Category Archives: HCI and usability

Walking Wales

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As some of you already know, next year I will be walking all around Wales: from May to July covering just over 1000 miles in total.

Earlier this year the Welsh Government announced the opening of the Wales Coastal Path a new long distance footpath around the whole coast of Wales. There were several existing long distance paths covering parts of the coastline, as well as numerous stretches of public footpaths at or near the coast. However, these have now been linked, mapped and waymarked creating for the first time, a continuous single route. In addition, the existing Offa’s Dyke long distance path cuts very closely along the Welsh–English border, so that it is possible to make a complete circuit of Wales on the two paths combined.

As soon as I heard the announcement, I knew it was something I had to do, and gradually, as I discussed it with more and more people, the idea has become solid.

This will not be the first complete periplus along these paths; this summer there have been at least two sponsored walkers taking on the route. However, I will be doing the walk with a technology focus, which will, I believe, be unique.

The walk has four main aspects:

personal — I am Welsh, was born and brought up in Cardiff, but have not lived in Wales for over 30 years. The walk will be a form of homecoming, reconnecting with the land and its people that I have been away from for so long. The act of encircling can symbolically ‘encompass’ a thing, as if knowing the periphery one knows the whole. Of course life is not like this, the edge is just that, not the core, not the heart. As a long term ex-pat, a foreigner in my own land, maybe all I can hope to do is scratch the surface, nibble at the edges. However, also I always feel most comfortable as an outsider, as one at the margins, so in some ways I am going to the places where I most feel at home. I will blog, audio blog, tweet and generally share this experience to the extent the tenuous mobile signal allows, but also looking forward to periods of solitude between sea and mountain.

practical — As I walk I will be looking at the IT experience of the walker and also discuss with local communities the IT needs and problems for those at the edges, at the margins. Not least will be issues due to the paucity of network access both patchy mobile signal whilst walking and low-capacity ‘broadband’ at the limits of wind-beaten copper telephone wires — none of the mega-capacity fibre optic of the cities. This will not simply be fact-finding, but actively building prototypes and solutions, both myself (in evenings and ‘days off’) and with others who are part of the project remotely or joining me for legs of the journey1. Geolocation and mobile based applications will be a core part of this, particularly for the walkers experience, but local community needs likely to be far more diverse.

philosophical — Mixed with personal reflections will be an exploration of the meanings of place, of path, of walking, of nomadicity and of locality. Aristotle’s school of philosophy was called the Peripatetic School because discussion took place while walking; over two thousand years later Wordsworth’s poetry was nearly all composed while walking; and for time immemorial routes of pilgrimage have been a focus of both spiritual service and personal enlightenment. This will build on some of my own previous writings in particular past keynotes2 on human understanding of space, and also wider literature such as Rebecca Solnit’s wonderful “Wanderlust“.  This reflection will inform the personal blogging, and after I finish I will edit this into a book or account of the journey.

research3 — the practical outcomes will intersect with various personal research interests including social empowerment, interaction design and algorithmics4.  For the walker’s experience, I will be effectively doing a form of action research!.  This will certainly include how to incorporate local maps (such as tourists town plans) effectively into more large-scale experiences, how ‘crowdsourced’ route knowledge can augment more formal digital and paper resources, data synchonisation to deal with disconnection, and data integration between diverse sources.  In addition I am offering myself as a living lab so that others can use my trip as a place to try out their own sensors and instrumentation5, information systems, content authoring, ethnographic practices, community workshops, etc.  This may involve simply asking me to use things, coming for a single meeting or day, or joining me for parts of the walk.

If any of this interests you, do get in touch.  As well as research collaborations (living lab or supporting direct IT goals) any help in managing logistics, PR, or finding sources of funding/sponsorship for basic costs, most welcome.

I’ll get a dedicated website, Facebook page, twitter account, and charity sponsorship set up soon … watch this space!

