Bonus Paper #1: iSlideshow: a Content-Aware Slideshow System

Reference

iSlideshow: a Content-Aware Slideshow System

Jiajian Chen, Jun Xiao Gao

IUI 2010 - Hong Kong

Summary

A software tool for viewing slideshows in a content aware manner is detailed throughout this paper. The software has two major modes. One mode focuses on grouping similar photos into theme clusters and then displaying them together. The other mode uses facial recognition to focus on a particular individual. Artifacts like the time the picture was taken is also considered. A method for seamless tiling of images is also described. Transitions make use of the facial recognition feature for an added effect. A pilot user study indicated high marks in experience, fun, and acceptance in comparison to other slideshow systems.

Analysis

This was a simple implementation project that really isn't much more than combining a few existing technologies into a nice ascetically pleasing package. With that said, I think it was probably a very fun project to work on and very satisfying. As a person interested in video, animation, and anything related I always enjoy seeing the more creative work like this come to life. This project has a few contributions in terms of OpenGL use for transitions but that's about it. A very nice implementation.

Paper Reading #25 - Finding Your Way in a Multi-dimensional Semantic Space with Luminoso

Comments

Shena Hoffman

Aaron Kirkes

Reference

Finding Your Way in a Multi-dimensional Semantic Space with Luminoso

Robert Speer, Catherine Havasi, Nichole Treadway, Henry Lieberman

IUI 2010 - Hong Kong

Summary

This paper focuses on an interface designed to aide researchers in visualizing a semantic space. A strong focus is placed on recognizing links between semantic data as well as identifying patterns in the data. The process relies on two earlier developed tools which create the semantic nodes of interest. A set of documents is input, with the option to mark certain documents as more important than others. Relationships are then determined between documents by comparing natural language patterns. A projection of the multidimensional data into 2D screen space is then performed -- yielding a circular like representation. The paper focuses on the action of “grabbing” which allows a user to select a particular semantic aspect and change the projections to gain more insight into connections.

Analysis

While this paper didn’t quite sell me on the “grabbing” feature (which it over emphasized), I think the overall interface and tools presented here would be quite useful when looking at large datasets. It would be interesting to take data from a user’s web browsing history and run it through this process. It would be particularly interesting to see what kind of links are derived by the algorithms as far as thoughts sparking other thoughts--- I think we might see some neat connections we wouldn’t otherwise think of. Overall this is an interesting tool and I’d be interested in experimenting with it.

Living With Complexity: Full Blog

Reference

Living With Complexity

Donald Norman

Basic Books - 2010

Summary

This book focuses on the idea that complexity is naturally present in the world and in the devices we design. Attention to coping with these complexities in design is given. Norman explains that some amount of complexity is enjoyable. As an example, many people seek out complex concepts and attempt to master them for the sake of enjoyment. In design it is common for people to desire simplicity but also want increased features and functionality. This leads to the need for a careful balance from the designer. Overall the goal must be understandability over complexity or simplicity. Norman continues to discuss the way we embed information and cues into the world. He implies that designs should focus on including cues for their use and purpose. Forcing functions are an effective way of constraining user actions and shaping user direction. People often look to their environment for cues or signifiers. Culture can complicate the interpretation of these cues, but good design provides signifiers which are for the most part universally identifiable.

Discussion

While this book was an interesting discussion of the battle between simplicity and functionality within design, it was mostly a repeat of other Norman concepts. Though some of his viewpoints seem to have changed between this book and Design of Everyday Things, for the most part the views are the same. The book makes good points about understandability being the focus of design rather than simplicity or feature inclusion. Despite this recognition, I felt few examples of how to accomplish this were given. The idea that simplicity is not good is interesting, and I'm not sure if I agree completely, but I do recognize understandability as most important.

Living With Complexity: Microblogs

Chapter One

Summary

Basic ideas of complexity within the world are explored. The difference between complexity and being complicated is explained. Complex things may be able to be mastered over time and could even be enjoyable. On the other hand complicated items can be confusing and difficult to use

Discussion

Yes, complexity exists in the world. From this first chapter it is not clear where this argument is heading. There is both support for complexity and simplicity.

Chapter Two

Summary

Individuals are largely responsible for the creation of either complex or simplistic models of understanding. Norman argues that people create their own conceptual models and choose either simple or complex at this stage. There are further arguments for the complexity of even simple items. Norman settles on middle ground -- focusing on understandability regardless of complexity.

Discussion

I appreciate the focus that is given to establishing a balance between simplicity and features. Too often, I find that products are overly simplified or overly complicated -- it is definitely a place where the perfect balance must be found. Example: iPhone too simple, Android too complex.

Chapter Three

Summary

Norman explores the fact that simple everyday items are often complex in nature of understanding. As an example he complains about having to maintain multiple passwords. This leads to the storage of the passwords within the physical world, which leads to the defeat of the purpose of passwords. Forcing functions are explored as a manner for constraining understanding of information.

Discussion

This felt like a return the Design of Everyday Things and its involved discussions of Norman's dislike of everyday items which are complex. Good points about using forcing functions to help shape user behavior are made here though.

Chapter Four

Summary

This chapter focuses on indicators which can be embedded into design to provide individuals who are using the device with direction. Signifiers, which seem much like affordances, are said to be perceived affordances. A discussion of the differences of culture on signifiers is presented

Discussion

This chapter makes good points about people looking for social cues within their environment and from other people. It is evident that design should include affordances which act as signifiers for the user to understand how to best use the device.

Media Equation: Full Blog

Reference

Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses To Computers

Cliff Nass, Youngme Moon

Journal of Social Issues - 2000

Can Computer Personalities Be Human Personalities?

Cliff Nass, Youngme Moon, BJ Fogg, Byron Reeves, Christ Dryer

CHI 1995

Computers are Social Actors

Cliff Nass, Jonathan Steuer, Ellen Tauber

CHI 1994

Summary

Together these papers summarized the work of Cliff Nass, Byron Reeves and Youngme Moon in extending the social actor role to computers. The papers establish the Media Equation which simply states that Media is equivalent to real life. This theory enables treating computers as a social actor when studying interactions with users. The papers go to significant lengths to describe and counter alternative theories for the behaviors of humans observed in experiments supporting the idea of the Media Equation. The papers also identify the minimum set of attributes required to gain social attribution to a machine.

