Cloud Computing: A Look into the Past and Future

COM 597 Term Project

David Jones, Matthew Franco and my interactive term project for COM 597 can be viewed at: http://com597termproject.wordpress.com/. Click on the following link to view a copy of the text from our interactive project: COM 597 Term Project Text.

Journal Summary: COM 597

My last assignment in Theories and Practice of Interactivity is to summarize what I learned from the class through our course readings, assignments and lectures.  Although this final task seems easy on the surface, I have to admit that it’s a bit daunting given the massive amount of new and useful material I have digested through the class this quarter.

Our first assignment this quarter was to find an example of good and bad design.  Through this assignment and the corresponding class discussion, I learned that a good design is one that is able to communicate a message to an intended audience without making the audience work too hard to translate the message. As Bill Moggridge highlights on several occasions in his book Designing Interactions, a good designer uses his audience’s existing mental models for this purpose.  I also learned through our first assignment that it is important to know your audience as a designer. What might be considered good design to one audience might be seen as poor design by another audience.

Our second assignment in Theories and Practice of Interactivity was to create wireframes for the homepage and first tier landing page of an existing or potential website. For this assignment I chose to create wireframes for the Delaware Legislature’s website. This assignment taught me that bad design, like Donald Norman accurately states in Emotional Design: Why We Love or Hate Everyday Things, “….can lead to great frusteration, leading to objects that have lives of their own, that refuse to obey, that provide inadequate feedback about their actions…putting anyone who tries to use them in a big, grey funk” (p. 80). This assignment and the corresponding reading assignment also taught me that poor design can usually be avoided through careful planning and usability testing. As Robert Hoekman, Jr. points out in Designing the Obvious, “Improving usability [through utilizing use cases, task-flow diagrams, usability testing, personas, etc.] means improving the chances users will do what you want them to do“ (p. 50).

Our third assignment this quarter was to design an improved classroom environment.  Through this assignment I learned that great design ideas are sometimes built off of impossible or extravagant ones. Through this assignment and the corresponding lecture I also developed a greater appreciation for the design process used by IDEO in which all ideas are welcome, no matter how grandiose or obscure.

Finding and critiquing an example of a poorly designed manmade, non screen-based product that I interact with on a regular basis was the fourth assignment in Theories and Practice of Interactivity. This assignment, coupled with reading Emotional Design: Why We Love or Hate Everyday Things, taught me that design is an ever evolving field that is impacted by trends and fads. In order for most companies to be successful, it is important that they frequently update the design of their products in order to meet the constantly changing preferences and needs of consumers.

Our fifth assignment in class this quarter was to suggest changes to the Media Space and diagram those changes via a task-flow diagram, and our sixth and final weekly assignment was to propose ways for the AT&T developer website to create service envy in the developer community. Both of these assignments taught me that when designing a product, whether a website or toy, it is always critical to question assumptions made about the desires of potential users. In many situations, assumptions made reflect a designer’s own desires and perspectives, not those of his intended audience.  

 Perhaps the most meaningful assignment in Theories and Practice of Interactivity was the term project. Through my group’s term project I learned that designing a sound usability study is a tricky process which requires attention to detail, expertise and careful planning and execution. Before taking Theories and Practice of Interactivity, I took for granted the process behind creating the websites that I love and interact with on a regular basis. Now I truly understand that designing a good website requires a lot of hard work and the combined efforts of designers, programmers, project managers and many others!  

In summary, I will forever be a more critical consumer of poorly designed products and a more appreciative consumer of great designs as a result of taking Theories and Practice of Interactivity. My only regret is not having more time to digest Measuring the User Experience and to talk about how to make sound statistical inferences from usability study findings. Thanks Carolina and Ken for a great quarter!

OpenCongress.org Usability Study Presentation

View the presentation: OpenCongress Class Presentation

View the intro video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjNhtI7V25g

Week 7 Assignment: COM 597 (Service Envy)

This week’s assignment in COM 597 is to propose ways AT&T can create service envy in the mobile applications developer space via its website http://developer.att.com/developer/.

According to Bill Moggridge, in his book Designing Interactions, one of the major challenges of being a service designer is, “to enable people to express who they are through the use of services instead of through ownership of things” (pg. 423). Creating service envy is important for businesses because those who are happy with a service are more likely to stick around in the long run than those who are only attached to specific products.

I don’t know any mobile application developers, but I can speculate as to what a mobile application developer would view as superior service in interacting with a mobile carrier website such as AT&T’s devCentral.  If I was a mobile application developer, I would want to work with a well-organized, informative and straightforward website.  I would not want to interact with Verizon’s mobile application developer website (http://phones.verizonwireless.com/motorola/droid/), which is visually stimulating, but takes time and patience to navigate (meaning less productivity and money).  Rather, I would prefer to interact with Apple’s iPhone developer website (http://developer.apple.com/), which is simple, stylish and full of pertinent and helpful information.  

