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Feedback provides informative clues about what is happening, clues about what we should do. Without it, many simple operations fail, even one as simple as getting into elevator. Proper feedback can make the difference between a pleasurable, successful system and one that frustrates and confuses. (P138)

        

        Sound of the machines is essential in human --- machine communication; it is a way that machines provide feedback and reassurance; it is a natural side effect of the working of physical devices. Though sound, people may know if the machine is operating properly. Moreover, people can tell whether the machine has an operating problem according their abnormal sounds.

         This recalls my experience of two types of air conditioner: In the old days, the air conditioner is a unity that combined with its generator (must be installed on windows). This type of air conditioner can make such huge noises that I would have bad dreams during my sleep. Several years later, the split type room air conditioners, this type of air conditioner is separated with its generator. That means the air conditioner itself can be hang on anywhere of the room and its generator is installed outside the house. The new air conditioner became instantly bestseller once launch on the market. It is much more quieter than the old one. The only sound from the air conditioner is the wind that blew out.  The commercials of the new air conditioner were actually humor too. They analogize the sound of the old generation air conditioner as a howling train passing by that give people the scene of nightmares, and the sound of the new generation air conditioner as the lullaby for babies. The commercials maybe exaggerated but it truly reflected that how the sound of machines affects people’s life. But then another problem arises.  In the past people can know the air conditioner is on by its sound, but for the new type of air conditioner, it is so quiet that people couldn’t notice it is operating and that often forget to turn it off before leaving the room. Actually both generations of air conditioner has a light indicating that the machine is on but in most cases the air conditioner is hung so high and the light is too small for people to see. So the sound became an important indicator that tell people the machine is operating or not.

Every piece of equipment has its own code for beeps, its own code for lights. A small red light visible on an appliance could mean that electric power is being applied, even though the appliance is off. Or it could mean that the unit is turned on, that it is working properly. Then again, red could signal that it is having trouble, and green could mean it is working properly. Some lights blink and flash; some change color. Different devices can use the same signals to indicate quite different things. Feedback is meaningless if it does not precisely convey a message. (P140)

This paragraph reminded me my experience with my new camera. Everyone will have the same experience that once you bought a new camera, you just can’t wait to explore its wonders. But before this amazing experience begins, you will have to fully charge the battery. When I plugged in the charges, something made me confused. The light on the charger appeared green! So I thought: “Hmmm…maybe this battery was somehow charged. So I put the battery back into the camera. But I couldn’t turn it on! So I thought: “What’s wrong??? The battery is charged. Something wrong with the camera??”  And at that moment, I felt like someone punched my stomach: “Damn! I don’t want to go all the way back to HongKong to exchange it!!” What happened next? Luckily I was too perseverant. I kept trying and trying. Finally I’ve found out what the problem was! It turn out that the green light indicates “battery is charging”. Is that confusing?? As we all known, the green light usually indicates “battery charged”. Normally, when the battery is charging, the light appears red or orange. If it is a green light, usually it flashes. I think this is a good example to illustrate that manufacturers should consider that customers are used to a set of indicators. It is somewhat a universal sense that green light indicates “charging finished”. Therefore the manufacturers should follow these rules to reduce customer’s confusion or frustration. 

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Augmentative tools are comforting, for they leave the decisions about activities to people. Thus, we can take them or leave them, choosing those that we feel aid our lives, ignoring those that do not. Moreover, because these are voluntary, different people can make different choices, so that people can choose whatever mix of technology suits their life style. (P131)

When conditions are stable and the task well understood, then no mechanical agility is required and the unexpected happens infrequently, then automation can indeed take over. (P132)

