-- BellaManoim - 30 July 2009
July 30
It's all winding down now. I've seen so many cool things this summer that I will take back with me, technologies I didn't know existed like haptics and multi-touch tables, augmented reality, experiencing VR, it has all been really neat. I loved the luncheon lectures, we heard from people specializing in different disciplines doing related work. The John Deere trip was great, I've always wanted to see the inside of a factory. Whenever I see anything with bad usability in the real world (outside of lab) I point it out. We learned about industry, about academia, about the Masters/Ph.D. process and graduate school. Mike and Zayira have been very helpful, our mentors Ross and Nir have given us a lot of direction and support. The HCI staff and particularly Pam, thank you! It has been a pleasure working with everybody. I'm ready for symposium. -- BellaManoim - 29 July 2009
July 29
We have been editing the paper all morning and updated our group's wiki with the current most final version. We're still waiting for some feedback. Best experience: Realizing we met our goal of 50 participants. Getting significant results. Having participants 'wow-ed' by the C6 and AR. ok, edit. this was the WEIRDEST experience, not worst: When Andrew and I were trying to find participants outside of the library, one man after rejecting our proposal, said to us, "You know, you go to college campuses and you've got Al Quaeda, killing babies, and now Human Computer Interaction? There are better things to do with your life. Think about it." The worst: technology failing 5 minutes before we had a participant arriving, and changing schedules/booking rooms/finding space, moving people around, running up and down the steps bringing participants to three different locations at the same time. it was a juggling/balancing act. when I think back at it though, it was definitely fun meeting new people and telling them about our work.
July 28
We're running 8 people through the C6 today! Since we had 2 people before that, we have a total of 10 in VR, which means a complete total of 51 people! WE MADE IT! (thanks to the help of everybody here, staff and grad students) 51 participants! -- BellaManoim - 27 July 2009
July 27
Paper editing time! Also, finding people to do the C6 study tomorrow. -- BellaManoim - 24 July 2009
July 24
We have the PWSE poster session today, I'm looking forward to it. Yesterday we went to Principal Financial Center and the Science Center. We learned about how the usability team (only a couple of people, but very efficient) performs their studies. We also heard from a museum director about how museums are planned and how museums have changed over time to be more people-friendly. This particular museum allows kids to come to their own conclusions about why things happen the way they do, and offers very little real informative scientific information. We were able to walk around the museum and I observed that the kids really liked playing with/interacting with the games and puzzles set up for them. I guess that at the age range they focus on, kids probably don't want to read information like an adult might want to, and they just like to learn by doing (it's like they're learning and they don't know it.) We also took some group photos in the corn, and there was a spider.
July 22
Several cancellations today, all in all pretty good turnout. I think we got about 14 people in three domains, and one in C6. We have three more people today at 4pm, so we have to miss part of the poster and demo practice. -- BellaManoim - 21 July 2009
July 21
Three people didn't show up this morning (it's probably because of the rain). I'm hoping we have better luck this afternoon. My dad sent me a link to this TED talk. It's really cool, check it out. Josh, Kelly and Linh- you guys will like it because it uses marker motion tracking with colored finger tips. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUdDhWfpqxg We also finished our poster.
July 20
We had one participant today and we're running our study Tuesday and Wednesday. Nir is going to go over Survey Monkey with us soon and tell us how we'll be doing results. We're mostly focusing on fixing up the poster today. -- BellaManoim - 17 July 2009
July 17
We're trying to get more participants for next week, we opened up Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. So far, we only have one person. I hope over the weekend more people check their e-mails and sign up. Lora Leigh is also going to help by emailing some more PWSE staff members. I'm participating in Amy/PJ/Ivan's study again on Sunday because MIA ran out of batteries and was having technical difficulties when I tried working with her yesterday. She was much bigger than I had pictured in my mind. I went through the paper and pencil videos today and wrote out the results (coordinates of all of the boxes looked at).
July 16
Busy! Less busy today than yesterday, but we have a total of 29 participants, and 9 more on the schedule to get through. People are still signing up so its a good sign. I'm hoping we can really meet our goal of 50 participants. The AR went great this morning. Richard and Andrew did a really good job with stabilizing the cars and our participants seemed impressed. A special thank you to everybody that participated from our REU group! Thanks guys, we really appreciate it!! Almost EVERYBODY participated, except one person. Yes, you know who you are. You still haven't signed up. I will continue nagging until you do so. Participant is here! Gotta go!
July 15
Still BUSY BUSY BUSY!! Expect to see myself and andrew running around today, we have 12 participants to get through (one canceled). Andrew started working on our first draft of the poster. Oh yes, and the John Deere trip yesterday was really cool. -- BellaManoim - 14 July 2009
July 14
Four studies scheduled for today. Busy busy busy!! We have 13 people scheduled for tomorrow. Wow. It looks like we'll be scheduling people next week as well, because the C6 is busy/unavailable to us this week. I'm going to be analyzing the Paper and Pencil video after the last experiment to keep track of what positions people looked at.
July 13
I had to re-schedule 13 people this morning (HECTIC!) We had our first participant, everything went ...rather... okay considering we didn't have the right car yet and the AR was having light-related technical difficulties. Even though the survey worked, unfortunately, the data didn't record during the actual 2D experiment (but this was due to a minor mistake on our part). So today we are working on fixing out all of the bugs so we're more prepared tomorrow. We had 25 people on our list for the week this morning, due to the rescheduling we have 22 participants now, which is a pretty great turnout for what I was expecting. Oh yeah, and the camcorder wasn't working. -- BellaManoim - 10 July 2009
July 10
Everyone that still hasn't signed up for our study, please do so!! This is the link: http://www.doodle.com/mmzfg8fz6ifksvev This is the consent form. Please take a moment to read it. This morning we ran a few test trials of the AR experiment, and had some changes to make. I'm working on getting the paper and pencil domain set up, and we will have to go through a test run of the paper/pencil before monday just to make sure we can work the camera. I will also make a guideline type sheet so that the person in the AR experiment knows what to do (how to work the wireless remote)
July 9
We are working on getting the AR to completion, making some little changes and thinking about procedure. (We realized this morning that for our AR experiment, people will be walking around with a backpack and the computer inside of the backpack, so how we had them enter the code on keyboard would be different) Also, participants have been singing up on doodle! Yay!
-- BellaManoim - 8 July 2009
July 8
The financial future luncheon was really informative. I definitely think it was useful to go to, a lot of the things discussed I had never heard of or really didn't know much about. I'm going to write a procedure script today which provides all of the information for conducting the (when, how, who, where, what) of the study. We're trying to organize well right now so that we can have people come in for the study next week. I have gotten 4 replies already about participants! yay!
July 7
I finally got the user code entering working today so that when the AR and 2D applications start, the user is prompted to enter a code that must match one of the set codes, and it gets saved to their activity log. We have a meeting at 3 to go over what we have so far, we should be getting really close now to the finished product and testing. I also made a t-shirt design.
July 6
I'm still working on having a user enter the correct code before they start the environment. So much debugging!! -- BellaManoim - 2 July 2009
July 2
I still don't have the font working, as soon as I get rid of one error, I get 40 more. It seems like it should be much, much easier to use a standard font without having to import a ton of files and multiple libraries. Right now I'm doing an input/output stream (I guess it's in C for AR Toolkit) so that the user has to enter a user code when the matrix comes up so we can keep track of our 'subjects'. I enjoyed the luncheon lecture today too, who knew neural networks and genetic algorithms could be so neat? Here's the video he showed of the creatures evolving. Evolving Creatures (youtube) Also, Nir and Ross took us to lunch today which was delicious. We got hibachi at a place called Fuji (I highly recommend the salmon there), all of us really liked what we ate. We're also hoping that everything with the IRB goes through today. UPDATE: IRB APPROVED!
