HCI: the gap between research and practice

Parush, A. (2006): Bridge the gap: Toward a common ground: practice and research in HCI, interactions
Volume 13, Number 6 (2006), Pages 61-62.

This article addresses an important question: the one of the linkage between the study of behavioral, social, organizational, and other phenomena associated with interactive computing systems and design, evaluation, and/or implementation of such systems:

Imagine you are a practitioner asked to examine an application. If you find it ineffective, you’ll need to propose what needs to be redesigned in the user interface to improve its effectiveness. You are then faced with the question of why it is ineffective. In other words, you have a question that requires relevant research findings that can inform you of why or why not things work in your application. Such understanding can drive better design decisions.
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The ability to utilize and benefit from any of the research types depends on how a practitioner defines his practical problem as a research question. The abstraction of the question on different levels can lead one to search and find potentially beneficial research that can be applied in the practical arena.

In this context, the author defines research as “any systematic endeavor to find an answer to a practical or theoretical question” and he distinguished 4 tiers in HCI research: usability, comparison, guidelines and theory. These dimensions differs according to the “level of focus” (“ange from addressing questions focusing on a specific product, to comparing between products, to searching and examining guidelines for a family of products, through to general questions on behavioral, social, organizational, and other phenomena“) and “extent of generalization”. Depending on the research questions, various methodologies can be applied (and sometimes there is no need to further generalizations).

Research questions hence range from “Does this product work for the user?” to “Why does it work?”. This relates to Jarvinen’s taxonomy of research (that I blogged here)
Why do I blog this? because that’s a very recurrent problem in my field. My stance on this is to say that research (for instance the one I do for my phd work) aimed at giving insights to designers and providing concepts and tools to analyze existing systems.

Digital patina: Lucent’s Live Web Stationery

Lucent’s Live Web Stationery is an old project (SIGGRAPH ’97) that shows the concept of “virtual aging”: a web page ages as if it were a physical piece of paper. It’s a project by Dorée Duncan Seligmann and Stephan Vladimir Bugaj. As described in the press release:

Live Web Stationery is a demonstration of Web pages that “age” based on the amount of traffic that they endure. Peloton is a computer-based simulator that creates virtual environments for bicycle rides.
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“The Web is a public virtual space that requires signs of life and interaction in order to become more engaging,” said Seligmann. “Web pages are touched by thousands of people each day, and there must be a way to convey the age of the ‘page’ itself, how its texture changes, how its shape is altered. Live Web Stationery conveys a sense of community and interaction that doesn’t exist on Web sites today.”

Why do I blog this? because I like this idea of digital patina: it’s a way to enhance objects (virtual or not) with an history of their interactions (positive history?) by the user or by a group of users. The next step is to find or create affordances based on this. Besides, as Laurie Anderson expressed it, at some point it’s good to put more dirt in virtual reality.

u-texture

In the last issue of ACM interactions, Lars Erik Holmquist mentions a very intriguing technology called u-texture:

Another laboratory at Keio SFC is run by Professor Hide Tokuda. This lab concentrates on the enabling technology for ubiquitous computing, such as operating systems and networks. One fascinating system is the u-Texture, a set of interlocking computational tiles that can be combined to create different applications. The tiles are roughly the size of a Tablet PC, have integrated network connections and of course RF-ID readers. They can be assembled in many different shapes and will automatically configure themselves to acknowledge the new connections. Fancy a new digital shelf, a smart table, or an electronic wall? Just put together a few u-texture blocks and you’ve got your new interactive furniture! I wonder if IKEA will catch on?