Augmentative tools and automation are two things we face daily in life.  There are tasks that are automated, such as in a factory producing mass quantities of shirts.  Then there are augmentative tools such as cars, where we are able to chose to use or not.  These two things are heavily depend on what task we are looking at.  In comparison, these tools both have pros and cons.  As the two quotes above mention, augmentative tools are beneficial as we are able to choose what we require to fit our lifestyles.  Take the car as an example; I for one know living in Calgary, with the public transportation extremely inefficient, not having a car for transportation can make life here quite difficult.  However, living in big cities where everything you need is basically beside where you live, you probably wouldn’t require a car.  Hence this car is what would be an augmentative tool.  The other quote on the other hand talks about automation; it should only occur if the task we need to be done is simple and the same every time it is done.  Such as producing a shirt, this can be automated as basically we are just cutting it out of fabric, folding, stitching and then printing on it.  Hence, both of these methods have their advantages and disadvantages.  The disadvantage when it comes to augmentatives tools is well, simply put some people now days are lazy, they rather have every thing around them automated and done for them.  And these people wouldn’t want to be bothered with the simple everyday decisions, such as driving a car, picking the best route to get to the destination and such.  However, with automation, comes the problem of how much do we trust it.  If the car was completely automated, how are we going to be able to completely trust that the car will do as it is intended.  Automation of cars has many problems, can we trust it enough to make the right decision going through heavy traffic, what about other cars? How about traffic lights?  As most of you know, driving a car here there are many things we need to pay attention to, people crossing, other cars, lights, speed limits and such, the question now is can we trust the automated car to perform all these things without error?  Because these errors would be fatal, possibly causing loss of life.  Another problem with automation is how can we develop it?  To develop something like the automated car would require artificial intelligence, we would require something like a neural network simulating our brains.  We would next need to implement data mining methods to mine out traffic problems, people, other cars, lights, speed limits and such.  It is not that its impossible, it is just very difficult.  Automation is good, but the question comes to how far should we go with automation.

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In many of the classical fields studied by engineering psychologists and human factors engineers, there is a well-known and well-studied problem called overautomation: the equipment is so good that people don’t need to be as attentive. In theory, people are supposed to supervise the automation, always watching over operations, always ready to step in if things go wrong, but this kind of supervision is very difficult when the automation works so well. In the case of some manufacturing or process control plants, there may be very little for the human operators to do for days. As a result, people simply cannot maintain their attention. (Norman, P 107)

When Norman talks about overautomation and human operator’s attention, the first thing comes to my mind would be safety. An overautomation gadget might not have appeared in real life yet, but I’ve seen enough of them in science fiction movies---production system that proceeds and supervised by robots (which we can also refer to robots produce robots); transport facilities that operated only by the machine itself, without any human interference. Yes, these machines work flawlessly in those scenes, because they were in the movies, where things work as humans wanted to. In real world, things just cannot go so smoothly. If something we use in our daily life is automation, it requires human understanding and trust on it because automation, to some extent, is artificial intelligence, which mimics mankind’s mental model. They try to work as a human brain--- with logic, with the ability of emergency management. In some way, when dealing with emergency crisis, machines can do better than humans because they don’t have sentimental emotions, which may impede decision-making. What they have is purely digital calculation. For example, if two people fell in water at the same time (I know it is a corny example but realistic really!), a human will try his best to save them both. It might get three of them kill, but still, there is a chance that he can save them both. I consider this a typical human thinking. However, for the robots, it’s highly possible that it will calculate the chance of survival for both of them and save the one that has the higher chance to live. This is exactly what happened in the movie “I, Robot”: The man commands the robot to save the girl, not him. The robot refuses his command because it calculated that the girl has only 11% chance of survival and the man has 89%. And as a result, the man was safe, but he hates himself that was not able to safe that girl and blames to the robot and ever since he has bias toward robots. I would say this scene is very likely to happen in somewhat 50 years or so.

