Eyram Tawia of Leti Games talks about African games.

Eyram is a potential PHD student looking at reinventing the computer science curriculum to be completely ubiquitous and mobile in outlook. In Africa mobile computing is the dominant interaction idiom - something the west is still moving towards. He wants to rewrite the pedagogy computer science which is something we are going to have to do.  The OU has already started on the line with TU100 and a  ubiquitous computing first approach but his ambition is to take it much further.

You have to love Eyram's vision and enthusiasm. I do like the way he wants to make global games from an African perspective. All too often we want to use a western model of development which many times fail to catch on. I think this assumes that other counties and regions are like the west and fails to catch on.  This is because I my opinion they assume technologies are things not part of wider ecologies of technologies, materials, resources and cultural perspectives. From this perspective the best way to get Africa to develop is to economically is to respond to local entrepreneurs exploiting local situations. 

HashBang.TV @ Droidcon London 2012 with Eyram Tawia of Leti Games - YouTube:

I was amazed how thick I am.

BBC News - The Cambridge lab where they test how elderly people use technology

Obviously this is a bit naff - if you did this to 18 year olds you would get the  same kind of results. If you have ever put new technology in front of a user you get the same kinds of responses as seen here.  But the quote 'I am amazed how thick I am' does remind you how much people are willing to blame  them selves not the technology.

There is also a good example of people taking concepts from one technology ( pressing harder) and apply to  another. Initially there was a huge amount of pressure to make computer things like 'real world' things so a form of mimesis (imitation of other things, the use of metaphor) which gave rise to  skeuomorphic design (imitation for the sake of imitation)  - this gave you the calculator that looked like a calculator.

When we had a generation of kids grow up with the technology ( about the same time the web came along ) we got interfaces which broke free of metaphor. Or rather they became their own kind of metaphor - we see different kinds of buttons but still see them as buttons. We forget so much we have learn't' about computer interfaces on their own terms.  So when we push them at people who have never seen a computer before we see who much we 'know' about computers which out knowing we know a huge.

What I did like was the equivalent of the fat-suit for old age. Making you experience what it is like to be old.
Which  Inpires me to built a age/dyslexia proxy - takes a website and renders it as an old or dyslexic person might see it.

Video: Apple iPhone turns table top into invisible keyboard

I've always had something for keyboards on the iPhone.  This is a new concept and shows what happens when you let an art school at a difficult problem.

kuler colour composition

 One day I would write a book about HCI for programmers and this book would contain all the things they don't teach you on an HCI course but you need to know about to make software that works. In this case it would be a short intro to colour theory.

Setting up a colour pallet before you start your design is one of those things you need to do and
kuler
is a lovely tool to help you do it.

Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice & Power Users (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice & Power Users (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox):

As it turns out, users didn't mind horizontal scrolling on the Surface, which is interesting given that horizontal scrolling is a usability disaster for websites on desktop computers. Still, there's such a thing as too much scrolling, and users won't spend the time to move through large masses of low-density information.

Nielson gives a quite damming review of window(s) 8.  Good UI read.

Amazon.co.uk: Customer Discussions: Can you gift kindle books ??

Amazon.co.uk: Customer Discussions: Can you gift kindle books ??

Answer no you can't
Which is thirty shades of daft - books are things we give to each other as Birthday and Christmas presents. Not be to be able to do this suggests that there is a huge failure in the Kindle design phase.

Conversations About Direct recombination

I was talking to Simon today about direct combination. I said i had had a great idea and adventure game with direct combinations as the user interface. This was a relief as I already thought of one for doing statistics program . The conversation drifted onto How to rethink the object paradigm.

I think I might succinctly put it all together in one diagram.

Where two types have some overlap (in methods or instance variables) then this is when we have a super class. 

BCS - ICT understatement.

The BCS has released their current suggestions for what they want to see in the school ICT curriculm. 

http://academy.bcs.org/sites/academy.bcs.org/files/Initial%20Draft%20ICT%20POS%2022%20Oct%202012.pdf

I do find this a trifle underwhelming. I would have included some stuff in user interface design. This is for two reasons. 

