http://www.infinityart.ro/

I think this site is a great artifact to apply the critical approaches I have been learning in class. Using a phenomenological lens, my first thought is that this is an extreme case of intentionally designing breakdown into an interaction, something that Dave Royer posted about a while back. When navigating most websites, a user is typically engaged in an information seeking activity, clicking on links to reveal text that they are interested in. This activity is part of the horizons most users bring to bear on a website. The expected response when clicking on a link is taken for granted or ready-to-hand. The Infinity Art site affords this activity with typical-looking links, but then suddenly disrupts it, obliterating the screen with unexpected video images. The ‘flow’ of the interaction is interrupted and the website itself, even the user’s computer screen becomes present-to-hand.

Why would the site’s designers do this? They are an interactive design agency and presumably the purpose of this site is to express their professional identity. By introducing breakdown and making the site become so radically present-to-hand, the user is caused to reflect on who the creators of the site are and what their intentions are (as I am presently doing). Furthermore, because the disruptive images are so unexpected, the user is likely to interpret that these designers have an inclination for creating novel, unconventional interactive designs. Finally, because the experience is so novel, users are likely to share the link and post and discuss with others, thus generating a lot of publicity.

I am curious to see what other interpretations and critiques others have.

EcoDrive collects all necessary data relating to vehicle efficiency and, through Blue&Me’s USB gate, transmits it into a normal USB key. The driver plugs this into a PC. The “EcoDrive” system presents the driver with detailed environmental performance of the car including the CO2 emission level for each trip. It analyses the driver’s style and then provides tips and recommendations on how to modify style to achieve CO2 reductions – and save money on fuel.

EcoDrive will encourage the driver to set himself challenges – CO2 reduction targets for specific journeys or over a set period of time. And in a community site will encourage all drivers to come together and pool their savings – working towards much bigger collective targets and showing that a lot of small contributions join to have a massive impact.

Like our CHI project, EcoDrive allows the user to set challenges and compare their progress with others. This social influence could be a powerful feature. A key difference of our project is that it offers real-time feedback displayed on the windshield during the act of driving. EcoDrive appears to be completely asynchronous, with feedback displayed on the home computer. However, given that Microsoft recently applied to patent a windshield head-up display, I wouldn’t be surprised if we do see a real-time eco-driving HUD hit the market in the near future.

With this in mind, I think Christian Metz’ article gives an insightful phenomenological account for why the medium of film is so powerful. Central to his explanation is the notion of realism. Basically he argues that by captuing motion, film achieves a level of realism that makes its images present to us. Whereas the static images of photography convey a sense of reality in the past, the moving images of film convey a reality that is ‘here and now’. The result is that the viewer is able to ‘participate’ in the represented reality — by identifying with characters, reacting viscerally and emotionally to the action, etc.

However this degree of realism hinges upon the distinct separation between the represented space and the audience’s physical space. This boundary of the screen allows the viewer to forget the real world and enter in to the diagesis. He contrasts this with a stage performance in which this boundary does not exist. The audience shares physical space with the represented reality and thus, says Metz, the vehicle of representation is too real. The result is that the viewer is all too conscious of the artificiality of the performance and ends up identifying more with the actors themselves than with their characters.

I think Metz’ analysis holds a lot of insight for HCI. Not only has he revealed realism as a powerful aspect of the film experience, he has also illustrated how it is affected by particular qualities of the medium, namely motion and separation of space. I don’t mean that we should simply try to mimic the realism of film–in fact I can see one problem with attempting to do that–but rather we can think about the degree of realism which is most appropriate in particular design contexts, and give consideration to how motion and separation of space affect the experience. As a starting point for this kind of analysis, I’ve placed some different interactive experiences where I think they might fit into Metz’ model:

Original post and comments can be found here.

In the midst of a plethora of good presentations and networking opportunities, I was mostly preoccupied with participating in the Student Design Competition. Out of the original 58 submissions, twelve teams were invited to present in the poster session in San Jose. Five of these, including my own team were representing IU HCI/d. Having so many friends and classmates together made the presentations a lot more fun and less intimidating than they might have been.

Later that night, the four finalists teams were announced: Michigan’s AltVerto, Mexico’s team EMI, IU’s second year team RiRi, …..and my team Celerometer. Our excitement soon became intensity as we had to put together a presentation to give on Wednesday morning. Our classmates and faculty were a huge support as we took on that task.

Presenting in the finals was a wonderful experience. Having the opportunity to share our hard work in front of friends and colleagues and especially the wider community was fun and gratifying and invaluable. All four teams did a great job and we were gracious to get fourth place. Later that night at the Google party, I had the pleasure to meet our peers from Altverto, and EMI. All were incredibly nice and bright folks. Meeting team EMI, from southern Mexico was particularly heartwarming. Them being undergrads and presenting in their non-native language, they were grateful for the opportunity and I was happy for their success.

Speaking of the Google party, what a perk that was! Free food, open bar, all inside the San Jose Tech Museum. Check out me doing my Gob Bluth impression. Enough said.