- Posts tagged I502
- Explore I502 on posterous
I502 Experience Design Class Notes 4/14/09
Wright & McCarthy, “Empathy and Experience in HCI”
What is empathy?
two theorizations of what empathy is
M&W propose that these can be mashed together but in reality they lean towards the second approach
aesthetic seeing - emphasis is on embedding yourself as a designer into the equation - counters scientific research, hypothesis, testable, repeatable, predictable, empirical, objective, the data speaks for itself.
Fundamentally, there is an attack on objectivity. Objectivity and empathy are mutually exclusive.
Valuational response entails an interpretation that is influenced by the values and experiences of the researchers.
Can the social sciences be modeled on the physical sciences? Many of the methods that have been appropriated have resulted in a backlash - Quine - Two Dogmas of Empiricism. Meaning has a different kind of existence than physical matter (rocks, atoms, galaxy). Charles Taylor - Interpretation in the Sciences of Man - Meaning is not a natural phenomenom and is always relative to a certain perspective which subverts the scientific approach.
M&W do not render the position they are addressing very clearly.
See aesthetic seeing as a form of dialogism. Much of this is influenced by Bakhtin. I imagine a scene out of CSI where the "investigator" is looking at the evidence at the scene as well as putting themselves into the actual scene from the perspective of the victim or suspect. Aethetic seeing does not put the designer or the user above one another in a hierarchical relationship. They are put on a peer to peer relationship - equal footing. The designer sees the users world with the eyes of a designer.
Alternative method - casting a wide net, get way too general. Sees user needs as a way to exploit a product to those users. Discovering markets vs. understanding the market.
Attention to affective and emotional vs. the cognitive.
Relationship between designer and user - suggests negotiation, proposal vs. assuming the relationship. Moves away from formalized methods such as how to design a study, usability testing, etc. which turns research into an "off the rack", "one size fits all" approach vs. customized to the users.
"attuned" - getting a clear signal of the user, harmony, developing a representation of the external reality is more focused on "natural" phenomena. aesthetic design is more bilateral between the designer and user rather than being unilateral as in most physical sciences.
Historically, CHI aligned itself with science. Even when a special issue of aesthetics came out, the overriding approach was to look at it scientifically. This is slowly changing.
How could HCI have gotten away for decades by focusing on the scientific model. This is related to the emergence from second wave to third wave. Workplace analysis was measured for productivity and focused on behavior - physical, observable, measurable actions.
Empiricism is to behavior as aesthetic seeing is to experience. As we move towards the user experience, we need to move away from empiricism to something else that is hermeneutic, dialogic, empathic, creative, subjective and value-positioned.
What is empathy?
- putting yourself in someone else's shoes
- relating to someone else based upon shared experience
- definition on p. 638
From the pragmatist perspective, understanding an other or
more specifically, ‘knowing the user’ in their lived and felt
life involves understanding what it feels like to be that
person, what their situation is like from their own
perspective. In short, it involves empathy. - "feels like" as opposed to what someone is thinking
two theorizations of what empathy is
- recognizing, perceiving and feeling the emotion of another
identification and re-inactment, representation and reconstruction - in order to perceive we have to try to recreate the situation.Focuses on tools designer can acquire to more effectively "measure" the emotions of the user - intersubjective accomplishment - fusion of horizons
focus is on the empathy being a shared thing between the designer and the subject - integrating reactions
M&W propose that these can be mashed together but in reality they lean towards the second approach
aesthetic seeing - emphasis is on embedding yourself as a designer into the equation - counters scientific research, hypothesis, testable, repeatable, predictable, empirical, objective, the data speaks for itself.
Fundamentally, there is an attack on objectivity. Objectivity and empathy are mutually exclusive.
Valuational response entails an interpretation that is influenced by the values and experiences of the researchers.
Can the social sciences be modeled on the physical sciences? Many of the methods that have been appropriated have resulted in a backlash - Quine - Two Dogmas of Empiricism. Meaning has a different kind of existence than physical matter (rocks, atoms, galaxy). Charles Taylor - Interpretation in the Sciences of Man - Meaning is not a natural phenomenom and is always relative to a certain perspective which subverts the scientific approach.