Discussion

The Media Equation is of high interest to me, as the research group I work in is attempting to extend the equation to human-robot interactions. Because of this, I have had to chance to be on a team with Dr. Cliff Nass and directly hear his ideas and previous experiences. To this point, it seems apparent in our research that the Media Equation does apply to robotics and it is highly noticeable anytime we bring robots to interact with the general public.

Why We Make Mistakes: Full Blog

Reference

Why We Make Mistakes

Joseph Hallinan

Crown Archetype 2009

Summary

In this book the error prone nature of humans is explored in detail through various studies and observations. The book is structured in a way which brings attention to varying areas of error and mistake making. Each chapter focuses on a different area, as a overall picture evolves. Mistakes are easily made by humans, as we are not perfectly configured for the world we live in. Characteristics like imaginative memory and association through emotion are brought into the light as the author focuses on many of the day to day issues which humans experience. For example, people often make up details related to memories which boost their own image. The author continues to look at issues related to framing or anchoring and the trouble which can be caused by incorrectly framing a situation. Additionally, an exploration of multitasking and skimming is performed. This reveals that humans have great trouble multitasking and often don't pay attention to all of the details of things they are experienced with. Behavior between men and women is also different and therefore leads to different mistakes being made. Additionally, the way a person was raised can influence the types of mistakes they are prone to. There is also a tendency to inaccurately predict the future as being good. The author provides suggestions for correcting these mistakes throughout.

Discussion

This book provided quite a collection of studies and activities that have illustrated the human tendency to make mistakes. There seemed to be a heavy focus on citing behavior of people as the most compelling evidence for our condition. Many of the examples were of things I have noticed before and it was nice to see someone else recognize them. Applying this information to Computer Science is interesting in that there are many diverse and specific lessons to be learned from each chapter and each example. I feel overall the common theme is that there will be errors regardless of the system and we should be ready for them.

Paper Reading #24 - Using Language Complexity to Measure Cognitive Load for Adaptive Interaction Design

Comments

Jaideep

Joe

Reference

Using Language Complexity to Measure Cognitive Load for Adaptive Interaction Design

M. Asif Khawaja, Fang Chen, Nadine Marcus

IUI 2010 - Hong Kong

Summary

This paper attempts to discover some correlation between language complexity and cognitive load. The long term focus is that when speech technology is a able, a system could detect a user’s cognitive load through their words. The paper inspected transcribed speech data from bushfire response teams during both high and low cognitive load experiences. The paper hypothesized that increased cognitive load would lead to lower complexity in vocabulary. Additionally the paper hypothesizes that easy tasks will result in short simple sentences opposed to more difficult tasks which will have longer sentences. As predicted increased cognitive load led to lower complexity in vocabulary. However, there was an increasing trend in complex word ratio showed a increase with cognitive load.

Analysis

This work was interesting, as it is evident in everyday life that humans alter their speaking patterns and word choices depending on the situation. I would have enjoyed seeing a study focused on pauses, tone, and volume of speech -- as these are attributes which supply quite a bit of information and that could be somewhat measurable in realtime with current technology. Also interesting would be the study of cultural differences in patterns associated with cognitive load. This work is very motivating of future studies and areas of study.

Paper Reading #23 - Activity Awareness in Family-Based Healthy Living Online Social Networks

Comments

Shena

Paola

Reference

Activity Awareness in Family-Based Healthy Living Online Social Networks

Stephen Kimani, Shlomo Berkovsky, Greg Smith, Jill Freyne, Nilufar Baghaet, Dipak Bhandari

IUI 2010 - Hong Kong

Summary

This work focuses on using social networking features to supply users with an awareness of healthy activities which are taking place around them. The basic idea is that surrounding yourself with news of other people’s healthy activities will inspire you yourself to be healthy. To study this, families of 4 were given access to a social networking tool that either did or did not support activity awareness. At the end of the study period both groups were evaluated to determine the effectiveness of the activity awareness feature. The results indicated that users with access to the activity awareness feature were more motivated to be active and more aware of their health.

Analysis

This paper illustrates that what we know to be true in the real world about activity awareness also applies in social networking situations. Personally, I do not find any real world potential for this idea. I think at best it will have a niche group (people interested in physical fitness) as regular users. I am uncertain of the study’s design, and feel that any feature presented could have had the same effect. For example, replace physical fitness with recently watched movies and you would probably observe that one group had better awareness of their friends recently watched movies. Overall I don’t find much of a contribution in this paper.

Paper Reading #22 - A $3 Gesture Recognizer - Simple Gesture Recognition for Devices Equipped with 3D Acceleration Sensors

Comments

Adam

Shena

Reference

A $3 Gesture Recognizer - Simple Gesture Recognition for Devices Equipped with 3D Acceleration Sensors

Sven Kratz, Michael Rohs

IUI 2010 - Hong Kong

Summary

This paper presents an algorithm for using 3D accelerometer data in the task of gesture recognition. The algorithm presented is simple in nature and easily implementable for prototyping situations. It uses only trigonometric and geometric calculations and is sensor independent. It has a success rate of 80% and can support about 10 to 15 gestures successfully. The recognizer requires little training data. A user study with 12 participants indicated the 80% success rate.

Analysis

I was greatly disappointed to find out that this was not a $3 hardware device but rather an algorithm. However, I really appreciated the direct and thorough nature of this paper. It presented its exact claims and its shortcomings. It acknowledged its scope of application and its reason for being a good choice within that domain. Additionally, it’s always nice to have some basic algorithms to use when you aren’t looking to be the world’s best at something (like when prototyping). Overall this paper illustrated the power of simple algorithms and their usefulness.

Media Equation: Microblogs

Part 1 - Machines and Mindlessness

Summary

This paper examines the general social reactions that people have towards computers during an interaction. Social responses such as politeness are apparent in interactions. The paper explains that this is not caused by human ignorance or inability to recognize the computer as non-human, but rather simple cues which subconsciously create social reactions in the brain. Attributes such as politeness, reciprocity, self-disclosure, and gender are illustrated in the examined studies. Attention is given to clarifying that this is not because of factors like anthropomorphism.

Discussion

The concepts discussed in this paper are easily observable in everyday life. This study really proves the idea of the social treatment of computers by illustrating it in so many different ways. Direct parallels to psychology of human to human interactions can be seen in the experiments. I appreciate the thorough nature of the studies run.

Part 2 - Computers Are Social Actors

Summary

This paper focuses on disproving ideas that the social interactions between machines and humans are the result of some sort of dysfunction or ignorance of the user. The experiments focused on aspects like politeness, gender, and the computer opposed to the programmer of the computer. The studies continued to find that social attributes are given to machines by humans and are not the result of any kind of dysfunction or ignorance.

