Book Reading #17: HCI Remixed Microblog

Reference Information

   Title: HCI Remixed: Reflections on Works That Have Influenced the HCI Community

   Editors: Thomas Erickson, David W. McDonald

Chapter 6: A Creative Programming Environment (6 Pages)

Summary

Henry Lieberman writes about Pygmalion, a graphical programming language. Pygmalion was one of the first systems that used icons and drag-and-drop. He discusses the introduction of programming by example. Because of the author of the paper, programming by example is one of Lieberman's major areas of research. He gives some lessons that he learned from: "don't let the big questions scare you", "think globally, act locally", "hunt for the good stuff, even in out-of-the-way places" and "teach by example".

Discussion

I found the lessons to be the most interesting part of this paper. Programming by example sounds interesting; i'd like to try it.

Chapter 7: Fundamentals in HCI: Learning the Value of Consistency and User Models (5 pages)

Summary

Sara Bly writes about the paper, "The Xerox Red Book" and its impact on herself. There were essentially 2 main categories: document creation and document management. The things she found interesting in regards to user interface design were: the interface was the primary concern, they considered consistency, and it offered a conceptual model.

Discussion

I liked the sort of holistic view that Xerox took in their user interface design. It seems like they were very much ahead of their time when it came to the fundamentals of good UI design.

Chapter 9: The Disappearing Computer (6 pages)

Summary

Norbert Streitz writes about the paper "The Computer for the 21st Century". The paper essentially described how the computer will be so ingrained and integrated in our society that it will essentially "disappear". He witnessed one of the first ubiquitous computers at Xerox PARC and decided to continue research in that area. He talks about 2 types of disappearance: physical and mental. Physical refers to the minimization and mental refers to the "ordinariness" of objects that become ubiquitous.

Discussion

This paper had a great deal of foresight. Computers are everywhere nowadays, especially with the explosion of smartphones. They are not really in tables or walls....yet.

Chapter 10: It Really is All About Location! (5 pages)

Summary

Anind Dey writes about "The Active Badge Location System". It is essentially the first location-aware system of its kind. People would wear badges that allowed others to locate them. Receptionists for example, could route calls to the phone of the nearest badge-wearer when a call came for them.

Discussion

Dey says that this work "arguably spawned the field of context-aware computing". I found the badge system pretty awesome. Nowadays there are things like Foursquare and Google Latitude should people want to make their location known. Similar to what I said on the last problem, our phones are walking GPS's.

Chapter 46: The Essential Role of Mental Models in HCI: Card, Moran, and Newell (4 pages)

Summary
 Kate Ehrlich writes about the book, "The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction", and how the book helped people model the computer system in their minds. She explains how these mental models helped developers design systems and gave theory to a user's representation of that system. One of the models she explains is GOMS (goals, operators, methods, selection rules).

Discussion

I like the idea of the models. It is humbling in the sense that computer scientists must be aware that the users of their software are likely to be less knowledgeable about computers than themselves.

Chapter 47: A Most Fitting Law (4 pages)

Summary
Gary Olson writes about "The Information Capacity of the Human Motor System in Controlling the Amplitude of Movement", by Paul Fitts, creator of Fitts' Law. Fitts law, MT = a + b lg (2A/W), describes the "time it takes to move to a target is a function of the length of the movement and the size of the target". He talks about the design ideas that came from Fitts' Law.

Discussion
I've read a lot about Fitts' Law and found some of the design ideas expressed in this article interesting.