HCI online resources

Yesterday while looking for some HCI readings, I found a site called PhilPapers (http://philpapers.org/). It is a new resource for publications in philosophy. I really liked what I saw. It is a thoughtfully structured and designed site and it has a wonderful coverage of philosophical publications. It seems also to be quite easy to use (even though I did not try much). I would like to see something like this in HCI. There is no HCI resource site out there today. One of the reasons is of course that to create something like PhilPapers takes a lot of work and maintanance. PhilPapers just got a substantial grant to continue to build and develop the site.

There are of course some attempts in HCI out there. The most known is probably the HCIB managed by Gary Perlman. Degraaf is also doing a good job with his HCI Index. While looking for more resources I also found a number of web sites that since a few years are no longer being updated, but they all started out with good intentions and ambitions.

However, none of these attemtps can be compared to PhilPapers. It would be great for students and researchers to have a great resource site. I will wait for it.....or maybe there is something out there that I don't know about.

Natural User Interface (NUI) Design

Today I watched a video from the company Stimulant where they show and discuss their approach to design for large interactive screens (the link to the video is on their company first page). I really liked this presentation since it is to the point and built on substantial practical experience. They do a great job in showing how (simple) technical limitations seriously influence the design space. To me their video shows clearly that design is not only about concepts and ideas, but also about technology and implementation! They keep repeating that you do not know your design until it is in right scale, in context, with the appropriate technology, etc.

For anyone interested in interaction design, this is a great video, not so much for the designs they show, but for the highly valuable insights about the design process they offer! Watch and reflect on your own design process.

Limits of Interaction (Patti Maes & Andy Rutledge)

I have earlier written about the "cost of interaction" and on that theme I want to recommend you to watch this video from the TED conference by Pattie Maes, maybe some of you have seen this before, it is quite fun and interesting. The demonstration really does, what I also have recently written about, open new design spaces.

When you have watched it, you can read this highly critical review of Maes' demonstration by Andy Rutledge. He argues that Maes' "demonstrates a measure of irresponsibility, misrepresented facts, and shallow thinking".

The demonstration itself and the review taken together shows us what we will see much more of in the future since the imagination among designers and the development of technology seems infinite. It is inevitable that with such a development, questions will be asked. How interactive do we want our environment to be? In what ways can interactivity that helps me be intrusive for others? Who has the resposibility when it comes to our future interactive environment? What is the responsibility when designers excell in "exploring potential design spaces"?

Watch, read, and think...

Interactive Innovations and Design Spaces II

In my last post with the same title as this one, I discussed how new technology and new ideas opens up new design spaces. Today a student of mine, Sarah Reeder, tweeted about another example of new technology that also leads to new explorations when it comes to interaction design. And as Sarah wrote in her tweet, "flexible OLED displays excite me". I could not agree more!

Interactive Innovations and Design Spaces

Quite often I am surprised by some new form of interactive artifact, with a technology, form, or function that I have not been able to forsee or imagine. For instance, today I saw the Moixa Sphere. It is not the thing in itself, even though the Sphere is fascinating, that is the most interesting aspect of this new artifact, instead it is that when I see the Sphere, I can imagine a whole new space of possible interactive artifacts, functions, uses, etc. The design space increases.

But, even though I am easily fascinated by new technology, when I see these new innovations my reaction is usually the same. I am surprised and fascinated by the technology and the new design space, but quite disappointed with the function or application that is used to introduce the technology. This is a consequence of the fact that the innovative design is technology driven and not neccesarily human centered. But, what I have learned over the years is that the worst mistake is to dismiss a new innovation as useless based on the application instead of focusing on the potential design space that the technology is opening up. To be able to see and imagine new potential design spaces is a crucial skill of being a good interaction designer! So, what design space do you see when you look at the Moixa Sphere?

The Cost of Interaction

It is obvious that a growing number of things and environments are becoming increasingly interactive. This means that we as humans in these environments have to interact with these things in a more sophisticated and deliberate way. At the same time we know that any interaction, or interactive session, requires some time, effort, and attention. This means that there is a cost of interaction. A really simple exmaple of this is when I am looking for something on the web, and I find a page but in order to get the stuff I am looking for I have to interact and to create an account etc. Of course, the purpose is that with an account I can get more and better service, but it comes with a cost of interaction, and in many situations I judge to cost to be too high and leave the page (even though the "cost" was only to write my email and straightforward info).

Is the overall interaction cost increasing since our things and environments are increasingly becoming and requiring interaction? Is there a limit to how much we want to "pay". When and why do we chose non-interactive alternatives? When do we look for interaction and when do we find interaction unacceptable?

Well, it is possible to ask many interesting questions around the notion of the cost of interaction, and I predict that this will soon become a very important aspect for all forms of interaction design!

"The Three Paradigms of HCI"

I recently found the paper "The Three Paradigms of HCI" by Steve Harrison, Phoebe Sengers, and Deborah Tatar from CHI 2007. Strangely enough I have not seen this paper before, which is too bad. I very much like the basic idea of the paper and the way they describe three paradigms of HCI. I like it because they make definitions, categorize things, creates a conceptual map, that is, they theorize about theory in HCI. Something that needs to be done much more! And they do it in a way that makes me want to discuss the paradigms further and to continue to develop the ideas . These are signs of a good paper. There are of course arguments that I don't agree with, but that just makes the paper even more valuable :-) Find it and read it!!

Thanks to Kevin here is a link to the paper!