October 7, 2004
HCI Comments II
Thoughts on:
The Computer for the 21st Century, Mark Weiser, Scientific American, September 1991, pp. 94-104
Positive/interesting points:
Weiser's reference to Polanyi's "tacit dimension" touched upon a topic I have been mulling about for a while. The concept of truly mastering a task/skill/activity by internalizing it through repetition beyond a barrier of conscious knowledge is found time and time again across disciplines and cultures (cf. Herrigel, "Zen in the Art of Archery") Conversely, note how hard it is to break out of established patterns, the "habitual mind" (is there a good citation for this term?). I know I am way off on a tangent here, but at least the paper was thought provoking. Larry Gross from the Annenberg School of Communication teaches (or used to teach) a great course entitled "Art as Communication" that spends a considerable amount of time on this topic.
My second item of interest is more directly related to the article's core message: interacting with many "boards" and "pads" on a daily basis may actually force the computer user to engage in regular physical activity. This is healthy. Ending the user's transfixion in front of the desktop PC could seriously lessen work-related health risks.
On the downside, ubiquitous computing seems to needlessly import some of the problems the physical world exhibits into the digital domain. Would you rather shuffle through a deck of "tabs" or use a search engine to find some files? Also, producing lots of limited-use electronics seems to be a waste of natural resources. Do we have a plan for how to disassemble and recycle these mini-computers when they start to fail or are deemed outdated? We cannot even take care of this task for our comparatively few full-grown PCs today (shipping the trash to China is not a sustainable solution). A meta-comment: the paper ends with a number of blanket statements such as "Computer access will penetrate all groups in society." that are not backed by any evidence. Irritating.
Charting Past, Present, and Future Research in Ubiquitous Computing, Gregory D. Abowd and Elizabeth D. Mynatt, ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, March 2000, pp. 29-58
What does it mean to build a natural interface? The authors mention writing as a natural action - but we all need to learn this skill through a long, possibly arduous process. Writing is common, yes, but natural? Similarly, playing a guitar does not resemble any other activity we routinely perform in our lives. Yet millions of people have learned how to use this "unnatural" instrument. Mastering these interfaces is difficult, but the inherent complexity also makes great virtuosity possible - it largely defines their value. (Upshot: we should not aim too low. Intuitiveness may be inversely related to usefulness)
I agree with the authors that scale is an extremely important attribute. Building devices that accommodate human scales is essential - issues of size, but also rhythm, nonlinear perception of time come to mind. Another good point: humans are effective - but far from perfect - recognizers. Computer recognition and context fusion techniques should therefore take an approach that incorporates the notion of uncertainty. Much of AI has already gone down this statistical route.
A little line on the importance of error handling caught my interest: how much research has been devoted not to the avoidance of errors, but to their constructive processing in interaction with the system user?
And yes, we need to introduce more associative models of information management. The image of a message morass perfectly described my own email account/folder mess. How can we visualize associative models appropriately? Graphs are good for showing connections, but don't mesh well with text.
Posted by Bjoern Hartmann at October 7, 2004 7:48 AM