The Design of Everyday Things

by Donald A. Norman

Summary:
So as can be inferred from the title this book covered design principles; that which makes a good/bad design and numerous examples of each so that the reader could understand what makes a good design, why some designs are not good (i.e. on purpose or through other priorities such as price etc.), and that if something seems simple but use of the object is frustrating or erroneous, then it is probably the design at fault. Some of the key points that the author made that distinguish a good design are reflected in his 'Seven Principles for Transforming Difficult Tasks into Simple Ones' p.188:

1. Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head.
2. Simplify the structure of tasks.
3. Make things visible: bridge the gulfs of Execution and Evaluation
4. Get the mappings right.
5. Exploit the power of constraints, both natural and artificial.
6. Design for error.
7. When all else fails, standardize.

The book was pretty thorough on the topic and went into great detail on each of his design attributes which included examples from self experience and photos/diagrams to illustrate his arguments.

Discussion:
The book had some intriguing arguments as to what makes a good design and why so many objects out in the world today suffer from poor design. I liked that in most of his examples he countered the obvious design flaws with logical reasoning as to why they existed. I liked that he continually referred to other material in the book either prior to or after what was currently being read, in that he was tying all of his ideas together. It would have been easier for me had I read all of the book in one or two sittings, but instead I spaced out the reading into perhaps five or six sessions so some of his references to prior material were lost on me since it had already left my memory. The included photos and diagrams helped reinforce his statements, but I would have still preferred more examples and evidence of poor design rather than related stories that were told to him by friends/coworkers.

Ethnography: Traffic Trends Concerning Turn Signals

This Ethnography done by myself and Zach Edens is going to study the correlation between cars and the use of turn signals. The three main aspects of the car that we want to record are:

• Type
• Make
• Color

After getting this data we can easily compare makes with each other to see which ones used their turn signals more or less, and we can do the same comparisons for type and color. After doing these initial measurements, we want to move into a more qualitative look and compare things such as:

• Length of turn signal
• Popularity of make
• Average price of car per make
• Color and its association with personality type
• The use of blinkers when people are alone or surrounded by other cars

That sums up the majority of the study, but we also have some notes that we are considering such as how we want to induct this:

• We are looking into finalizing what qualitative comparisons we want
• We want to put a minimum on the number of cars that are required to enter the study to represent that make.
• We are thinking of doing the tests during the day, afternoon most likely on a weekend.
• In order to best capture the data we are thinking of using some tools such as binoculars and perhaps a video camera.
• With the two of us working on this, we were thinking of using two different viewpoints to help reinforce the data.
• Another thing we are considering is doing the test not only at the exit off 2818 onto University, but perhaps at an intersection with either traffic lights or just stop signs.
• The last thing we wanted to make note of is to include lots of sources to back up our qualitative comparisons, especially since some will be based off of assumptions and such.

A Reconfigurable Ferromagnetic Input Device

By Jonathan Hook*, Stuart Taylor, Alex Butler, Nicolas Villar, Shahram Izadi

Commented on:
Bill Hamilton, Jacob Faires

Summary:
The focus of this paper was on using a ferromagnetic hardware device that could sense changes in magnetic fields that could be used to interpret input. Another key feature is that the device is ‘reconfigurable’ in that once set you are not stuck with that input method. The main setup presented in this paper was using a set of sensor coils that surrounded permanent magnets, with a deformable ferromagnetic bladder laid on top of the coils to be used as input. Once the bladder received pressure on it, it would in turn displace the magnetic field of a permanent magnet causing a small voltage in the sensing coil which could be used to measure input. In addition to this design two possible applications were discussed including a virtual sculpting application and a musical synthesizer. Below are a couple of pictures showing the device with a ferromagnetic bladder above it, and the other depicts using the device for a sculpting program.

Discussion:
The reconfigurable quality of the ferromagnetic input device stood out in this paper above all else. Instead of having only a set application of the device, the user could adjust and modify it to fit any situation they wanted. If this became a common household product I imagine that as time progressed there would be many different products that would use this device, but would require the user to reconfigure it. It made me think of a Swiss army knife that has all of those different tools in it, so that no matter the situation all you need is the Swiss army knife and you can get it done. I see the same thing for a device like this, where no matter what software comes out you can still use the ferromagnetic device to operate and use it.