July 1
Well, if you can believe it, font is much more complicated then I had anticipated. I'm working on font and color today (it looks better in OpenGL than in AR). The PWSE lecture panel was good today, I was surprised that 12 weeks is maximum for maternity leave (mind you, often unpaid and less if you have worked for the company under a year). -- BellaManoim - 30 June 2009
June 30
Today I've been trying to figure out how to get Palatino Linotype font into OpenGL , and right now I'll be looking at getting normals for the matrix to make it brighter. I'm trying to make it more visually appealing, so I picked a good color for it and now I'd like it to be lighter because it appears dark on the screen. -- BellaManoim - 29 June 2009
June 29
So this morning we came up with a plan of how to proceed with the current AR challenges we are facing. so here is what I understand we were discussing this morning- idea 1: We would like to convert the coordinates of the matrix into global coordinates, (A-inverse, all matrix points into global) and then find B-inverse and that converts the selection pointer to global, so we have the position of that. idea 2: Don't put both matrix and pointer into global. Assume when moving the DM around, the coordinate system is changing, so position of pointer even though its standalone changes as well. For the frame it would be alright because the relationship between both markers changes and we need that to occur if we're going to intersect the two objects. So we're inversing a matrix putting it into global space. Then, you take the inverse, multiply by the matrix that is used to put the DM coord space, now when we multiply a camera space pos by that, the result is that the pos is inversed in the DM position. ..so I think we're all a little stuck on whats happening here, trying to understand it. Ross is going to help us visualize inversions/camera space/translation/coord space. Tutorial 2 on AR toolkit documentation page has some helpful information. Also!!! We heard back from the IRB today and have to make some changes, we'll be meeting at 3 to address them.
June 26
I finished the methods page! (The second draft of it) I sent it to zayira, mike, and my mentors to get some feedback. Today at 3 we are meeting with Ross to go over setting up the paper/pencil domain. We don't want to make it too easy (post it note tabs on paper) but we don't want to make it too hard. One of Ross's ideas was to drip wax on some sturdy paper or surface, and scratch off the wax (without scratching off the information) Another idea was to put paint on some kind of plastic wrap and scratch paint off with a quarter. Andrew and Richard are trying to synchronize coordinate planes, figuring out geometrical things. I found this great website last night: http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/index.html It has really cool optical illusions, some of them really fool you.
June 25
I've been fixing up the methods page today and following what Andrew and Richard are doing. So far, we have a decision matrix that comes up, but we're trying to figure out how to get the matrix to recognize when another marker (a pointer) is in the area of a matrix box (as to select it). This is going to be a pretty big challenge. The graphics luncheon lecture was really cool. I am interested in usability so I thought it was interesting that women/men react differently to color, and I like the anthropological/sociological issues brought into the mix when learning how people from different countries/environments/mindsets navigate websites. Connor burst his stress ball and pink goo got everywhere. Here is some street art for your viewing pleasure. This is an entirely flat drawing, but the optical illusion makes you think it has depth.
June 24
I made a lot of progress today on the lit review, and did some fixing of the methods page. We have a meeting at 1:30 with Nir which should help me finish the methods section. Andrew and Richard are working on getting the decision matrix into AR. I watched "The Lives of Others" last night because it was highly recommended to me (by the way guys, the library has a lot of DVDs you can take out). Unfortunately, I didn't sit through the whole movie because it went too slowly for me. I rarely stop a movie in the middle, and it wasn't even 'bad' per say, it just didn't hold my interest. If you like thrillers about spies and Germany, check it out. What is it called when users click on items in close proximity? (update: I figured it out)
June 23
We have our presentations soon, and our group practiced several times so I hope it will go well. The haptics luncheon was neat, it was my favorite of the technologies when we saw the research project parade. I spent the morning working on our lit review, and tomorrow I will work on the methods section. Also, Iowa weather is nuts. Don't trust the forecast! I checked it this morning, and it said "Sunny". Now? It is thunder storming, and I have no umbrella. -- BellaManoim - 22 June 2009
June 22
I organized our survey and posted it on Survey Monkey. I will also be cleaning up/fixing our literature review as well as problem area paragraph. My hands don't hurt so I'm very happy right now. The "How to give a research talk" was helpful this morning.
June 19
I've been editing and revising the IRB forms, Mike gave a lot of help with that (thanks!) There was a lot of paperwork, consent form, survey, sequence of events, recruitment script... all done in 2 days. I've also started using only my left hand to type and click because now my right hand hurts. I have to start writing down the funny things people say. One was about blooming like a flower and flying from a cage like a bird, Ivan had something about staring into soda realizing there was only one bubble.. someone says something quotable every day, it's too bad I don't remember it all.
-- BellaManoim - 18 June 2009
June 18
Our research question has been altered a little: Considering evaluating the decision making process with a decision matrix, is augmented reality an effective way to make observations on the decision making experience when compared to observation in reality on paper, a two-dimensional computer display, and virtual reality? I am working on the survey and sequence of events to get IRB approval because it takes a few weeks. It looks like we are submitting our IRB forms tomorrow!, which means I have to finish/get close to finishing the survey/forms today!!! Also, it is Ross's birthday, everyone wish him a happy birthday! -- BellaManoim - 17 June 2009
June 17
1. My hand has been feeling better. It hasn't bothered me yet today so I'm not going to push my luck and type too much. 2. I'm reading "Constructive Consumer Choice Processes" by John Payne. 3. Nir gave me two more articles that directly relate to the shopping experience to read. On Friday we're going to brainstorm/write out the details of the experiment. 4. When you have time, check out the usability of this fun game. It is called "Fancy Pants" world 2. There is also a world 1, it is just as fun. http://www.kongregate.com/games/DrNeroCF/fancy-pants-adventure-world-2
5. Oh yes, and yesterday we went to the Spice for dinner. It was a really nice treat. Ugonna and Taylor made me laugh so hard I cried. We got a shrimp appetizer for our end of the table, and as we're all eating, I realize that they didn't pull the tails off. So they were munching on tails when I said 'don't forget to pull the tails off.' It was really very funny.
Fun game though, but they need to remap the jump button to something people actually think of when they go to play it (shift key also works).
-- BellaManoim - 16 June 2009
June 16
1. Finishing up our Mario project to present it today 2. Vote for Fight Club for friday! It's got Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter and Brad Pitt. 3. My left hand still hurts a lot. It's starting to worry me.
June 15
1. I found Maya and Sketchup difficult to navigate, and made an 'abstract' castle. 2. Our project is almost done. I have brick cubes, question mark cubes, a warp tunnel, a billboard Mario and spinning coins (but I don't know if we'll be including the spinning coins). 3. My left hand has been hurting for some odd reason, on and off all day. 4. I read "On Depth and Dynamics of Online Search Behavior" by Eric Johnson. It's a study of shopping search patterns and purchase sessions. The conclusion is that more experience online shopping leads to a decrease in amount of visited websites, people usually pick a preferred website and are loyal to it. 5. I also read "Predictors of Online Buying Behavior" (Johnson) which was from 1999 and looked at the relationship between the internet user's personal characteristics and their buying activity. They came to the conclusion that the typical online buyer has a 'wired' lifestyle. I think the statistics they provided in 1999 have changed a lot, back then only 3.1% of users said they used the internet for shopping. It also said that the influence of demographics is barely significant, other than influencing whether a person is online in the first place. -- BellaManoim - 12 June 2009
June 12- Friday!
1. Our meeting yesterday with Ross and Nir was very helpful. It looks like we will be focusing on just testing Augmented Reality and if we have time, we'll look into the other domains. At first I was worried about the fact that I'd have to make some decisions with the usability testing, but now that I've been reading more about it, it's nice to have creative freedom. 2. Our super mario bros. idea for OpenGL is really fun too. Richard made a very interesting looking cloud. I spent 2 hours yesterday just working on altering the spinning cube code to get a non-spinning cube to appear. Today, with VJ's help, I got it to work. In fact, at exactly 11:00am on the dot, I got a brick textured cube! IT WAS SO EXCITING (for real, I'm not exaggerating). I spent a lot of time getting the polygon coordinates right, and when it all worked...it was fantastic. 3. Our scavenger hunt yesterday was a lot of fun! (The dessert at Stomping Grounds is fantastic, I highly recommend the strawberry rhubarb crepe) When we approached a car to ask them to fill their tank, the girls in the car were afraid to get out, I guess because we ran to their car and they thought that we were insane. We met a whole lot of friendly people here in Ames. I'm surprised the police officer rang his siren for us. We also got some funny footage of Ivan making horn noises in a fire truck, and Ivan and I doing the salsa. I hugged a stranger and got a group of people to sing the YMCA song with us. It was definitely really fun. Great idea!
