Book postings

Some notes and points taken from the book ‘Making Use: scenario based design of Human Computer Interactions’ Some points picked up more as linked into the interviews with several scientists that have conducted this week as observed several scenarios of use of the lab book which have been insightful, but have found several useful points from chapter 2 of book, which captures some useful points on design.

- Design problems never completely satisfy their starting conditions, a critical step in design is identifying the relevant description of the current situation in the world that is to be altered by the design work. Problems can be caused by the design description of the current situation of the world that drives the design reasoning, can be incomplete, inaccurate or irrelevant.

- A second characteristic of design problems is the possible move that designers can take in reasoning from a description of the current situation, a need to be able to understand what steps are possible, relevant, and productive none is given in a design problem.

- A third difficulty is design problems will no specify the goal or solution state, the initial understanding of the problem does not specify precisely how to provide the solution of better access for example. When the solution state is specified the design work is complete.

These initial 3 problems are captured in the work by Walter Reiteman (1965) cognition and thought: (Follow up note to pick up this book and read though, as the work is described to take concern in contrasting design problems with puzzle problems studies in academic psychology, which might be a different useful perspective however it is mentioned that the approach may mask several design properties particularly important in the design of new technologies.)

- A fourth design problem characteristic is the trade off of problems among many different elements, each of which may constrain resources and the design for the other, must be able to decide the priority when conflicts arise.

- A fifth property of design problems is the requirement of a diversity of skills and knowledge, it is in this that bringing together various experts of their fields that the design problem can be clarified and a solution proposed. Again trades offs among the design elements and the need to marshal diverse knowledge and skills(is this a knowledge management issue ?) could be surely be important factors in the design.

- The sixth characteristic of a design problem is the impact which the design has on people, a design problem leads to the transformations and so alters human activity and experiences often in ways that transcend the boundaries of original design reasoning

Some points also from the book ‘The inmates are running the asylum’ by Alan Cooper.

- Concept of the dancing bear – taken from pg 27

Scenario of a man which leads on a dancing bear in front of the towns people, considered a wonderful sight as the bear shuffles around and so in reality is a terrible dancer, but it is the wonder that the bear dances at all.

This is problem of the interaction with the technology, people are prepared to put up with technology that is able to work at all, interaction problems are accepted in order to gain some benefit. The difficulty of devising a better interaction isn’t what makes the so intractable, it is instead our/my universal willingness to accept bad interaction as an unavoidable cost.

It is this judgement on cognitive friction is avoidable and that the cognitive friction does not come from technology it comes from the controllers of technology.

When the interaction and interface is expressed more in terms of implementation products are designed more in accordance with an ‘implementation model’, this is not a positive direction as it is effectively away from the human user.

- Notes on goal directed design taken from pg 149

I had wanted to get this down as would see it possible linking to the initial 3 characteristic problems of design as mentioned above,

Before the digital age design was in principle an aesthetic thing based on views of quality, with the digital age cognitive friction comes with the interaction and the interaction is necessary as there is a goal. It is based on this light that the nature of design evolves for the reason that the design must be able to meet user goals in addition to understanding the aesthetic component.

This has lead to the quality of design being able to be measure more based on the ability to achieve user goals.

Good interaction design has meaning only in the context of a person actually using it for some purpose.

- You cannot have purpose without people

The two are inseparable these two element are the basis of the design process of personas and goals - people and purposes.

The essence of good interaction design is to devise interactions that let users achieve their practical goals without violating their personal goals.

Personal goals – don’t feel stupid, no mistakes, efficient in working, enjoyable to use.

Corporate goals – these are organisational based goals, can questioned/ developed for lab environment , based on initial interviews is to produce research papers and obtain research grants

Practical Goals – bridge gap between corporate and personal goals again can questioned/ developed for lab environment

False goals – false goals are essential tasks they are a means to an end but not the end of the process, examples are save memory, easy to learn, increase graphic beauty

A note on goals and tasks:

– A goal is the end result.

– A task is a step which is taken to get to get to the goal.

In summary too be able to come back and continually reflect of the nature of the issues raised by both of these authors could help provide some useful insight.

Note quotes left out as large extracts taken from both books used page numbers as reference.

Scrolling Forward

Some reflection on the book of
Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age
by David M. Levy - all quotes taken from book

A collection of thoughts picked out from the book in essence has been used to gain insight into the use of paper documents and the way documents could move to be digitised.

To ensure a simple break down and to understand what a document can offer the world, for this a simple receipt is broken down in order to understand what it portrays

The crucial perspective is the document captures a story a very selective one but in essence a story, in this scenario a simple proof of purchase is the function. In the context of the global economy a little receipt is pretty useful in terms of recording a transaction, more now so done digitally but the author raises how it is able to do this in a credible manner. To understand this the author recommends that you must take a step back from the receipt and actually look at the way the receipt is situated in the "web of human practices and knowledge distribution through space and time." -pg18

And so a document regardless of whether a book or receipt it is something which is able to capture a persons thoughts or ideas or some information that otherwise would be lost in time.

the discussion then takes account of how to view documents and their enabling technologies may well need to see how form, content and medium are not to be fully separated constituents in our lives and in the richness of the experience - p58

The relevance of this links in my opinion directly to the hardware research observations in how classification attempts to capture a portion of what a physical lab book offers, and what has been observed that without the entire experience (effectively all the affordances of a physical book ) then this may well be an indication to the shortcomings of the designs ?