Discussion

This paper was nice in that it gives detailed accounts of the trials used to establish the truth of these rules. The experiments are cleverly designed and very interesting from a Computer Science standpoint. They give clues as to how we can create programs which elicit social responses from users, without the need for extremely complex software.

Part 3 - Can Computer Personalities Be Human Personalities?

Summary

This work focuses on the identification of the minimal set of attributes required to create a personality within a machine. Attention is given to the ideas of dominance and submission traits within personality by assigning them to computers within experiments. Results continued to indicate that human-human psychological theory holds true for human-machine interactions (where the machine has a set of social attributes).

Discussion

This paper was mostly a repeat of what we've seen illustrated in previous papers. However special emphasis was given to the main hypothesis with many details given. The conclusions, though not surprising (based on the other papers), are important for the field of Computer Science and software/hardware design.

Paper Reading #21 - A Multimodal Labeling Interface for Wearable Computing

Comments

Steven

Adam

Reference

A Multimodal Labeling Interface for Wearable Computing

Shanqing Li, Yunde Jia

IUI 2010 - Hong Kong

Summary

Using wearable computers poses an interesting question when it comes to user input. This paper examines the idea of labeling objects using a wearable computer system without the use of a keyboard and mouse. The system is equipped with a stereo camera and speech recognition capabilities. Using these two technologies the user can indicate a region of interest with a gesture recognized by the vision system. The user can then utter a word to describe the selected real world object and thereby label it for future recognition by the system. Studies indicated the system showed a large speed boost from traditional keyboard and mouse entry. Performance was best on easily distinguishable large objects.

Analysis

Well mission accomplished if you want to wear a bulky computer system and label things in well lit low noise environments. Otherwise, this technology is probably not quite ready for you. The paper addresses valid concerns about input devices for wearable computers, but the good results are hard to believe. Speech recognition and vision are two very difficult areas, especially when users are in uncontrolled environments with noise and varying lighting conditions. Wearable computing is supposedly emerging as a convenience, but right now these systems seem impractical for daily use. The gesturing concept presented in this paper seems logical, but the wearable computer seems a bit imposing. Overall the paper presents a great prototype but isn’t quite ready for mainstream use.

Paper Reading #20 - Supporting Exploratory Information Seeking by Epistemology-based Social Search

Comments

Patrick

Paoloa

Reference

Supporting Exploratory Information Seeking by Epistemology-based Social Search

Yuqing Mao, Haifeng Shen, Chengzheng Sun

IUI 2010 - Hong Kong

Summary

This paper looks at new techniques for improving exploratory search strategies. There is a large focus on reusing searches to aide other users in their quests for information. The system proposed, Baijia, uses an epistemology-based search in addition to exploratory information seeking techniques to add a new dimension of relevance assurance to search. When a search is run a user can select pages to add to the epistemology. Other users rank these epistemologies. As use of a particular epistemology increases it becomes more reliable and helpful to new searchers. In effect, users benefit from previous searches. The system was compared against data which AOL released regarding their search engine. It was demonstrated that this system creates a better performance than the AOL system.

Analysis

This is one of many approaches to creating more relevant search results. Over the past few years we have learned both the beneficial and negative power of crowd sourcing information. While sites like Wikipedia for the most part enjoy great benefits from polling users for data, they are also occasionally attacked and caused to show incorrect data. I could imagine a system like this being attacked in order to augment search results for financial or political purposes. I think future work should focus on noticing trends which seem oddly motivated in systems like this.

Things That Make Us Smart: Full Blog

Reference

Things That Make Us Smart

Donald Norman

Basic Books 1994

Summary

This book focuses on the cognitive artifacts which effect a user's understanding and perception of a system. A strong argument for human-centered, rather than machine-centered design is given. Humans are subject to emotion and distraction and systems must account for this when interacting with them. Cognition is divisible into two major areas: experiential and reflective. These two approaches allow either reaction to events in an automatic manner or the ability to compare two choices and form a decision. Emphasis is given to the fact that both types of cognition must be considered when designing a system. Styles of learning are also important to the creation of easily understandable and usable systems. Learning can be divided into accretion (acquiring information), tuning (becoming an expert or mastering something) and restructuring (or internal reflective thoughts). Also important to understanding of a system is the method by which we represent concepts in the world. Norman also details cognitive artifacts and their various meanings to different individuals.

Discussion

The most interesting portion of this book was that of learning methods and representations. Understanding these concepts can lead to the creation of systems which are enjoyable to use and easy for users to learn. Humans are capable of recognizing many symbolic representations and the correct usage of these in software design can be very beneficial to a system. The idea of increasing motivation within education is particularly interesting.

Things That Make Us Smart: Microblogs

Chapter One

Summary

A comparison of machine oriented versus human oriented design is presented. Norman argues for the increasing of human centered design rather than machine oriented methods. Cognition is explored in terms of experiential and reflective cognition. One of these leads to reaction to events and the other to comparisons and decision making.

Discussion

This seems to point out the obvious, that humans are subject to emotion and aren't the perfect thing to interact with. System should take this into account and build in flexibility so that human emotional responses can be handled.

Chapter Two

Summary

This chapter focuses on the different types of cognition and learning. The different learning styles are expressed as accretion, tuning, and restructuring. The first is useful in discovering and capturing information, the second in becoming an expert, and the third on refining understanding. Various methods for dealing with each type of cognition are explored as well.

Discussion

The discussions of improving learning or educational styles was very interesting. I don't agree with Norman's ideas that motivations like video games can successfully increase learning or educational efforts. It seems like people learn out of necessity more than anything else.

Chapter Three

Summary

The different representations of information in the world are explored. Norman focuses on the types of cognition that are inspired from various types of representations. The difference of the represented world and the representing world is discussed.

Discussion

Representations are highly important to the navigation and understanding of an environment. Humans have a great capacity for identifying these symbols and parsing them into cognitive understanding. This chapter did a good job of highlighting this process.

Chapter Four

Summary

This chapter expresses that all humans interpret artifacts in different ways. Concepts like internal vs surface representations and passive vs active artifacts are explored. Emphasis of confusion of artifacts was given.

Discussion

It seems difficult to design for a universal user when considering cognitive artifacts. Cultural divides and differences will effect the user's understanding of these artifacts. This leads me to believe that many of our attempts to universalize design concepts may be flawed.