-- BellaManoim - 11 June 2009
June 11- 4th lesson in OpenGL
1. We met with Ross this morning to go over our powerpoint for our presentation to Nir. He had some comments and answered some questions, but it looks like we'll be figuring out usability factors on our own. 2. We are meeting with our research group at 5 today instead of doing it from 1-3, so I guess we are blogging/doing the OpenGL assignment/fixing up our powerpoint for this afternoon right now.
June 10- Third lesson in OpenGL
1. Zayira wants us to email her back about the scavenger hunt, so everybody email her back please. 2. I'm working on the OpenGL assignment. I got the soccerball to appear and the lighting to work. I still have to get the soccerball to bounce the right way. 3. My group is going to do a cool 'Super Mario Bros.' OpenGL project. It'll be one level of the game, with some floating objects (cubes, question marks, coins). 4. My group has a 15 minute presentation tomorrow after the HCI Course for our faculty mentor to present what we will be doing and each of our roles. I'm still trying to figure my part out. 5. Scavenger hunt is tomorrow! I hope we have time to get dinner before it. 6. So much to do...so little time.
June 9- Second lesson in OpenGL
1. I was able to make one sphere spin and another sphere revolve around the center sphere for our assignment in OpenGL so far. 2. Our luncheon lecture was really cool, I can't believe that in such a short time their medical imaging application was already being used. 3. I don't like that my computer is by default hooked up to the projector because whenever it is on, people can see what I am typing. Like, right now.
-- BellaManoim - 8 June 2009
June 8- First lesson in OpenGL
1. I can't believe it's already June 8. 2. Met with group for breakfast at 8:30am again, I'm glad Ross is letting us change the time after this week. Though I don't mind getting up early, I'm not a morning person. I have more energy post-breakfast. 3. We had our first OpenGL class today. It was really cool to see some of the projects students had done in the past. It's hard to believe we'll be able to make such cool things by the end of the week. I'm currently working on the OpenGL assignment, I got a circle to appear, now it's time for the initials. 4. I went to the gym yesterday after the picnic, and now my legs are really sore so I'm walking around like a penguin. reference: "baby steps." 5. For our research project I will be looking up making decisions in GUI environments and mapping decisions from an interface. There isn't a lot on the subject out there already so I'll be digging.
June 5
1. Vote for canoeing! 2. Today I received the admin access I needed to successfully download ARToolkit and other components related to it. 3. Now I'm working on the IRB training certification. 4. Yesterday I read "Measuring the User Experience" and "Going My Way: A User Aware Route Planner." I'm pretty sure I want to be working on the tool we will use to gather results about the experiment. We will all we working on all of the aspects, but this is probably going to be my focus. Three reasons why: 1. Andrew and Richard have a lot more experience with C++, and would be more efficient than me. It would take me twice as long (or more) than it would take them to code something in C++. 2. I enjoy reading papers and want to learn about usability testing. 3. I think it will be fun. 5. Today I read chapter 11 of "3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice" by Doug Bowman and I will be looking back at it again because it has a lot of useful information in it regarding questionnaires and evaluation metrics for 3D interfaces.
June 4
Today we met with Ross and Nir to go over a plan of what we're doing for the Decision Making project. We are working on creating a decision matrix in C++ and discussed specifications. Ross also posted some reading material for us to go over so we can get a better idea of what we will be working with and divide up tasks amongst ourselves. We also meet every day at 8:30am to discuss our progress/what we did the day before. I printed out some of the reading we have to do because reading pdf wordy files on the computer gives me headaches, last summer I had constant migraines from staring at the screen for long periods of time (hours). Does anybody know if there is a stapler around? I didn't see one by the printer. So right now we are trying to figure out how to install Windows XP on the new Toshiba laptop Nir ordered and we're having some problems with it because the current system is Vista and none of the programs we use work with Vista. Also, we finished our Mastermind project! It works
And another thing, I don't like Microsoft Word 2007. What a terrible idea Microsoft. Sure, get rid of the drop down menu bins we are all used to. I couldn't figure out where the 'save as' button was for several minutes, until I clicked every other button on the page, and realized it is in the funny looking bubble at the top left. Why would they put the most important menu items in a bubble? I wouldn't even have guessed you could click on the bubble.
June 3
This morning we went over functions, arrays, strings and sorting. I was able to get my assignment done but couldn't get the sorting to work. Now our team is working on creating a decision matrix for tomorrow. Andrew and Richard have a lot of C++ coding experience, so they're doing some things I don't know how to do in C++ (dynamic array with vectors?). I'm looking at a tutorial though and trying to follow it. We are also going to put together our Mastermind project to make sure our three parts work together.
Project
Our C++ project is coming along well. I was also able to code the assignment for the programming class and do one of the extra credit exercises where you created a function. It turns out C++ is not very different from Java at all (at least in these beginning stages). I'm really glad I'm getting it. I also went to Lied Gym last night. It was fantastic. What a great athletic facility. I can't believe how big it is. We also had a faculty luncheon today, and heard from Stephen Gilbert about his research. It's amazing to think about how much work goes into creating a tutoring program. You have to think about all of the possible mistakes someone could make and how to explain to them the right way of thinking, as well as making sure they don't click click click to get to the right answer without reading the explanation.
HCI- Bad Usability
Here is an example of bad usability.
What the user wants to do: The user is a passenger in the backseat of a PT Cruiser, and wants to open the window.
What's wrong: The window switch is not located on the door where the passenger would expect it. The user would not expect the control for the window to be located on the floor between the two front seats. Instead of comfortably enjoying the car ride and moving the arm a couple of inches to open the window, the user has to bend down to the floor of the car to open the window. (never mind how hard it is to find the window switch at night when it is dark)
What would be better: It would be better to have the window switch be located on the door (where the user expects it).
Brief analysis: This design clearly has bad mapping and bad memorability. For bad mapping, the switch is not close to the window. It makes no sense to put the switch so far from the window where you have to go out of your way to reach it, when you are sitting next to the door and it could be right there next to the handle. It is also not memorable. The switch is not where you would expect it to be, so it's hard to remember that 'ah, when I go into the back seat of a PT Cruiser, I have to look for the switch in the middle of the car on the floor.'
Here is another example of bad mapping:
You cannot tell from this picture if the mouse / keyboard input is on top or bottom. The mouse input is supposed to be the top and the keyboard is the bottom, but you could easily mistake it.
Two better alternatives: 
C++ Class
This weekend was pretty fun. The weather was nice, and a few of us went to Rieman Gardens to check out the butterfly wing. It was really cool, I got some good pictures. On sunday we attempted to have a BBQ. Luckily we cooked most of the food before it started raining. Today we had the first C++ programming class, in which we learned the basics. We practiced with two tutorials, "Hello World!" and an input/output program, and I got it to work. It seemed pretty easy for me because of my Java experience, just a translation of syntax. Now my team is working on our C++ project and we're doing a Mastermind game.