1. I Think it's important to get over to the kids that the user interface can make a good algorithm into a pants program. 
2. You can have a lot of good hands on experience in user interface design without any exceptional skills on the teacher's part.

You could make some very powerful stuff here but they failed to get it. 

Stigmergy

I discovered this word  Stigmergy leaving information in the environment to help/stimulate the performance of another actor/agent.  


"Stigmergy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In addition the concept of stigmergy has also been used to describe how cooperative work such as building design may be integrated. Designing a large contemporary building involves a large and diverse network of actors (e.g. architects, building engineers, static engineers, building services engineers and etc.). Their distributed activities may be partly integrated through practices of stigmergy." 

I think this means that building a physical model and using plans helps the various actors coordinate the assorted constraints. 


So from a software engineering point of view the problem is that the various stakeholders don't have a unified environment where information can be deposited. Each uses their own separate specific description (UML, wireframes) and cannot leave annotaions.   

1. Christensen, L. R. (2007). Practices of stigmergy in architectural work. In Proceedings of the 2007 international ACM Conference on Conference on Supporting Group Work (Sanibel Island, Florida, USA, November 04–07, 2007). GROUP 2007. ACM, New York, NY, 11-20.
2. ^ Christensen, L. R. (2008). The Logic of Practices of Stigmergy: Representational Artifacts in Architectural Design. In Proceedings of the 2008 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (San Diego, CA, USA, November 8–12, 2008). CSCW '08. ACM, New York, NY, 559-568
3. 
   

Sign-Up for Usability Testing - UserTesting.com

Good news for all those who want to do second generation usability testing on an mobile platform like an IPhone

Sign-Up for Usability Testing - UserTesting.com

Me on the academic ladder

I was filling in administrative forms on ORO and noticed I could find out how many papers each academic could publish. 

If you sort them and log them you can see that they form a pattern. If I was a physicist I would say that academic publishing was 'scale free' because the degree distribution follows a power law.  I would then go on to claim to  now fundamentally understood 'research' and could go on to claim insight into something else. But I'm not a physicist like Barabasi so I won't.  Instead I will point out that if you log anything then you will find some kind of correlation.

I will point out that the red arrow points to my position on the academic ladder.  

I couldn't disagree with you more. (UX developers)

I response to "

Is anyone else bothered by the job title "UX Developer"?" 

( see http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=72842&type=member&item=176873246&report%2Esuccess=rcqr5cdXcY6Z2jpG_JPeLDsIvYQuZ6inDI-auB0U9hcsZ8-oDdB0jhJhOxcnz8oDkfoFuMIhbNrjmgvAMcU4swONoBr3zt_vuzPNuUy0pa1G1HSWyla0kMfabNr3ZjLuyzW0kwknWhLnZ8m3kdL0yektWNNGSkoD_znHyUdlKahvqk_QDFMgieIPfaWKqkib_ogjJbBy ) 

I couldn't disagree with you more. 

I think you said  it your self. A good UX developer can make or break the user interaction. Having UX in the title flags up that you should be up for working at the sharp end where sloppy work will be noticeable. 

You're going to have to work with UX people and that means having a broader view of how your contribution fits in with the whole experience. ( Hence UX not UI)

More over you're going to have to think about how to work with designers and from my point of view know how to evaluate the effectiveness of the UI. 

Software people are taught to talk about 'stake holders' and getting rid of that baggage takes a lot of time and commitment. UX signals that .

I think finally there are different takes. Good UX takes a user centred perspective from my point of view. This is very top down ( find out what the user wants/needs and do it). *This implicitly  assumes that the technology which is used exists*. I've met a lot of very poor self styled UX people who think that if you can't get it from a table or draw it in photoshop then it can't exist. I'm sometimes appalled by how unimaginative some UX designers can be. Bret Victor's Magic Ink ( http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/ ) is a good example of rethinking the user experience from a developers perspective. His Train schedules case study is a tour-de-force of what can happen if you can throw JQuery/Ajax/etc out of the window and just think freely unconstrained by the limitations of previous interface designs. 

