2/26/09 Experience Design Class Notes
Assignment 2 Tips from Jeff
Sengers & Gaver “Staying Open to Interpretation: Engaging Multiple Meanings in Design and Evaluation”
- select one of the theories that we have studied so far and use it to apply to interactions
- use conceptual vocabulary
- review Buxton as a model for the paper - structure of an essay, claims, evidence
- use the theory to brainstorm about the topic
- don't get too obsessed with it, let it flow
- watch a youtube video over and over
- what are the horizons of expectation of the video
- focus on developing thoughtful, creative insights and ideas
- categorize, label, sort insights and ideas
- identify what does not fit, explain how it got in there
- identify insights and iterate on them to come up with one killer insight
- may be a synthesis
- the killer insight is the thesis statement for the paper - comparative statement
- claim, assertion - "A is B"
- defend the thesis
- identify moments in video that support thesis - document timestamp
- ex. - Buxton's thesis is that usability and experience are two different things - juicers have the same function but distinctly different experiences
- how similar should the two interactions be?
- find interactions that fit within the theory
- compare with a theory
- different things mean different things to different people
- a given thing doesn't automatically have a given meaning
- hermeneutics attempts to take on a rational account of how things take on meaning to different people
- we do not see things in a vacuum or in isolation
- participation in culture causes us to see "meaningful" things through and in light of the culture
- there are different explanations of things - scientific, emotional
- we usually get it at all different levels
- light shining on wall - cat, battery tester, spy, escaping prisoner - influenced by cultural and situational context
- medieval church windows
- horizons - how does a medieval Christian perceive these windows compared to us today?
- understanding and expectations
- stories that they know from the day
- social practice, habit of telling and visualizing stories that were Biblical in nature
- in the visualization activity, there are certain representation techniques that are shared - symbol (lion and an lamb)
they would have hundreds of visual elements that they would all know and understand - when an artist incorporates these understandings into the
windows, the medieval Christian would get it right away - it would have
a common meaning
- fusion of horizons
- trying to help us to see not only in our own eyes but also in the eyes of a medieval Christian
- amplifies our capacity to understand and interpret the picture in the window
- "expanding our horizons"
- become a more sensitive interpreter
- hci correlation - users and designers don't always see things the same way
- provides us with an appreciation of understanding the importance of how users develop meaning from things
- problem is that horizons are not second nature, we are not inherently good at it
- not easy to expose horizons - use ethnography, contextual inquiry to bring these horizons into focus
Sengers & Gaver “Staying Open to Interpretation: Engaging Multiple Meanings in Design and Evaluation”
- for over 30 yrs in HCI there has been a position on "interpretation" - problems and alternatives
- a design "should" mean one thing and if interpretation ever comes up the the design is "bad"
- if users are trying to figure out meaning, then the design is "bad"
- initial focus of HCI was designing software for workplace productivity
- now, technology is pervasive and has escaped from the reins of the workplace
- HCI is increasingly drawing from the arts and humanities
- coming to a single interpretation is messy, abstract and negotiated
- mental models - need to have an understanding of how the things work in order to be able to properly use it
- how do we give users the right mental model to help them understand?
- user centered design moved away from mental models - flipped the equation - what do users understand and then design with that in mind
- ethno-methodology - social mental models - how does a team collectively work together - cscw
- Six design strategies for doing this
- specifiy usability without constraining use - key table
- support interpretations around a topic - history tablecloth
- stimulate reinterpretations by blocking expected ones - drift table
- unfolding new opportunities for interpretation
- make space by downplaying system authority
- thwarting consistent interpretation
- incorporate user interpretation into evaluation
- allow user to assist in the interpretation of observations
- multiple, potentially inconsistent assessments
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