From the perspective of my untrained eye, it appears devCentral is doing a pretty good job of creating service envy in the mobile application developer space when compared to the competition: it is clean, informative, intuitive and orderly. The website clearly communicates why developing mobile applications for AT&T is profitable and how to become a mobile application developer. The website also provides news on latest trends and devises and a forum for developers to interact with one other. That being said, perhaps devCentral can boost its service envy in the developer community through putting even more effort into connecting mobile application developers via its website.  If devCentral can position itself as the go to place for developers to ask their peers for assistance and feedback, it could become the premier source of up-to-date information for the mobile application developer community. This would ultimately save AT&T customer service and marketing dollars by allowing developers to generate educational information and feedback on devCentral as opposed to relying solely on staff.

Week 6 Assignment: COM597 (Media Space)

For this week’s assignment, I chose to focus on the process required to access an uploaded document on COM 529′s course blog on the Media Space. I find it particularly annoying that I currently have to scroll through all of the group pages in order to access COM 529′s course blog. This is quickly becoming more of an issue as more groups are added to the Media Space. Although my task-flow suggestion won’t decrease the number of clicks required to access a document on COM 529′s course blog, it will reduce the time necessary to access a document from a course blog.

USE CASE FOR IMPROVED VERSION:

Step 1.) From Media Space homepage, user clicks on Course Blogs tab. Tech note: the Course Blogs tab will be added to the tabs located on the right side of the Media Space hompage.

Step 2.) User scrolls through list of course blogs.

Step 3.) User clicks on COM 592 Course Blog link.

Step 4.) User arrives at course blog.

Step 5.) User reviews uploaded course readings that are organized by week assigned.

STep 6.) User clicks on appropriate reading assignment.

BEFORE:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AFTER:

 

 

 

 

 

An interesting article about use cases is located at the following website: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/whatstheproblem/

Project Proposal – OpenCongress.org

Project Proposal

A Case Study: Testing OpenCongress.org’s Usability

Team Members: Chelsey Glasson, David Jones and Matthew Franco

RESEARCH QUESTION

Do the layout and interactive features of OpenCongress.org make it intuitive for citizens to educate themselves on proposed bills, understand relevant issues and participate in the federal legislative process?

OBJECTIVE

Identify any usability issues and design flaws with OpenCongress.org’s layout and participation tools and propose possible changes to the website.

BACKGROUND

OpenCongress.org is a free, open-source online legislative resource created by the Participatory Politics Foundation and the Sunlight Foundation “with a mission to make Congress more transparent and to encourage civic engagement,”(“About OpenCongress,” n.d.). Since its launch in 2007, OpenCongress.org has aimed to achieve its goals by providing access to government data as well as blogs, social networking and community participation tools. The community participation tools include voting tools, used to indicate opposition or support for federal bills and legislator approval ratings, and communication tools, used primarily for connecting users to their elected federal representatives.

RATIONALE

“For all of us to live together peacefully and productively, we must embrace the notion that there be a process of discussion and education before an issue is resolved.  This is an obligation of citizenship that is even more elemental that the act of voting.”

Lee Hamilton
Director, Center on Congress
From “Democracy Relies on Healthy Dialogue”

A vibrant democracy depends not only on an informed populace, but on one that is engaged as well. Most legislative data is available for citizens to review; however, it is difficult for many to find and interpret this information. Before the Internet, the traditional forms of media used to promote the democratic discussion included television, radio and newspapers. Unfortunately, these media forms only provide a unilateral information flow – from sender to receiver. Now that the Internet is widely used, online information and social media is beginning to play a valuable role in enabling average citizens to join the conversation.

Rather than furthering a specific political goal or agenda, OpenCongress.org, a nonprofit and nonpartisan entity, is focused on promoting political awareness and democratic discussion regarding current issues before the United States Congress. Our team finds value in this unbiased approach and is interested in helping to improve OpenCongress.org because it shows great promise in advancing the democratic process.

APPROACH

Our team will explore the proposed research question through a usability study and survey. The study and survey will include both quantitative and qualitative metrics.

The quantitative metrics in the usability study will include the successful completion of pre-defined tasks, and the time needed to complete each task. Our research will implement user study prompts asking participants to 1) locate a specific bill, 2) find pertinent information concerning that specific bill, 3) vote in favor or against that bill, and 4) contact their representatives. Our team may also use FirstClick testing in this approach.

We will also perform a survey at the end of every usability test with the goal of identifying user challenges and design flaws that may not be discovered during the usability test. The survey will also be used to ascertain the probability of user adoption within the user sample group. We will ask participants to rank, via a rating system, certain aspects of their experience using OpenCongress.org. Additionally, we will ask participants open-ended questions as part of the survey.