If you need conformation of this - ask your self how you'r  taking advantage of multi-touch in the browser or tablet ? If not why not ? What are your barriers ? 

 I would suggest we need MORE UX developers not less. 
We need MORE developers committed to the front to back user experience not less 
We need MORE developers challenging UX designers assumptions of what can and cannot be done not less. 

Go UX Developers!!! 

Dyslexic friendly university

I was talking to someone from a University low down on the academic league table recently. He basically said that as far as doing better went they were generally stuck - if your low down on the league tables you don't get much funding/time to do much research so it's harder to move up. Their approach was to forget getting on the research ladder - after all why play a game you can't do well at? 

We went on to talk about encouraging graduate start-ups ( all of the new jobs are in London and the North east is in saw need of new industry). I mentioned one of my favorite facts - that while dyslexics make up 1% of senior management and  4%-15% of the population they represent 15%-20%(UK-US) of entrepreneurs. I reasoned that if one was honestly dedicated to encouraging graduate start-ups then one would have to begin with the right raw materials and so logically find ways to attract and encourage dyslexic students.

It left me struck with how a smaller local and recent Universities would compete in the UK market place. I had an idea that if I was running a department or a university that one approach I could take was going the way of a couple of universities/colleges in the US and becoming highly dyslexic friendly. e.g like  Beacon ( http://www.beaconcollege.edu ) and  Landmark ( http://www.landmark.edu ) and Living ( http://experiencecle.com ).  We have a number of private dyslexic schools in the UK so why not a university or two ? 

Currently many universities have programs to support dyslexic students. But this is largely about bending the student to fit the course. Imagine a university which bent the course and  its self around the student, producing dyslexic friendly; learning materials, learning practices, entry requirements and assessment methods. I would argue that such a university regardless of status could rightly charge at the high fee rate and not put students off.   

Currently dyslexics make up 4%-15% of the UK population but about 1-2% of the undergraduate student population so it strikes me that it would be a market that is underdeveloped and so with a large growth potential. The facts are that once a dyslexic student gets into university they are more likely than normal of doing well ( dyslexic undergraduates do better than average in their final degrees). Naturally you would have to have the same levels of accomplishment as a typical university but I believe you achieve this by not using a student's greatest weakness ( high pressured writing to a deadline i.e exams) as the key assessment technique.  

And for example you might think that this would weaken your post graduate offerings and your potential to do world class research.  Yet this might be a good line in self delusion, 'Negroponte commented that links between dyslexia and high talent are often observed at MIT-- indeed, these observations are so frequent that locally dyslexia is called "the MIT disease.'   (http://scottishdyslexia.blogspot.co.uk/2006/06/mit-disease-nicholas-negroponte.html) ( NOTE MIT disease is so called 'because the overwhelming majority of their researchers/students are dyslexic'). So on the contrary I believe it would also be useful to boost postgraduate work and research.

You might argue that such a university would gain a reputation for producing dyslexic graduates and anyone coming from there would be immediately labeled as  'defective' to possible employers. Yes, there is a huge amount of discrimination out there but that doesn't stop largely black universities in the US  being very successful.    While we don't know the causes for the  link between dyslexia and entrepreneurialism like we didn't know the link between smoking and lung cancer but still did something, if such a university did have a 'start-up' park/incubator I think such a place could be well placed to stimulate a local economy somewhere and produce dyslexic friendly employers. 

Many dyslexic students also move towards STEM subjects so again if you were genuinely honest about boosting STEM subjects a highly dyslexic friendly university might be the way to go.

Roomware: The Second Generation

Roomware: The Second Generation

KissInsights is now Qualaroo

That vernerable survey site - infact it was mentioned in the Lean Startup book - KISSinsights has rebranded ( why I ask ) as Qualaroo.  File under you know where it is when you need it. 