  1. Coding whilst walking is something I have thought about (but not done!) for many years, but definitely inspired more recently by Nick the amazing cycling programmer who came to the Spring Tiree Tech Wave.[back]
  2. “Welsh Mathematician Walks in Cyberspace“, and “Paths and Patches: patterns of geognosy and gnosis“.[back]
  3. I tried to think of a word beginning with ‘p’ for research, but failed![back]
  4. As I tagged this post I found I was using nearly all my my most common tags — I hadn’t realised quite how much this project cuts across so many areas of interest.[back]
  5. But with the “no blood rule”: if I get sensor sores, the sensors go in the bin 😉 [back]

logo design competition – final days

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The first entries are in for the logo design competition for the open HCI course I’m presenting in the autumn.  Arunn @ Talis has posted them on the wall in the office.  One is a very good cartoon style illustration, but I’m sure I don’t really look like that :-/

Final entries due by tomorrow midnight … and then Arunn is going to post them up for popular vote … and whichever gets most votes I end up wearing on a T-shirt at the HCI conference in a few weeks time.  There are times when democracy just feels wrong!

Tiree Touchtable – the photos

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At last, the photos from the week making and installing the Tiree Touchtable.  You can see all the photos on Flickr, but here is small selection:

The main components – projector, Kinect (on top of projector) and mini-Mac:

The Kinect disassembled:

Platform to attach to roof beams and support projector and mini-Mac:

Add mirror:

Andrea adjusting the mirror:

It works!

Alan gently centre-punches location for screws on Kinect frame:

note the tool … after this the Kinect didn’t work … can’t think why?  But happily there was a second Kinect 🙂

Then Andrea screws Kinect to timber support:

Testing on the workbench:

Moment of truth — on the way to the Rural centre to install … second Kinect carefully cradled in Alan’s old jumper:

       

Parts laid out, ready to go:

Steve fits mounting brackets, Alan looks on:

Alan thinks, “platform looks secure”.  Fiona thinks, “Alan doesn’t”.

Gets boring standing at the bottom of the ladder

Andrea fitting Kinect drop arm:

Andrea fitting the mini-Mac:

“Yep, that seems to be OK”

Let there be light:

Looking down — behold, Tiree Touchfloor:

The secret of true engineering … if the table is too low for the sensors, lift it higher:

Holiday Reading

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Early in the summer Fiona and I took 10 days holiday, first touring on the West Coast of Scotlad, south from Ullapool and then over the Skye Road Bridge to spend a few days on Skye.  As well as visiting various wool-related shops on the way and a spectacular drive over the pass from Applecross, I managed a little writing, some work on regret modelling1. And, as well as writing and regret modelling, quite a lot of reading.

This was my holiday reading:

The Talking Ape: How Language Evolved, Robbins Burling (see my booknotes and review)

In Praise of the Garrulous, Allan Cameron (see my booknotes)

A Mind So Rare, Merlin Donald (see my booknotes and review)

Wanderlust, Rebecca Solnit (see my booknotes)

  1. At last!  It has been something like 6 years since I first did initial, and very promising, computational regret modelling, and have at last got back to it, writing driver code so that I have got data from a systematic spread of different parameters.  Happily this verified the early evidence that the cognitive model of regret I wrote about first in 2003 really does seem to aid learning.  However, the value of more comprehensive simulation was proved as early indications that positive regret (grass is greener feeling) was more powerful than negative regret do not seem to have been borne out.[back]

Tiree Touchtable installed

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It is there!

Suspended high in the ceiling of Tiree Rural centre, a slightly Heath Robinson structure (pictures to come) that powers Tiree’s first public touchtable.

It was a long day, starting at 9:30 in the morning and not finishing until after 9pm in the evening.

The first few hours were simply getting the physical supports in place — with special thanks to Steve Nagy, who fixed the major elements, in particular the awkward tasks of suspending a two foot square (60cx x 60cm) platform that had to be positioned to lock into four steel rods, all while standing on a ladder 20 foot in the air.  Then a long task up and down ladders, huddled over computer screens, adjusting extending, puzzling over strange banding effects that we eventually concluded were artefacts of low level processing with the Konect’s image depth algorithms.

A squadron of flies constantly circled in the projector beam, their shadows suggesting maybe a virtual ‘squat the fly’ game could be developed!   There had been a sale in the cattle ring on Friday, so the flies presumably a remnant of that … but curiously, in the absence of cows or sheep, it was the Konect sensor itself that was their focus of attention, occasionally landing on one of the lenses — maybe they were attracted by the Infra-Red transmitter – a whole new area for etymological research.

