Showing posts with label course. Show all posts
Showing posts with label course. Show all posts
Monday, October 11, 2010
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
M801 project Ideas
M801 Project Ideas
It takes me about a day to write one up. I thought I would dump my current idea list up.
1. People as streets. Trying to produce flat representations for non flat graphs. Get students to try to develop mechanisms to layout arbitrary graphs as axial representations.
2. [IN] Cognitive Maps ( Sketch Maps ) for long term user interface analysis. Get people to draw maps of the user interface for commonly used programs like Word or Excel ( or 3D program or IDE ). Use reference to sketch mapping ( Lynch).
4. Sketchy display of user interface elements to facilitate GUI requirements engineering.
3.Future Finder.Containment layout algorithms. How to layout rectangles in the most efficient way while not spending all day doing it.
4. ReCctor vision - implementing something in reactor vision. Embodies displays.
5. Algorithms for GPU. Thinking about concurrent program what kinds of mischief can we get up to. Searching sorting anything that isn't a graphical rendering algorithum.
6. Advanced documentation. Implement a doclet to add visualisation and getting started to java doc code.
8. CSP - a like ASP or PHP but embeds C into HTML text. Runs compiler that produces a CGI.
It takes me about a day to write one up. I thought I would dump my current idea list up.
1. People as streets. Trying to produce flat representations for non flat graphs. Get students to try to develop mechanisms to layout arbitrary graphs as axial representations.
2. [IN] Cognitive Maps ( Sketch Maps ) for long term user interface analysis. Get people to draw maps of the user interface for commonly used programs like Word or Excel ( or 3D program or IDE ). Use reference to sketch mapping ( Lynch).
4. Sketchy display of user interface elements to facilitate GUI requirements engineering.
3.Future Finder.Containment layout algorithms. How to layout rectangles in the most efficient way while not spending all day doing it.
4. ReCctor vision - implementing something in reactor vision. Embodies displays.
5. Algorithms for GPU. Thinking about concurrent program what kinds of mischief can we get up to. Searching sorting anything that isn't a graphical rendering algorithum.
6. Advanced documentation. Implement a doclet to add visualisation and getting started to java doc code.
8. CSP - a like ASP or PHP but embeds C into HTML text. Runs compiler that produces a CGI.
Friday, January 19, 2007
OU DVD so cool
I was watching the very excellent intro to the OU user interface design course. It was so wonderful it even had the bit with Tog putting salt into his coffee and falling into the literal basment. I must have seen that years ago and it all stuck in my mind. It was so cool if a little padded in the shoulders. Hay and the academic consultant was Simon the guy I share an office with now is that enough to freak you out or not?
Look back I think I have problems with the basic premise.
The essential background premise of program one was that you had a known user and have to provide then with some specific activity. Sounds basic and it is kind of right.
This does make things easy but it also ignores a second segment of development that is creating tools and facilities. For example did the inventor of the wordprocessor go out and try to develop a tool for writers? If someone asked you do something like this would you end up with something as general as a word processor. Surely the user testing with a number of authors would lead you to making a less general tool and produce something overly tailored to the task of the author.
As for facilities imagine creating a website to look a train time table, one might get side tracked talking to the people who look up train times and book them at a station. Clearly you can do a lot of the process of story boarding, not to mention testing. I still feel there is a difference working with people (experts) who know what they want what they do and non experts who aren’t sure what they want.
This is what used to be called technology push and market pull. Infact I think the best products sit nicely in the middle, think Google, eveyone wanted better searches and the google guys had the right social recogmentation technology.
For example take the process of designing a dating website. This might begin by noticing a number of faults with either other dating websites or dwell up on the problems that prevent a dateing website from being started. Perhaps you think what about a website where you enter in all your friends email address and the machine looks for a match between yours and someone else. If the machine finds a match then it emails the intermediary. The intermediary then answers the question is A suited to B. This would you think over come the perceived danger of meeting a deranged maniac. This would be a example of technology push with a sprinkling of market pull.
I guess the central problem is where the innovation happens. When the user interface designer is approached with a proposal then the innovation has already happened. This has defined the problem and the client ‘knows’ the solution, even if it is the wrong solution.
How might I start ?I think I would find some well known software disasters (Child Support Agency, Bull Ring) and find the ones where the wrong user interface killed the project.
may be I'm thinking about it to much, or many be things have changed.
Still just my own stupid impression be intreasting to see what people are going to do to revise it.
Am I insulting enough people here?
Look back I think I have problems with the basic premise.
The essential background premise of program one was that you had a known user and have to provide then with some specific activity. Sounds basic and it is kind of right.
This does make things easy but it also ignores a second segment of development that is creating tools and facilities. For example did the inventor of the wordprocessor go out and try to develop a tool for writers? If someone asked you do something like this would you end up with something as general as a word processor. Surely the user testing with a number of authors would lead you to making a less general tool and produce something overly tailored to the task of the author.
As for facilities imagine creating a website to look a train time table, one might get side tracked talking to the people who look up train times and book them at a station. Clearly you can do a lot of the process of story boarding, not to mention testing. I still feel there is a difference working with people (experts) who know what they want what they do and non experts who aren’t sure what they want.
This is what used to be called technology push and market pull. Infact I think the best products sit nicely in the middle, think Google, eveyone wanted better searches and the google guys had the right social recogmentation technology.
For example take the process of designing a dating website. This might begin by noticing a number of faults with either other dating websites or dwell up on the problems that prevent a dateing website from being started. Perhaps you think what about a website where you enter in all your friends email address and the machine looks for a match between yours and someone else. If the machine finds a match then it emails the intermediary. The intermediary then answers the question is A suited to B. This would you think over come the perceived danger of meeting a deranged maniac. This would be a example of technology push with a sprinkling of market pull.
I guess the central problem is where the innovation happens. When the user interface designer is approached with a proposal then the innovation has already happened. This has defined the problem and the client ‘knows’ the solution, even if it is the wrong solution.
How might I start ?I think I would find some well known software disasters (Child Support Agency, Bull Ring) and find the ones where the wrong user interface killed the project.
may be I'm thinking about it to much, or many be things have changed.
Still just my own stupid impression be intreasting to see what people are going to do to revise it.
Am I insulting enough people here?
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