Free Online Surveys, Customer Feedback & Survey Software Tool | Qualaroo

Global warming and usability

 A researcher at CHI2011 said what can usability do about global warming - an awful lot I said. An article has turned up proving my point. 


There is a good article in Scientific American showing that 

1. If you install a smart meter you don't get any energy savings instantly. 
2. Most people don't know how to change the settings on their smart meter to get any savings at all. 

This is basically a usability problem but the problem for a researcher like me is how to get a paper out about getting it right. 

Data ‹ The CultureCode Initiative

Data ‹ The CultureCode Initiative

As part of the process of discovering my northen roots I found CultureCode a hacker/artist collaboration."CultureCode events are designed to create an opportunity for the cultural and digital communities to work closely together". Mean while the data sets are wonderful.

Another example where simple usability problems can have big problems

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19817798

Taking about how a multi million pound bidding process failed.

"The DfT was using a new model for evaluating bids, a spokesman told the BBC. The mistakes appear to have been down to errors made in the inputting of the data, rather than with the model itself, he said."

Wallboards information radiators | Atlassian

Wallboards | Atlassian

You can tell I have a deadline by the number of things I'm coming across while looking for the real stuff. These 'wall boards' or 'information radiators' are ambient displays focused on specific team information.

The would make a good focus of study.

Screen gesture control

Leap Motion

For all of thoseMSC proposal/Phd student applications I get -about using guestures like the Minority Report -- its been done. I'm still not sure its usable.

hijack - easy sensors for the iPhone

projects :: hijack: Vimeo
A rather wonderful hack - they use power from the iPhone's headphone audio socket to power a small adunio like board. The system then sends info back the iPhone in which can be collected and re-used. Ideal for a some cool Uibicomp projects.



Hijacking Power and Bandwidth from the Mobile Phone's Audio Interface - Integrated Prototype from Thomas Schmid on Vimeo.

Does the social NET work ? Facebook/Linked in and old models of value

[1] 
Thinking about both facebook and Linked-In is that they have both failed to use what they are in order to make value. They are both stuck in previous generation economic models. 
Let me explain - if you want to advertise on Facebook it's 'big advantage' or 'USP' is the detailed demographic information that it holds on it's users. They know ( or think they know) how old you are, gender, geographic region. Let's face it this is knowledge that most web advertisers can either find out or infer. Google probably know how old I am or could find out by profiling if they wanted to.

So the demographic data isn't something that Facebook or Linked in or any other social media has a strong monopoly of. 

But something they do have is the social nextwork. 

There have been various studies and reports showing how much your social network effects you. If your friends are fat, your more likely to be fat. If you friends vote on way your more likely to vote one way.  From social network theory we know not all these friends are equal.  The person who is most likely to introduce new thinking is the so called 'weak link' the person who knows you and a completely different social group. So from a value point of view an advertiser whats to target people who are likely to be influential - these might be like the  early adopters, they come after the inovators but are socially more connected and 'respected' in a broad sense. Yet if you sign up to use Facebook or Linked-in advertising you DON'T see an option to pay a bit more and only target 'influential people'. These are the people who everyone responds to and recommend or  critique something. In advertising parlance these are the 'cool kids' who others are likely to be influenced by. 

 If you think you want to change opinions you actually target the people around someone.  People ofter look to the social network to get an idea of 'whats normal'.  If two or more people are doing then they are more likely to try it them selves. So from an advertising point of view your much better off targeting a socially connected group of people. From this we can see offering a socially connected group is far more powerful than just a limited demographic. 

Yet in both cases Facebook and Linked-in have failed to capitalise on the unique data they have. My prediction is that it will one day happen. 

Build web wireframes for your web application design

Build web wireframes for your web application design

Another user testing one looks nice.

Feedback Army

Website Usability Testing Service - Feedback Army

Another on the list of how the future of usability testing will be. USeful for researchers too.

Mockingbird - User interface mock up site

Mockingbird - Untitled

This is a nice website for sketching out websites.