The team cleaning the cattle ring, watched and chatted, and then returned with a spotlessly cleaned (it had been covered by ‘you know what’!) sheet of white wood to act as a table cover.

And now, well there is still work to do: permanent electric supply up into the rafters (to replace the temporary tangle of strung together extension cables, that hung from the ceiling during testing), improvements to the algorithms to extend the range to allow the sensors to be as high as possible (to avoid being hit by the next passing ladder), and of course applications to run in the space.

But we feel the back has been broken and a good weeks work.

D-Day for Tiree Touchable

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This is it, D-Day — installing the projected touch table in Tiree Rural Centre (see “microwave — Tiree Touchtable“).  Everything made up and ready on the ground after a week of sawing, screwing, drilling and gluing.  So now just (!) climbing up ladders and bolting it all onto the beams, 5 metres up, then seeing if it all works!

A few minor problems along the way, lost one Kinect due to (Alan’s) over-enthusiastic use of a centre punch when drilling holes.  One broken mirror — oops, don’t I remember something about those?  And tetchy projector that doesn’t want to talk to its remote control (helpful manufacturers online FAQ says, “if the remote doesn’t work, use the control panel”).

If we manage the day without dropping a computer 20 foot, we will probably be happy.

Full report and photos later today …

microwave – Tiree touchtable

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To compliment the biannual Tiree Tech Wave weekends, this week is a microwave!  Andrea Bellucci is here for the week and by the end of the week the table in the Rural Centre, where Tech Wave runs, will be a giant touchtable.

We have 3500 lumens projector, mini-mac and a Kinect to be mounted high in the ceiling.  Andrea’s software will then use the Kinect distance sensing to be able to pick up movements over and on the table-top and hence enable the kinds of touch interactions we are familiar with on mobile phone or pads.

This week we will be happy if we get all the equipment working in situ (visions of us all teetering 20ft up ladders), and maybe some test.  However, once in place we hope it will be a great resource for innovate applications for future Tech Waves and a means to run long term applications for tourists and locals.  In particular, we will soon have geocoded data for the ‘On the Ground‘ project (making island heritage archives available through mobile phones) — using this same data we cshould be able to create a classic tourist map projected on the table so that visitors can select locations and look at images and information about them, all by simply touching and dragging on the table.

a radical design for mobile telephony

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We are all aware of the phenomenal growth in smartphone and tablet use.  However, these are often designed with the needs of media and internet access above plain telephony.  Touch screens do not have tactile feedback leading to mistyping, especially problematic when using touchtone-based phone services, for tablets especially, the form factor is far from optimal, … and try answering your phone call quickly by sliding your finger across the screen!

There are solutions.  A recent gigaom post “Here’s why tablets (yes, tablets!) will replace the smartphone” suggested that hands-free headsets were already common, hence reducing the brick-to-the-ear effect.  This of course does not deal with the key pad, but there are some solutions to this using the vibrator motor to give simulated tactile feedback, and various technologies are in development that will (in time) allow tactile features to be programmed onto the screen (e.g. see “Mobile tactile tech gets physical“).

Over a slightly longer time frame we can expect smart materials to develop to the point that concept pieces such as Fabian Hemmert’s Shape-Changing Mobiles will become possible.  Instead of being a fixed shape not only will your tablet screen be able to develop solid buttons of all shapes on demand, but will potentially become travel mug, long-haul flight pillow or angle grinder.

The trouble is that not only are such technologies some years off, they are also tinkering at the edges, attempting to fix piecemeal some of the fundamental flaws of smartphone and tablet technology when it comes to telephony.  Clearly a more radical approach is required.

While Bluetooth headsets are effective, they tend to suggest call centre rather than cool, a single device would be preferable.  In addition this should ideally include some form of miniature key pad to facilitate typing telephone numbers (more extensive tasks such as address book management can be performed on the full-size tablet screen, especially if this is augmented with tactile feedback). Furthermore, for times when it is inconvenient to carry your full size tablet and it is in your handbag, rucksack or its custom wheelie bag, the perfect telephony attachment should also have a small additional screen to view the number you are dialing.

