Reading #7: Experience in Social Affective Applications: Methodologies and Case Study

Comments

Jimmy Ho

Shena Hoffman

Reference

Experience in Social Affective Applications: Methodologies and Case Study

Paul Andre, Alan Dix, m.c. schraefel, Ryen W. White

CHI10 - Atlanta

Summary

As new forms of social affective applications become more important so do the techniques used to evaluate them. The authors create a socially affective application and then engage in a novel process to evaluate their tool. Several comparisons to other methodologies and arguments are given. The paper serves as an aid in studying and learning about socially affective applications. A test group of ten people was formed, completing the study over a five week period. The application created allowed users to encode their emotional state into a numerical form and share it with the group. The tool was integrated into Facebook and Twitter. The group met each week to discuss the tool, and modified the tool as needed. Overall the authors aim to generate discussion about evaluation styles.

Discussion

The paper seemed to reference a lot of current debates in the HCI community, of which I am unfamiliar, and choose a side-- or a different direction. The application created was not very novel or very interesting. The study only had ten people, researchers’ friends, try the system and the whole process seemed very casual (though this may be a good thing). There is no compelling data from the “studies” provided or any compelling evidence to support the proposed methodology of evaluation over another. The reviewers are directly addressed in the paper. It seemed overall to me, like a not so interesting piece of work. Maybe great to spark debate about methodologies of evaluation, but not particularly interesting to me. I do admire the authors’ quest for a solid evaluation methodology, but wasn’t convinced to choose one based on this paper.