Affinity Research Group
Today we spent the morning with the ARG learning how to work in teams. Some of the information was more helpful than other information. However, the discussions we had with our research groups about our goals, tasks, and deliverables were extremely helpful. Our group has a much better understanding of what we are doing now. Research Question: What is the effect of the domain on the decision making experience (not process, but 'experience')? There are 4 domains we are looking at: reality, virtual reality, 2D, and augmented reality. We will need approximately 60 people to go through each domain experience for when we conduct the experiment, and we made a draft of a timeline to help us determine when we will be doing different parts of the research. For instance, we have to make the instrument to measure the decision making experience (i.e. survey of some sort) soon so that we can sent it to the IRB (Institutional Review Board), which has to approve all experiments in which people are involved. We also saw some examples of AR on youtube, and it was really really cool. You wear a headset and hold a square with a symbol on it, and the camera detects the square piece (its like a marker) and creates an image on it in augmented reality. So one student at ISU made an application in which you could command the images to do different things, and he built a wheel. It's hard to explain without seeing it. Here is a link of something cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2gqshFr4AI
Journal Club, C++, Intro to projects
This morning we had a Journal Club where we discussed two articles. One was about teachers on facebook, the other was about the effect of myspace, cellphones and IM on grades. We also had a C++ pretest today to see what we know. I have never used/seen C++ code before so I didn't know much. I understood a few things (I hope) from my Java knowledge, I recognized loops and hope I got a few questions right. We also learned about the different projects everybody is working on. It was really interesting, all of the projects are so COOL. Right now I don't totally grasp my project on decision making in augmented reality. I'd like to have a clearer sense of the goal and what is do-able this summer. We should have timelines soon of what is expected. I'm looking forward to getting into the project though, right now the concept of the 'decision making process' is abstract. My group seems to agree. How do you employ these technologies to understand how people make decisions? It seems like decisions are made so quickly, in times of emergency especially, so how can you predict the outcome of your actions in order to made the best decision? Also, natural disasters, fires, can you predict how a fire will spread? It's very dynamic, no two fires are exactly the same. Would thinking about your actions impede the natural instincts you have and the urgency to run? I understand the main goal of the project is to learn how people make decisions, and the second goal is to help people make the best decision. I guess it just seems very instinctual to me. Take a fire for example, you take some factors into account, i.e. is a beam about to fall on my head? do you hear someone screaming for help? could there be kids hiding under their beds?, and then you take in what is around you, instantaneously, and then you move move move! How can you slow down to analyze how you choose to do the action you choose? All in all, there are many interesting questions to look at. Thought provoking. Gary Klein wrote several books about this type of research, "Sources of Power" and "The Power of Intuition." I wonder if the library has copies of these books?
July 30
It's all winding down now. I've seen so many cool things this summer that I will take back with me, technologies I didn't know existed like haptics and multi-touch tables, augmented reality, experiencing VR, it has all been really neat. I loved the luncheon lectures, we heard from people specializing in different disciplines doing related work. The John Deere trip was great, I've always wanted to see the inside of a factory. Whenever I see anything with bad usability in the real world (outside of lab) I point it out. We learned about industry, about academia, about the Masters/Ph.D. process and graduate school. Mike and Zayira have been very helpful, our mentors Ross and Nir have given us a lot of direction and support. The HCI staff and particularly Pam, thank you! It has been a pleasure working with everybody. I'm ready for symposium. -- BellaManoim - 29 July 2009
July 29
We have been editing the paper all morning and updated our group's wiki with the current most final version. We're still waiting for some feedback. Best experience: Realizing we met our goal of 50 participants. Getting significant results. Having participants 'wow-ed' by the C6 and AR. ok, edit. this was the WEIRDEST experience, not worst: When Andrew and I were trying to find participants outside of the library, one man after rejecting our proposal, said to us, "You know, you go to college campuses and you've got Al Quaeda, killing babies, and now Human Computer Interaction? There are better things to do with your life. Think about it." The worst: technology failing 5 minutes before we had a participant arriving, and changing schedules/booking rooms/finding space, moving people around, running up and down the steps bringing participants to three different locations at the same time. it was a juggling/balancing act. when I think back at it though, it was definitely fun meeting new people and telling them about our work.
JohnNewman - 29 Jul 2009 - 13:45
I don't know if I would say that was the worst experience, but it was definitely the weirdest experience of the summer. -- BellaManoim - 28 July 2009July 28
We're running 8 people through the C6 today! Since we had 2 people before that, we have a total of 10 in VR, which means a complete total of 51 people! WE MADE IT! (thanks to the help of everybody here, staff and grad students) 51 participants! -- BellaManoim - 27 July 2009
July 27
Paper editing time! Also, finding people to do the C6 study tomorrow. -- BellaManoim - 24 July 2009
July 24
We have the PWSE poster session today, I'm looking forward to it. Yesterday we went to Principal Financial Center and the Science Center. We learned about how the usability team (only a couple of people, but very efficient) performs their studies. We also heard from a museum director about how museums are planned and how museums have changed over time to be more people-friendly. This particular museum allows kids to come to their own conclusions about why things happen the way they do, and offers very little real informative scientific information. We were able to walk around the museum and I observed that the kids really liked playing with/interacting with the games and puzzles set up for them. I guess that at the age range they focus on, kids probably don't want to read information like an adult might want to, and they just like to learn by doing (it's like they're learning and they don't know it.) We also took some group photos in the corn, and there was a spider.
ConnorSchenck - 27 Jul 2009 - 13:20
ah a spider! lol -- BellaManoim - 22 July 2009July 22
Several cancellations today, all in all pretty good turnout. I think we got about 14 people in three domains, and one in C6. We have three more people today at 4pm, so we have to miss part of the poster and demo practice. -- BellaManoim - 21 July 2009
July 21
Three people didn't show up this morning (it's probably because of the rain). I'm hoping we have better luck this afternoon. My dad sent me a link to this TED talk. It's really cool, check it out. Josh, Kelly and Linh- you guys will like it because it uses marker motion tracking with colored finger tips. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUdDhWfpqxg We also finished our poster.
UgonnaOhiri - 21 Jul 2009 - 21:55
The poster is very eye-appealing...GREAT JOB! -- BellaManoim - 20 July 2009July 20
We had one participant today and we're running our study Tuesday and Wednesday. Nir is going to go over Survey Monkey with us soon and tell us how we'll be doing results. We're mostly focusing on fixing up the poster today. -- BellaManoim - 17 July 2009
July 17
We're trying to get more participants for next week, we opened up Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. So far, we only have one person. I hope over the weekend more people check their e-mails and sign up. Lora Leigh is also going to help by emailing some more PWSE staff members. I'm participating in Amy/PJ/Ivan's study again on Sunday because MIA ran out of batteries and was having technical difficulties when I tried working with her yesterday. She was much bigger than I had pictured in my mind. I went through the paper and pencil videos today and wrote out the results (coordinates of all of the boxes looked at).
ZayiraJordan - 20 Jul 2009 - 09:50
I luv ur comic strip!!! lol -- BellaManoim - 16 July 2009July 16
Busy! Less busy today than yesterday, but we have a total of 29 participants, and 9 more on the schedule to get through. People are still signing up so its a good sign. I'm hoping we can really meet our goal of 50 participants. The AR went great this morning. Richard and Andrew did a really good job with stabilizing the cars and our participants seemed impressed. A special thank you to everybody that participated from our REU group! Thanks guys, we really appreciate it!! Almost EVERYBODY participated, except one person. Yes, you know who you are. You still haven't signed up. I will continue nagging until you do so. Participant is here! Gotta go!
UgonnaOhiri - 16 Jul 2009 - 16:19
You guys have done a superb job in accommodating these participants. Keep up the good work! -- BellaManoim - 15 July 2009July 15
Still BUSY BUSY BUSY!! Expect to see myself and andrew running around today, we have 12 participants to get through (one canceled). Andrew started working on our first draft of the poster. Oh yes, and the John Deere trip yesterday was really cool. -- BellaManoim - 14 July 2009
July 14
Four studies scheduled for today. Busy busy busy!! We have 13 people scheduled for tomorrow. Wow. It looks like we'll be scheduling people next week as well, because the C6 is busy/unavailable to us this week. I'm going to be analyzing the Paper and Pencil video after the last experiment to keep track of what positions people looked at.
