Computation08

Even More User Testing

Some photos (including one showing how nice the sheep look in my apartment):

A movie with some user testing results. No sound, kind of long. Sorry!

Prototypes, Round 3

Login Implementation, using CallXML and PHP:

• First implemented using termdigits (the number keys on the phone) instead of voice:
  • SKYPE: +99000936 9996075774
  • Download login_0.xml
• Then worked on connecting CallXML and PHP.  PHP can be used to dynamically generate CallXML files with user information. (some of the interaction is for debugging, so some of what is said might be strange):
  • SKYPE: +99000936 9996075776
  • Download login_1.xml
  • Download login.php

Database Schema: Download dbschema.pdf

User Scenarios, to help think about the user interface and how people might use the system:
Dinsdale was born in Belize and is 21 years old, but now lives in Queens, New York.  He works several jobs to be able to support himself and to send money back to his daughter and girlfriend who still live in Belize.  He calls his girlfriend about once a month and is able to talk for a few minutes on the phone to her and to his 1 year old daughter.  Neither Dins nor his girlfriend owns a computer, but both own cell phone with respective local numbers.  Dins' girlfriend very occasionally uses an internet cafe in her town, Dangriga.  Dins has a friend in Queens who owns a computer and lets him occasionally check his email.
After joining the service, Dinsdale calls in and leaves a message about once a week.  His girlfriend dials in about 3x per week.  His girlfriend will occasionally dial in and play his messages to their daughter.

Hyacinth is a young girl who lives in Steadfast village in rural Belize.  She lives with her aunt and attends a local Methodist primary school.  Her father moved to L.A. to get work after losing his job when the southern port where he worked loading produce ships was privatized and closed.  Before he left, he lived in Dangriga during the week and stayed in the village during the weekend.  Hyacinth looks forward to the talk with her father on the phone for a few minutes the first Thursday of every month after school. Hyacinth uses the community phone, and her father uses an international phone card on his cell phone.
After joining the service, Hyacinth is able to hear from her father more often.  She leaves him short messages about what she's been doing every Thursday except the first when they still talk directly.  Her father leaves a message most Tuesdays and listens to her messages.

The Fairweather family consists of 4 grown children, Grace, Mary, Carol, and Michelle.  Mary lives in L.A., Grace in New York, and Michelle in Ladyville, and Carol lives in Belize City.  All three have the means to call each other regularly to keep up on their lives, perhaps twice a month.
The women join the service to connect even more with their sisters over the long distances between them.  They join a group so that their messages are pooled together in a pot for everyone to listen to.  The leave short messages about family and local news for everyone to hear.  It's a fun way for them to have a communal gossip pool over long distances.  They dial in several times a week to record and listen to messages.

Decisions, considerations, questions:

• Decided to make a 9 digit login number (gives around 400,000,000 potential numbers) and a 4 digit pin.  A pin is needed because to become 'contacts' with another person, you need to know their user number.
• The problem here is that then you have to transmit that information about your user number via another communication method.
• Each member's self-identifying feature will be their recording of their name.  Even when becoming contacts with a person the interaction can be like: "555-555-555 is 'Drew'.  Would you like to become contacts with 'Drew'?"  The id number will never be used again.
• Decided to add 'groups' where several members can pool their messages.  Details of this need to fleshed out.
• I want to start thinking about the language used in the system.  e.g. What should a "contact" be called?
• I'm not convinced about my db schema completely.  Especially the setup of the contacts.

I have a script of all of the interactions that is still quite verbose and too technical.  In some kind of rough form, here's a pdf: Download interaction_script_29_april_08.pdf

More User Testing

I bought a canvas, some extra strength velcro, and retested the sheep on the 10th floor. Much more success this time!

Mini Thesis: part 5

Further prototypes:

1. Tour in a box: 

This is an idea for an interactive box that is used to collect information that is needed to lead someone on a tour.  A map, sound recorder, drawing tool and artifact pocket are included. The box can be easily transported. Once all the information is collected the box can be passed on (via mail or in person) to another user, who can go on the same tour, alter it or make an entirely different tour of their own.  They can then pass the box on again. With each passing the box will change and be a completely different interpretation of the tour before it.

