Studio 8 - Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity (CRAP)

Contrast

This refers to various things such as the fonts, sizes, styles etc and how these are used within documentation and how each one can stand out on a certain page.

- brings out dominant elements

- mutes lesser elements

- creates dynamism

- makes different things different

(image source: pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~saul/581/presentations/05-crap/CRAP.ppt)

Repetition

Keeping the design principle the same throughout a presentation, graphical user interface, buildings wallpaper etc. All of this comes under the repetition section of Saul Greenberg’s CRAP. In other words repetition means repeating the same design throughout the interface i.e. Within Microsoft PowerPoint a user can define the design of one slide in a presentation and then at a click of a button the user can apply the same slide design to every other slide creating a constant theme throughout.

Alignment


This refers to the layout design of a document; margins, indentations, image alignments, word spacing amongst other things.
Proximity

The basic principle behind proximity is grouping all relative content into one main group for organisation.

Saul Greenberg’s CRAP does have relevance to designing pervasive computing but in my opinion it doesn't have much revelance. I say this because as pervasive computing is developing it is less and less likely to follow a design ruling, as technologies involved with pervasive computing are becoming smaller, more technical and less noticeable. In a field where there are new advancements every single year it is impossible to say that Saul Greenberg’s CRAP will guide how all things are designed and developed.

I propose that it is more likely that, for the present time, Saul Greenberg’s CRAP will have relevance to designing pervasive computing because pretty much all computerised designs seem to follow a pattern i.e. mobile phones are almost always rectangle in shape, as well as laptops, pc towers and many more. In the future though we will see Saul Greenberg’s CRAP become obsolete because pervasive computing involves our social environment which is constantly changing day to day and I believe pervasive computing will have to follow this changing environment.

Studio 7 - Prototyping pervasive computing

"a post-desktop model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities. In the course of ordinary activities, someone "using" ubiquitous computing engages many computational devices and systems simultaneously, and may not necessarily even be aware that they are doing so."

(Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquitous_computing)

Prototyping Pervasive Computing: The Challenge

The main objective behind pervasive computing is to have systems that are intergrated into our daily lives without us really noticing when and where. So in order to prototype pervasive computing and investigate the users natural reactions, we, as researchers need to intergrate ourselves into the environment as well.

One of the biggest challenges we face in prototyping pervasive computing is the enviroment, because it isn't in our control (within a lab), it makes its a lot more difficult to conduct research as we need to come up with a technique that will allow us to track and record the user and their reaction to the system in the outside environment.

Prototyping in a major benefit to any project because it allows us to avoid development dead-ends, which can be costly.

So the challenge we face is not that of pervasive computing itself or its development, but how we can conduct prototyping within a natural enviroment using pervasive computing.

Wizard of Oz Prototyping

"The Wizard of Oz technique enables unimplemented technology to be evaluated by using a human to simulate the response of a system. "

(http://usabilitynet.org/tools/wizard.htm)

The Wizard of Oz prototype uses a human being to simulate the systems responses in real-time. So during an experiment the "wizard" will sit in a hidden room watching the test subject (user) using the system, normally through a camera with a live feed trained on the participants hands and will simulate the effects of the system from the observed manipulations from the user. In most cases the user if often not made aware that the system was not real until after the experiment has been completed. The researcher who plays the role of the "wizard" but act quickly and be very accurate in reading what the user will do with the system. They also need to be able to react just as well in order to provide an output back to the user in real-time.

This type of research can provide information and valuable data about a solution to a non-existent technology. This type of technique is commonly referred to as the what-if technique.

In the first example, entitled Rendezvous I personally think that they utilized the wrong devices etc. This made is extremely hard to produce outcomes and overall, hard to deploy. Although within this example the main outcome of this prototyping is that the effects and use of non-existent technologies/systems can be fully investigated.

Experience Prototyping Technique

"By the term "Experience Prototype" we mean to emphasize the experiential aspect of whatever representations are needed to successfully (re)live or convey an experience with a product, space or system. So, for an operational definition we can say an Experience Prototype is any kind of representation, in any medium, that is designed to understand, explore or communicate what it might be like to engage with the product, space or system we are designing."

Marion Buchenau, Jane Fulton Suri, "Experience Prototyping," Proceedings of the 3rd conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques, 2000, pp. 424 - 433

The main principle behind this prototyping technique is that the researchers, developers and designers should test the prototype in a real-life enviroment outside of a controlled lab. Using this type of technique will allow them to become closer and more familiar witht the systems strengths, weaknesses and the systems full capabilities. Within this technique, civilians are not used as participants because there is less possibility of misinterpreting a problem with a prototype as a problem with the design which can often occur when using a civilian participant within experiments.

One of the most important things about using this type of technique is that the designers, developers and researchers can actually see how their imagined system will work in a natural enviroment under pressure. This allows the teams involved to record important data, which will go a long way towards helping them improve their overall system.

Problems generally occur within a system, when the user of that system needs a solution. It is only at this point that they realise there is a real problem.

Studio 6 - Identifying Research Activities and Methods

Source: http://www.cogentcomputing.org/~john_h/DIS06.pdf

Research activity 1:

This area had curators being asked what sort of information they would divulge to the visitors whilst they were giving a tour. Given a large map which incorporated models of buildings that the curators shared they were asked to discuss the information that they knew about specific parts of the house and explain.

I believe this research activity is used as Qualitative data because the information requested was required in order to find out what type of information the curators give out whilst conducting a guided tour and the information was taken by an un-structured discussion. This type of information will be helpful towards the research because the discussion can be recorded via audio or video and be used and re-used for the content of the system.

Research activity 2:

Researchers were taken on a guided tour whilst a second researcher followed the tour using a camcorder to record the tour.

I believe that this type of research activity comes under both Quantitative and Qualitative data as a mix; mainly because, it allowed the researchers to gain an idea of what specific content were mentioned frequently and what content was only briefly mentioned throughout.

This type of research activity can also be used to help backup the previous research activity (above) as it was recorded as well. Also this research activity can be used as content for the system.

Research activity 3:

This next research activity involved the researchers taking the curators a video of Ambient Wood before taking them on a walk around the house using audio clips to be played back to the curators, so that they could understand what it would be like to be a visitor to the house and how the tour would also sound to the visitor.

This research activity is a Quantitative data research because the curators were asked to take a vote on:

• Their voices being used in the system
• Like/Dislike the organisation of the transcripts

This therefore means that there will be a number of people for each case to be presentated using the researchers statistical results. The research activity also allows the researchers to make a more informed decision on how to improve and further develop the current system.

Research activity 4

School children were used in this research activity, where they were sent around the Chawton House with a mobile device that allowed the school children to complete the scenario given to them by the researchers.

The school children were told to complete a number of different tasks that required them to use the mobile device and also to interact with the Chawton House as well. The research method used within this research activity is a mixture of Quantitative and Qualitative data methods.

Throughout the Chawton House Project the school children gave feedback to the researchers about what they thought of the system (this feedback would then be used to develop potential stories). Also throughout the project the researchers watched the school children and how they interacted with the system/house and then they were interviewed at the fourth phase of the Chawton House Project workshop. As like all of the previous research activities this one also helped to further develop and improve the system.