Beyond The User: Use And Non-Use in HCI

I quite this paper about people who don't use technology. I think there is much to be learnt about people who don't want a technology.  The lack of general uptake of things like the microsoft surface is one example.

file under fun and mildly stimulating.

Media Facades Festival

Festival | Media Facades Festival

This has been sitting on my list of open Safari windows because I don't want to loose it. I hope this happens again at some point. I would love to do something..

scales - Visualizing Likert Item Response Data - Cross Validated

G came across this this page on visualising Likert responses to a questionnaire. 

scales - Visualizing Likert Item Response Data - Cross Validated

I liked these as they give you a better feel for the over all response than normal mean + standard deviation ( might be nice to plot those too). 

file under ultimate stats program.

On the subject of online usability tools

OK this crazy egg ( what an old sounding dot com name  is there a generator some where). Is I suspect some smart Java script with is picking up the mouse movements on a website and then revisulasing them back AS IF they where eye tracking data.

They don't get people to actually look at your site  ( which is the handy part ) your watching in the wild users.
For $108 per month sounds interesting once you have a sight up and working and want to see why its not working.

Wineshop

58 days and counting to the CHI deadline. 4 days from HCI2012 notification and 14 days before the TEI deadline ( ow).

I just had an email from a Wine Merchants magazine wanting to do a piece on Gonzalo's wineshop ( see http://makingsenseofspace.com/blog/the-smart-pop-up-wine-shop-demo/). I've responded positively so lets hope something comes from it.

Gonzalo's work was fab, I hope his thesis will do the experiment justice.

Durrell Bishop Marble Answer Machine on Vimeo

Durrell Bishop Marble Answer Machine 
Oh this one of those master projects which changed the world. I remember seeing this at the Doors of Perception conference and being blown away by it. Its twenty years later and we still haven't had anything as immediately accessible as this. I've described it to numerous people and it never fails to impress. I'm glad the original video is on line now.


Durrell Bishop Marble Answer Machine from Luckybite on Vimeo.

file under very cool and history in the making.

Welcome to PublicData.eu - Europe's Public Data - publicdata.eu

Welcome to PublicData.eu - Europe's Public Data - publicdata.eu

Love data - so do we.

file under cool stuff to visualise at some point.

User testing on demand finally arrives.

The commoditisation of user testing is finally here.

I've been expecting user testing as a service for a while. By which I mean user testing on line and on demand ( demand by the programmer)

UserTesting.com - Low Cost Usability Testing

As a developer I would have loved something like this.

The idea of users on tap makes and given you can set up tasked for them to do means  you could do this as part of the agile development process - build a part and get it user tested. Then move on.

The people on the demos sound all very familiar with speak aloud so your going to get something between a real user test and heuristic evaluation, which is OK. These people spend all day testing stuff so I guess your going to get high end users who know a lot about other web sites. But hay this is quite cool and the loss of fuss and bother is good. It sounds like Americans so I like the notion of finishing something and getting it tested 'overnight' with examples next morning.

They do websites - a guess I like the same thing for iPhone apps.

file under cool and useful.

The Science of Risk - Lloyd’s Research Prize - Tools & Resources - Lloyd's

The Science of Risk - Lloyd’s Research Prize - Tools & Resources - Lloyd's

Strange world - Lloyds are doing a best paper prize for the paper which most illuminates the world of risk.

file under strange and curious.

History lesson

I have always been a big geek about how we shape and are shaped by our technology. This was one of my huge influences as a kid. Wonderful they are all on line. now.

Interaction methods of the day Borda count

Borda count - Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia

One paper used this when they want to evaluate to a number of alternatives and you get people to rank them in order.

file under useful techniques and buzzwords

Energy consumption at DIS

Interesting work from Goldsmitths group.

Apparently switching off doesn't necessary mean less carbon is consumed as less electricity is generated. They suggested on Earth day when people switched things off that the grid just had a surplus.

To get energy reduced you need to balance energy consumption against generation.  Global co-ordination issue.