JoshuaSituka - 15 Jul 2009 - 13:06
That sux about C6. Good luck on your experiments. I'll be prime and ready tomorrow for augmented reality. -- BellaManoim - 13 July 2009July 13
I had to re-schedule 13 people this morning (HECTIC!) We had our first participant, everything went ...rather... okay considering we didn't have the right car yet and the AR was having light-related technical difficulties. Even though the survey worked, unfortunately, the data didn't record during the actual 2D experiment (but this was due to a minor mistake on our part). So today we are working on fixing out all of the bugs so we're more prepared tomorrow. We had 25 people on our list for the week this morning, due to the rescheduling we have 22 participants now, which is a pretty great turnout for what I was expecting. Oh yeah, and the camcorder wasn't working. -- BellaManoim - 10 July 2009
July 10
Everyone that still hasn't signed up for our study, please do so!! This is the link: http://www.doodle.com/mmzfg8fz6ifksvev This is the consent form. Please take a moment to read it. This morning we ran a few test trials of the AR experiment, and had some changes to make. I'm working on getting the paper and pencil domain set up, and we will have to go through a test run of the paper/pencil before monday just to make sure we can work the camera. I will also make a guideline type sheet so that the person in the AR experiment knows what to do (how to work the wireless remote)
JoshuaSituka - 10 Jul 2009 - 15:24
You are a research stalker. : ) -- BellaManoim - 9 July 2009July 9
We are working on getting the AR to completion, making some little changes and thinking about procedure. (We realized this morning that for our AR experiment, people will be walking around with a backpack and the computer inside of the backpack, so how we had them enter the code on keyboard would be different) Also, participants have been singing up on doodle! Yay!
ConnorSchenck - 10 Jul 2009 - 13:13
hmm, I wonder if it had to do with all the posts you've been doing on other people's blogs? lolAmyGreen - 09 Jul 2009 - 16:50
I will sign up for you guys!
-- BellaManoim - 8 July 2009
July 8
The financial future luncheon was really informative. I definitely think it was useful to go to, a lot of the things discussed I had never heard of or really didn't know much about. I'm going to write a procedure script today which provides all of the information for conducting the (when, how, who, where, what) of the study. We're trying to organize well right now so that we can have people come in for the study next week. I have gotten 4 replies already about participants! yay!
ZayiraJordan - 09 Jul 2009 - 10:15
That's great, Bella! You wouldn't believe how hard it is some time to get people to do this.UgonnaOhiri - 08 Jul 2009 - 13:24
Congrats on the participants! Take a look at this: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/optimism -- BellaManoim - 7 July 2009July 7
I finally got the user code entering working today so that when the AR and 2D applications start, the user is prompted to enter a code that must match one of the set codes, and it gets saved to their activity log. We have a meeting at 3 to go over what we have so far, we should be getting really close now to the finished product and testing. I also made a t-shirt design.
ConnorSchenck - 08 Jul 2009 - 13:10
that's a cool designJoshuaSituka - 07 Jul 2009 - 16:52
ironically your tshirt design kinda looks light the person got hit by a paintball gun. : ) -- BellaManoim - 6 July 2009July 6
I'm still working on having a user enter the correct code before they start the environment. So much debugging!! -- BellaManoim - 2 July 2009
July 2
I still don't have the font working, as soon as I get rid of one error, I get 40 more. It seems like it should be much, much easier to use a standard font without having to import a ton of files and multiple libraries. Right now I'm doing an input/output stream (I guess it's in C for AR Toolkit) so that the user has to enter a user code when the matrix comes up so we can keep track of our 'subjects'. I enjoyed the luncheon lecture today too, who knew neural networks and genetic algorithms could be so neat? Here's the video he showed of the creatures evolving. Evolving Creatures (youtube) Also, Nir and Ross took us to lunch today which was delicious. We got hibachi at a place called Fuji (I highly recommend the salmon there), all of us really liked what we ate. We're also hoping that everything with the IRB goes through today. UPDATE: IRB APPROVED!
UgonnaOhiri - 06 Jul 2009 - 15:23
Hibachi? Yum-Yum -- BellaManoim - 1 July 2009July 1
Well, if you can believe it, font is much more complicated then I had anticipated. I'm working on font and color today (it looks better in OpenGL than in AR). The PWSE lecture panel was good today, I was surprised that 12 weeks is maximum for maternity leave (mind you, often unpaid and less if you have worked for the company under a year). -- BellaManoim - 30 June 2009
June 30
Today I've been trying to figure out how to get Palatino Linotype font into OpenGL , and right now I'll be looking at getting normals for the matrix to make it brighter. I'm trying to make it more visually appealing, so I picked a good color for it and now I'd like it to be lighter because it appears dark on the screen. -- BellaManoim - 29 June 2009
June 29
So this morning we came up with a plan of how to proceed with the current AR challenges we are facing. so here is what I understand we were discussing this morning- idea 1: We would like to convert the coordinates of the matrix into global coordinates, (A-inverse, all matrix points into global) and then find B-inverse and that converts the selection pointer to global, so we have the position of that. idea 2: Don't put both matrix and pointer into global. Assume when moving the DM around, the coordinate system is changing, so position of pointer even though its standalone changes as well. For the frame it would be alright because the relationship between both markers changes and we need that to occur if we're going to intersect the two objects. So we're inversing a matrix putting it into global space. Then, you take the inverse, multiply by the matrix that is used to put the DM coord space, now when we multiply a camera space pos by that, the result is that the pos is inversed in the DM position. ..so I think we're all a little stuck on whats happening here, trying to understand it. Ross is going to help us visualize inversions/camera space/translation/coord space. Tutorial 2 on AR toolkit documentation page has some helpful information. Also!!! We heard back from the IRB today and have to make some changes, we'll be meeting at 3 to address them.
ConnorSchenck - 30 Jun 2009 - 00:49
O god, don't try Inverse Kinematics. Those things have been known to devour people whole. You're idea number 2 seems to be pretty good. From what I get, all that really matters is where the pointer is relative to the DM, so you should be able to bypass global coordinates. I'm probably missing something important here though, lolTaylorBergquist - 30 Jun 2009 - 00:07
You should try inverse kinematics sometime. It's basically translating from camera or global space to arm + hand joint space. It's a lot harder sometimes because there's so many different ways to have the hand in the same place. -- BellaManoim - 26 June 2009June 26
I finished the methods page! (The second draft of it) I sent it to zayira, mike, and my mentors to get some feedback. Today at 3 we are meeting with Ross to go over setting up the paper/pencil domain. We don't want to make it too easy (post it note tabs on paper) but we don't want to make it too hard. One of Ross's ideas was to drip wax on some sturdy paper or surface, and scratch off the wax (without scratching off the information) Another idea was to put paint on some kind of plastic wrap and scratch paint off with a quarter. Andrew and Richard are trying to synchronize coordinate planes, figuring out geometrical things. I found this great website last night: http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/index.html It has really cool optical illusions, some of them really fool you.
BellaManoim - 26 Jun 2009 - 13:35
thats the link I posted in this blog entryUgonnaOhiri - 26 Jun 2009 - 13:34
Bella these optical illusions are just amazing!!!...but you have to bless us with the second website you showed me yesterday.HamadiMcIntosh - 26 Jun 2009 - 13:31
Our methods is just two paragraphs so far. We haven't finished our game yet though so we might have to change our methods section if we run into a wall or something of that nature. -- BellaManoim - 25 June 2009June 25
I've been fixing up the methods page today and following what Andrew and Richard are doing. So far, we have a decision matrix that comes up, but we're trying to figure out how to get the matrix to recognize when another marker (a pointer) is in the area of a matrix box (as to select it). This is going to be a pretty big challenge. The graphics luncheon lecture was really cool. I am interested in usability so I thought it was interesting that women/men react differently to color, and I like the anthropological/sociological issues brought into the mix when learning how people from different countries/environments/mindsets navigate websites. Connor burst his stress ball and pink goo got everywhere. Here is some street art for your viewing pleasure. This is an entirely flat drawing, but the optical illusion makes you think it has depth.