Nowadays, the most prevail and well-known example of automation would be aviation cockpit. Not surprisingly, most of the airplanes in the world now have autopilot system that helps pilots to navigate the plane. The system is so well design and well functioning that pilot might even fall asleep during a long distance flight. This is where I would like to talk about the trust between human and machine (actually the trust is one-way though, as the machine don’t have a sense for trust at present). The pilots fall asleep during the flight because they know the system well and have faith in them. Although it is not recommended that pilots can take a nap during the flight, in fact, some pilots may do and I’m ok with that. I don’t know why I’m so calm knowing that during my 13-hour flight from Hongkong to Vancouver, one or both (very not likely I believe) of the pilots may fall asleep. I guess I just have faith in the pilots and trust the plane that it would operates well. But one of my group mates was totally freaked out by knowing that the pilot may fall asleep during the flight. She said: “ Well I’m ok if they really trust that plane and know what are they doing. BUT PLEASE DON’T TELL ME THAT!! I DON’T NEED TO KNOW!!!!!”

It is obvious that people have different attitude towards machine being automated or overautomated. Although I believe most of the technology we have at present can perform well, frankly speaking, I don’t want the technology going so fast that in the near future machines or robots would be able to do everything without human operation, at least not so soon that I will live to see them standing in front of me. 

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“It was necessary to reintroduce sounds into the circuit so people would know that the call was still being processed. ‘Comfort noise’ is what the engineers called it, their condescending way of responding to the needs of their customers. The sounds are far more than ‘comfort.’ They are implicit communication, confirming that the circuit is still active, informing the telephone caller that the system is still in the process of making the connection. And, yes, that implicit confirmation is reassuring, comforting.”(P63)

         I definitely agree with Norman’s point of “comfort noise” is needed and implicit confirmation is reassuring, comforting.  As he speaks to the hisses and the noises while the phone is progressing for a connection, it reminds me of some experiences of my childhood. My father often travelled back and forth between Guangzhou and Hongkong when I was young. In most cases, those trips were often last minute decision so he could not inform me in advance.  So I had a habit that I would call him at the exact time he got off work. Then I listened to the beep tone in the phone, because the beep tone was quite different between a domestic call and an international call (yes…calling a Hongkong number was an international call. And even now, it is still an international call!!), so I can tell whether my father was in Hongkong or on his way home in Guangzhou.  For the first couple of times, my dad would pick up the phone to tell me where he was heading. Then after a few times, he knew my intention and we kind of reaching a consensus that he would not pick up the phone because he knew exactly why I called and I did not need him to pick up the phone to tell me because the beep tone have already told me. So to me, the dialing beeps were actually communicating with me. Although the message is simple enough just to tell me “Your father is in Hongkong now” or “Your father is in Guangzhou”, it is still a communication between the phone and me.

        When interacting with a piece of technology, people need to know the progresses—what is going on?  I believe sound is a critical component to provide an informative, confirmative and reassuring feedback.  As Norman says:

       “Sounds and vibrations provide natural indicators, implicit signals of important conditions.”(P64)

      
       I believe sounds and vibrations are important indicators for an automobile, such as cars, airplanes, or even ships, that is, every transport facilities that with an engine. I travelled a lot by plane since I was 10. But I should say I am not a big fan of airplanes because basically the plane is not under my control. In here, by saying control, I do not mean that to drive or something, it is simply a sense of knowing clearly of the environment around. For cars, although I am not the one to drive it, but I can still see clearly what is happening outside. The environment is so close to me. But in an airplane, the cabin is actually sealed and the windows are not large enough to provide a panoramic view. So the sound of the engine and the vibrations when it counters turbulence are indicators of my safety. I would get nervous when I heard the sound of the engine switched to a high pitch and this nervousness would repaired me for the emergency escape if something bad indeed happened.

        Another example, which is commonly seen nowadays, some people modify their engines and switch their exhaust pipe only to magnify the sound when the car accelerates. For them, the sound increases the sense of speed.

        In summary, sound is one of the important components for the modern devises to make interaction with people. As Norman says: “ Although quiet can be good, it can also be dangerous.”(P63)Nowadays, especially for the automobile designers, they are too concentrate on reducing the noises and vibrations to create a more comfortable environment for users that they forget both these two elements can act as natural indicators and provide feedback of the environment to the users.