They came up with device which shows your energy consumption against mix of generation (wind,nuclear,coal,gas).

Also showed video of Jon/Yvonne/OU's Tidy street project.

Urban Informatics

Urban Informatics

Urban computing and urban informatics seems to be the buzzword at DIS2012. And I came across this link.

Urban computing seems to be about people who put digital stuff ( like big displays) into the urban environment.

If I was doing a GPS for dementia system

I would develop a thing which had the form factor of a walking stick not a walkman.

 This way the person with dementia would not have to remember it, they would need it to leave the building.


A walking stick is not a large badge saying 'I'm useless or mug me I'm frail'


The recharger would be the umbrella stand - so you don't have to remember to recharge and you get a signal when someone is at home.


It would have a 'I'm lost' button and it would vibrate when pointing the way home.


It would have a 'HELP'/Alarm button to set off in case to call panic


It would use GPS ring fence to warn careers if the person was outside a 'known' area.


You could give it to someone pre-demientia so you could get used to it as 'familiar' before they lost time.


It might have a 'twist' switch which would switch off GPS tracking for privacy.


The display would show a fuzzy boundary showing the certainty of the fix.

Productivity Future Vision

Productivity Future Vision

An HTML 5 version of the Microsoft future vision videos

Tabletops & Projection-Vision systems

Tabletops & Projection-Vision systems

A nice visual list of provious projector desktop experiences.

Innovation | The TAT Blog

Innovation | The TAT Blog

I am a big lover of these videos showing future interfaces, this is definitely a nice one.

Monitor: Prophets of zoom | The Economist

Looks like the Economist is finally catching on to zoomable interfaces.

Monitor: Prophets of zoom | The Economist: The zoom-based approach can transform multi-page websites into a single broad surface that simultaneously displays all content. Instead of clicking and waiting for a new page to appear, a visitor can zoom directly to areas of interest. On the Hard Rock Caf�website, a page built using Microsoft’s Silverlight software shows 1,610 memorabilia items. By using the scroll wheel to zoom, details of each one can be expanded to fill the entire screen.

Software that zooms deep into moving imagery may be next. America’s Department of Energy is developing software to drill into scientific animations of particle behaviour in nuclear reactions. Called VisIt, its zooming range is equivalent to zipping from a view of the Milky Way to a grain of sand, says Becky Springmeyer, who is working on the project at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Will deep zooming catch on? Mark Changizi, an evolutionary neurobiologist and author of “The Vision Revolution”, notes that the human visual system has to cope with zooming when moving, say, through a dense grove of trees. Today’s zooming software operates on a different scale, but as touch-screen devices proliferate, zooming has become a popular way to manipulate maps and photos—so perhaps it will catch on in other areas, too.

Downloads - Gapminder.org

Downloads - Gapminder.org

A great example of what happens if you combine good visualisation with some carefully collected data.

Postdoc Position in Mobile Human Computer Interaction

Gerd is getting the Ubicomp group back to strength with this. I look forward to the lab getting more use.
Open University - Computing Department
Temporary contract until 31 January 2015
Based in Milton Keynes

Closing date: noon on 7 June 2012.

http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AEL512/research-associate-in-mobile-human-computer-interaction/

The Computing Department at the Open University is looking for a
Research Associate in the area of Mobile Human Computer Interaction.
The post is available in the EU-funded GAMBAS project. The main
objective of GAMBAS is to develop fundamental technologies for
context-aware, behaviour-driven services for innovative public
transportation applications.

The post holder will conduct research in mobile user interfaces for
public transport systems, with a particular focus on proactive
services that predict user movement and information needs. You will
apply human-centred design methods to create engaging mobile user
experiences, and use empirical research methods to conduct user
studies and field trials.

The post holder will be expected to develop proposals for individual
or joint research and contribute to writing bids for research funding.

To apply you must hold a first degree in the areas of computer
science, human-computer interaction, electronic engineering,
mathematics or a related discipline, and a PhD relevant to the
research area or equivalent qualifications. Also, you should have
demonstrated your research competence through high-quality
publications in top conferences in the area of mobile computing,
pervasive computing, human-computer interaction and/or machine
learning. Strong practical software development skills are required
for both posts.

