Key in the cognition

08:12 am - The importance of good design

Yesterday's Designology class started out with us sticking speech bubbles on various things around the room labelled with the message that we thought they were sending us (e.g. a door handle says "pull me"). That lead into the topic of affordances. Next we discussed the fact that people are impatient and don't read manuals, generally agreeing that this requires us to design things that consumers can begun using without requiring them to learn anything new. Of course, this is only feasible for simple things in the consumer space because we can't expect professionals to use complex technology like helicopters without a lot of training. We also spent some time exploring behavioural reactions to design and aesthetics, such as what the properties of an object tell us about its age and the lifestyle/worldvieew of its owner.Finally, we touched upon the role of design in history and culture: trends, vintage/retro, convergence, etc. Jenn pointed out that the brand names of American vehicles tried to evoke images of ruggedness because that sells well here.

Current Mood: excited

12:47 am - The office of the future

last week's HCI seminar was about research into improving the workflow of knowledge workers. After telling us about his discoveries from the experiments that he had conducted over the past decade in France, he left us with a valuable pair of requirements lists for designing and deploying new systems within an organization.

What you need for a successful deployment:

• No training requirements
  
• No initial configuration requirements
  
• No regular maintenance requirements
  
• No impact on current work environment
  
• No complexity in usage
  
• No monetary cost
  
• No privacy infringement
  
• Immediate benefits for individual users
  

• Get the high-status individuals to start using it and the rest will follow
  
• Make it trivial to enrol as a participant
  
• Demonstrate the system instead of explaining its benefits
  
• Empower & socially reward users
  
• Offer a free trial until users are addicted
  

Current Mood: optimistic

09:51 pm - Designology

Inspired by the iSteve's continued attendance of classes that interested him even after he dropped out of college, I have decided to audit a few classes at Stanford. Today was the first day of classes and I attended the Designology class (SymbSys 12si) being lead by Jenn, a fellow Hammie.

While working in the Stanford research park is convenient for attending classes during the workday, looking for the classroom today made me feel like a frosh again. I was careening around cluelessly on campus when something happened that hadn't happened in several months: I randomly spotted a friendly face in the crowd. It was another Hammie who guided me in the correct direction. Although I was still late for class, Jenn was still dealing with logistics when I showed up so I hadn't missed anything interesting.

We discussed the meaning of design and some examples of both good and bad design. During the discussion I realized that while form and function are commonly considered core aspects of design, they're really just examples of values for which design can strive. Sometimes they may not apply at all. For instance, when designing a process it doesn't make much sense to think about form. I also pointed out that design always operates within a set of constraints that influence the trade-offs to be made.

What is your definition of design?

Current Mood: energetic

10:37 am - The UW perception skewing effect

On Wednesday I gave a talk about university to a grade 11 CS class at my former high-school. I was astonished by the lack of ambition and focus I encountered. Only a handful of students intended to go on to college and fewer still were considering university. Mind you, when I was in grade 11 I had no idea which university I wanted to attend either but at least I knew I want to go to one. And I don't mean to imply that university/college is the only way to go because the trades are just as worthy of consideration. However, none of the students I spoke to had given any consideration to an apprenticeship either.

What surprised me the most was that not a single person in that classroom was taking the course because they wanted to. Some were in it because it was the least horrible course that fit into their schedule, others because they had been forced to take it by their parents, and a few had been thrust into it by their guidance counsellors without consent.

Spending 6 years at UW has clearly skewed my perception. It seems most people are rather apathetic in comparison to the typical UW crowd. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing, actually. If it's possible to be satisfied with little then why is it better to be constantly driven to greater heights of accomplishment with no real end in sight?

Current Mood: shocked

09:25 pm - The old fogeys are going down

When I was asked to write research papers at UW, most of my profs were adamant about us not relying upon the Net for our research; some went so far as to point out that the goood stuff is only to be found in obscure journals with no online presence. This baffles me. Do these journals revel in their exclusivity? If not, why do they not publish online? The world is changing. These days, if you're not in Google, you don't exist.

Current Mood: optimistic

09:51 am - Done, done & done -> Time to move on

I attended the final lecture of my six year long undergraduate career yesterday. And within a fortnight I will have moved out of SPUC, finally relinquishing my status as a UW student. The past six years have had a major impact upon me in more ways than I can recall. I've become a much better computer programmer, broadened my cultural palette and learnt a lot about social interaction. I've made many wonderful friends whom I hope to keep for life, despite the fact that geography will minimize opportunities for face-to-face contact.

In a matter of weeks I shall be moving to Palo Alto in California where I shall be working as as a User Interface Engineer for a small software company that makes hardware virtualization technology. After nine years in Southern Ontario it has become home to me and I will miss everything but the winter climate. Hopefully I will make new friends down there. Anybody who wants to visit is highly encouraged to do so.

Current Mood: pensive