The Inmates Are Running The Asylum

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Summary:
The Inmates Are Running The Asylum points out that programmers are running the show most of the time when it comes to designing how a user interacts with a program. The author shows that this will have negative consequences on the finished product. This could either be because the programmers are taking shortcuts when designing the interactions or, most likely, programmers misinterpret what would be best for the users.

Programmers tend to have a different mindset than average computer users. Programmers want power and control at the expense that an application could be more complex to interact with. Most people would rather give up the power to have a simpler interaction with a computer. Programmers do not understand this and it is a mistake to let them design the interaction. You need to bring in people who know how to design interactions.

Discussion:
While I like that this book pointed out that programmers are selfish when they program and tend to program what they would want in a program, I did not like that the book did not give much hope to programmers. Looking back, I can see that I usually assumed that what I thought was best for me would tend to be best for everyone. But looking forward, I would like to think that I can approach designs from a casual user's perspective now that I know to do that. I do not like that the author suggests bringing in interaction designers instead of teaching the programmers who are willing to learn.

Journal of Experimental Psychology

Journal of Experimental Psychology

Paul M. Fitts

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Summary:
Mr. Paul Fitts, along with his Journal of Experimental Psychology, are responsible for Fitts' Law. Fitts' Law is a function that can predict the time it will take a person to move to a target area. Fitts' Law takes into account four variables: the start and stop time of the device being used to reach the target area (a), the inherent speed of the device (b), the distance from the start area to the target area (D), and the width of the target area (W). These all combine to reach the time it takes to reach the target area (T): T = a + b*log2(1 + D/W).

This formula was discovered by running multiple experiments in which participants were timed as they moved to a target area. Looking at the results from these experiments, Fitts found the trends that occurred and derived the formula.


Discussion:
I do not think I will ever pull out my Fitts' law formula and use it to see if a button in my user interface is big enough or a menu item is too far away. I will, however, remember the principles that come out of this: the bigger and/or closer a target is, the quicker and easier it will be to reach that target. It seems like this does not need a paper to be written to know that. It seems like it should be known to everyone through intuition. It is a very important concept though that I do not think I would have every consciously considered if I had not read this paper.

Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful

Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful

Don Norman

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Summary:
At the time that this paper was written, the CHI community focused on creating tools and interfaces that were centered around the user. This is seems that it would be in the best interest of everyone, after all, users are the ones who will be using the tools. However, Don Norman suggests that centering a design around a user will not always result in the best design. There are times when the design needs to be centered around activities.

Norman points out that some great designs that were created with the task as the center of the design of instead of the user. One of these examples is the famous automobile. Norman suggests that users will adapt to the tool, and in some cases this is preferable over the tool adapting to the user.


Discussion:
Another Norman reading. I liked it as usual, and am very grateful that it was wrapped up into 6 short pages. Like all of the other things he has written that I have read, I think the information is very useful. His recommendations should never be the sole source of guidance, but it will always be beneficial to consider everything he has had to say in the past.

Ethnography Considered Harmful

Ethnography Considered Harmful

Crabtree et. al

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Summary:
The CHI community have been increasingly using ethnographies as a method of analyzing people and cultures with the intent of developing applications and interfaces that will better cater to the targeted demographics. The authors of this article suggest that the increased use of these ethnographies in addition to straying from the traditional methods of carrying out an ethnography is harmful to the CHI community and CHI projects.


Discussion:
This paper was difficult for me to understand. I had a hard time figuring out where the authors were coming from. It seems to me that it would be beneficial to know who you are developing interfaces and applications for. Even if the interface or application was not written entirely for the user, but for a task (like Don Norman suggests in Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful), I still do not see how it can be detrimental to know your users a little better.

Usability Evaluation Considered Harmful

Usability Evaluation Considered Harmful

Saul Greenberg, Bill Buxton

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Summary:
It has been almost required by the CHI community to have usability evaluations on any project and the results of these evaluations are used to judge and rate any novel ideas presented by a project. The authors of this paper suggest that not only are these evaluations unnecessary at times, but it can even be detrimental to a project.

If an idea receives a bad evaluation in a usability study, it is pretty much dead in the water. This can kill a project before any novel ideas have really been fleshed out. There is no need to evaluate an idea before it has been fully developed. It has not reached its fully potential yet and, if the evaluations are bad, it will never reach that full potential.

There is also the chance that an idea, even if it is an improvement over the standard conventions can be poorly rated against the standard conventions in a usability evaluation because the users are already comfortable with the standard conventions. This will also kill a potentially great project because a usability evaluation was used.