Some of the applications:

The AwareShelf can be created on a shelf-shaped u-Textures. When a user puts a real object such as a camera, a book, or a key on a u-Texture, it enables to browse information of the real object on the display on another u-Texture. The u-Textures have to be connected vertically to the u-Texture on that a thing is placed.
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The Collaboration Table is a system that supports cooperative work with several participants by connecting u-Textures horizontally. Users can exchange and merge drawing data among connected u-Textures by drag-and-drop operations.
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The ProjectionWall magnifies a connected u-Texture’s small display onto a big one. It is effective for displaying a large picture that is too small to be shown on only one u-Texture. Data can be handled interactively by users with touch panels

Would-be skyscraper structure

I was in Zürich last week and I ran across this interesting structure:

It seems that when a skyscraper is built in Switzerland, the population should first be aware of the expected heights. What is interesting is how they create this impression using this metal structure: a sort-of building gauge.

Why do I blog this? because I found curious to have this sort of “simulated space”.

Ghosts of Liberty

‘Ghosts of Liberty’ is yet another mobile/pervasive game (played in Boston) and designed by Urban Interactive.

Players roam through the lamp-lit alleys of Boston’s North End, following a trail of ghostly messages to track a mysterious enemy of the state. A cell phone weaves electronic gameplay and live action into the nocturnal ambiance, as participants race against the clock to solve riddles, discover hidden items, and interact with characters both real and digital.

(picture by Evan Richman/Globe Staff)

The Boston Globe has a piece about it, somehow describing how the players apprehended the game:

Met by a “secret agent,” Bitkower’s foursome was handed a cellphone programmed with all the night’s clues, an ultraviolet pen, a map of the North End, a “classified” case briefing, and a folder to open in the event of an emergency (i.e., if they became hopelessly lost).

Wolfe’s wife, Nan, a kitchen designer, took over as master code-breaker, jotting down letters and numbers from bronze plaques and muttering aloud solutions. Bitkower, the group’s text-message fanatic, was glued to the cellphone, tripping over cobblestones and even a small fence in his haste to relay information from digital maps, text messages from “Director Finch,” and voice mails from a ghost-channeling psychic to the group.
As the team raced down Salem Street past Bova’s Bakery , Jim Wolfe signaled to turn left instead of right — to throw other groups off their scent. “I feel like we’re behind,” said Jerry Ringuette, an information technology specialist from Quincy, before sprinting down Commercial Street in search of a woman’s feather boa.
Lost on Hanover Street, Bitkower slyly reached into his coat pocket for a travel map. “We brought a cheat sheet,” he whispered.

Check also the players’ briefing sheet.

Day of the Figurine evaluation

The last deliverable of the IPERG project is of interest for people into pervasive gaming development/observation. The iperg project is EU funded research consortium that looks at pervasive gaming from a multi-disciplinary angle (since the consortium is composed of researchers from various disciplines).

The document describes the evaluation of “a prototype public performance called Day of the Figurines, a slow pervasive game in the form of a massively­multiplayer boardgame that is played using mobile phones via the medium of text messaging“.

This deliverable presents an evaluation of a first public test of this version of Day of the Figurines that took place in London in Summer 2005 and that involved 85 players over a month. This evaluation draws on multiple perspectives, including analysis of exit questionnaires from players, ethnographic study of behind­the­scenes control room activities, and descriptive statistics derived from system logs, in order to establish a rich picture of how the game was experienced from the perspectives of both players and operators.

Why do I blog this? The whole document is a great read to be informed about problems, highlights, players’ reaction, communication that occured. It’s also very good to have both the perspective of the players AND the operator. The game designer’s role is even more prominent when gaming is set in physical space because there are other constraints to deal with. The title of the document is quite evocative: “The City as Theatre Evaluation”: that we can read as “landscape as a game interface” or “city as a performative infrastructure”.

Design of networked games to support users located around the world

The last issue of Communication of the ACM is about “entertainment networking”. One of the paper is interestingly dealing with the design of networked games to support users located around the world. As described by Cormac J. Sreenan and Kobus van der Merwe in their introduction:

Jeremy Brun et al. consider how to design networked games to support users located around the world. In this context they explore distributed servers and the relationship between network latency and fairness in networked games. Differences in latency can lead to inconsistency in game state, giving certain users an unfair advantage over others. This problem is exacerbated in situations in which decisions concerning the game state are made on distributed servers, rather than through the more conventional centralized server architecture. The authors identify two techniques that are useful for mitigating these effects: trading inconsistencies and judiciously selecting the location of the distributed servers. The article should be of particular interest to companies interested in scaling-up game servers for use by a truly global subscriber base.