        

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      “Grassroots video can be used to bring a wide range of video taken in different contexts and from different perspectives as a teaching tool. A teacher might looking for conflicting issues for a debate in social studies, or may look for alternative approaches to presenting content, or simply just use video as a aide to enhance and visualize a concept.”

     “Students can use grassroots video as a means to document their learning journeys and as an opportunity to capture their thoughts as a self-reflection tool. Students can also use this media as a means to share with others their own personal experiences.”

     With youtube prevailing into people’s lives, video has become an essential part of massive media. Compared to decades ago, with less expensive tools and needless for editing, videos now are easier to create and more accessible. One can create his/her own video only with cell phones or digital cameras, and one can access to those videos only with a computer, which can access to the Internet. But all the convenience makes a plethora of all kinds of videos on the Internet. Frankly speaking, except for those which are posted on a professional website for a business, instruction or education purpose, most of the videos online are simply for entertainment. Or some are worse; they appeared as a visual scandal. And for this phenomenon, the adverse impact of videos is being magnified. When speaking of video’s impact on society, most people tend to refer to the negative site for having comments like “Video is more hurtful than a gun”. Indeed when we chatting with friends, if we ever talk about videos, that would be those gossip, mischief ones and the worst are those contain sexual or abuse scenes. For this reason, the adverse impacts of videos overweight the benefits.

     With instruction and regulation, video can be used beneficially. The educational value of video is huge. Decades ago, videos were used for demonstration only. But now videos can be used interactively. Beside for demonstration, video can also used as a digital portfolio for students. So in the past, videos are made by educators to educate students; however now students can also create videos to actively engage in the learning process. For example, Students can use video to investigate socially significant events and producing anthropology through interviews. Further students can use video to do field work and investigation in the sciences.

      To sum up, videos do have a positive impact on society, especially in educational field. Instead of magnifying the negative effect of videos, the focus for the video’s impact on society should be placed on how and where we can use it. 

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"… It is really want rather then need that drives the process of technological evolution. Thus we may need air and water, but generally we do not require air conditioning or ice water in any fundamental way. We may find food indispensable, but it is not necessary to eat it with a fork. Luxury, rather than necessity, is the mother of invention. Every artifact is somewhat wanting in its function, and this is what drives its evolution. "

       This quote is correct in the way the luxury drives the evolution of artifacts, but it is because of this that a luxury artifact becomes a need.  As humans once we are accustomed to something it is hard to let go, we must continue or else we experience withdrawal.  This is most commonly seen with drugs as it affects the basis of our body the nerves.  However, this is also true with luxury items, such as the cell phone and Internet.   Decades ago, these artifacts were indeed luxury items only rich could afford.  Now being a common item that everyone can access, it has evolved into being a form of life for us.  Nearly everyone will access the Internet or use the cell phone daily to communicate and search for information.  When there is something we need or something we need to communicate it is now the Internet and cell phone we turn to. 

       Many items that exist today are simply wants not needs, as mentioned above such as the Internet and cell phones.  These things we use on a daily basis, but for the most part they are not a need.  Using the cell phone as an example, this luxury item is very common; nearly everyone uses it on a daily basis.  However, the cell phone is not a need, this is just a want that makes our life easier but enhancing how we are able to communicate.  Some people may say it is a need, but this is only because we have made it into something we must have, simply because we are so accustomed to it.  If we think back, a decade ago the cell phone did not exist and everyone still lived perfectly fine with the basic communication abilities then.  The cell phone was invented as a mobile communication device to make communicating faster and easier while on the go.  This demonstrates the point of the above quote that it is luxury rather than necessity that drives invention.  As with food, communication is a need and fact of society, however, to communicate a cell phone is not required to do so, nor email or Internet.  All these artifacts are simply a luxury for us, and as evidence shows, it is the luxury we want that drives invention and evolution.  Paper and pen to emails, landlines to cell phone and of course the evolution of the internet are all driving by our want.  All these artifacts are luxury items, but we have simply made it into a need as we are now accustomed to having it in our daily life. 

