guide for HD DTV (High Definition Digital Television).

CMT: 4th Feb ‘08

This Monday afternoon’s, session was held in the focus area of Hendon campus and the Guest lecturer was Dr. Elke Duncker the topic was on “International Globalisation and Localisation”, before the lecture proper, we talked about our individual project ideas and how it is connected to the topic of the day.

In the lecture, she discussed cross-cultural experience, similarities across ethnicities, Difference between ethnicities, sub cultures, culture, Artefacts, Global products, Global brands, Global products and brands, Problem and solutions with Foreign markets, Localisation, Product and software localisation, Formal and technical aspects of language, Other cultural issues, Local conventions and practices, finally summary and discussions

PDE: 8th Feb ‘08

Today’s session was quite vibrant and exciting for me to an extent, may be because I had my initial concept, presentation and project action plan to discuss with the class. We also had a PhD student Linda, in attendance as well. Nevertheless, Dean started his presentation without Andy who has other University related engagement.

Dean told the team what he has done so far and further research plans he has for his project.

I took the next turn to show the class the concept for my project, the presentation is attached herewith; project -presentation-1.ppt

Andy came into the class in the middle of my presentation, which was good for me because, that will enable him contribute directly towards this phase of my project. Andy, Bob and the rest of the peer-group positively criticized and suggested ways to achieve my design objectives.

When we returned from the usual lunch break, Dikshit presented his AR in architecture project progress. Halil followed with mid-fidelity prototype.

Madushani, assisted by Bob and Andy displayed her AR musical drums simulation with a laptop keyboard, and flat board with markings to indicate levels of speed, volume, tone and timer.

Anoi was brief with his presentation; he introduced his project topic as GUI and Interaction Design for Multi featured HDDTV.

David closed the day by first talking about methods and toolkit for his lead user innovation. For his project, the group members also designed our ideal prototype for a future mobile, music and video set. We were probably acting as lead users in this case, or lead designers may be.

CMT: 29th Jan ‘08

We usually hold this session on Monday, but because Professor Gaver was attending this IDC seminar, we were all requested to attend in place of our typical CMT meeting for the week.
SPEAKER: Professor Bill Gaver, Goldsmiths College, University of London
TITLE: Curious things for curious people: Designing technology for
everyday life
TIME & PLACE: Tuesday 29 January 2008, 1100-1230hours, Focus Area, Town Hall Building, School of Computing Science, Middlesex University.

ABSTRACT: In my studio, we design computational products that shun utilitarian assumptions to tell more interesting stories about who we are and what we care about. The Plane Tracker, for instance, tracks passing flight traffic and imagines views of their journeys. The Local Barometer displays text and images from local sources as if blown through the home. The Home Health Monitor picks up indicative information about household activities and reflects this back in the form of automatically generated horoscopes. Such designs offer new perspectives not only on the form and functions of interactive systems, but on the ways technology reflects people.

ABOUT: Bill Gaver is a Professor of Design at Goldsmiths, University of
London, and also head of the Interaction Research Studio.

At the seminar, he called the presentation Threshold Devices; he started with the Video window, a device he described as being fascinating and by kick-starting the presentation with it, he gets geared up. Furthermore, he talked about the video window being Multi-dimensional in terms of view, aesthetic and a functional content; it can also be seen as an opening to the world with a personal perspective. He only mentioned ludic engagements calmly; although he supported his idea about designing for play/ everyday life.

PDE : 1st Feb ‘08

We discussed Professor William Gaver’s Speech/ Presentation at the IDC meeting held earlier in the week; individually we talked about the presentation and what we felt about such designs and ideas. Some of us saw it as great way of thinking and designing. That is to say, techniques like design the product first and then apply/ define the theoretical methods subsequently. Others might view this idea as an unconventional way of making things, but at the end of the day, usual pattern of designing things are not quite innovative some times.

When we later got into the tutorials proper, Halil started by showing the improvement/ new studies/ he has done so far relating to his “Augmented Reality Paradigm” in his presentation, he mentioned about shutter glasses and the possibility of applying it to his design.

After Dikshit showed his project plan to the team and received advice from our team tutors/ supervisors, we then adjourned for lunch.

On returning from the lunch break, I put forward my ideas about “Service Design” and also talked about trying to find an edge to grip on service design project. I received advice on my initial idea and how to go about developing it further in order to result into a valid / realistic project.

Finally David presented a Gantt chart and other resources referring to his “Lead user Innovation” project.

CMT: 21st Jan ‘08

Paola hosted today’s session with the topic on Services

What is a service?

In Principles of Marketing, Philip Kotler defines a service as ‘any activity or benefit that one party can give to another that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything. Its production may or may not be tied to a physical product.’
http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/en/About-Design/Design-Disciplines/Service-design-by-Bill-Hollins/

“This unparalleled segment growth is changing the way companies organize themselves, creating a ripple effect in industries and universities that are closely tied to these organizations. For instance, historically, most scientific research has been geared to supporting and assisting manufacturing, which was once a dominant force in the world economy. Now that economies are shifting, industrial and academic research facilities need to apply more scientific rigor to the practices of services, such as finding better ways to use mathematical optimization to increase productivity and efficiency on demand.

Unfortunately, this shift to focusing on services has created a skills gap, especially in the area of high value services, which requires people who are knowledgeable about business and information technology, as well as the human factors that go into a successful services operation. Many leading universities have begun exploring and investing in this area, working in tandem with thought leaders in the business world.”
http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/471/glushko.html

The quality of service is Intangible and down to individual person supplying it;

It can not be stored

It losses value once the service is over

A service is experienced rather than manipulated

We also talked about Design as being integration between two brotherly expertise skills knowledge acquisition and the society request for change.

Designs are solutions to problems!

So what is the problem?

Who formulates the problems?

Today’s tutorials was supervised by Bob and Andy; they suggested/ advised on ways to foster an efficient and up to date progression in our individual projects. All the group members present at the session listened to the advice given to each member in order to derive as much ideas as the individual the advice is being directed to.