Why do I blog this? I like the authors stance “A game can be considered playable if its users find its performance acceptable in terms of THE PERCEPTUAL EFFECT OF ITS INEVITABLE INCONSISTENCIES” and I wonder to what extent it would be possible to do seamful design (i.e. using the latency as an element of gameplay).

Ian Haig’s brain tumour helmets

I have to admit that I am a great fan of project about visualizing electromagnetic waves. That’s why I like Ian Haig‘s Brain Tumour Helmets with microwave:

Exploreing the impact of microwaves and electromagnetic energy and their role in producing brain tumors as a form of body mutation, as in technologies such as mobile/cell phones. The work also explores the notion of the television as a form of ‘haunted media’. Consisting of two specially designed helmets with infared headphones and a large video and sound installation and an assortment of antennas.

Why do I blog this? I find intriguing this idea of “the head as an antenna”. As Regine reported it “The work addresses the impact of microwave technologies, not in order to highlight the evils of microwave technologies in society, but to engage notions of technology, which is potentially modifying the structure of our bodies, in this case through the brain tumor, as a catalyst of human/machine evolution/devolution“. The project is a bit old but IMO more and more relevant.

Wandering objects down the street

This week, there was a very cute article in a swiss newspaper about left things on the streets of Geneva. Entitled “Le temps de survie des objets errants” (“The time of wandering objects”), this article by Laurent Wolf details the author’s experience of leaving objects down his street.

Certains objets ont une longue survie urbaine. Ainsi ce sommier apparu aux environs du 15 septembre et qui a tenu un mois. Armature de métal, lattes de bois, modèle standard, posé sur la tranche contre la vitrine de l’opticien voisin qui s’est empressé, dès l’ouverture, de le pousser vers la vitrine d’a côté. Le sommier n’a pas excité la convoitise, si ce n’est qu’il a perdu une latte par jour jusqu’a n’être qu’une armature de métal traînant sa langueur de long en large. Car le voisin de l’opticien l’a poussé vers le bord du trottoir, d’où un automobiliste l’a délogé pour parquer son véhicule. Il est ensuite allé de droite a gauche, d’abord devant un guichet automatique de banque, ensuite au milieu d’un parking de motocyclettes, puis a 2 mètres d’une terrasse de bistrot où il faisait mauvais effet, pour finir près d’une barrière de chantier.

A sa disparition, je me suis demandé s’il avait continué son parcours. J’ai arpenté les rues voisines où j’ai compté une bibliothèque sans rayonnages, un clavier d’ordinateur, un carton de canapé trois places, un réfrigérateur sans porte et un scooter désossé. Il a fallu que je franchisse la frontière d’une rue � grande circulation pour retrouver un sommier errant. Mais celui-ci étant � ressorts, j’ai considéré que c’était un signe et j’ai pris la décision douloureuse d’abandonner les recherches.

No time to provide the english translation.

BallBot: a mobile robot that has only a single spherical wheel.

Just stumbled across the Ballbot (developed by Carnegie Mellon University researchers led by Professor Ralph Hollis): a battery-operated omnidirectional robot that moves by balancing dynamically on a single urethane-coated metal sphere:

Significant insights will be gained from this research toward producing agile motive platforms which in the future could be combined with the research community’s ongoing work in perception, navigation, and cognition, to yield truly capable intelligent mobile robots for use in physical contact with people. Such robots could provide many useful services, especially for the elderly or physically challenged, in their everyday work and home environments. Many other uses such as entry into hostile environments, rescue in buildings, and surveillance to safeguard people or property can be envisioned.

Why do I blog this? I have to admit that I like non anthropomorphic bots (even though I am crazy of the big dog).