RichardLebron - 26 Jun 2009 - 13:34
Wow!!!!! -- BellaManoim - 24 June 2009June 24
I made a lot of progress today on the lit review, and did some fixing of the methods page. We have a meeting at 1:30 with Nir which should help me finish the methods section. Andrew and Richard are working on getting the decision matrix into AR. I watched "The Lives of Others" last night because it was highly recommended to me (by the way guys, the library has a lot of DVDs you can take out). Unfortunately, I didn't sit through the whole movie because it went too slowly for me. I rarely stop a movie in the middle, and it wasn't even 'bad' per say, it just didn't hold my interest. If you like thrillers about spies and Germany, check it out. What is it called when users click on items in close proximity? (update: I figured it out)
MichaelOren - 24 Jun 2009 - 16:03
What do you mean by clicking in close proximity? One of the Gestalt principle of design is the "law of proximity" (e.g. psychologically users will automatically group items together that are placed together--so they'll think they are related items).UgonnaOhiri - 24 Jun 2009 - 13:23
good luck on your meeting...as all three members of the developmental robotics team have on headphones right now. -- BellaManoim - 23 June 2009June 23
We have our presentations soon, and our group practiced several times so I hope it will go well. The haptics luncheon was neat, it was my favorite of the technologies when we saw the research project parade. I spent the morning working on our lit review, and tomorrow I will work on the methods section. Also, Iowa weather is nuts. Don't trust the forecast! I checked it this morning, and it said "Sunny". Now? It is thunder storming, and I have no umbrella. -- BellaManoim - 22 June 2009
June 22
I organized our survey and posted it on Survey Monkey. I will also be cleaning up/fixing our literature review as well as problem area paragraph. My hands don't hurt so I'm very happy right now. The "How to give a research talk" was helpful this morning.
ZayiraJordan - 23 Jun 2009 - 12:31
Good job!!! I'm impressed. Could you send me the link? I'm curious to look at your survey. -- BellaManoim - 19 June 2009June 19
I've been editing and revising the IRB forms, Mike gave a lot of help with that (thanks!) There was a lot of paperwork, consent form, survey, sequence of events, recruitment script... all done in 2 days. I've also started using only my left hand to type and click because now my right hand hurts. I have to start writing down the funny things people say. One was about blooming like a flower and flying from a cage like a bird, Ivan had something about staring into soda realizing there was only one bubble.. someone says something quotable every day, it's too bad I don't remember it all.
ConnorSchenck - 22 Jun 2009 - 13:02
careful hanging around Taylor, he says stuff like that all the timePamShill - 22 Jun 2009 - 07:59
If you need to see a doctor about your hand, please let me know. I've added a Quote page at the bottom of the REU Twiki. Please let everyone know that they can add quotes there, as long as they are PG rated!MichaelOren - 19 Jun 2009 - 15:11
Two days is pretty intense to submit an IRB for the first time on your own. Not sure that makes for a very good learning process since you don't get to walk through the intricacies as much (but maybe by being forced to dive headfirst into it, you get more out of it...) A collection of quotes would be fun
-- BellaManoim - 18 June 2009
June 18
Our research question has been altered a little: Considering evaluating the decision making process with a decision matrix, is augmented reality an effective way to make observations on the decision making experience when compared to observation in reality on paper, a two-dimensional computer display, and virtual reality? I am working on the survey and sequence of events to get IRB approval because it takes a few weeks. It looks like we are submitting our IRB forms tomorrow!, which means I have to finish/get close to finishing the survey/forms today!!! Also, it is Ross's birthday, everyone wish him a happy birthday! -- BellaManoim - 17 June 2009
June 17
1. My hand has been feeling better. It hasn't bothered me yet today so I'm not going to push my luck and type too much. 2. I'm reading "Constructive Consumer Choice Processes" by John Payne. 3. Nir gave me two more articles that directly relate to the shopping experience to read. On Friday we're going to brainstorm/write out the details of the experiment. 4. When you have time, check out the usability of this fun game. It is called "Fancy Pants" world 2. There is also a world 1, it is just as fun. http://www.kongregate.com/games/DrNeroCF/fancy-pants-adventure-world-2
5. Oh yes, and yesterday we went to the Spice for dinner. It was a really nice treat. Ugonna and Taylor made me laugh so hard I cried. We got a shrimp appetizer for our end of the table, and as we're all eating, I realize that they didn't pull the tails off. So they were munching on tails when I said 'don't forget to pull the tails off.' It was really very funny.
BellaManoim - 17 Jun 2009 - 19:31
don't you like the swirlies? it's really fun going around the curves and down oil slicks and stuff like that.MichaelOren - 17 Jun 2009 - 13:55
Why is 's' used for jump? As a gamer, it should be mapped to the up arrow or space. I had to read instructions to learn how to jump. That made me sad
Fun game though, but they need to remap the jump button to something people actually think of when they go to play it (shift key also works).
-- BellaManoim - 16 June 2009
June 16
1. Finishing up our Mario project to present it today 2. Vote for Fight Club for friday! It's got Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter and Brad Pitt. 3. My left hand still hurts a lot. It's starting to worry me.
UgonnaOhiri - 16 Jun 2009 - 20:14
The hand needs to be dealt with! lolBellaManoim - 16 Jun 2009 - 16:14
wow, you responded already? we just got the tie less than 5 minutes ago!MinaChoi - 16 Jun 2009 - 16:12
congrats on getting a tie for first! -- BellaManoim - 15 June 2009June 15
1. I found Maya and Sketchup difficult to navigate, and made an 'abstract' castle. 2. Our project is almost done. I have brick cubes, question mark cubes, a warp tunnel, a billboard Mario and spinning coins (but I don't know if we'll be including the spinning coins). 3. My left hand has been hurting for some odd reason, on and off all day. 4. I read "On Depth and Dynamics of Online Search Behavior" by Eric Johnson. It's a study of shopping search patterns and purchase sessions. The conclusion is that more experience online shopping leads to a decrease in amount of visited websites, people usually pick a preferred website and are loyal to it. 5. I also read "Predictors of Online Buying Behavior" (Johnson) which was from 1999 and looked at the relationship between the internet user's personal characteristics and their buying activity. They came to the conclusion that the typical online buyer has a 'wired' lifestyle. I think the statistics they provided in 1999 have changed a lot, back then only 3.1% of users said they used the internet for shopping. It also said that the influence of demographics is barely significant, other than influencing whether a person is online in the first place. -- BellaManoim - 12 June 2009
June 12- Friday!
1. Our meeting yesterday with Ross and Nir was very helpful. It looks like we will be focusing on just testing Augmented Reality and if we have time, we'll look into the other domains. At first I was worried about the fact that I'd have to make some decisions with the usability testing, but now that I've been reading more about it, it's nice to have creative freedom. 2. Our super mario bros. idea for OpenGL is really fun too. Richard made a very interesting looking cloud. I spent 2 hours yesterday just working on altering the spinning cube code to get a non-spinning cube to appear. Today, with VJ's help, I got it to work. In fact, at exactly 11:00am on the dot, I got a brick textured cube! IT WAS SO EXCITING (for real, I'm not exaggerating). I spent a lot of time getting the polygon coordinates right, and when it all worked...it was fantastic. 3. Our scavenger hunt yesterday was a lot of fun! (The dessert at Stomping Grounds is fantastic, I highly recommend the strawberry rhubarb crepe) When we approached a car to ask them to fill their tank, the girls in the car were afraid to get out, I guess because we ran to their car and they thought that we were insane. We met a whole lot of friendly people here in Ames. I'm surprised the police officer rang his siren for us. We also got some funny footage of Ivan making horn noises in a fire truck, and Ivan and I doing the salsa. I hugged a stranger and got a group of people to sing the YMCA song with us. It was definitely really fun. Great idea!
