Sep 23

Reading Response: The Power of Feedback Loops

There are definitely a lot more to the power of feedback loops then I had initially thought. Thinking about the implications for how feedback loops can adjust the health industry is both interesting and exciting. When it comes to health I definitely think that showing people their behavior can play a huge part in helping them to recognize how they can improve. In this way the feedback can be used as a source of encouragement if presented in the right way.

From the research presented it seems that feedback loops can be very impactful in changing behavior if presented the right way. But I also wonder how effective they truly can be. I know for myself, and I think many people around me, we are very aware of the consequences of certain behaviors that we will still choose to carry out. Making someone aware of their consequences isn’t necessarily effective for everyone in every aspect. For example, those who smoke, are aware of their consequences. A lack of exercise, eating unhealthy, not getting enough sleep, all have negate consequences that I am aware of but often will choose to ignore. Feedback loops are no doubt a helpful tool for providing information, but it is still the responsibility of the user to change their actions. And currently, users will still have to make the conscious decision to purchase/use feedback loops in order to benefit front hem, but if the user has unhealthy tendencies to begins with, they may not make that initial choice.

Sep 23

Maker Faire

At maker faire, hidden amongst the 3d printers and food trucks, there were three major interfaces that caught my eye as pushing forward in the direction that interactive technology seems to be heading. The first was at the Microsoft tent. I was drawn to the touchscreen technology they were demoing, originally because of how intuitive the painting application seemed. However, it was the touch screen programing IDE that really caught my attention. It’s layout was very readable and the code hinting buttons seemed simple enough for even the youngest users. Still I was skeptical as to whether or not it could bridge the gap between IDE’s that hold the user’s hand too tightly and IDE’s that overwhelm the user with the big picture of their code. At this stage, it looked like a good learning tool, but showed practical application when coding on tablets and smartphones, producing content for the platforms themselves. I think it was very enlightening to see users who had never coded before, using the IDE. It gave me a sense of how users begin to understand logic systems.

The next interface that inspired me was the tech demonstration from SIx Axis. They were showing remote tracking technology with both rotation and translation of the input device. Although I already knew that this type of interface existed, I didn’t know how precise it could be. I watched a user manipulate 3d objects in a loosely structured building application. They seemed capable of clicking small buttons on a 3d gui, while equally able to manipulate the camera, grab and scale objects, and exchange them from one hand to the other. The disadvantage was that technology was not yet practical enough to justify replacing a mouse and keyboard for interfaces like this. It seemed similar to what Leap Motion is trying to accomplish, with the limitations of needing physical remote controls. I was really inspired by their efforts to add depth to screen interfaces, at least from an interactive standpoint.

The last “interface” that caught my eye was an installation built from a pressure sensor outputting sound and video to a pile of electronics that ranged in age. The idea was to overwhelm the viewer with light, noise, and static patterns, whenever a user stepped on the pressure sensor in the middle of the room. I found it’s strengths to  be that it could convey a wide range of emotional responses, and that the interpretation could be very creatively ambiguous. However, this effect was restrained by the presence of an exhibitor, keeping an eye on the installation at all times.

Overall the work that inspired me was the projects that creative immersive kinetic experiences, without that brute force approach of sensory realism.

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Sep 23

Feedback loops reading response

This article is point the power of feedback loops, it could change people’s behavior to do better things, it is like design psychology, people need self-recognition in their spirit, feedback loop is like a mirror, to let yourself realize what you do, and what you should do. This theory is successful, and I really like this idea. I experienced the speed monitor, I feel like I have to make the number under the limit, when I through this monitor, even I do not know why I do this, but when I already passed it, and could not see the monitor, maybe the speed is higher again. Speed monitor is like a reminder, if you do not want to do this thing, after the reminder, you won’t do it, like alarm. So how feedback loop could really change people’s behavior is a new challenge.

 

Feedback loops like you talk to yourself, and you connect to the social and other people. “The true power of feedback loops is not to control people but to give them control”, it is true, other people remind you to be good, maybe you could not like to obey others intent, but if yourself already notice that, it is your own intent to do something, passive and active.

Sep 23

Reading Response – Feedback Loops

Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops Response

In the Reading, ‘Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops’, the author says that showing datas of people’s behavior affects them to change their behavior. I think it is because they can be stimulated by tracking their behavior. It reminds me the way of losing weight that people who have mirror in front of them while they are eating tend to reduce their portion with feeling satiation even though they ate lesser than usual. Also, I can imagine if I have feedback information about calories I ate and remained daily calories that I supposed to get a day, I will be able to control myself more easily than just guessing calories in my mind. In other case, I assume that if people can see how much time they have spent on playing a game, they may control themselves better. For the relevance, people might see the time how much they’ve spent with information data of  game addiction time rate. Consequence, people might see exact data of their life pattern of playing game that can affect people to control themselves in a better way.