M&W do not render the position they are addressing very clearly.
See aesthetic seeing as a form of dialogism. Much of this is influenced by Bakhtin. I imagine a scene out of CSI where the "investigator" is looking at the evidence at the scene as well as putting themselves into the actual scene from the perspective of the victim or suspect. Aethetic seeing does not put the designer or the user above one another in a hierarchical relationship. They are put on a peer to peer relationship - equal footing. The designer sees the users world with the eyes of a designer.
Alternative method - casting a wide net, get way too general. Sees user needs as a way to exploit a product to those users. Discovering markets vs. understanding the market.
Attention to affective and emotional vs. the cognitive.
Relationship between designer and user - suggests negotiation, proposal vs. assuming the relationship. Moves away from formalized methods such as how to design a study, usability testing, etc. which turns research into an "off the rack", "one size fits all" approach vs. customized to the users.
"attuned" - getting a clear signal of the user, harmony, developing a representation of the external reality is more focused on "natural" phenomena. aesthetic design is more bilateral between the designer and user rather than being unilateral as in most physical sciences.
Historically, CHI aligned itself with science. Even when a special issue of aesthetics came out, the overriding approach was to look at it scientifically. This is slowly changing.
How could HCI have gotten away for decades by focusing on the scientific model. This is related to the emergence from second wave to third wave. Workplace analysis was measured for productivity and focused on behavior - physical, observable, measurable actions.
Empiricism is to behavior as aesthetic seeing is to experience. As we move towards the user experience, we need to move away from empiricism to something else that is hermeneutic, dialogic, empathic, creative, subjective and value-positioned.
Comments (0)
Add A Comment
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
Experience Design Class Notes 2/10/09
2/10 Class Notes
McCarthy & Wright Four Threads of Experience
p. 79,80 - The four threads are not fundamental elements of experience, they are ideas to help us talk about experience in a way that we can share. Not a theory of reality, it is an ontological claim - to help us be more sensitive to the experience of reality. we need to cultivate a sensibility to be more sensitive to the experiences of others - further our understanding of how reality is to others. The ability to develop empathy is a vital characteristic of becoming a great designer.
McCarthy & Wright Four Threads of Experience
- Sensual
- sense perception
- source of meaning
- visceral, palpable
- Emotional
- qualitative characteristic
- belongs to a person in an experience - same experience can evoke different emotions for different people
- the subject's sensemaking
- Compositional
- holistic perspective
-
connections/relationships between separate items
- way things are organized or put together
- ex. - narrative distinction - discourse vs. story - story is the sequence of events that occur throughout the narrative, discourse is simultaneous movement in two directions, going back in time to gain understanding - the manner in which the story is told
- ixd - tasks and sensible sequences that designers develop to achieve an intended outcome
- has a beginning, middle and end
- consider the differences between composing on paper vs. word processor
- check out youtube video on the history of writing - "the machine is us?"
- Spatio-temporal
- distinction between literal space/time and subjective/experienced space/time
- ex. diff. btwn. house and home is the people
- space/place are objective, physical characteristics
- time is simply a tool of measurement
- the perceptions, feelings and emotions that people have within these constraints represent the experiential part of this
p. 79,80 - The four threads are not fundamental elements of experience, they are ideas to help us talk about experience in a way that we can share. Not a theory of reality, it is an ontological claim - to help us be more sensitive to the experience of reality. we need to cultivate a sensibility to be more sensitive to the experiences of others - further our understanding of how reality is to others. The ability to develop empathy is a vital characteristic of becoming a great designer.
Experience Design Class Notes 2/17/09
The purpose of developing the vocabulary we are learning in this class
is to learn to make these tools that we can use to enter into our
design practice as opposed to just being terms that we can recite when
called upon.
A story from Jeff Bardzell telling us what happened in a World of Warcraft experience to be critiqued by us.