Paper Reading #19 - Vocabulary Navigation Made Easier

Comments

Patrick

Shena

Reference

Vocabulary Navigation Made Easier

Sonya Nikolova, Xiaojuan Ma, Marilyn Tremaine, Perry Cook

IUI 2010 - Hong Kong

Summary

Searching a dictionary for a particular word can be a difficult and time consuming task. Additionally, users are required to know the word they are looking for. In some cases people suffer from aphasia, a cognitive disorder which causes difficulty in finding the correct word choice for a particular thought process. This paper proposes a system, ViVA, which is visual in nature and contributes to faster word finding by associating words together based on human judgements of semantic similarity. The system was tested against a LG vocabulary without associations being placed between words. ViVA performed better in the ease of finding a particular word. Additionally, participants were able to discover associations between words they were previously unaware of. Future work involves testing with those not fluent in the language.

Analysis

This seems like it would be a great tool for learning a new language or for children learning their first languages. The testing doesn’t give a clear picture of the associations made, and the interface is a bit confusing, but conceptually this is a great idea and a novel creation. I think it would be fascinating to observe some of the associations which are generated by this system. I’d be curious to see if many incorrect associations are made or any unthought of similarities are discovered.

Ethnography Week 8

Our time at the helpdesk has been completed we are able to offer up some interesting conclusions based on this ethnography:


We believe our study is valuable in several respects: highlighting the ability of technology to break down generational and cultural boundaries, illustrating the deficiency of systems to provide accurate feedback and self troubleshoot for users, the reliance users have on technical support staff, and the issue of blame in technology related failures.
First, our study provides numerous instances of technology breaking down the divide which can be formed by cultural or generational issues. The technicians and supervisors we observed spanned many cultures and several generations yet were all compatible because of their shared interest in technology. Their common interest created a common language and a common ground for them to become familiar with one another on. Though we believe any common ground interest is capable of this, we find that technology is unique in that it inspires users to create custom content which is a reflection of their own cultural and generational backgrounds. As a simple example, the desktop background a user chooses can be used to express motivations, political beliefs, religious values or creative expression. When another user views this background it usually will spark some conversation related to the content. This discussion would probably not have started if there was not already the common interest in technology. Technology allows the expression of content and inspires a conversation around that content. From our observations we believe we can confirm the novelty of technology in inspiring the flow of ideas and removal of cultural and generational barriers.
A major highlight of our studies was the instance of users who could not successfully mediate small mishaps with technology, and often relied on technicians to do so. Though there are many simple reasons this could be true, we believe that systems are not designed with the proper feedback and self-preservation mechanisms which could assist the user in self-diagnosing and fixing the problem. Especially considering the domain we were observing, the development of some sort of expert system which could aide users would be relatively trivial. Users of presentation systems rarely want to do more than project their desktop onto a larger display and have a wireless controller for advancing slides. While there are many possible points of failure even in a simple system, adding a bit of intelligence into the system itself would be of great assistance to users and to technicians should the issue require their assistance. We also see in this respect a need for a methodology to teach users how to use systems without drawing attention to the fact that they are being taught how to use a system. From our experiences we gather that many users have become complacent and accepted the idea that they are not capable of navigating and using systems to their fullest capability. An interesting fact of our study is that most of these users are individuals who have obtained at least a PhD level of education and often have completed activities to become tenured professors. These feats indicate attitudes of perseverance and determination must have existed within these individuals, yet they are unable to learn how to use a simple projection system. This confound seems to indicate that the technology is not providing a sufficient means of educating users about itself.
The users we observed were heavily reliant on technical support staff, with very few even willing to postulate a possible reason for the failure or a solution to the failure. We find this disappointing and see it as a call for technology to work to better inspire its users to understand its workings and transitively better understand why a failure has occurred. In the systems we observed it is very clear that the user has little knowledge of the system’s state or the way the system actually works. It is our recommendation that systems attempt to better model their internal state to end users, giving users a more firm grasp on the reasons behind potential failures. We believe this would improve the users overall understanding of computing while decreasing the need for excessive technical support staff.
Finally, issues of blame and trust become highly visible in the world of the helpdesk employee. A higher percentage of the time, users seemed to attribute blame or at least responsibility of a system failure to the technician aiding in fixing the technology. This often leads to a more hostile attitude towards experts who are fixing a technological failure. We believe this indicates the need of systems themselves to absorb responsibility for their failures. It has been shown that users are less likely to criticize a computer directly, as they attribute social attributes to it. Perhaps by employing more social computer systems, which take on responsibility for system failures, some of the tension between those repairing the systems and those using the systems could be reduced

Through the exploration of a helpdesk technician’s role in aiding in repairing presentation systems at a major university we have identified several areas of computing that could benefit from innovative thinking and novel implementations of software. This study has shown value in highlighting the issues which occur between technical support staff and end users. Additionally, we have examined the ability of technology to break down cultural and generational divides between those who are working to improve or repair it. Future studies may wish to focus on specific elements identified in this study, such as the problem of blame and trust surrounding users, technicians, and computer systems.

Coming of Age In Samoa - Full Blog

Reference

Coming of Age In Samoa

Margaret Mead

Harper Perennial 1928 1971

Summary

This book is a classic ethnography focused on life in the Samoan culture with emphasis on the Samoan girl. The author's primary objective was to compare her own culture to Samoan culture and learn from them. The book is structured into various segments about certain aspects of Samoan culture along with some discussion of application to the author's own culture.

The author rooted herself into the culture as much as possible, making friends with adolescent girls in order to gain insight into their lives. Through this process she creates several tables and collections of raw data, which is presented in the back of the book.

Overall, focus is given to the way the girl experiences Samoa. From her birth until her death all aspects of her life are at least partially covered within this text. The dynamics between males and females is also discussed throughout the book, with the males often having the better end of the deal. Some unique aspects of Samoan culture, like dancing, are discussed in detail with interesting accounts given. Focus continues to drift back to the Samoan girl's progress through life and the book ends with her entering maturity and still working hard.

The book gives attention to what we can learn from the Samoan culture. Finally a brief description of other culture's influence on the Samoans is given.