I agree with the idea of the reading that feedback of one’s behavior encourages people’s behavior. Additionally, I think feedback loop brings communication with devices, objects, society, and oneself. For instance, I can think about myself and my responsibilities when I look back my behavior from my past diary, and I get motivations to be a better person by revising my negative side to positive side. Even tracking one’s past behavior can motivate people, so I can assume that live feedback of one’s bahavior can affect people’s behavior to change in a better way more strongly.

Sep 23

Maker Faire – Interesting Interfaces

Interesting Interfaces:

The first one that I’d like to mention, and coincidentally, the last item I saw (and also spent the most time viewing) was a thesis project from one of our own: Paweena Prachanronarong’s Blockuits. A full description can be found on her portfolio website at: http://www.lovepaweena.com/portfolio-01.html.

I choose this exhibit because, as I volunteered at the MFADT table, I got to demo the project and see both the amazement of children and the instant attachment of parents/educators when they saw the simple way to make both architecture and electrical engineering relevant to them. Many of the adults who viewed the demo were even interested in purchasing a set, so as a shameless plug, we should edge Paweena to mass produce and “make that paper” as the young kids say.

The second interface, or interfaces, that really interested me were the plethora of three D printers on display. It was very interesting to see them in person for the first time and while I can see and have a working understanding of the concept behind them I was quite honestly underwhelmed by the items in production however.  I count this as part of the interface because without some kind of relevant production it is simply an object in motion. Interface is only as good as what you give or take away from it and in this area I was really disappointed. Many people made small statues or toys but I did not see anything that was outside of the box as far as functional daily objects. This example is extreme, but one of the main articles that sticks out to me on the advent of three dimensional printers is the ease and cheapness of using it to manufacture weapon (a common theme in technology being the use of innovation almost immediately for war). Clearly at a faire which had more then its share of children oriented displays, they would not be showing how to make a plastic gun, however, there is a median of displaying how to make everyday life objects like a kitchen table set (fork, knife, spoon, plate, bowl, etc) and how cost effective this would be to buying it in target. Making replacement eyeglass frames or any number of things that could have been done.

The last interface that wowed me was the Microsoft display of Spark. It is a open source game development software for building and sharing narrative based games within a community. While this idea is not necessarily new the display and interface for the software used was very interesting. With a mounted touch screen television that was around 42 – 50 inches diagonally, they displayed both making and playing a game on site. The staff member used the touch screen to build a mountain and valley with a visual interface instead of a geographical input that would measure height or depth at a given longitude or latitude position. While this is what most individuals would be used to in creating this environment, it was done very smoothly and easily in real time.

Inspiration:

While all three of these interfaces inspired me in their own way, I have to say that the one that took the cake was Spark. As, what many would consider, a hardcore gamer, I am clearly biased in my decision, I still think this was one of the most interesting things to me. The fact that it would be an open and easy game engine program for the average person to create their own games is pretty dramatic in my opinion. The interface was extremely smooth from what I managed to see, and though I imagine not to many people will have access to a 50 inch touch screen tv to do this on, the technical use of  a mouse instead of a touch screen does not seem like it would be a big problem. As I said the concept is the most important thing to me, and it is something I would use, and would be interested in taking the idea further (from the development standpoint),

Sep 23

MakerFaire Experience

1. Sir Walter Cooler

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This Sir Walter Cooler from Microsoft was interesting to me because the machine shows emotional expression, which I am interested in, to give information of water needs to users.  It tried to catch users’ attention by showing color on the board and also a man’s voice to encourage users to drink water more.  I think the way of showing color and voice are successful but also failed. The reason why I thought so is because color was hard to recognise. In specific, the board was black color and there are little circles and the informative colour appears at the stroke of the circles. As a result, users might have difficulties to recognize them.

2. Drawing Tool

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This work is from MFADT !! This is drawing tool with physical objects and digital images. Users can create colour with 3 cups of water by mixing them in a cup from the data(water weight and selection of water cup). It is just transparent water but it shows differ color on the screen. Also, users can use this color to lamp’s light color. It encourage users to use real physical brushes and water to make colour and apply them to digital world. I think successful thing of the project is it combines analog and digital in interesting way. Users can enjoy their painting with water and brush which are physical art materials to play with digital drawing tool.

 

3. (I cannot remember exact name of this..)