       This quote simply summarizes a key part of our society’s evolution basis, which is wants.  It is because of wants, that our society moves forward.  Luxury is created through this, which in turn drives the evolution of the society.  A need creates a want which drives invention and evolution, and that artifact that results eventually with time becomes a false need and again drives more wants and evolution, it is a cycle that keeps our society evolving.

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The Rise of New Organism---- a Hybrid of Machine+Person

Car+driver is a conscious, emotional, intelligent system. When automobiles were first available at the very start of the twentieth century, the human driver provided all processing level: visceral, behavioral, and reflective. As the technology improved, more and more visceral elements were added, so that the car took care of internal engine and fuel adjustments and shifting. With antiskid braking, stability controls, cruise control, and now lane-keeping functionality, the car has taken on more and more of the behavioral side of driving. So, with most modern cars, the car provides the visceral part, and the driver the reflective part, with both active at the behavioral level.
                                                                                                                         -----Norman (P46)

        The hybrid of machine+person at this chapter Norman discussed about caught my attention and aroused my interest. The first thing came up into my mind is a Hollywood movie scene. A person (Dr. Octopus) with four mechanical iron arms, using his powerful appendages to lift a truck and throw it at the shop, breaking the window glass, then people screaming and running. (Spider Man) The mechanical iron arms are installed and connected to his spinal column so that he can control them with his mind.  Isn’t that a perfect example for machine+person? Another example for this hybrid is Iron Man who installs the uni-beam projector into his chest to strengthen his heart, which was suffered from a severe heart injury. The device not only keeps his heart operating normally but also activates his armor.

           

  

         The combination of human and machine seem the most far-fetched of movie creation, but this is definitely a possibility in future technology development. In fact, these fictional hybrids already exist. In 2000, a Northwestern University researcher installed part of the living brain of a sea lamprey, an eel-like fish, into a small-wheeled robot. Via implanted electrodes, the brain was connected to light sensors on the robot and to motors controlling its wheels, powering the brain-driven robot toward or away from light sources. Then neurologist Phillip Kerney implanted electrodes into the brain of a stroke patient who could barely move. With training, the patient learned to move a computer screen cursor by thought alone! He could pick out letters to spell words, opening up for him once again the "blessing of communicating" with other people. These examples tell us hybrid connections are feasible, with potential to help the injured and even to expand human physical and mental capacities.

          Although the powerful machine strengthens human organism functionality, the contradictory issue is that who is in control. The issue is less likely to be conspicuous at cases of non-intelligent machines.  But in the example of Dr. Octopus, in an accident of experiment error, destroying the central control device attached on his brain stem, the machine actually took over control of this hybrid. It brought out the evilness of Dr. Octopus and “persuade” him to kill spider man.

          If someday the high-end intelligent technology is really become the part of human body, the issue of control is worth considering.

 

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      About 99% of the time, the presence of Flash on a website constitutes a usability disease. Although there are rare occurrences of good Flash design (it even adds value on occasion), the use of Flash typically lowers usability. In most cases, we would be better off if these multimedia objects were removed.  

      Flash tends to degrade websites for three reasons: it encourages design abuse, it breaks with the Web's fundamental interaction principles, and it distracts attention from the site's core value.

                                                                       -----Jakob Nielsen “Flash: 99% bad”

      

      I was a junior high student when I first time heard of “Flash”. Actually I was taught how to create Flash animations in a computer course. I was never a computer person and that was why I was not able to create any good flash animation, so I hated flash and meanwhile worship to those people who can make really cool flash animations. That was pretty much my initial impression to Flash. 

       A decade ago, indeed, it seems really outstanding with cool flash animations on the website. It was kind of show-off thing to let people know you have technology genius in your team. But as technology develops and people gradually have a different perspective to technology---- people are looking at the substantiality of technology instead of its fancy appearance. Nowadays, with huge amount of information opened to the public, when people open a website, what they really need is available and useful information. Anything that is not relevant to the useful information can be considered as distraction or simply just useless stuff. The core of designing a website has been shifted from being fancy to the emphasizing on usability.