The basic idea can be changed slightly and used by real estate agents or recent home owners that want to share the essence of their neighborhoods with others. In this case the box would not move among a network of users.

Here is a wiki that has a sample tour of Brooklyn. The box can exist without the wiki, but I think it will help to identify a network of people that want to participate.

 

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2. Tourcard:

This is the same idea as the box, but it is specifically built for a bike.  Resting on the handlebars it can be easily updated and looked at.  Once it is finished it can be mailed the same way the box can.

 

 

 

3. Tourvest:

This vest functions the same way as the box, but it adds another personal factor because it is worn. Once the person is done with it they pass it on to another user who will use it to lead them on the tour the previous user did and/or create a new tour.

 

Wikipedia Visualization

Wikipedia Vision is an interesting site that shows the location of people editing Wikipedia world wide in very-close-to-real time. Thought you might like to see it y'all.

Mini Thesis Stage 5 - Refinement

Questions to Consider

• Should the sound be self-contained? ie. does the sound comes from the object itself? OR does it trigger sound from the computer?
• Should it be open-source and/or programmable?
• If it is programmable, what is it programming?

Possible Solution

further prototypes (round 4)

prototype building
((one after another ... because it takes many tries to be perfect))

Download cmk_hum7_index.html
Download hum7.jar
Download hum7.pde

Download cmk_hum8_index.html
Download hum8.jar
Download hum8.pde

precendents

stefan sagmeister
being not truthful works against me

 

BUNNY MANDALA
THE ESSENCE OF RABBIT

Pictoplasma (http://www.pictoplasma.com) asked internationally established and upcoming character designers, illustrators and artists around the globe to send in their versions of rabbits, bunnies, hares and everything in between. The result is a full-scale bunny overdose, with far more than 1.500 individual rabbits from 500+ international contributers.

http://incubator.quasimondo.com

http://www.flickr.com/groups/circle/pool/

the squared circle group of flick

Plankton

Growing by simple construction rules, these organisms develop very complex structures. If your computer has sufficient processing power you can even watch them move and change shape in realtime.

Beziers Ballet

This is a very dangerous piece of work. Dangerous because I could watch the constantly changing motion patterns of these curves for hours, thereby completely ignoring my regular work. Ambient music for the eyes.

rubber screen

further iterations
1 blend water from light blue at top to dark dark blue at bottom
2 add flowers on top near flitting hummingbird words
3  slow moving whale image (abstract)
4  set up sound loop
whalesong.net   ((LIVE project))


song1
song2

5  hummingbird sound  loop

humming birds do sing - everything2.com

Only humans, whales, dolphins, bats, and some birds are known to have the ability to learn vocalizations.

6  create installation of some sort ... options:

        ON SCREEN INTERACTIONS
  1  turn mouse/cursor into hummingbird ... and whale
                    2   visual cues to press and see things ??  to have further interaction

        PROJECTED INTERACTIONS
            1  motion detect from projected interaction
            2  1/2 screen has hummingbird noise /images + 1/2 of screen has whale noises/images and when   one person stands in front of it it changes as the person moves across.. from one side to the  other side

QUESTIONS:
what is the best display?  web vs. projection
web.. more people can see it (it is enough .. mouse press)
projection..  I can shortcut the code/ more dynamic visuals

Data definitions

notes:

we know that cultural artifacts have a relationship to larger events. A(every?) movie reflects the moral standards, political undercurrents and economy of its time.

a exploration to quantify different statistics by visualizaing its relationship to others.

Data perimeters definitions:

market share
casualty
duration

Data content definitions:
Horror Film
Horror films originate from the horror genre and are designed to elicit fright, fear, terror, or horror from viewers. In horror film plots, evil forces, events, or characters, sometimes of supernatural origin, intrude into the everyday world.

Comedy
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humor. Also, films in this style typically have a happy ending. One of the oldest genres in film, some of the very first silent movies were comedies.

Remake

googke visual

i have technical drawing problems. maybe video?
old movie again
http://a.parsons.edu/~jzhang/computation08/comparison/compare.mov