Anthropology Report, Work in Progress

Below is my notes to prepare a status report for Lucy Suchman’s Antropology of Cybercultures term project.

Work in progress 4/29

Interim report on 4/29:

• Description of my goals
• Thesis idea description
• Relevant frameworks and approaches
• Framework for observation/simulation to find application scenarios?

Deliverable for 5/15: 15-page paper containing:

• thesis idea description
• framework for observation/simulation to find application scenarios - what to look for
• description of 3 observations/simulations (pick domains) - what i saw
• application ideas - what can be added to what i saw
• re-classification of objects
• classification of augmentation methods
• how my project is positioned in comparison with above classification

Background

My goals

• in the electronic world people are used to interacting with discrete devices that are not configurable
• in the physical world, people are used to configuring all aspects of their life from clothing to residences to lighting to food
• i am interested in understanding peoples’ modes of configuration [in some well-defined context]
• i hope to use this understanding to propose a design that allows people to program the world around them by spontaneously adding on-object interfaces for my thesis.
• in other words: I want to solidify my currently vague master’s thesis idea (below) by finding domain example or application ideas.
• the ultimate goal is to formulate a basis to generate interaction and scenario illustrations: Observe my own routine or pick 2 - 3 domains to draw cases where my thesis idea may be useful or desirable. Sketch or visualize the scenarios.

Thesis direction

Description:
Augment everyday objects by attaching a piece of tape/clip/etc to them and turning them into multi-state objects with equivalents to “mouse over/out/down/up” that on-screen objects have, and also leveraging some objects’ built-in states, like how umbrellas have folded (passive) state and unfolded (active) state. Allow users to create their own semantic sensor network with the objects that they already have or discover.

High Level Vision: From “Device Users” to “World Actors”
At a recent CHI conference workshop titled “Programming Reality,” I presented my thesis idea above and listened to talks by pioneers and investigators of transitive materials and organic user interfaces. One of the takeaways for me was that as future user interfaces take the forms of soft materials, wearables or ambient media, the subject of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) will no longer be “users” or rigid and discrete “devices” like cell phones or cameras, but rather “actors” who perceive, adapt to, rearrange and punctuate the “world” around them including their clothing, residences, lighting or food. Through my master’s project I aim to capture how those who are used to interacting with “devices” and “systems” transform into someone who perceives their surroundings as an infinite canvas for interactivity, and define some of the characteristics of such “world actors” as a new construct of HCI.

what if the cups can sense the hands-on >> squeeze >> release >> hand off?

like on-screen objects below…

and apply it to all these objects?

photo by Lois Lane 74 http://www.flickr.com/photos/mlr74/3402272727/

Object classification

Collapsibles: the genius of space-saving design, a book by Per Mollerup

quotes

• collapsibles are smart man-made objects with the capacity to adjust in size to meet a practical need.
• they are functional doubles with two opposite states, one folded and passive, one (or more) unfolded and active.
• collapsibles are ubiquitous.
• yes: book, umbrella, newspaper, flags, blinds, pantyhose, tent, chapeau claque
• to qualify, an object must have an impractical shape and size — like a newspaper — and maybe a shape which occupies a lot of empty space — like an erected tent. … the space the object occupies — or more precisely, its volume — must be redistributed in one way or another.
• collapsibles are man-made accommodations to change

nons

• unfold only once in lifetime: popcorn, shaving foam, paper cups
• self-assembly furniture (IKEA)

quasi

• box with lid or luggage: two active states, no passive state
• office chair: many active states, no passive
• scissors: many active, one active doubles as a passive

twelve principles/mechanics

• stress: rubber band, sleeping bag with a compression sack, light refelector
• folding: raincoat, napkin, sails of a boat, flags (ritualistic), parachute, tote bag, string bag, plastic bag, skipping rope, socks, gloves
• creasing: books, maps, clothes, newspapers, paper lanterns, boxes, pleated
• bellows: airport gate, hanging shoe shelving, Markies caravan by Eduard Bohtlink
• assembling: press-fit dinosaurs, motorized wheelchairs, cranes
• hinging: laptop, piano, cell phones, umbrellas, music stands, easel, ladders, compass, eyeglasses, knives
• rolling: scroll, dog leash, panama hat, fishing line reel, measuring tape, room partition
• sliding: telescope, light stands, camera lens, lipsticks
• nesting: measuring spoons, dolls, kitchen bowls, shopping cart, crates
• inflation: hot air balloon, neck cushion, air mattress, life jackets, rubber boats, floats
• fanning: pivoted color swatches, pan-mounted allen keys,
• concertina: retractable wall ramp and mirror, hanger

HCI/Augmentation classification?

scope for my thesis?