BellaManoim - 12 Jun 2009 - 15:27
thanks : )MichaelOren - 12 Jun 2009 - 13:57
I haven't tried the strawberry rhubarb crepe... Must be seasonal, need to try that. Your groups YouTube video was fantastic
-- BellaManoim - 11 June 2009
June 11- 4th lesson in OpenGL
1. We met with Ross this morning to go over our powerpoint for our presentation to Nir. He had some comments and answered some questions, but it looks like we'll be figuring out usability factors on our own. 2. We are meeting with our research group at 5 today instead of doing it from 1-3, so I guess we are blogging/doing the OpenGL assignment/fixing up our powerpoint for this afternoon right now.
BellaManoim - 11 Jun 2009 - 21:17
thanks guys : ) I'll definitely be asking you for your advice when I start designing the study. that book might be helpful, maybe someone in the VRAC has a copy?MichaelOren - 11 Jun 2009 - 16:50
Your study is probably going to be based on quantitative metrics, so this Measuring the User Experience book will probably be helpful to you; it discusses performance metrics, issue-based metrics, self-assessed metrics, etc. If you're interested e-mail me and I'll see if I can get Stephen to buy a copy that can be shared amongst the REU students (since some other groups might find it useful as well). Despite having a computer science background, my research work is almost exclusively designing and conducting studies (plus writing papers and doing lit reviews), so I'd be happy to meet with your group to help you get a better idea of how to go about designing a study.ZayiraJordan - 11 Jun 2009 - 15:14
Let me know if you need help developing the usability instrument. : ) -- BellaManoim - 10 June 2009June 10- Third lesson in OpenGL
1. Zayira wants us to email her back about the scavenger hunt, so everybody email her back please. 2. I'm working on the OpenGL assignment. I got the soccerball to appear and the lighting to work. I still have to get the soccerball to bounce the right way. 3. My group is going to do a cool 'Super Mario Bros.' OpenGL project. It'll be one level of the game, with some floating objects (cubes, question marks, coins). 4. My group has a 15 minute presentation tomorrow after the HCI Course for our faculty mentor to present what we will be doing and each of our roles. I'm still trying to figure my part out. 5. Scavenger hunt is tomorrow! I hope we have time to get dinner before it. 6. So much to do...so little time.
UgonnaOhiri - 10 Jun 2009 - 23:21
man good luck on that presentation tomorrow...and remember as u present...think of BACKBOARDS!!!MinaChoi - 10 Jun 2009 - 15:55
wow... you have to present for your faculty? That is hardKore...BellaManoim - 10 Jun 2009 - 15:13
organization purposes : )MichaelOren - 10 Jun 2009 - 15:01
So, what's up with the numbering each item? Just for clarity of writing or does it help you organize yourself? Nothing wrong with it just curious. -- BellaManoim - 9 June 2009June 9- Second lesson in OpenGL
1. I was able to make one sphere spin and another sphere revolve around the center sphere for our assignment in OpenGL so far. 2. Our luncheon lecture was really cool, I can't believe that in such a short time their medical imaging application was already being used. 3. I don't like that my computer is by default hooked up to the projector because whenever it is on, people can see what I am typing. Like, right now.
BellaManoim - 10 Jun 2009 - 15:13
hmmm I'm not sure, but I guess it doesn't really bother me.ZayiraJordan - 10 Jun 2009 - 09:23
Is there any way reu-help can help you with not having your screen displayed?HamadiMcIntosh - 09 Jun 2009 - 23:19
Thanks for the birthday wishes.AmyGreen - 09 Jun 2009 - 13:29
I can see you!
-- BellaManoim - 8 June 2009
June 8- First lesson in OpenGL
1. I can't believe it's already June 8. 2. Met with group for breakfast at 8:30am again, I'm glad Ross is letting us change the time after this week. Though I don't mind getting up early, I'm not a morning person. I have more energy post-breakfast. 3. We had our first OpenGL class today. It was really cool to see some of the projects students had done in the past. It's hard to believe we'll be able to make such cool things by the end of the week. I'm currently working on the OpenGL assignment, I got a circle to appear, now it's time for the initials. 4. I went to the gym yesterday after the picnic, and now my legs are really sore so I'm walking around like a penguin. reference: "baby steps." 5. For our research project I will be looking up making decisions in GUI environments and mapping decisions from an interface. There isn't a lot on the subject out there already so I'll be digging.
MichaelOren - 08 Jun 2009 - 23:36
Bonus points for the What About Bob? reference
IvanOjeda - 08 Jun 2009 - 21:45
....baby steps... I guess our lives are marked forever by this movie. D:MinaChoi - 08 Jun 2009 - 18:43
hahaha yeah! i can't wait till you're off your 8:30 sched... that way u can wake me up~ hahahha i overslept today... =(BellaManoim - 08 Jun 2009 - 13:58
yepHamadiMcIntosh - 08 Jun 2009 - 13:17
Wow, you guys have been meeting at 8:30? -- BellaManoim - 5 June 2009June 5
1. Vote for canoeing! 2. Today I received the admin access I needed to successfully download ARToolkit and other components related to it. 3. Now I'm working on the IRB training certification. 4. Yesterday I read "Measuring the User Experience" and "Going My Way: A User Aware Route Planner." I'm pretty sure I want to be working on the tool we will use to gather results about the experiment. We will all we working on all of the aspects, but this is probably going to be my focus. Three reasons why: 1. Andrew and Richard have a lot more experience with C++, and would be more efficient than me. It would take me twice as long (or more) than it would take them to code something in C++. 2. I enjoy reading papers and want to learn about usability testing. 3. I think it will be fun. 5. Today I read chapter 11 of "3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice" by Doug Bowman and I will be looking back at it again because it has a lot of useful information in it regarding questionnaires and evaluation metrics for 3D interfaces.
BellaManoim - 05 Jun 2009 - 16:15
Yep, that's the one I read. Very easy to read and easy to followMichaelOren - 05 Jun 2009 - 15:47
I'm a fan of Measuring the User Experience; I made it required reading in the course I'm teaching this summer (I'm assuming you read chapter 3 since that's the one Stephen had scanned). It's an easy to read, practical guide to quantitative usability testing though. -- BellaManoim - 4 June 2009June 4
Today we met with Ross and Nir to go over a plan of what we're doing for the Decision Making project. We are working on creating a decision matrix in C++ and discussed specifications. Ross also posted some reading material for us to go over so we can get a better idea of what we will be working with and divide up tasks amongst ourselves. We also meet every day at 8:30am to discuss our progress/what we did the day before. I printed out some of the reading we have to do because reading pdf wordy files on the computer gives me headaches, last summer I had constant migraines from staring at the screen for long periods of time (hours). Does anybody know if there is a stapler around? I didn't see one by the printer. So right now we are trying to figure out how to install Windows XP on the new Toshiba laptop Nir ordered and we're having some problems with it because the current system is Vista and none of the programs we use work with Vista. Also, we finished our Mastermind project! It works
And another thing, I don't like Microsoft Word 2007. What a terrible idea Microsoft. Sure, get rid of the drop down menu bins we are all used to. I couldn't figure out where the 'save as' button was for several minutes, until I clicked every other button on the page, and realized it is in the funny looking bubble at the top left. Why would they put the most important menu items in a bubble? I wouldn't even have guessed you could click on the bubble.
MichaelOren - 05 Jun 2009 - 12:48
The stapler is in the copy room next by the front office. The one good thing about the Word redesign with the 'ribbons' as they call them is that it serves as a great example within HCI courses when they make changes without considering the users. Ribbons, apparently, work great for those who have never used Word--the problem is that almost everybody HAS used Word plus the rest of the operating system still uses the more traditional model. However, with Windows 7 the operating system is all using ribbons so it's slightly more ok there. Plus, if you think about it (and we have a tablet here where I can prove it) the ribbons of Windows 7 are a much more ideal solution for pen and finger-based computing systems. If that's the direction Microsoft sees things going then it's a smart move to design the systems with pens and fingers in mind. Still, it has issues...UgonnaOhiri - 04 Jun 2009 - 16:27
no ur headaches are not worse than my phobias of POWERPOINTS!!! -- BellaManoim - 3 June 2009June 3
This morning we went over functions, arrays, strings and sorting. I was able to get my assignment done but couldn't get the sorting to work. Now our team is working on creating a decision matrix for tomorrow. Andrew and Richard have a lot of C++ coding experience, so they're doing some things I don't know how to do in C++ (dynamic array with vectors?). I'm looking at a tutorial though and trying to follow it. We are also going to put together our Mastermind project to make sure our three parts work together.