Discussion:
I enjoyed this paper and fully understood what the authors were saying. If a project is directed by the numbers that are given to it in a usability evaluation, the developers of that project are prone to give up on it and call it a loss. This can be very detrimental when you consider the fact that, if the developers had spent a few more hours, days, or even weeks enhancing and polishing their novel ideas, it could have been a very successful project. This is not to say that usability evaluations are always harmful, sometimes they are still necessary. It will take discernment on the developers' part to properly decide whether or not an evaluation will be necessary or beneficial.

CHI 2009

Comparing Usage of a Large High-Resolution Display to Single or Dual Desktop Displays for Daily Work
Xiaojun Bi, Ravin Balakrishnan


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Summary:
Previous studies have shown that users prefer large, high-resolution displays over smaller single displays and multi-monitor displays. Studies have also shown that, while the high-resolution displays are preferred, these displays also have some flaws, such as "keeping track of the cursor, distal access to windows and icons, and window management." These flaws can be attributed to the fact that the operating systems were not designed with these high-resolution displays in mind. This paper covers a user study that focused on studying how users managed windows when using a large display.

The authors observed that users managed windows very differently when using the large display then when using a normal single or dual desktop setup. When using a single display, users would have to do a lot of window switching. On a dual monitor setup, users would have a focal region and a peripheral region. The focal region would be one entire screen and the peripheral region would be the second screen. The main tasks get taken place in the focal region and the user will glance over at the peripheral region when information is needed from that region.

When using the large display, users would have a focal region and a peripheral region also. The focal region would be in the center of the screen and the peripheral region would be an on the left, top, and right sides of the screen. The peripheral regions are used for passive windows that are holding information but are not interacted with. Whenever a window that is in the peripheral region of the screen needed to be interacted with, the users always tended to grab the window, move it to the center of the screen, and resize it.

Looking at the trends of the users that used the high-resolution display, the authors suggested some improvements to current operating systems so that they can cater to larger displays. First, it was suggested to have the minimize and maximize buttons replaced by a button that would bring a window to the center of the screen and brought into the focal region. Second, whenever is dragged into the peripheral region, the window should automatically enlarge so that it can be easily seen even though it is at the perimeter of the screen.


Discussion:
This was an interesting paper. I personally enjoy the larger screens I have used and I am glad that some research is going into catering to those that use these large monitors. I have no good guess on how long it will take any of the major operating system developers to integrate this research into their operating systems. I hope that these developers start taking notice of these new user strategies of window management as computer displays become cheaper and larger.

Multi monitor displays have been around for awhile now and the operating systems do not seem to cater to these setups. To get good window management for this kind of setup, third party utilities need to be bought. Even though these large desktops are useful, window management for high-resolution displays might get as much attention from the operating system developers as the multi monitor window management has gotten: little to none. The only reason I can think of that might lead to more window management utilities at the operating system level for high-resolution displays is because it could become more popular than multi monitor setups. Setting up multiple monitors may present enough extra difficulty that it deters casual computer users. However, to get a high-resolution display setup, a user just has to throw more money in to buying the monitor. There is no added complexity to installing a high-resolution monitor over a standard resolution monitor.

UIST 2007

Dirty Desktops: Using a Patina of Magnetic Mouse Dust to Make Common Interactor Targets Easier to Select
Amy Hurst, Jennifer Mankoff, Anind K. Dey, Scott E. Hudson

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Summary:
The authors of this paper are attempting to create a platform independent system that will aid users in selecting highly used buttons by jumping the mouse to these buttons when the mouse is close by. This is also independent from the applications that are being used. There is no code required by application developers for this to work in their applications.

The whole idea is to use every mouse click as "magnetic mouse dust." Wherever there was a mouse click on the window of an application, it would be recorded. As buttons were repeatedly clicked, magnetic mouse dust would gather over them. Whenever the mouse approached these dirty areas, the mouse would be attracted to the button and land on the buttons. This made it very easy to land the mouse on a button once the system had learned where all of your clicks have congregated. This is able to be independent from the application because system events just record the x and y coordinate of the click in relation to the window.

There were two types of dust: dust that accumulated when the mouse was clicked and dust that accumulated when the mouse was dragged. The dust that correlated to dragging the mouse aided in dragging scrollbars and the like. Users found the entire system to be helpful. Some users took longer to grow accustomed to the mouse being controlled by the computer, but after they got the hang of it, they enjoyed it.


Discussion:
This seems like an effective system. I would have to use it to see if it would benefit me at all, but I know that there are some users with physical disabilities that could really benefit from this kind of assistive device.

The one thing that the paper did not address that I had questions about was what happened when the window resizes, either by force of the user or the computer. It could either clear all the dust and start over, or, since the dust is computed in relation to the top left corner of the window, the dust move to still be at the same coordinates in relation to that corner. Both could be useful, depending on the application. Some applications anchor everything to the top left corner and it would be fine to keep the dust. Some buttons anchor to other sides though and the dust would be congregating over a portion of the screen that was no longer a button after a resize. The paper was not clear on what happened to the dust.