Possible rating system questions include:

1.) How easy was OpenCongress.org to use?
  a.) Very Easy 
b.) Somewhat Easy 
c.) Difficult 
d.) Very Difficult

2.) Did using OpenCongress.org help you better understand a specified bill? 

a.) Yes
 b.) No

3.) Did using OpenCongress.org help you identify your legislators’ position(s) in supporting or opposing the bill?
a.) Yes 
b.) No

4.) Did using OpenCongress.org strengthen your interest in the federal legislative process? 

a.) Yes 
b.) Somewhat 
c.) No

5.) After using OpenCongress.org, do you feel an increased desire to share your political views with your federal representatives?
a.) Yes 
b.) No

Possible open-ended survey questions include:

1.) Would you use OpenCongress.org again in the future? Why are why not?


2.) Did the interface of OpenCongress.org seem intuitive, streamlined and uniform? Why or why not?


3.) What did you like about OpenCongress.org?


4.) What did you dislike about OpenCongress.org?

STUDY PARTICIPANTS

We have defined two participant user groups for the purpose of our usability study. The first user group will consist of people that currently identify themselves as highly engaged politically and highly informed about the federal legislative process. The second group will include those who consider themselves to be slightly engaged and moderately informed, but may be interested in increasing their knowledge and engagement. Each group will have three to five participants.  We intend on using a total of six to ten participants.

By including a broad range of citizens with varying levels of political involvement and legislative knowledge in our study, we can discover whether or not OpenCongress.org is effectively helping the general citizenry become more engaged in the federal legislative process. We will consider out of scope those who do not share an interest in the federal legislative process because they are not part of the website’s target demographic.

CHALLENGES

There are several likely challenges that we will face in addressing our research question: organizing a diverse test group for our usability test and survey; extracting meaningful results from our small test group; and designing a usability study and survey without access to OpenCongress.org’s website analytics.

Given more time and resources, we would test a larger number of people and conduct a broader usability study using several different metrics. We would also conduct a more thorough review of literature, including case studies, books and academic articles, regarding nonprofits and government entities that have successfully utilized digital media platforms in the past to mobilize and engage the public. Finally, we would compare OpenCongress.org to similar websites were there more time available.

TENTATIVE PAPER OUTLINE

1. Introduction
-Introduce OpenCongress.org 

-Explain why we chose to focus on OpenCongress.org

-Present research question/hypothesis 


2. Approach 

-Outline details of study and survey
-Provide definition of terms
-Present findings of usability study and survey


3. Feedback 

-Provide feedback and suggestions based on findings

4. Conclusion
-What we learned from project
-What we would do differently in the future, suggested future research

 TENTATIVE PROJECT SCHEDULE

Week of 11/03-11/08
- Prepare usability test and survey details

- Recruit study participants

Week of 11/09-11/15
- Conduct usability test and survey

- Prepare outline for presentation

Week of 11/16-11/22
- Write first draft of project paper
- Finalize project presentation

Week of 11/23-11/29
- Project Presentations on 11/23

Week of 11/30-12/06
- Write second draft of project paper, implementing feedback from presentation

Week of 12/07-12/13
- Finish final version of project paper

**12/14: Project Due Date

POTENTIAL PROJECT REFERENCES

Agre, P. E. (2002). Real-time politics: The internet and the political process. The Information Society, 18(5), 311-331. doi:10.1080/01972240290075174

Bakardjieva, M. (2009). Subactivism: Lifeworld and politics in the age of the internet. The Information Society, 25(2), 91-104. doi:10.1080/01972240802701627

Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G., & Williams, J. M. (2008). The craft of research (3rd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hoekman, R. (2007). Designing the obvious: A common sense approach to web application design. Berkeley: New Riders

Shirky, C. (2008). Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations. New York: Penguin Press.

Tullis, T., & Albert, B. (2008). Measuring the user experience : Collecting, analyzing, and presenting usability metrics. Amsterdam; Boston: Elsevier/Morgan Kaufmann.

REFERENCES USED IN THIS PROPOSAL

About OpenCongress. (n.d.). In OpenCongress. Retrieved August 24, 2009, from            http://www.opencongress.org/about#about_information

Hamilton, L. (n.d.). Democracy Relies on Healthy Dialogue. In Center on Congress at Indiana University. Retrieved August 23, 2009, from http://congress.indiana.edu/radio_commentaries/democracy_relies_on_healthy_d ialogue.php

Week 4 Assignment: COM592 (Classroom Design Project)

COM597 – Theories and Practice of Interactivity
October 26, 2009

As a second part to this week’s COM 592 class assignment, we were asked to propose a design solution for a new classroom/learning experience based on feedback from an in-class brainstorming session. My design below follows the suggestion of a classroom roundtable model where all students and faculty face one another with the goal of increasing class participation and engagement. I also integrated the idea of a projector in the open space in the middle of the desks that can display content, of faculty and students’ choice, at numerous angles. I think the projector should live in and hang from the ceiling where it won’t prevent students and teachers from seeing each other and won’t be a distraction.