As a result of extensive research into user needs and in the spirit of the information appliance, the single purpose device optimised for a a single purpose, I have devised the perfect device: small, yet not too small to be lost, pocket sized so that it can be easily accessed when you receive a call, tactile, exploiting the deep understanding of the physicality community and knowledge from writing TouchIT. It will connect via Bluetooth to your existing smartphone/tablet and of course via WiFi or (in premium models) using 3G/GSM direct to mobile networks if you accidentally leave your smartphone at home.

I plan to demonstrate my early prototype at the forthcoming Physicality 2012 workshop, where Fabian will be giving a keynote.

Alt-HCI open reviews – please join in

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Papers are online for the Alt-HCI trcak of British HCI conference in September.

These are papers that are trying in various ways to push the limits of HCI, and we would like as many people as possible to join in discussion around them … and this discussion will be part of process for deciding which papers are presented at the conference, and possibly how long we give them!

Here are the papers  — please visit the site, comment, discuss, Tweet/Facebook about them.

paper #154 — How good is this conference? Evaluating conference reviewing and selectivity
        do conference reviews get it right? is it possible to measure this?

paper #165 — Hackinars: tinkering with academic practice
        doing vs talking – would you swop seminars for hack days?

paper #170 — Deriving Global Navigation from Taxonomic Lexical Relations
        website design – can you find perfect words and structure for everyone?

paper #181 — User Experience Study of Multiple Photo Streams Visualization
        lots of photos, devices, people – how to see them all?

paper #186 — You Only Live Twice or The Years We Wasted Caring about Shoulder-Surfing
        are people peeking at your passwords? what’s the real security problem?

paper #191 — Constructing the Cool Wall: A Tool to Explore Teen Meanings of Cool
        do you want to make thing teens think cool?  find out how!

paper #201 — A computer for the mature: what might it look like, and can we get there from here?
        over 50s have 80% of wealth, do you design well for them?

paper #222 — Remediation of the wearable space at the intersection of wearable technologies and interactive architecture
        wearable technology meets interactive architecture

paper #223 — Designing Blended Spaces
        where real and digital worlds collide

open data: for all or the few?

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On Twitter Jeni Tennison asked:

Question: aside from personally identifiable data, is there any data that *should not* be open?  @JenT 11:19 AM – 14 Jul 12

This sparked a Twitter discussion about limits to openness: exposure of undercover agents, information about critical services that could be exploited by terrorists, etc.   My own answer was:

maybe all data should be open when all have equal ability to use it & those who can (e.g. Google) make *all* processed data open too   @alanjohndix 11:34 AM – 14 Jul 12

That is, it is not clear that just because data is open to all, it can be used equally by everyone.  In particular it will tend to be the powerful (governments and global companies) who have the computational facilities and expertise to exploit openly available data.

In India statistics about the use of their own open government data1 showed that the majority of access to the data was by well-off males over the age of 50 (oops that may include me!) – hardly a cross section of society.  At  a global scale Google makes extensive use of open data (and in some cases such as orphaned works or screen-scraped sites seeks to make non-open works open), but, quite understandably for a profit-making company, Google regards the amalgamated resources as commercially sensitive, definitely not open.

Open data has great potential to empower communities and individuals and serve to strengthen democracy2.  However, we need to ensure that this potential is realised, to develop the tools and education that truly make this resource available to all3.  If not then open data, like unregulated open markets, will simply serve to strengthen the powerful and dis-empower the weak.

  1. I had a reference to this at one point, but can’t locate it, does anyone else have the source for this.[back]
  2. For example, see my post last year “Private schools and open data” about the way Rob Cowen @bobbiecowman used UK government data to refute the government’s own education claims.[back]
  3. In fact there are a variety of projects and activities that work in this area: hackathons, data analysis and visualisation websites such as IBM Many Eyes, data journalism such as Guardian Datablog and some government and international agencies go beyond simply publishing data and offer tools to help users interpret it (I recall Enrico Bertini, worked on this with one of the UN bodies some years go). Indeed there will be some interesting data for mashing at the next Tiree Tech Wave in the autumn.[back]