eChunks 3

      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

eChunks 2

“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. 

eChunks 1

“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.

Reading Response 8 Norman---We Are All Designers

When talking about designers, the first thing that comes into our mind is someone who is an expert that designs attractive or novel items that tend to be expensive. For example, designers who design couture and furniture often represent novel and modernism so breathe taken that it is beyond imagination. Both of these items seem irrelevant in our daily life and are unaffordable for most people.

          However, Norman argues that we are all designers---have to be and must be. The design Norman discusses about it is different from what we comprehend. According to Norman, when consciously, deliberately rearranging objects on our desks, the furniture in our living rooms, and the things we keep in our cars, we are designing (P225). Indeed, when we set things on a table consciously and deliberately, we have a purpose for the behavior. This purpose is to make the table neat and pleasant to look at, or for the objects on it to be convenient to use. We think about how to arrange instead of random placement. This is design. Just like Norman said: “Once this is considered and a selection made, you are designing.” (P225)

           In this chapter he also concludes the difference between personalization and customization. It is a trend that manufacturers try to provide products that suit for everyone. Some efforts are obviously seen such as various interfaces we can choose from software or the preference in an operation system. It is common that manufacturers offer different color options for the same product. Although efforts are made, manufacturers only reach the level of customization but come nowhere close to personalization. One thing is because of the expenditures including time, money and labor for personalization. The other thing is what Norman asserts---the emotion to an item. People love or hate an item because there is a bond between them, an experience or a story.  This is a process which requires time to accomplish. For example, a house can be customized; the owner can choose every piece of furniture and arrange it as he/she likes. Though the owner chooses and arranges the furniture, this is not personalization because the furniture is not especially design for the owner. What he/she does just chooses them from various options and makes them work in the house. Personalization in this case is, over time, the house becomes home for the owner that contains memories and stories.

    Apparently, nowadays manufactures attempt to insert customers experience or stories into a product. Carving a name or a motto on a product is most commonly seen. Jeans with holds and washing marks is an example. It is not likely to design a unique jean for each individual in the world, but in the future, on the level of emotion it may be a technology that can insert personal memories into a product which generates a connection between a specific product and a specific costumer.

         “We are all designers---and have to be. Professional designers can make things that are attractive and that work well......But they cannot make something personal, make something we bond to. Nobody can do that for us: we must do it for ourselves.”

         “We are all designer---because we must be. We live our lives, encounter success and failure, joy and sadness. We structure our own worlds to support ourselves throughout life.”

                                                                                                                            ---------Norman



Reading Response 7---Norman Chapter 7: The Future of Robots

In this chapter, Normal introduces Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics (or it is four, because he later on add a fundamental law as the zeroth law).

        

Zeroth law: A robot may not injure humanity, or, through interaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

Asimov didn’t put forward this law in his early state is because at that time, robots are far from capable to harm humanity. And it is still a complicated social issue that we haven’t got there yet. But we need this law because it is fundamental and someday the robots are intelligence enough that may capable of injuring humanity.

First law: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through interaction, allow a human being to come to harm, unless this would violate the Zeroth Law of robotics.

The author states that this law could be labeled “safety”(P197). With this law, as the author illustrates with examples, nowadays machines, simple or advanced, are outfitted with safeguard systems. For example, the sensors that detect human or obstacle nearby to prevent machines run into human causing harm.

It is easy to understand the first part of the law; however, the patter part, “do not allow harm through interaction”, is a little bit difficult to understand. And, according to the author, is difficult to implement. This would be a reflective level implementation (P198).

Second law: A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the Zeroth or First law.

As author states, this is all about obeying people. The robots today are not advanced enough to possess independent mind to obey or object orders from its owner. When we press the remote control, it will perform but not “obey” at its literal meaning. It is just how it is programmed to do. Today if the machine is not function as human’s will, it is just considered something wrong with it and is sent to repair. But in the future, machines are likely to have self-awareness and emotions that really can obey or object. At the moment, we do not need to worry about the order being conflicted yet because the machines are not that intelligent. 

Third law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the Zeroth, First, or Second Law.

Unlike laws one and laws two, this law is really relevant to our daily life and machines are indeed designed to fulfill this law. Except for the examples of low battery shut down protection, we know that a machine will automatically shut down when it is overheat, for example, the hair dryer. However, again, these protections are only on its surface level.  It will more complicated in the future if robots have independent minds and emotions. And it is likely that that kind of self-destruction may harm human, for example, robots are decide to self-explode to destroy itself and this may harm the humans near it. And if it is happen in a large scale, or the bombs are nuclear, this will cause human extinction.

Asimov was ahead of his time or even nowadays. But as technology advancing, robots are likely to bring in ethical and moral issues. As in reality, the first concern is that the deployment of robots in more working position may cause unemployment for human. Indeed it is a social issue worthy to think over as unemployment may consequently cause social morale depress or even turmoil.  But the author offers a convincing evidence by saying that: Throughout history, each new wave of technology has displaced workers, but the total result has been increased life span and quality of living for everyone, including, in the end, increase jobs---although of a different nature than before (P207).

When talking about emotion affection for future robots, there is one movie particular I want to discuss. A.I. (artificial intelligence) is a movie about a robot boy (David) who love its mother (or owner) that want to become a real boy and be with his mother forever. Unlike other A.I. in the movie, David has the emotion of love, of which are considered the most complicated and acquirable emotion.  What triggers me most is the love emotion that David possessed.  I can accept and understand that future robots are intelligent, self-aware, super-power and emotional. But love? Scientists consider language is the attribute to distinguish human and animals. And I believe Love is the attribute to differentiate human and robots.  It they have the affection of love, then truly, serious social ethic problem will occur. I am not talking about the love between human and robot pats but the love between human and humanoid robots.