I also like the idea of computers built into every desk and cup holders in the classroom seats. Cup holders in the seats will help prevent the accidental spilling of liquids on the computer screens and desks. Durable, touch sensitive computer screens will allow students to take notes, access course materials, and provide live feedback (via Twitter or other forums). Students can access their personalized computer interface and  documents via their MyUW account. Or, they can login to their own computers remotely if they are attached to specific software and other features. If students and teachers want to use their desks in a traditional way, without using the computer, they can simply choose not to turn the computer on or to disable the touch screen.

Week 4 Assignment: COM597 (Bad Usability)

COM597 – Theories and Practice of Interactivity
October 25, 2009

This past week in Theories and Practice of Interactivity Media, the focus has been on usability, which is defined by Wikipedia as, “a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal.” In order to fulfill this week’s class assignment of providing an example of bad usability, the following blog post focuses on Comcast’s digital cable remote control.

My husband and I decided to sign up for Comcast cable about two weeks ago after not having had cable for well over two months (as a result of our recent move back to Seattle). Given my new, busy academic schedule I hadn’t had much time to enjoy our new cable service until this weekend. Unfortunately my excitement for having free time to watch a quick TV show quickly dissipated once I grabbed the Comcast digital cable remote control. Without going into too much detail—at the risk of probably embarrassing myself—let’s just say I had a few problems with using the new remote control. That being said, the following is a brief overview of why I think Comcast’s digital cable remote control is a good example of bad usability design.

The first thing I noticed about my Comcast digital cable remote control is the overwhelming number of buttons on the control (I counted—there are 53). The remote also features seven different colors and at least nine different shapes which I think are too excessive for such a small instrument. Although it appears Comcast was trying to make its digital remote control easier to use by providing numerous options and visual cues, in my view it is too complicated and busy.

I also quickly noticed while using my Comcast digital cable remote control that the buttons I did not need happened to be the buttons my eyes chose to gravitate towards as a result of button coloring, size and placement. This meant that I had to review almost each and every button before making general sense of the remote’s layout for the purpose of feeling confident in putting the remote to use to satisfy my wants. As a consumer who expects efficiency and fast results in many different types of settings, I wasn’t too fond of this. Especially given that my eyes were drawn to buttons that didn’t even work on my TV, such as the buttons devoted to DVR service.

The buttons I most frequently used during my brief encounter with my new Comcast digital cable remote control this weekend include: last, power, page up and down, enter, volume and guide. While using my remote, I quickly became frustrated with the fact that I had to always turn my head downwards, away from the TV, to look at the remote in order to locate most of these buttons because they were all placed in different sections of the remote. I also didn’t like the fact that there is no backlighting on the remote which means I can’t see the buttons without sufficient lighting. I tend to agree with one remote user who posted on Comcast’s user blog that, “my impression of these remotes is that they are trying to make every function a first-order action and aren’t at all considering the frequency of use (or the ‘feel in the dark’ aspect).” In other words, although the organization of the remote is pleasing to the naked eye, the remote layout is annoying when the remote is put to use.

In all honestly, Comcast’s digital remote control is not that horrible when compared to other examples of poor usability. However, its quirks can be rather frustrating when a sleep-deprived, irritable user can’t effortlessly satisfy her need for a quick brain-numbing TV splurge.  At least I feel some reassurance in knowing I’m not alone in feeling that Comcast’s digital remote control is not very user friendly and can be simplified: http://blog.comcast.com/2009/04/comcast-remote-love-hate.html. Just for fun, here is a video of someone trying to destroy a Comcast digital remote control with a blender: http://www.vimeo.com/5678069.

On a final note, I do like the weight and feel of the remote and I feel it is obvious that Comcast put a lot of effort in trying to make its remote user friendly. I also like the fact that it appears Comcast seems to be listening and responding to consumers who have made critical comments about its digital remote control.

Week 3 Assignment: COM597 (Wireframes)

This week’s assignment in COM597 was to create wireframes for the homepage and first tier landing page of  an existing website. I chose to create wireframes for http://legis.delaware.gov, the Delaware Legislature’s website.

The Delaware Legislature’s website is packed with information that is presented in an overwhelming and unorganized fashion. The main goal of my wireframes was to create a simpler version of the website that offered easier navigation through the use of subnavigation buttons. I also tried to make the website more visually appealing. The picture on the left is the Delaware Legislature’s homepage and the picture on the right is the first tier landing page for general information about the Legislature.

On a final note, I found the following website a great resource when creating my wireframes: http://randaclay.com/design/new-web-site-start-with-a-wireframe/.