Discussion

This is the first ethnography I've ever read and I found it to be really interesting. Though the content wasn't my first choice, the idea and process of ethnography was one of the coolest things I've learned in CHI. I can see the merit in studying these other cultures and the importance it can play in our lives. Because I read this book I am more likely to be open to reading other ethnographys, which I feel will help me better understand new aspects of the world. As for it's place in Computer Science: I'd call it a pivotal part of system design. Without knowing the space designers will miss something. Experience provides so much insight, even if a full ethnography isn't possible, we should always try to spend as much time in our users' place as we can.

Paper Reading #18 - Automatic Generation of Research Trails in Web History

Comments

Patrick

Adam

Reference

Automatic Generation of Research Trails in Web History

Elin Tonby Pedersen, Karl Gyllstrom, Shengyin Gu, Peter Jin Hong

IUI 2010 - Hong Kong

Summary

Research is performed by millions of people at many different levels. This paper introduces the idea of a research trail, which helps researchers reestablish their research process after leaving the context for an extended time period. A system was developed which worked with a user’s web history to form research trails. An ethnographic study was performed on users performing research as the system was designed and implemented. The implementation relies heavily on a user’s web browsing history information in order to provide a research trail. The implementation detects related areas and groups them accordingly. Additionally, the system is aware of time gaps between research sessions and can sort segments appropriately. A small study of three users was performed, which indicated the system was favorably received.

Analysis

This paper really had me excited, especially as they were describing all of the problems faced by people attempting to conduct research. I was ready to see a wonderful implementation of something that would change my life and make me a unstoppable researching force of nature. However, the implementation was only briefly described, and there wasn’t any tool I could download and try out. I felt like the paper motivated the need for a tool well, but didn’t actually deliver anything I could evaluate or grasp. I have a feeling that we will see future improvements on the system described.

Emotional Design - Full Blog

Reference

Emotional Design

Donald Norman

Basic Books 2002

Summary

This summary is derived from reading the first three chapters of Emotional Design, though it likely reflects the theme of the entire book. Emotional Design focuses on issues surrounding interaction between devices and humans that can be most easily classified as emotional. This is established by first examining the idea of attractive objects seeming to work better than their not-so-beautiful counterparts. The reasoning is simple: people ignore the functional faults of objects which are more ascetically pleasing. The mind is more flexible about the possible responses of the device, and therefore faults are not easily found. Users are more willing to work with the device than against it. Norman continues by exploring the three levels of design: visceral, behavioral, and reflective. These aspects of design are each concerned with different aspects of the interaction. Visceral is connected to the appearance of the device, while behavioral is more focused on the performance and reflective on the amount of personal connection or contentment a user feels from the device. This area of the book implies many strategies that could be effective for marketing a device. Norman continues to further examine the three levels of design. He explains that visceral is an emotional signal creator, which is interpreted by the brain across cultures and people. Behavioral is directly related to the user's use of the object and its perceived function.Finally, reflective design conveys a meaning of a device which is unique to each person.

Discussion

While this book was somewhat repetitive in nature, I feel that I personally gained new insights into the interaction that surounds devices and their user's. I can definitely see the direct effects of attractive design present in products like Apple iPhones, MacBook Pros and iPods. Survey's always indicate high levels of customer satisfaction, and though the products are well made, I believe their attractive design creates an extra factor which leads their users to be more satisfied with them. I believe the implications of this text for Computer Scientist are obvious. Software and hardware projects can benefit from considering the three levels of design.

Paper Reading #17 - The Why UI: Using Goal Networks to Improve User Interfaces

Comments

Chris

Shena

Reference

The Why UI: Using Goal Networks to Improve User Interfaces

Dustin A. Smith, Henry Lieberman

IUI 2010 - Hong Kong

Summary

This paper claimed that modeling user goals could improve user interfaces. The argument centers around the idea that once an application has knowledge of a user’s intentions it can perform some automated planning or tasks through the construction of a goal network. The goal network supports concepts like the location of the goal, duration to achieve, and subgoals. Goal libraries are also used to examine human-level goals. The paper accomplished this by parsing data from a website where people share their goals, achievements, and thoughts about others’ goals. An implementation in the form of a to-do list application was created.

Analysis

This paper was not very well focused. I felt a lot of conceptual talk about goals and how they could be used to augment interfaces was present at the beginning, but the implementation seemed random and unrelated. I agree strongly that recognizing a human’s goal could greatly serve to improve experiences, but I am uncertain how parsing a database of people’s goals illustrates this. The implementation seemed to just basically provide popular subgoals associated with an entered goal. I may be missing something here, but I am generally unclear as to the direction of this research.

Ethnography Week #7

Life at the helpdesk has been very calm this week. We are nearing the end of our study and feel very confident in the amount of data we have collected and the conclusions we have come to.

We have been considering the application we will design for our group and believe we have something which could really be of great assistance to them. We hope that it will actually be used, as we plan to implement it for our final project.

For the most part we have observed the same things as previous weeks, occasionally a friend of an employee or someone from another department will stop by and socialize. But mostly, we see the culture as a place to pass time, socialize and occasionally perform tech duties. It is noteable that almost everyone working in the center has a personal interest in technology and the job is not difficult or challenging to them.

Microblogs: Why We Make Mistakes

Chapter 0 & 1

The first chapter provided a bit of background for the book as well as some motivation for studying the topic. It was asserted that humans are not necessarily to blame for their errors, rather design choices may be to blame. A number of interesting experiments and studies concerning our ability to recognize our motivation or to miss seeing something were cited.

This book seems like it will be a wealth of interesting information concerning mistakes or more generally human tendencies to miss portions of the world around them. I’ve found the studies cited to be very interesting, and would like more details on some of them, rather than just the shocking facts.

Chapter 2 & 3

Meaningful things are easier to remember. We are great at storing away connections between objects and ideas or events. Examples like remembering faces better than names and using stories to remember something are given. We are also prone to mistakes when things seem to represent something we know, but don't fully. A discussion of how judgements are made on visual attributes is given. These are denoted as "invisible" attributes that affect our choices.

These chapters were enjoyable and pointed out many of the things I have put into practice in my own life without realizing why. For example, I always create stories or relationships even if they are fake when I need to memorize a large amount of terminology for an exam. Overall these chapters remind me that I hate taking exams which aren't essay style.

Chapter 4 & 5

Wearing rose colored glasses refers to the idea that we tend to see ourselves in a very positive light when we recall an event. We always describe our actions as making us look the best. This effect is not intentional. Having knowledge of events, i.e. looking back on the past, has an effect on our memory. We know the outcomes and we will fill in the gaps with our imagination to make things look good. Next, multitasking is examined. The claims is that much like a single processor computer, we can only do time slicing, never truly proces two events at once. The idea of inattentional blindness is explored through examples.