      Here is some examples that illustrate flash is a distraction to people who try to read the website.

                                                                   http://www.gotmilk.com/

       Look how fancy the flash is… but the problem is that it takes long time to load the page. I was wondering what is this website for at the moment I clicked it. What was funny was that I still not figuring out what is the website for even after the whole index has done loading and appeared. Yes, the flash is fancy, nice work. But what is that for? It distracts the readers’ attention to the navigation bar, and not giving any clue of the function or purpose of the website. This is what I consider showing off and overusing flash and the annoying navigation bar. 

       Check them out!! Flash…flash… flash….

http://www.farbraum.at/

                                                             http://www.jonespartners.com/

                          http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/archives/sts-108/flash/sts108.swf

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“In the ideal process, you'd first conduct competitive testing to get deep insights into user needs and behaviors with the class of functionality you're designing. Next, you'd proceed to parallel design to explore a wide range of solutions to this design problem. Finally, you'd go through many rounds of iterative design to polish your chosen solution to a high level of user experience quality. And, at each step, you should be sure to judge the designs based on empirical observations of real user behavior instead of your own preferences. (Repeat after me: "I am not the Audience.")”----Jakob Nielsen

        In this article, Nielsen illustrates a new way to increase usability: “Parallel & Iterative Design + Competitive Testing = High Usability”.  Before reading this article, I seldom think of conducting competitive testing to get to know the users’ needs. Or say, I have little knowledge about competitive testing. Questionnaire, observation, and user testing are the methodology we often use to gain feedbacks. But these are the testing for a design prototype. Competitive testing is conducted before we actually design the product. I can see the advantage by using this method to get deep insights into user needs. That is, by analyzing existing software/products, you pick up useful information among them, no need to spend resources by creating a new one only to find out the users actually do not need that.  And this method is essential because it may save large amounts of human and capital resources to develop initial models in the first place. When design a new product or apps for customers, every step in design should be considered and supported by strong research evidence. Never take things as granted. Every decision should be supported by research.

        After competitive testing, conduct parallel design to expand the ideas. In a parallel design process, either a person or a team can quickly scratch a few version of the initial interface. Nielsen mentions that the interface in this process needs not to be detailed. It can be a rough prototype. The idea for this design method is to explore many possible interfaces for the software. Notice that Nielsen also mentions 5 is probably the maximum.  After testing these different interfaces, merge the good features into one instead of identifying a winner.

        Finally, proceed with iterative design to polish the merged design.

        With Nielsen’s methodology for increasing usability, we can avoid being trapped in a “best” idea. 

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“As machines start to take over more and more, however, they need to be socialized; they need to improve the way they communicate and interact and to recognize their limitations.” (P.9)---Norman

        Norman’s thought of socializing machines is quite interesting to me. As I read an article before, which talked about human beings are socialized animals that need to be constantly involve in social context in order to fully develop our mental intelligence. And now Norman is talking about machines need to be socialized so that to better communicate and interact with people.  That seems a whole new era for technology since machines from nowadays only do what they can do as human program them and that is mostly obedience.

        When talking about socializing, self-awareness first came into my mind. Socializing, to some degree, is expressing your individual views on certain issues. In most cases, it refers to having
conversation and interaction among one species of which they have the same living background and use the same language system.  Maybe there is cross-species socializing like human interact with cats and dogs or animal trainers, but both sides of these socializing are self-awareness creatures who have their own will. How about machines? Do they have self-awareness that can in fact having real conversation with human beings? A real conversation that is generate through their mental process instead of programming. If so, is that a machine as we known anymore?

        If a certain machines have the ability of communication and interaction, that would be an artificial intelligence product for sure. And if that were the way, even if the AI knows exactly what their limitations are, would they obey to those limitations? Or they are so intelligent to know that they have the power to disobey human and may even harm them?

        I am not saying that I am totally disagree Norman’s point of making machines being socialized. It is just my concern that if machines socialize and communicate they will evolve at a rate we cannot imagine and cannot control.