Robots are created to facilitate human lives. Look at where we are today, we indeed have a better life as pressing a button can safe times, labors. With advanced Technology robots can operate dangerous work field where human lives are at stake. But taking everything into account, I totally agree with the author that technology is a two-edged sword always combining potential benefits with potential deficits (P211).

Reading Response 6 Vicente Chapter 7 Management Matters: Building Learning Organizations

In this chapter, Vicente illustrates the human-tech ladder in organizational level, of which is the forth level of the ladder. Similar to the team level, organization acquire communications and corporations that insure the system operating effectively and efficiently. However, differ from other levels in human-tech ladder, the author found several new factors that are unique in organizational level. They are systems of incentives, disincentives, staffing levels, management structures, information flows across teams and organizational cultures. (P188) From this we can see the organizational level is an enhancement of team level which takes a higher level of communications and corporations.

Within an organization, according to the author, is made up by several teams that are responsible for different targets. In each team is the individual performance of physical and psychological level that keeps the task going. Meanwhile, the information travels internally within a team. If the operating role is a team then this is a standard procedure that guarantees the task accomplished successfully. However, as the author states, “organization as a whole can flounder miserably if the various teams pursue conflicting objectives”. (P189) This is why I said organization level is an enhancement of team level. Within an organization, the information flows need to go across teams---not only travel internally within a team, but also transfer externally among teams.

Giving the example of the Challenger explosion, the failure occurred because of the disagreement between managers and engineers had been compromised due to the “authority pressure”. Though the engineers are responsible to the technical part of the shuttle, but the final decision of launching is in the hands of the managers who are responsible to the whole project. In an organization, more than often, the engineers are only considered as the technical experts who are in the role of “advisors”. However, as we all known from our experience in business procedures, advisors are pretty much an empty word. Though they are expertise for a certain discipline but they are voiced are seldom head by the operating individuals. It is not difficult to imagine why this will happen. As in a business circumstance, the most important component is money that keeps the organization operating or more realistically makes benefits to the giants. In the Challenger incidence, the delay of launching may result in huge loss of capital, enormous reports and explanations to the public---all of these are the company endeavor to avoid. From this we can see it was not surprise the company decided launching the problematic shuttle on schedule. The unheard voice of engineers and the irresistible urge to escape responsibility contribute to the challenger catastrophe.

The challenger explosion reflects the fact that, in most technological organizations, management and engineering design are treated as if were two entirely separate things. (P189) The example of a engineer encounter difficulties when he step in higher level—management, of the organization best illustrate the embarrassment of the gap between engineering design and management. Jeff Skoll donated millions of dollars to his alma mater to initiate an innovative dual-degree engineering/management program for the reason that to bridge this gap. What I see in this case, the foundation of the problem may be solved by specially designed curriculums. However, this gap is not only exists in the technology field but also the others. For curriculum designer, this should be their responsibility to bridge the gap in every discipline.

Reading Response 5

In this chapter, Vicente emphasize the human factor on a team coordination level. He indicates that human behave a lot more different when they act as a team compared to an individual task. “When you bring two people together you get a new emergent phenomenon- in fact, a new system – that is made up of more than the sum of its parts.” (P155) I agree with Vicente. When people accomplish a task individually, the person himself is the only component within the operation progress; hence, he or she can fully take charge of the task. But a person’s competence of achieving a task is limited. Without communication and idea sharing, his/her brain, to a degree, is working isolated. Consequently, he or she may fulfill the task but not reaching for a best outcome. On contrast, when people working as a team, with communication and idea sharing, the mind will be more activated and when progress come to a bottleneck, the team can solve the problem out together instead of stucking in a dilemma. So to speak, team work magnifies individual competence.

However, when people accomplish a task as a team, the situation is different. People working as a team, any individual is not the charging role within this operating system. “When you have a team, key factors such as communication, authority, responsibility and priority-setting must all be taken care of, otherwise the team members won’t be able to coordinate their respective actions.” (P156) In a psychology aspect, people tend to depend on each other in a team. When problem comes out, anyone in a team will have the same idea that “maybe someone else will take care of it, not me”. As a result, actually no one is taking care of the problem. The consequence will be fetal if situation like this happen in a touch-and-go circumstance, for example, the cockpit conjuncture. That’s why it is so important to have effective communication, clear authority, firm responsibility and once again crystal clear priority-setting. People need to know what is their exact role and responsibility in a task, especially in a high pressure situation. With effective communication, there is a maximum chance to solve out the problem, especially in a split seconded situation.

After bringing up the team work problems, Vicente introduces us the “Cockpit Resource Management”. In a flight simulator, pilots are trained how to response properly in crisis and how to communicate with each other. In the CRM system, every action and every words of the pilot can be record. They can review their performance to discuss the possible operation and communication errors so that they can learn from it without losing their lives. “They learn it in a tangible, personal, and therefore memorable way.”(P167) I think this is one point that educator should take in mind. Students who have difficulties in remembering what their teacher had taught them because they are not engaged in the class. They are not the center role of the class and they do not experience. Without engaging and experiencing in the class, students become passive and not motivated. However, it is always the main issue of instructional design that how to make students a active role in the classroom.