I really enjoy the amount of examples that Hallinan provides. Often times I find myself wanting to look into the particular studies or incidents more. So far this book has really captured many aspects of human nature. The ideas of rose colored glasses and multitasking are not surprising. Though I would debate the idea that we cannot multitask. Many of our body systems run in parallel and though they may not be upper cognitive processes, they are present. For example, you don't need to do any context switching to think about breathing or to dodge a flying object -- it is a natural background process.

Chapter 6 & 7

The first chapter deals with the idea of framing and anchoring. The idea is that if we frame a situation wrong we will make the wrong choices and interpretations. Interestingly if a person expects a loss in a situation they are more likely to take risk. The second chapter discusses the fact that we don't often read and parse the entirety of anything. We hit key points and interpret the rest. The better you are at something, the more likely you will miss details.

The framing and anchoring issues are tremendously interesting. Especially from a computer science standpoint. In developing true AI we need to be able to frame a situation correctly otherwise we will get strange and incorrect results. If humans suffer from framing problems, will machines ever overcome them? The chapter on skimming is another general truth about the way we operate. It is interesting that experts miss more details, though it seems plausible.

Chapter 8 & 9

The first chapter explores the idea that we often smooth out or simplify memories or details in order to make them easier to understand. A number of examples of this are given. The human mind organizes in a hierarchical fashion.The second chapter explores how men and women differ in the ways they arrive at errors. The book asserts that men are more confident and women are less likely to take a risk.

I thought the idea of childhood having an impact on confidence in mapping was very intriguing and true. There is definitely a lot to be said for childhood experiences shaping the decision making processes of individuals. This would be an interesting area to explore by itself. The smoothing of memories and storytelling are not surprising.

Chapter 10 & 11

Only those who are depressed have a view of themselves that is less than average. Many people have taken advantage of humans' overconfidence in order to achieve financial gain. We also have tendency to believe more information will help us, when in fact it can do the opposite. In order to become an expert at something it is estimated that about ten years of refinement and practice is required. The idea of mappings in the mind by experts is explained. Additionally, people become set in their ways.

It was sad to consider that only the depressed have an accurate world view. I feel like a tiny bit of overconfidence is an important motivating factor (proof: how many depressed people are highly motivated?) in our lives. Again I appreciate the examples given in these chapters which seem to back up the claims. I am not sure about the information overflow claims. It seems like a large amount of information acquired over a decent period of time would be beneficial.

Chapter 12 & 13 & Conclusion

People die because of simple errors which could be easily preventable. The argument is that giving meaningful attributes to things can result in increased performance and less human error. Studies of the FAA improvements in comparison to the lack of improvements in the medical community are given. Finally, the idea that the grass is always greener on the other side is explored. This fact is proven to be true, illustrating that people often perceive a increase in happiness will occur in a differing situation. The book concludes with summarizing the major findings of the book and the main ideas. The point that aspiring for different situations constantly will lead to unhappiness is made.

These chapters reminded me of Norman's concepts and ideas. Overall it is interesting to see the simple steps we can take to avoid human error. The FAA studies were particularly encouraging to see. Overall the conclusion provided a good summarization and take away message from the book.

Paper Reading #16: Performance optimizations of virtual keyboards for stroke-based text entry on a touch-based tabletop

Comments

Stuart

Jeremy

Reference

Performance optimizations of virtual keyboards for stroke-based text entry on a touch-based tabletop

Jochen Rick, The Open University

UIST 2010 - New York

Summary

Entering text into devices without physical keyboards can be difficult. A common method for text entry is the use of shape writing, where the user strokes through the letters of the word without lifting their finger, in order to input text into a device. This paper investigated the keyboard layouts which would be optimal for text entry using the shape writing method. A large review of keyboard history and various types of keyboard was given. Additionally, the author performed two user studies to determine the optimal keyboard design. Based on Fitt’s law the author constructed a model of stroking through multiple points. This model was later used to evaluate the effectiveness of various keyboard designs. The results indicate that the typical QWERTY keyboard gives a 17.3% increase in speed, while the OPTI II gives 29.5%. The author concludes by saying it is unlikely this keyboard will gain widespread acceptance.

Analysis

This paper was a great survey of keyboard technology and an interesting study of new shape writing methods. The author performed his analysis thoroughly and fully. While, I don’t see this new keyboard design becoming used by mainstream users, I think having it as an option would be nice. I also appreciate the author’s concession that most people will continue to use the QWERTY keyboard despite it not being the most efficient. I do share the optimism that since we are using more and more software keyboards it may become easier for users to try out a new keyboard and eventually switch to it.

Obedience To Authority - Full Blog

Reference

Obedience to Authority

Stanley Milgram

Harper Perennial Modern Classics - 2009

Summary

This book provides a detailed account of the planning and execution of several experiments designed by Stanley Milgram to test the effects of authority. The main premise of the experiment is to see how long someone will obey authority despite their belief that they are causing harm to another human being. The setup includes an actor pretending to be injured by a shock administered by a participant during a learning game. The authority figure instructions the participant to continue. Results show that most people continue even when the actor expresses severe pain and a desire to quit.Special attention is given to providing a complete set of information detailing the experimental setups and all possible variations of the experiment. Raw data is presented as well. Additionally, Milgram works to define the theory of the mechanisms which are in action during these experiments. Milgram explains the hierarchical structure of obedience from a cybernetic viewpoint of people moving from functioning autonomously to being an active part of an organization. Finally, Milgram works to address critics of his experiments by citing reasons their claims cannot be true.

Discussion

I enjoyed reading the details of Milgrams experiments. Up until this point I did not realize the magnitude of the many variations and validations he performed. I particularly enjoyed the presentation of the dialogue between the participant and the researcher. I also appreciated the methodical way that Milgram planned his experiments and validated them. In terms of Computer Science I think this first shows us how important user studies can be, and reminds us that we should spend the extra time to validate our results. It is also interesting to me, as my research is in rescue robotics, where we may want to attribute an authority role to a robot for a number of reasons. It is both challenging and interesting to try and apply Milgram's findings to this area.

Ethnography Week #6

As we continue our ethnography we have become a regular part of the environment in our area of study. The employees expect us to be present at our scheduled times and expect us to follow them to their tech calls. For the past week or so calls have been limited to repairs which must be made after classes. Because of this we have spent a lot of time observing leisure life in the tech office. An interesting aspect of the job is that their are constraints on when work can actually be done, so often times there is very little to do other than work on class assignments or socialize with others in the room.