Setting: The Lunar Festival
Characters: Jeff and Shaowen (Level 10 players)
Scene: Discovered Lunar New Year decorations when logging in. Not sure what it was. Asked around and found out. Both were delighted to see this going on and discovered that there were some interactive quests available such as setting off fireworks, get coins to buy Lunar New Year stuff. Chose to do this together as a "date".
Upon completing quest, received invite to another special world where all of the different WoW races were dancing and celebrating together and guards stood by to keep the peace - a totally non-WoW experience! Then invited to another town to meet another non-player character and received Chinese dumplings - a symbol of good fortune. Elicited great feelings of happiness.
On the way back to the festival, they encountered a night elf from the Alliance (Level 60 player) who climbed off his horse, killed both of them and spat on them - twice. Their skeletons are shown laying on the ground. They were in a PvP server (player vs. player) which means that players are allowed to attack and kill each other. If you are killed your character is re-spawned within a few minutes and can start playing again. Shaowen quit playing but Jeff kept playing.
diegetic festival - festival within the game as a part of the game
non-diegetic festival - the actual festival in the real world
Blizzard basically took a real festival that has real meaning and simply used it as a prop.
The experience unfolded over time and everything being done built up expectations that allowed Jeff and Shaowen to let their guard down - just like a sudden twist in a movie - they got blind-sided. Was it intentionally built that way as part of the game.
Characteristics to take into the next project
A story from Jeff Bardzell telling us what happened in a World of Warcraft experience to be critiqued by us.
Setting: The Lunar Festival
Characters: Jeff and Shaowen (Level 10 players)
Scene: Discovered Lunar New Year decorations when logging in. Not sure what it was. Asked around and found out. Both were delighted to see this going on and discovered that there were some interactive quests available such as setting off fireworks, get coins to buy Lunar New Year stuff. Chose to do this together as a "date".
Upon completing quest, received invite to another special world where all of the different WoW races were dancing and celebrating together and guards stood by to keep the peace - a totally non-WoW experience! Then invited to another town to meet another non-player character and received Chinese dumplings - a symbol of good fortune. Elicited great feelings of happiness.
On the way back to the festival, they encountered a night elf from the Alliance (Level 60 player) who climbed off his horse, killed both of them and spat on them - twice. Their skeletons are shown laying on the ground. They were in a PvP server (player vs. player) which means that players are allowed to attack and kill each other. If you are killed your character is re-spawned within a few minutes and can start playing again. Shaowen quit playing but Jeff kept playing.
- Did Blizzard screw up by letting this happen?
- Was a social contract established by Blizzard that they allowed to be violated by the night elf?
- It turns out that the path between the two towns is not a "safe zone".
- Did the night elf violate an ethical or rules agreement that exists within the game?
- Did this in some way say something about Blizzard's attitude or perception of the actual Chinese Lunar New Year?
- Culturally, it is a big deal to get killed during the Chinese New Year - perhaps the folks at Blizzard did not have a full understanding of what the real Lunar New Year means.
- Shaowen won't take out the trash on the real Chinese New Year's Day, very symbolic of what do expect during the upcoming year.
- Chinese WoW has replaced the skeleton image with a tombstone.
diegetic festival - festival within the game as a part of the game
non-diegetic festival - the actual festival in the real world
Blizzard basically took a real festival that has real meaning and simply used it as a prop.
The experience unfolded over time and everything being done built up expectations that allowed Jeff and Shaowen to let their guard down - just like a sudden twist in a movie - they got blind-sided. Was it intentionally built that way as part of the game.
Characteristics to take into the next project
- unit of analysis is the felt experience of Jeff and Shaowen, not the interface. Showed real world pictures of Jeff and Shaowen. i.e. - user research
- emphasis on the particular - don't talk about big trends, generalizations. Example - used a single runthrough of the sequence by talking about particular players at a particular time, not just generally describing the Lunar New Year environment. Actually get immersed into the experience - allows you to get more particular, more specific, more fine-tuned in the development of your critique. Note specific time references in youtube videos (1:23 mark).
- Expression
was structured in the form of a narrative, storytelling. Immersive,
subjective, focused on feelings rather than functionality.