Informal enquiries may be made to Prof Gerd Kortuem
(http://www.kortuem.com) at the Ubiquitous Computing and
Sustainability Lab, Department of Computing, The Open University.

Closing date: noon on 7 June 2012.

For detailed information, an electronic copy of an application form
and how to apply go to www.open.ac.uk/employment, or call the Staffing
Assistant on +44 (0)1908 654161 or email mct-staffing@open.ac.uk
quoting the reference number.

Further particulars are available in large print, disk or audiotape
(minicom 01908 654901).

We promote diversity in employment and welcome applications from all
sections of the community.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof. Gerd Kortuem
Computing Department, The Open University
email: g.kortuem@open.ac.uk, twitter: @kortuem, mob: +44 7590 490843
http://www.kortuem.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Postdoc Position in Ubiquitous Computing: Context and Behaviour Prediction

Gerd is getting the ubicomp group  back 


Open University - Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology
Temporary contract until 31 January 2015
Based in Milton Keynes, UK

Closing date: noon on 7 June 2012.

http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AEL513/research-associate-in-context-and-behaviour-prediction/

The Computing Department at the Open University is looking for a
Research Associate in the areas of Context and Behaviour Prediction.
The post is available in the EU-funded GAMBAS project. The main
objective of GAMBAS is to develop fundamental technologies for
context-aware, behaviour-driven services for innovative public
transportation applications.

The post holder will conduct internationally-leading research in
algorithms and systems for context and behaviour prediction.  You will
use an experimental systems approach to develop and evaluate location
and behaviour prediction algorithms, and build system infrastructures
for collection and processing of movement and behaviour data.

The post holder will be expected to develop proposals for individual
or joint research and contribute to writing bids for research funding.

To apply you must hold a first degree in the areas of computer
science, human-computer interaction, electronic engineering,
mathematics or a related discipline, and a PhD relevant to the
research area or equivalent qualifications. Also, you should have
demonstrated your research competence through high-quality
publications in top conferences in the area of mobile computing,
pervasive computing, human-computer interaction and/or machine
learning. Strong practical software development skills are required
for both posts.

Informal enquiries may be made to Prof Gerd Kortuem
(http://www.kortuem.com) at the Ubiquitous Computing and
Sustainability Lab, Department of Computing, The Open University.

Closing date: noon on 7 June 2012.

For detailed information, an electronic copy of an application form
and how to apply go to www.open.ac.uk/employment, or call the Staffing
Assistant on +44 (0)1908 654161 or email mct-staffing@open.ac.uk
quoting the reference number.

Further particulars are available in large print, disk or audiotape
(minicom 01908 654901).



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof. Gerd Kortuem
Computing Department, The Open University
email: g.kortuem@open.ac.uk, twitter: @kortuem, mob: +44 7590 490843
http://www.kortuem.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Difficult things like paying for DIS2012

1. Ok procedure for paying on line. 
2. fill in form. 
3. fill in form again
4. fill in form again retyping info again
5. get credit card
6. fill in credit card details 
7. press go
8. Be told there have been too many attempts to pay (this is first).
9. Phone up Barclayard 
10. Answer verification question 
11. Answer verification question 
12. Answer verification question 
13. Answer verification question 
14. Answer verification question 
15. Answer verification question Again
16. Answer verification question 
17. Answer verification question 
18. Press change password ( as instructed) 
19. type in credit card details 
20. type in other details including data of birth. 
21. Get out pass word app on iPhone
22. type app security password
23. type app security password
24. generate new password 
25. fill in new pass word 
26. fill in new password ( verify) 
27. Notice system is asking for 15 letter of 12 letter password
28. type in credit card details 
29. type in other details including data of birth. 
30. Go back to create new password 
31. type app security password
32. type app security password
33. generate new password 
34. fill in new pass word 
35. fill in new password ( verify) 
36. Notice system is asking for pass words of no more than 15 letters
37. Get out pass word app on iPhone
38. Generate new random password of exactly 15 letters.
39. type app security password
40. type app security password
41. generate new password 
42. fill in new pass word 
43. fill in new password ( verify) 
44. fill in new password ( verify) 
45. fill in new password ( verify) 
46. Press close
47. type in  3 letters from new password 
48. press submit
49. type in  3 letters from new password 
50. press submit
51. Success!!!! 