We have not been back on site since Spring Break (we make our visits on Friday's). Spring break was the time that a number of installation projects were to take place, so we are curious to hear the results and see if there are any remaining issues. We have also started to consider the application we would like to develop for our ethnography group for Project 3. Since our study group is already very technologically oriented, they do have a number of custom made software systems in place for their employees to use. We will need to focus on areas that are not already covered by the existing systems, or perhaps focus on improving a particularly frustrating system.

For the most part we have observed the same things as previous weeks, occasionally a friend of an employee or someone from another department will stop by and socialize. But mostly, we see the culture as a place to pass time, socialize and occasionally perform tech duties. It is noteable that almost everyone working in the center has a personal interest in technology and the job is not difficult or challenging to them.

Obedience To Authority - Microblogs

Chapter One

Summary

Obedience is described as a method which connects the actions of people and a purpose. Milgram also explains the basics of the experiments that will be chronicled in the book. The motivation for his experiments is found in Nazi Germany.

Discussion

This seems to be a basic introduction to the motivation behind the research area and the experimental setup that will be used. I appreciate the clarity with which this is written so far, it doesn't leave much to interpretation.

Chapter Two

Summary

A very detailed explanation of the experimental design is given. Consideration is given to who should participate and how to keep the true meaning a secret. Other artifacts like advertisements for the study are disclosed.

Discussion

It's nice to see such a thorough experimental design set out in advance. When I first read about these experiments they seemed ad-hoc and mad-scientist like, but now they seem very scientific and methodically planned.

Chapter Three

Summary

Milgram begins to form a hypothesis about the outcomes of the experiment. He polls people (without telling them about the actor) and they all believe the teacher will stop administering shocks.

Discussion

I really like the idea of polling for a hypothesis. So often we just use our own intuition and hope to validate it, but this is a good idea. I don't see this style used very often in the area I study.

Chapter Four

Summary

The variations of the experiment are detailed. Proximity plays a role in altering the setup. In some designs the actor is very close, in others he is completely obscured. The basic outcome is that the closer victim lowers obedience to authority.

Discussion

It's interesting to see proximity playing a role in obedience. The idea that simply being physically closer to the actor made participants less likely to shock them is intriguing. Why is this? Is the theatrical aspect just more powerful or do they feel more connected?

Chapter Five

Summary

The various factors which Milgram views as effecting a participant's response are discussed. Several detailed accounts of interactions are given. A strong focus to accounts of the interaction is given.

Discussion

I really enjoyed reading the accounts of the interactions. In this case having that kind of raw data is much more interesting to me than the numbers. This also answered questions I had about people having special knowledge about electric shock and their actions. I was glad to see they did not obey.

Chapter Six

Summary

The experiment was repeated several times with varying factors. The location was changed for example. Various expansions of the experiment were made (women as participants, choice of schock level, etc.). The results were not very different.

Discussion

The validation of the study was crucial and Milgram definitely proves his point with all of these checks. Once again it was interesting to observe the effects of proxemics in action.

Chapter Seven

Summary

More accounts of the interactions during the experiment are given.

Discussion

These chapters are very enjoyable to read. I appreciate the inclusion of this data very much, as it really helps me understand the justifications participants had for their actions. Knowing the outcome is one thing, but understanding the reasoning is another-- this gives that extra viewpoint.

Chapter Eight

Summary

More variations are applied. Many manipulations concerning roles of authority and interactions between the actor and participant are described.

Discussion

This experiment must have never ended-- I can't figure out if Milgram was just hoping to invalidate his results eventually or was obsessed with detail. In any case it is great to have this much data to analyze.... this is useful for those wishing to look back at the study in detail.

Chapter Nine

Summary

Milgram begins to look at the effects of forming peer pressure type groups and monitoring participant reactions. For the most part the responses of the pressure group seems to be mimicked by the participant.

Discussion

This seems expected: if someone takes the initiative most everyone in an unfamiliar situation will follow their lead. This feels more like social pressure to conform rather than obey authority.

Chapter Ten

Summary

A substantial discussion concerning the place of obedience in society and the necessity of it evolves throughout this chapter. The basic argument is that a hierarchical structure of authority is required to keep social order. Discussion of agnetic state and binding factors takes place.

Discussion

This was more of the actual model or theory that Milgram was using to give reason and purpose to the results of the experiment. It was interesting, but a bit involved and heavy on terminology. Overall it is necessary to understand the broader implications.

Chapter Eleven

Summary

More detail is given about the theory behind authority. Explanations of binding factors and antecedent conditions, like family and rewards are discussed. The preservation of the agnetic state is explored through binding factors.

Discussion

More the theory is exposed here, but with a bit more of application and example. This was a bit easier to read than the previous chapter and seemed to reinforce the same ideas

Chapter Twelve

Summary

Milgram explores strains and the mechanisms that connect it to obedience. Milgram explains that increased strain will cause disobedience.

Discussion

I am not sure I agree with Milgrams viewpoint concerning the strain being some sort of force which completely decides the outcome. I would argue that knowledge could also cause disobedience.

Chapter Thirteen

Summary

Is it possible that people just wanted to hurt someone with no penalty? Milgram doesn't think so. People consistently chose lower voltage levels when given the option, indicating they weren't in it to torture another human.

Discussion

Agression is considered here and rightfully so. In my mind it would be rare that so many people could possible fall into an agression category should it exist, but this is a good check to have.

Chapter Fourteen

Summary

The skeptics viewpoint is considered and argued against in this chapter. Milgram discredits many alternative theories as to why the participants obeyed. Ultimately he compares this to Nazi Germany.

Discussion

It was good to see these criticisms addressed formally by Milgram. I still believe it was a factor of knowledge and trust which caused participants to obey.