It is also captured how digital technologies are littered with crashes, and believes a physical book will always hold a place because of what it is - an artifact of human creativity. This emotional attachment I personally think is far from how scientists potentially would see their lab books so part of the design consideration could lie in overcoming the hurdle of an attachment with paper based working ? I don't think any technology should change work flow but understand it

The author goes on to capture the problem in a nutshell "In the world of paper , documents are realised as stable, bound physical objects. Once a paper document comes into being it loses its dependence on the technologies that were used to manufacture it" - pg 152
The scenario then given how a photocopied memo loses any attachment to the technology and essentially has a freedom to be used as desired.

In addition to this an account must be made to understand the way in which technologies work this is viewed as " the service of human social aims " but my interpretation and the additional information from the author is with us(people) and how technology can work to and maintain the world.

Finally the author captures what could be viewed as a fundamental problem for the reason "When we fixate on particular forms and technologies, taking them in and of themselves to be carries of what we want either to embrace or resist.Not only do we fail to see the forms and technologies in their full complexity but we use them in their symbolic simplicity, as blunt instruments which we use to beat one another over the head. "

The author goes on to highlight how further mistakes are made we an assumption is made that one form of technology must replace another

The modes of operation only conflict when we insist that one or the other is the way to operate and what is most in need of is a balance , this is stated by the author as a depersonalised discernment of ways, whether the nature of this is questionable in the context of the lab book is one which can go on to be questioned.

Scientist interview

A brief summary of a just by chance informal interview I was able to have with an student scientist from the area of oceanography, the scientist uses lab notebooks so was just purely curious how they view and use a notebook. (I think the PhD has officially all my thoughts as was too good an opportunity to turn down)

Just a few points to consider and wish to be aware of how is this information interpreted through myself and how I would look to interpret in such design, how would the central points be selected from with what would be view to be important, I think also it can just be helpful in terms of thoughts of understanding how to be able to gain information from interviews


- Initial Overview
Scientist O has studying oceanography uses a laboratory book to record experiments made in a laboratory environment and has made several field trips where a field book is used to record information from the field.

- Scenario 1- field trip in Wales

Field trip involved observation of rock formations on the coast, was particularly stressed by scientist how was in some difficult places such as high up on a rock ledge to take notes.

The structure of the field notebook was set out in very particular way, this was noted to be enforced from the lectures as the books are known to laid out in a particular way

For this field trip the structure was as follows
introduction information - this contained information such as the date, longitude and latitude of the position of study, the aim of the study, transport how you got to the position and your own personal mood eg happy sad this was recorded as it is noted to effect the way the study is done.

The central observations were then made and recorded, diagrams were very common in this part, (one diagram was marked by a teacher to ensure it had the correct labeling)

Finally a summary of how the aims have been met, a clear page is kept between each observation/experiment to show clarity.

This was enforced by Scientist O as actually stapled in a extra page as did not have enough room in on page so the notes would have become slightly unorganised, but wished to kept all the relevant information together and would have broken the structure.

Strong point made too notes would be elaborated on when back home for the evening sat at a table, as easy to write compared to making notes in the field.

- Scenario 2 - field trip in Scotland on boat

Very similar type of structure, but with the major difference that different of information.

Scientist required to make the same observations though through the entire journey, this can be dependent on the factors that are going to be controlled or observed for the duration of the trip, a major one noted for the particular experiment was cloud cover , so each day scientist observed the cloud cover from a particular point on the boat and measured and recorded the information.

It was noted too that practices are made in terms of how the procedures should be followed, the example given was experiment would take samples at point 1 to 5 through the lake but due to changes with boats course the samples were taken in a different order, subsequently the paper based book was flexible to allow for this type of change in how the samples were taken.

With this field study there was a particularly large amount of data that had to be entered into spreadsheets, strange issue raised with this as on a boat and this has the ability to effect so the research could be affected if table had to be drawn out and a persons mental state the tables are pre set out so scientist just has to add a reading.


-General comments

With the context of the work there is a noticeable difference with the use of two lab books, there was a general structure of how the books should be laid out, this in my own view was enforced by the lectures to ensure good practice and when the scientist was asked if you could pick up any lab book it was easily answered yes, it was shown how diagrams are marked for the correct annotations and labels too all with the aim it appeared to show sufficient information, there seemed to be little concern with readability of someone else's notes as the structure would allow and assist with understanding how a person has gone about an experiment.

general observation of how they are personal document of the scientists thoughts, it was observed how additional information was added such as a post it note of relevant web site that was particularly useful for the work being carried out

Pictures were taken and glued in the back of the book of the Wales field trip, of particular wider views of the rocks as provide a more general overview of the rocks, these are then use in combination with the diagrams made once back and the results are analysed in the laboratory.

Is significant differences between lab books concerned with and oceanography based books, but in terms of how they are used would at this stage think may be similarities between them the structure seems to be an interesting aspect from the interview although would need to question further if such structures are enforced in lab books concerned.

Does the enforced structure ensure good practice? and so allow and make it easier for other scientist to be able to pick up some Else's work and be able to read it ?

The ability of a paper based book for what is required for the task is well suited and the aspect of affordances introduced by the work of Sellen & Harper can be understood further, can go back to Sellen and Harper to question if a task/actual work flow could be seen to have affordances in what would be ideally required - as alternative way of viewing what would be required from any object that would have to document the process?

Some other thoughts from relevant papers which have been read (ACM references)

Ron B. Yeh and Scott Klemmer. Field Notes on Field Notes: Informing Technology Support for Biologists - this paper also generalises how scientists formulate ideas which may be useful to think of in terms of structure

Yeh, R., Liao, C., Klemmer, S., Guimbretière, F., Lee, B., Kakaradov, B., Stamberger, J., and Paepcke, A. 2006. ButterflyNet: a mobile capture and access system for field biology research. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Montréal, Québec, Canada, April 22 - 27, 2006).


- Abigail J. Sellen , Richard H.R. Harper, The Myth of the Paperless Office, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2003