A Practical Pressure Sensitive Computer Keyboard

By Paul H. Dietz, Benjamin Eidelson, Jonathan Westhues and Steven Bathiche

Summary:

The focus of this paper was on the implementation of pressure sensitivity to computer keyboards. The design presented in the paper was a relatively simple adjustment to the already common design of computer keyboards. This simple and low cost adjustment would allow for possible mass marketing of the device. One of the first topics discussed in this paper was that the design was a simple modification to the common keyboard design, with some alterations to the contact and space layers. The pressure sensitive design would require larger top and bottom contacts as well as a large space layer between them, so that when the user pressed down on the key the more pressure used would create more contact with the device and would register a stronger signal. Some of the possible applications mentioned in this paper were gaming and emotional instant messaging. A pressure sensitive keyboard could allow gamers the ability to scale movement actions such as running and jumping by how hard they pressed on the appropriate keys. In emotional instant messaging font size could easily be scaled by how hard the user pressed on the keys. A pressure sensitive keyboard such as this could have many affects on typing in general, such as allowing more functions to single keys like allowing backspace to either delete letters, words, or lines at a time depending on how hard the key is pressed.

Below is a picture showing the difference between a normal keyboard(left), and the new pressure sensitive design(right).

Discussion:

Unlike some of the other papers I read this one was most commercially probable. Even though the design is simplistic, I liked how practical it was and how easy it would be to modify the already common keyboard design with this new adjustment. This paper really presented something that could be easily integrated into my everyday life. A pressure sensitive keyboard could allow more intuitive typing and allow for more macros and functions based on key combinations. Of all the papers presented so far in class this is the one that I would most like to sample, because it is the only one I can see made commonly available in the near future.

TapSongs: Tapping Rhythm-Based Passwords on a Single Binary Sensor

Summary:
This paper discussed user authentication based on a binary receptor and tapped rhythms as opposed to textual passwords. It discussed some benefits of a system such as this like not needing any screen or keypad to enter in the information. Instead you would only need a binary receptor such as a button or switch. It was mostly focused on the implementation of a tapped rhythm. Through the author's study a small jingle's rhythm such as Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits could be used as a password for logging into a system. In order for a user to do this they would need to select a jingle or compose their own, practice it so that a model can be created, and then the user could enter the rhythm for log in. They also had a way for the model to adapt with each entry so that it became more accurate to the individual. In their testing users were able to log in successfully 83.2% of the time. The paper also discussed a user study that tested eavesdropping and password theft and the ability of the impostor to log in. In both cases the results were small, approximately ten percent in the first case and nineteen in the second.

Discussion:
This paper was pretty interesting. I haven't ever considered other methods of authentication but this one is pretty interesting. I myself often tap rhythms to songs I hear or play in my head and to move that into a log in scenario is pretty neat. I liked that their study had an adaptation technique so that it became customized to the users input so that it more accurately matched the model to them. I also like the simplicity of the binary receptor, and that password theft would be very different in this case. I think technology such as this could easily be moved to many things we use today such as safeguarding a portable external hard drive by having a small button on the side that served as an authentication means.

A Screen-Space Formulation for 2D and 3D Direct Manipulation

Summary:
This paper was about using a touch screen to move objects in a three dimensional space using multiple contact points in direct manipulation. It discussed several aspects of this including world space transformations, minimization methods, three-finger rotations, ambiguous rotations, rotational exhaustion, and more. The main content was focused on how to move the object with particular finger movements such as using two contact points to signify an axis, and using another finger to rotate about that axis. Another example would be using one finger to select a point on the object, and moving that finger to directly translate the object. Two fingers could be used to do things such as scaling the object by moving on finger closer/further away from the other, translating similar to the one finger movement, and so on. The direct manipulation aspect meant that the contact points were directly mapped to the object, so when the fingers moved those points on the object moved in that fashion. To compensate for the various movements a user could make the object would either translate, rotate, scale, or a combination of the three in order to achieve the desired result. The paper discussed the authors experience with the system and problems they encountered such as ambiguous transformations and rotational exhaustion, as well as methods to minimize the affects of these like using pressure, biasing, and many others.

Here is an image of some three finger movements:



Discussion:
This paper turned out to be pretty interesting because I have some basic experience in graphics so I understood most of what was being discussed such as the projection and orthogonal views, the use of quaternions, and the transformations such as scaling, translating, rotating, shear, etc. The direct manipulation of the finger contact points to the object was pretty interesting because I think that when dealing with this situation that is the most intuitive way users would want to move the objects because as it said in the paper it lets them feel as if they are 'gripping' the object. I really liked how the author discussed his first experience with the system and the problems he encountered. The ambiguous rotations was pretty interesting because it would be something I wouldn't have thought of. I also liked that some of the ways they treated these problems were more like patches since technically the system behaved correctly just not as the user would have expected. I'm not really sure how this could be advanced for further use, but I liked the idea of using it for moving around a landscape as some of the images showed. I think using pressure add another dimension to the system, allowing the user and alternative movement to make the object move.