Opening Skinner's Box - Full Blog

Reference

Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century

Lauren Slater

W.W. Norton & Company, 2008

Summary

Opening Skinner's Box is a survey of the greatest, most influential and controversial psychological experiments of the twentieth century. The book focuses not only on the content of the research, but also the surrounding setting and the lasting effects of the findings. Beginning with B.F. Skinner himself, the author examines the concept of conditioning animals to perform based on a reward system and positive reinforcement. Continuing forward, Stanley Milgram's famous obedience to authority experiments are examined, with attempts to contact participants and examine the outcomes of their lives as a result of the experiment. As the book continues, Slater examines Rosenhan's experiments of gaining entry into a mental health facility with a limited set of symptoms. Slater is also sure to entertain readers by participating in the topics she is studying as much as possible, so much so as to try to be admitted into a mental health facility herself. Travelling into frightening territory, the bystander effect is explored, illustrating that the larger the group of people observing, the less likely individuals are to give assistance. Slater then invades the world of cult living as she brings the idea of cognitive dissonance to the foreground. Following this, the true nature of love is envisioned through the eyes of Harlow's monkey attachment experiments. Progressing onward the concept of addiction to drugs is presented from two viewpoints. Finally, the finer points of the human memory and brain are brought into the light with the idea of imagination filling in false memories and the physical aspects of the brain being examined.

Analysis

Skinner's Box is one of the most interesting reads I have ever encountered. The collection of fascinating researchers and their visions and projects into one volume proves to be quite enjoyable. Additionally, Slater adds interest to the facts by exploring the surrounding settings and even interviewing people connected to the research which was being conducted. Some of the most interesting topics were focused around the ideas of addiction and satisfaction. Computer Scientist can take away many things from Slater's examination of great psychological experiments. Of most importance may be to consider a human's complex nature when designing interfaces. Following design concepts wich account for the psychology of a human will greatly aide us in creating usable systems.

Paper Reading #15 - Gesture Search: A Tool for Fast Mobile Data Access

Comments

Ryan

Wesley

Reference

Gesture Search: A Tool for Fast Mobile Data Access

Yang Li

UIST 2010 - New York

Summary

Mobile phones are beginning to store more and more data essential to the lives of their users. Quickly accessing specific data items on a platform which contains hundreds or thousands of pieces of information is a difficult task with current user interface designs.Gesture Search allows for user to employ their entire multitouch screen as a gesture area and quickly access specific data items. The software runs in the background and distinguishes regular user interface events from a gesture. When a gesture is detected the search feature becomes active. The gestures are in the form of handwritten letters in sequence. For example, a user searching for a contact named Anne, would first write the letter A using their finger as an input device, they would then continue to enter letters until the contact appeared. The Gesture Search software also provides a mechanism for distinguishing more frequently accessed data and ranking it higher in the candidate list of possibilities. A user study of overall like-ability showed an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 for over 5000 ratings.

Analysis

This paper points out an interesting fact about mobile devices: our data is a bit harder to find. The paper discounts current systems, like Spotlight search on iPhone, as requiring too much attention and time to use. While I agree that a general gesture across the entire screen is easier than using an onscreen keyboard, I am not certain this is the best method to employ for finding data. I have not had an opportunity to use a system like this and would be very interested in trying one. I believe users would quickly adapt to any recognition quirks and be able to use it as a tool quickly. Overall though, I’d still like my data to find me instead of the other way around.

Ethnography Week #5

As we continue our ethnography we are more and more accepted into the environment of the help desk. We have started to look at issues of blame and trust between users of the system, the system and the technician role. We are curious to know if there is a way to reduce the amount of blame placed on technicians when a system fails.

For the most part the help desk has been relatively calm this week with few calls and not much social activity occurring. We have generally observed employees browsing the internet and relaxing. There have been a few pending issues regarding installations which are upcoming, but we will not be present for those.

Overall we are beginning to feel the natural pulse of life in the helpdesk, adapting to its nature of altering between super busy and very relaxed.

Paper Reading #14 - Eden: Supporting Home Network Management Through Interactive Visual Tools

Comments

Jacob

Kevin

Reference

Eden: Supporting Home Network Management Through Interactive Visual Tools

Jeonghwa Yang, W. Keith Edwards, David Haslem

UIST 2010 - New York

Summary

Networking the home is a complicated task for most users. Unfortunately, as more and more network connected devices enter the world, the requirement of a networked home becomes more and more evident. Users often express a wide range of frustrations with attempting to network a home. Eden attempts to provide a visual interface for managing home networks. A user study was conducted to first determine the needs of home network users, a panel of mostly novices and a few experts were surveyed. From this, an interface for managing a home network was implemented. The interface shows network connected devices in the frame of a house and allows visual groupings, shown as rooms, of the equipment. It also allows user to place restrictions or privileges on connected devices using visual badges. The system was implemented as a custom router with a web interface designed in Adobe Flash. In a comparison against other network management software the Eden software performed favorably.

Analysis

While I appreciate the efforts of this paper, I felt that it was lacking many details concerning the technical implementation and the complexities that arise in real world networking scenarios. Additionally, the paper cited that many users have trouble understanding DHCP versus static IP address assignment, yet this system does not account for that error (as it does nothing at the client, where that mistake is usually made). The implementation details also gloss over how new devices are detected and communicated to by Eden to before they are allowed onto the network. Overall I think there are some security concerns. Additionally, the testing was done in the lab with known devices--- this weakens the claim of a real world implementation. Finally, I didn’t think the interface grouping devices by room was very wise -- it’s too definite for wireless devices which roam around and gives users the wrong idea.

Paper Reading #13 - TwinSpace: an Infrastructure for Cross-Reality Team Spaces

Comments

Derek

Jessica

Reference

TwinSpace: an Infrastructure for Cross-Reality Team Spaces

Derek F. Reilly, Hafez Rouzati, Andy Wu, Jee Yeon Hwang, Jeremy Brudvik, W. Keith Edwards

UIST 2010 - New York

Summary

TwinSpace is software aimed at combining real world workspaces with virtual world workspaces. TwinSpace focuses on creating a physical smart space which can be connected to by real physical interaction and through virtual world interaction. The system focuses on developing an architecture for supporting synchronization of both spaces. This architecture is mainly an event notification system. Two studies were performed with the system, one to enable brainstorming between team members and presentations, while the other study was focused around a game encouraging collaboration.

Analysis

This is a logical next step in combining the worlds of virtual collaboration areas with shared spaces in the real world. However, perception will still be a limiting factor. While our infrastructure to communicate data increases quickly, our ability to interpret physical cues grows at a much slower pace. The major goal I see for systems like this is to make them an integrated part of the environment, which is simple and natural to use. In its current state (from what I can see in the pictures and have read) the system is bulky, a bit buggy and has many conditions that must be just right in order to get that perfect interaction. The interaction itself shouldn’t be a chore for the user. So while I believe this is something that will become moderately used in the future, I think our current perception technologies are not yet ready to support it.