Looks like no one is doing GOMS analysis  here. All this for a £50 saving to Open university.

I'm in a new house and have switched to walking into the physical branch  for most of my online banking needs. Its much simpler and the more I use it ( the more they recognise me) the simpler it gets. 

CHI Quote of the day

Science is method, all else is commentary. 




Notes form lecture 


Theories with a purpose. 
What is technology means to active a purpose. 

1. Technologies consist of combinations of other technologies. ( so Technologies grow exponentially ) 
2. Recursion - technologies have parts that are technologies until 3
3. Technolgies relay on some phenomenon or truism of nature. You don't have to have 

Radical engineering means new principles. 

Technological Agenda 

• the space of needs 
• the space of means

Technology cycle. 

1. Experiments, 
2. Pioneering Architecure
3. Pioneering Products
4. Dominate Design
5. Settler Products

There are only a few times where you can do something big.

Descriptive Camera

Descriptive Camera a fun art project if I ever saw one.

Its like a camera except it prints a description of what the camera sees. The sneaky part is how it does it. No no wizard of oz but quite like it.

More on the shopping channel

Old lab video I found - The notion of Fast and Frugal thinking applied to ubicomp.

Touchless user interfaces

Another curious sales use for Augmented reality. First lego now this - again problems with getting the screen at the right hight ( the lego one was far to high up for kids to use).

Opinion Space

Opinion Space I read this as onion space at first. An example of graphical wisdom of crowds for comments. Something graphical is badly needed. When I read a comments of important issues you get huge numbers of really rubbish statements for each informative insight full one.

Intelligent furniture

Thought this wizard of Oz demo might make a good ubiquitous computing masters project. 

Things you stumble upon on the internet.

Found a link the OU made to one of the internal talks I did.




Its not a bad talk.

The difference between user experience and user interaction explained (some what)

Web 2.0 Summit 2011: Ken Goldberg, "High Order Bit" - YouTube

Web 2.0 Summit 2011: Ken Goldberg, "High Order Bit" - YouTube

This was suggested by a student provocative use of collaborative filtering for idea selection.

DIS paper accepted!!!

We are happy to inform you that your paper

 207 - Kolab: appropriation & improvisation in mobile tangible collaborative interaction

has been accepted to DIS 2012 Long and Short Papers .

We received 449 papers which is about 150 more papers than DIS 2010, and many more than anticipated. We were able to accept only 89 papers due to the time and venue restrictions (so, the acceptance rate was just less than 20%).


This is a good day. 

typing recognition.

One of my research projects ( which is more web than ubicomp) is the development of an on-line compiler for students. One of the problems we have is 'knowing' the student is the one who did the work and the one who turns up for the exam.

For a while I've been wondering about something which looks at mouse and keyboard timing to 'recognise' you. The idea is if you look at the timing of key downs and the inter-key timing for typing on a keyboard it might tell you 2 things
    1. let you discriminate you from someone else and
    2. let you get some inkling about that persons emotional state  ( something for affective computing).

This work on passwords suggests someone has made a full time career out of that idea ( which is great). They want to build a password system without passwords - nice and very user friendly. Eventually they will realise you can have a system which identifies people by their clicking so giving an 'online' identity. This stops someone being kicked out of a forum for abusive behaviour then coming back as someone else ( or  logging on multiple times as different people).

Going back to students for a second - the ability to recognise a student typing code would be a boon. In an exam they have to prove who they are so if we can capture their ID for the exercises then we can check that on line students are who they say they are.