This work was interesting to me so much, because I want to explore smart home interaction design and this work inspired me of that. It  spreads beautiful visual effects based on sensing system. It encourage users to touch and feel the huge screen and feel something connection between the screen and themselves.

 

What inspired me & What types of things that might influence my own work

The things using lights inspired me at the Faire. First reason is because I used to think ideas in a way of representing things at the bright spaces, but I realise lights brings fun to enjoy things even in a dark room. Secondly,there is a few things that I can interact in a dark room such as smart phone, lap top, tablets and etc. I want to explore more about thinking smart home with interactive lights. I might use some light effects to my future work to express human’s emotions in an interactive way such as color changes based on various kinds of sensors.

 

 

 

Sep 23

Mashups

Digital-Digital:

My digital-digital mashup is about landmarks of New York City, it is useful for tourists or fresh man in NYC, let people understand why this city is amazing, and know more information about NYC. It is mashup with map, user could see clearly in the map that figure out where the landmarks are. I set a timeline to let people could drag by themselves to explore when these landmarks were built, according time and location, this could express information more clearly.

NYC_Map.1900 NYC_sol NYC_taxi

 

 

Physical-Digital:

In this project, I did a odor box mashup with weather, people could directly feel the weather, they do not need to recognize the words or graphics, just smell and feel, they should know today is a sunny day or rainy day.

 

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When people use the weather app, the odor box could automatically spread the odor of weather, like sunshine, snow or rain. I made a real box to simulate this idea, use sponge to absorb the fragrance, when the fan begin to whirl, the odor will spread out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_n1HsXrscg&feature=youtu.be

 

 

Sep 23

Reading Assignment – Week 5 Day 1:

 

Reading Assignment – Week 5 Day 1: Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops

While I could agree, or at least do not have evidence to refute the technical results implied in this article I do not agree with some of the psychological implications that are not addressed as thoughtfully in this article.

The first example given of the Speed Sign Speed Loop which is widely employed within the United States right now, the Author breaks down the four steps of the Feedback Loop and how it affects the driver. These steps are broken down from a design to technical specification of the device and the methodology behind it. In short, I think that this is a critical error. The main area that I have a grievance with is the Third part of the loop in this example (though it is somewhat redundantly implied in the second step of the equation we will focus on the third), the implied consequence or relevance to the user. In this example specifically the author makes comments about the users implied implications from seeing this device as: I could possibly be in an accident, or I can be stopped by an officer for speeding. I feel like this is a slight miscalculation (at least in today’s age of technology)

Many  of these signs can be found within Virginia (where I have been living  in the DC – Maryland – Virginia area for the last 10 years) and on occasion I have driven by them and greater occasion to have been a passenger when they are faced, I agree that the result is that the driver slows down, however, the reason behind this is wrong. The response and reason I have always heard is that there is possibly an automated ticket function connected to traffic cameras around these sign traps (if this is true or not is circumstantial). I believe that the function of these signs has become a connected with that and an implied social/civil anti-trust of automated crime deterrence and surveillance. This anti-trust, or anti-privacy invasion as some probably would call it I believe is the beginning stage of a political backlash against such devices. As pointed out later on in the article in reference to Patel’s utility monitoring feedback loops, there is a fear that these loops will be mismanaged by either corporations or the government to the disadvantage of the citizen. While this in theory may not be the case because if monitored both privately and publicly it could lead to a more exact and even process where people pay what they owe, it still undermines a certain idea of community where one makes allowances for circumstance, and social issues.

I think it is just as important to pay attention to the psychology and social ramifications of these devices both technically and in design theory. There are many unintended consequences that could come out of this. In a greater long-term sense does this create a false dependency on such stimulus? Does the driver become a speed-demon in areas where he does not receive this constant return of information at different intervals? What happens when these psychological cues become so ingrained that a paramedic slows down by force of habit when driving a wounded person to the hospital?  

Sep 23

Digital & Physical mashup==> Facelook

My digital and physical mashup is called “Facelook”.

Check out the video:

Sep 23

Digital+Digital Mashup

My idea for a mashup is combining weather data and twitter data with google map API.

Some people feel depressed during rainy days while others feel happy. I wanted to mashup these two informations that can be related to each other. Google maps with weather information can achieve from Google API with weather data. For ‘mood’ data, I plan to use twitter data by getting keyword information from what people tweets every seconds from twitter API.  Further iteration plan, I need to code Ruby to get information from twitter API which is unfamiliar with me. I haven’t used Ruby language and API coding before. Therefore,  for the iteration of the project, I am going to study and explore more about new area to build this mashup!

Here is the mockup !

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