Augmentation classification

The World through the Computer by Jun Rekimoto and Katashi Nagao (1995)

notes tba

Augmented Reality: Which Augmentation for Which Reality? by Emmanual Dubois and Lauence Nigay (2000)

notes tba

object properties to leverage

• shape only
  • Control Freaks, a project by Haiyan Zhang at the Interaction Institute of Ivrea http://failedrobot.com/thesis/ - all grabbable/clippable objects
• softness and hardness
• conductivity
• semantic properties: connected with other objects

Adding states vs. harvesting and using built-in states

thoughts tba

Related framework and approaches

italic: quotes
[]: non-quotes, added by me

Action and embodiment within situated human interaction, by Charles Goodwin (2000)

this paper is useful, i could adapt the framework here, use the terms to paraphrase other references

general/single-person————

analysis of action from an applied linguistics point of view (UCLA)

• beyond a dichotomy between [verbal] “text” and [non-verbal] “context”
• observes a situation where multiple girls are playing hopscotch and one girl confronts the other
• actions are assembled and understood through temporary unfolding juxtaposition of quite different semiotic resources (”semiotic fields”): Talk, body gesture and surroundings
• “contextual configuration”: locally relevant array of semiotic fields that participants orient to as the action unfolds
• action is built through the visible and public deployment of multiple semiotic fields that mutually elaborate each other

semiotic fields, each with their own modality

• mutually elaborate each other
• multiple can be simultaneously deployed
• talk:
  • lexico-semantic content characterizes other participants, surroundings, artifacts or situations.
  • syntactic structures that can contrast previous actions with the actor’s desire
  • pitch contour that can form a framework of parallelism, by producing each line with the same intonation, highlighting the central point of an argument
  • other techniques like using pronouns when it can be omitted to formulate the statement into a rule with a deontic force, rather than a description
• body gesture:
  • positioning the body such as blocking the other person, a proxemic [challenge to the other person]’s personal space
    
  • positioning body parts, such as hands
  • hand gestures provide visual versions [or enforcements] of the numbers being spoken
  • posture such as leaning
  • structure of mutual orientation that [actor] exploited by placing her numeric handshapes directly in [the other person]’s line of sight.
• surroundings: semiotic structure in the environment
  • environmental graphics: hopscotch grid. the grid parses its sturucture into relevant units.
  • unlike the fleeting, evanescent decay of speech, which disappears as material substance as soon as it is spoken, … the hopscotch grid has both an extended temporal duration … it is as corporeal, solid and enduring as the ground the players are walking upon.

ongoing reflexive adaptation

• the shift in focus to the grid that occurs here also involves changes in the kinds of sign systems, in both talk and gesture
• the most crucial property relevant to the organization of action displayed through what happens here is reflexive awareness.
• central to [the actor]’s construction of action is ongoing analysis of how her recipient is positioned to co-participate in the interactive frameworks necessary for the constitution of that action.
• one of the things required for an actor to perform such rapid, reflexive adaptation is access to a set of structurally different semiotic resources, each of which is appropriate to specific contextual configurations.
• not all possible and relevant resources are in play at any particular moment. for example, the hopscotch grid replaces the challenger’s hand when the player face down
• we are thus faced with the task of describing both the larger set of possibilities from which choices are being made, and the way in which alternative choices from that set structure the events in consequentially different ways.
  

multi-person————-

building a social action

• semiotic field < contextual configurations < actions < participation/interactive framework
• talk and gesture mutually elaborate each other within 1) a larger sequence of action and 2) an embodied participation framework constituted through mutual orientation between speaker and addressee.
• participation framework is built and sustained through the visible embodied actions of the participants
• the framework is open to challenge, negotiation and modification. though it surrounds larger strips of diverse individual actions, it is itself a dynamic, interactively organized field.
• any participation framework is an ongoing contingent accomplishment, something not under the control of a single party.

multi-modal participation framework

• keywon >  can be generalized into “interactive framework” for single person, person to artifact cases.

• … using not only her talk, but also her body, to structure to local environment
• a quite different kind of work, involving the precise deployment of semiotic resources, with properties quite unlike the structure of speech, is required in order to build social action with the gesturing hand.
• [the actor] is performing her action not only vocally, but also through a simultaneous sequence of gestural and body displays.
• why not entirely by speech?
• to secure the orientation of a hearer, and design the current action and utterance in fine detail for the particularities of the current addressee
• insisting that [the other person] take what she is doing and saying into account

Seeing as Situated Activity: Formulating Planes, by Charles and Marjorie Harness Goodwin (1996)

this paper is more CSCW and task, mult-person oriented.