ZayiraJordan - 04 Jun 2009 - 10:20
Have them keep you on the loop, Bella! -- BellaManoim - 2 June 2009Project
Our C++ project is coming along well. I was also able to code the assignment for the programming class and do one of the extra credit exercises where you created a function. It turns out C++ is not very different from Java at all (at least in these beginning stages). I'm really glad I'm getting it. I also went to Lied Gym last night. It was fantastic. What a great athletic facility. I can't believe how big it is. We also had a faculty luncheon today, and heard from Stephen Gilbert about his research. It's amazing to think about how much work goes into creating a tutoring program. You have to think about all of the possible mistakes someone could make and how to explain to them the right way of thinking, as well as making sure they don't click click click to get to the right answer without reading the explanation.
JohnNewman - 03 Jun 2009 - 11:57
http://www.mochima.com/tutorials/vectors.htmlJoshuaSituka - 02 Jun 2009 - 13:25
I think everyone has gone to the gym but me. Thanks for calling me : .. ( -- BellaManoim - 2 June 2009HCI- Bad Usability
Here is an example of bad usability.
What the user wants to do: The user is a passenger in the backseat of a PT Cruiser, and wants to open the window.
What's wrong: The window switch is not located on the door where the passenger would expect it. The user would not expect the control for the window to be located on the floor between the two front seats. Instead of comfortably enjoying the car ride and moving the arm a couple of inches to open the window, the user has to bend down to the floor of the car to open the window. (never mind how hard it is to find the window switch at night when it is dark)
What would be better: It would be better to have the window switch be located on the door (where the user expects it).
Brief analysis: This design clearly has bad mapping and bad memorability. For bad mapping, the switch is not close to the window. It makes no sense to put the switch so far from the window where you have to go out of your way to reach it, when you are sitting next to the door and it could be right there next to the handle. It is also not memorable. The switch is not where you would expect it to be, so it's hard to remember that 'ah, when I go into the back seat of a PT Cruiser, I have to look for the switch in the middle of the car on the floor.'
Here is another example of bad mapping:
You cannot tell from this picture if the mouse / keyboard input is on top or bottom. The mouse input is supposed to be the top and the keyboard is the bottom, but you could easily mistake it.
Two better alternatives:
PJ Campbell - 02 Jun 2009 - 22:53
I've seen a car like that. I was sitting in the front passenger and I was looking at the door to find the button that opens the window. But all I saw was the button that controls the locks. And I kept thinking, "If this car as automated locks, it has to have automatic windows; so where is the button?" As I was about to leave the car, I saw the buttons in the middle. How weird is that?MichaelOren - 02 Jun 2009 - 14:01
That mouse/keyboard disconnect is pretty awful. When I was working for campus IT as an undergrad (different university) one of the other undergrads we were working with came back from an install saying the keyboard was bad... he had plugged it into the mouse port (we never let him live it down, of course), but if the design of that computers inputs was like this one then that would (maybe) be understandable (if one of the first rules of IT wasn't troubleshooting). -- BellaManoim - 1 June 2009C++ Class
This weekend was pretty fun. The weather was nice, and a few of us went to Rieman Gardens to check out the butterfly wing. It was really cool, I got some good pictures. On sunday we attempted to have a BBQ. Luckily we cooked most of the food before it started raining. Today we had the first C++ programming class, in which we learned the basics. We practiced with two tutorials, "Hello World!" and an input/output program, and I got it to work. It seemed pretty easy for me because of my Java experience, just a translation of syntax. Now my team is working on our C++ project and we're doing a Mastermind game.
BellaManoim - 01 Jun 2009 - 23:11
We have photo ID's already, it wasn't a problem. : )MichaelOren - 01 Jun 2009 - 15:08
Glad you all made it out to Reiman Gardens--it's a nice place. Were you able to get in using the temporary IDs? -- BellaManoim - 29 May 2009Affinity Research Group
Today we spent the morning with the ARG learning how to work in teams. Some of the information was more helpful than other information. However, the discussions we had with our research groups about our goals, tasks, and deliverables were extremely helpful. Our group has a much better understanding of what we are doing now. Research Question: What is the effect of the domain on the decision making experience (not process, but 'experience')? There are 4 domains we are looking at: reality, virtual reality, 2D, and augmented reality. We will need approximately 60 people to go through each domain experience for when we conduct the experiment, and we made a draft of a timeline to help us determine when we will be doing different parts of the research. For instance, we have to make the instrument to measure the decision making experience (i.e. survey of some sort) soon so that we can sent it to the IRB (Institutional Review Board), which has to approve all experiments in which people are involved. We also saw some examples of AR on youtube, and it was really really cool. You wear a headset and hold a square with a symbol on it, and the camera detects the square piece (its like a marker) and creates an image on it in augmented reality. So one student at ISU made an application in which you could command the images to do different things, and he built a wheel. It's hard to explain without seeing it. Here is a link of something cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2gqshFr4AI
IvanOjeda - 30 May 2009 - 00:28
That's a cool video. The augmented reality control seems to have some more commands on it. I really liked the motor program.
JohnNewman - 29 May 2009 - 17:51
I've posted a link to the Gantt Chart that we created today at the bottom of the page about our project. -- BellaManoim - 28 May 2009Journal Club, C++, Intro to projects
This morning we had a Journal Club where we discussed two articles. One was about teachers on facebook, the other was about the effect of myspace, cellphones and IM on grades. We also had a C++ pretest today to see what we know. I have never used/seen C++ code before so I didn't know much. I understood a few things (I hope) from my Java knowledge, I recognized loops and hope I got a few questions right. We also learned about the different projects everybody is working on. It was really interesting, all of the projects are so COOL. Right now I don't totally grasp my project on decision making in augmented reality. I'd like to have a clearer sense of the goal and what is do-able this summer. We should have timelines soon of what is expected. I'm looking forward to getting into the project though, right now the concept of the 'decision making process' is abstract. My group seems to agree. How do you employ these technologies to understand how people make decisions? It seems like decisions are made so quickly, in times of emergency especially, so how can you predict the outcome of your actions in order to made the best decision? Also, natural disasters, fires, can you predict how a fire will spread? It's very dynamic, no two fires are exactly the same. Would thinking about your actions impede the natural instincts you have and the urgency to run? I understand the main goal of the project is to learn how people make decisions, and the second goal is to help people make the best decision. I guess it just seems very instinctual to me. Take a fire for example, you take some factors into account, i.e. is a beam about to fall on my head? do you hear someone screaming for help? could there be kids hiding under their beds?, and then you take in what is around you, instantaneously, and then you move move move! How can you slow down to analyze how you choose to do the action you choose? All in all, there are many interesting questions to look at. Thought provoking. Gary Klein wrote several books about this type of research, "Sources of Power" and "The Power of Intuition." I wonder if the library has copies of these books?
UgonnaOhiri - 29 May 2009 - 13:59
AMAZING!!!MichaelCurtis - 29 May 2009 - 07:20
I think my blog post just got dwarfed. But yeah, the projects all sound really interesting.MinaChoi - 28 May 2009 - 13:23
hi roomie! =)
| I | Attachment | Action | Size | Date | Who | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Poster_HCI_Final.pdf | manage | 13643.9 K | 2009-07-21 - 19:53 | BellaManoim | |
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consent_form.docx | manage | 16.6 K | 2009-07-10 - 18:20 | BellaManoim | |
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front_and_back.jpg | manage | 120.3 K | 2009-07-07 - 18:48 | BellaManoim | |
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ltmrkt090717.gif | manage | 31.9 K | 2009-07-17 - 20:12 | BellaManoim |
Topic revision: r141 - 2009-07-30 - 19:40:45 - BellaManoim
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