Title: HCI Remixed
Reference Information: Edited by Thomas Erickson and David W. McDonald, Reflections on Works that have Influenced the HCI Community.
Chapter 1:
Summary: In William Buxton's article My Vision Isn't My Vision: Making a Career Out of Getting Back to Where I Started, he discusses one of the first computer music systems. It was highly advanced for its time, and he spent a good portion of the article discussion its various inputs the system had. At the end of the article, Buxton reveals the true purpose of the music system to the reader. It was actually an advanced platform designed to study HCI, and it just had the fortunate side effect of also being a highly advanced music creation platform.
Discussion: The twist at the end completely caught me by surprise. It seems strange at first to imagine that they'd create such an advanced computer system just to study HCI, but their reasoning made sense, and they obviously collected a great deal of data from it.
Chapter 4:
Summary: In Joseph Konstan's article Drawing on SketchPad: Reflections on Computer Science and HCI, Konstan constructs and argument showing how closely intertwined HCI and Computer Science are, and why they should remain that way. He shows through the example of the SketchPad software how advances in human input devices such a light pen can inspire new algorithms, and how existing computer science ideas such as constraints can be repurposed for dealing with user drawn shapes and diagrams.
Discussion: As a fan of Tablet PCs and pen input, it was interesting to see where the field got it's start. I'm also a firm believer that HCI and Computer Science should remain so closely tied together.
Chapter 5:
Summary: Wendy Ju discusses the invention of the mouse, along with HCI's "demo" culture in her article The Mouse, the Demo, and the Big Idea. While discussing the origin of the computer mouse, relates it so the so called "demo" culture, and how with a simple demonstration, a good presenter can turn normal hype into proof of a concept or product's worth.
Discussion: Anyone who saw the original iPhone unveiling knows the power of a good demo. They're often people's first impression of a product, and can make or break whether or not it's successful.
Chapter 18:
Summary: In Saul Greenberg's article Observing Collaboration: Group-Centered Design, he discusses the origin of Groupware, and online collaboration principals. He walks us through step by step, and illustrates clearly why having a shared "whiteboard" space online is simply not enough for good collaboration. Users need to be able to "point" and gesture, along with writing. Also, the real-time nature of the collaboration is vital to create a seamless experience. Messages delayed until only after the user has finished typing, or finished drawing, break up the flow and leave the users unsatisfied.
Discussion: I found this paper very interesting. It was highly detailed, but it lead the reader through all the steps required to reach it's conclusions. The later examples of collaboration software which included virtual arms and hands of it's users was very innovative, and I'm surprised we don't see more things like it today.
Chapter 20:
Summary: In Geraldine Fitzpatrick's article Taking Articulation Work Seriously, she constructs an argument about so called "Articulation Work" in the field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). She defines articulation work has the middle piece in collaboration software, required to insure that everyone comes together efficiently. Articulation work can have many forms, such as scheduling activities, distributing resources, and so on.
Discussion: This article seemed to focus on buzzwords a bit too heavily. It not only left me wondering why I should take articulation work seriously, but what articulation work was at all. It could have done a better job of clearly outlining it's main theme and purpose.
Chapter 23:
Summary: Brian Smith clearly lays out the differences between "Being There" and "Beyond Being There" in his article Video, Toys, and Beyond Being There. Being there enables users to have a "good enough" experience when communicating. His example was that of telecommunication between a grandmother and granddaughter. He likens "Being There" to a crutch, something you use when you need it, but you prefer to go without.
"Beyond Being There" involves face to face situations which are aided, not hampered by technology. As a student, his example of students instant messaging during a lecture hit home, and his example of a grandmother and granddaughter bonding over a toy presented a clear example of the variety of the types of "Beyond Being There" technologies. He likened "Beyond Being There" to a shoe, something you don't need, but you prefer to go with it whenever possible.
Discussion: Having spent more months than I'd like to count on crutches on more than one occasion, Brian's crutch-shoe metaphor certainly made an impact on me. This was my favorite article so far in HCI Remixed, and I definitely took a lot from it. I've always had an interest in project-management software such as Basecamp, so it's nice to see that this sort of software actually fits into a field of study somewhere.
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