behaviors are situated in organizational structures

• investigating how airport personnel look at airplanes allows us to see how behavior as minute as a momentary glance is densely structured by larger organizational practices, as well as the tool-mediated organization of participants’ access to the objects in their working environment, and the community that sustains such practices.
• how can [the baggage loader to the plane] can see which of the tem planes is going to Oakland? … for the baggage loader a specific plane must be linked to another organizational entity, a flight going to a specific destination.
• placing the plane in an appropriate network is not automatic but requires both supporting tools (e.g., the complex sheet, the aircraft identification numbers, etc.) and specific situated work with those tools (an active course of seeing that juxtaposes the information on the complex sheet with the numbers painted on the plane).
• an observer watching the baggage handler as she approaches the line of planes might see her as an isolated, solitary worker. however by using the complex sheet, she builds upon the actions of co-workers who, though not physically present at the moment, provide organization for the looking she is doing.
• the sheet … mediates her participation in the work of her coworkers and the larger organization within which her tasks are situated.

plurality of perspectives

• different work positions place the same physical object, a particular airplane, within different webs of accountability.

tools and actions

• the work done [at the ops room] is reflexively tied to the tool-saturated environment in which it occurs, while on the other hand much of that work consists of talk.
• reflexive relationship between available tools and the actions that constitute the work [of the ops room] …

habitual

• even before [Julie in the ops room] knows the precise problem she is dealing with, she begins to orient tools that will be relevant to the solution of the problem.
• recipients do not wait until an utterance comes to completion before beginning to operate upon it.
• [the actor] is relying upon her habitual knowledge of the setting in which she is working [which] encompasses both awareness of how tools and personnel are distributed within her working environment and familiarity with the routine request sequences she can expect to participate in as an Ops worker.

Configuring Awareness (2002) by Christian Heath et al.

• the idea of awareness, at least in CSCW, originally emerged in a number of workplace studies, which notice how collaborative activity in complex organizational environments rests on the participants’ abilities to remain sensitive to each other’s conduct whilist engaged in distinct activities.
• [in contemporary HCI and CSCW it is suggested] individuals develop and share common frames of reference which remain, if only temporarily, stable through time and space.

My “relational objects through dynamic property” concept (2008)

• this was a diagram i presented for my admission interview at the Media Lab.
• modification and expansion of semiotic resources >> new behaviors?
  

Thoughtless Acts, a book by Jane Fulton Suri and IDEO (2005)

what it is

• http://www.thoughtlessacts.com
• a photobook of … the subtle and amusing ways that people react to the world around them
• all those intuitive ways we adapt, explot, and react to things in our environments; things we do without really thinking.
• reveal how people behave in a world not always perfectly tailored to their needs
• and demonstrate the kind of real-world observational approach that can insprire designers and anyone involved in creative endeavors.

inspiration for design

• how designers might be influenced by … visual evidence of the realities of everyday behavior, of design in use.
  
• might reference to such images help designers to be more sensitive to people’s experience and needs?
• things used in unintended ways … usually indicate something about people’s needs. and needs often translate to design opportunities.
• not only was this a starkly dramatic expression of need, it was also a revelation of the boys’ experience.
• we develop exquisite awareness of the possibilities and sensory qualities of different materials, forms, and textures. this awareness is evident from out actions, even when we are not conscious of them—these are our “thoughtless acts.”
• understanding these intuitive interpretations might be a significant source of insight for designers.
  

inviting curiosity and interpretation

• no definitive explanations for each picture, as if you’re observing it yourself and interpreting it
• what are the implied human motivations and needs, and how might design respond to these?

highlighting needs and problems worth solving

• it’s a mistake to interpret observations too literally
• rather, we should look for patterns that point to a more universal need.
• designing for seemingly peculiar needs: when you dig enough, behavior that might at first seem arbitrary, surprising or idiosyncratic usually has an insightful explanation.
• find an observation or case that dramatizes a universal problem
• observation forces us to focus on the actions that we are trying to support through design, rather than the things we will ultimately produce. (Bill Moggridge’s designing “verbs” not “nouns”)
• observation also helps design teams to break through limitations imposed by existing solutions.
• observation helps designers configure material elements and qualities into intuitively recognizable and understandable forms.

picking the cues

• Don Norman’s “The Design of Everyday Things”: how “perceived affordances” cause us to respond intuitively to features of objects and environments.
• observation can sharpen our awareness of how people respond to particular arrangements and elements.
• Naoto Fukasawa “Without Thought” workshop: explored learned-but-unconscious knowledge in conceptual design studies. he refers to it as “active memory,” emphasizing how our knowledge about the world is built up through engagement with it.
• uncover emotional experience and build a better experience: interpretation and speculation inevitably take us a step beyond the purely objective to a subjective level, where we draw on empathy. we have an empathic sense, for example, of what the girl is feeling as she cools her forehead with a chilled soda can (p 69).
• insprire more flexible and enduring solutions.

everyone is an active player in configuring our world

• we are all active in arranging and adapting things—everyone is an expert in the design of efficiency and convenience in their own world.
• each of us possesses unique knowledge that we use in creative ways to achieve our personal and social goals.
• sometimes too deeply embedded: participatory design, think aloud