114 Matching Annotations
  1. May 2020
    1. This will lead to a substantial increase in ∣I1∣ |I1| ∣I1∣

      What does this mean? Substantial increase in number of interface elements of I1? Wouldn't it be the other way around? Inadequate interface coz it couldn't comply with new N2 needs?

    2. One of the reasons for this complication is the temporal decoupling of needs and interface.

      The word temporal decoupling packs a punch! Powerful! Would be better to add in brackets (separation/disengagement of needs and interface over time)

    3. Over a longer period of time  T T T , there will be significant changes in processes and even technologies that will provide new interaction paradigms and affordances that were not available before. This will lead to major changes in needs N1 N1 N1 that will have a sizeable impact on its cardinality

      How?

    4. These incremental changes in needs will also lead to incremental changes in the interface {in} \{i_n \} {in​}  leading to a change in ∣I1∣ |I1| ∣I1∣

      Are these changes changes in quantity of needs, as in addition of new needs or change in existing ones? If the quantity remains the same but just the nature of the existing ones changes does cardinality change?

    5. To begin with, let us consider a smaller time-span Δt \Delta t Δt  during which we don't have major changes in technology or business. Accordingly, we will begin with considering incremental needs that do change ∣N1∣ |N1| ∣N1∣ but not in a sizeable manner. These incremental changes in needs will also lead to incremental changes in the interface {in} \{i_n \} {in​}  leading to a change in ∣I1∣ |I1| ∣I1∣.

      Why? Why are we doing this?

    6. The word mapping here does not imply a bijection between the sets.

      What's bijection?

    7. cardinality

      small one paragraph refresher on set theory for folks who have forgotten all this, like what's cardinality (no of elements in the set)?

    8. We will then use this structure to examine various possibilities when we decouple needs and interface.

      Would be helpful to know if you could briefly describe the significance of doing all this. Like you know the end outcome, goal. The climax of the story. Bring it upfront as to what gains are there for a person to understand/use this method? Or maybe describe what benefits did you get, how did it change how you think/feel/know interfaces

    9. I'll begin with establishing an abstract structure between needs and interface using basic mathematical concepts.

      Thanks for the warning :D. Feels good to know beforehand math is coming

    10. using design methods which follow the theory-practice binary

      Would it be helpful if you added 2-3 lines on "theory-practice binary"

  2. Oct 2019
    1. Maybe you want to have some friends over… But must you really serve them food and wine? If you get tired or bored of the chatter, would it not be more authentic to take a little nap in the middle of the party? Or kick them out? Existentialism demands that we ask ourselves repeatedly: Why am I acting this way? What do I truly want to do? It’s only in the perpetual asking of these questions that you can arrive at a glimmer of authenticity and, perhaps, meaning.

      Lol, I'm gonna do this one day

    2. Within the struggle, we gain a purpose, and feel sometimes something like happiness. It’s not natural. It’s hard-won. And therein lies the beauty.

      But the happiness only comes when we win, say all you want but the journey to it doesn't give happiness at all. Day to day seeing your efforts in vain does not give joy, ever!

    3. Continuing in the face of futility is a revolt, and that’s meaningful. Consciousness of life’s smallness and persistence transforms Sisyphus from apparent doomed fool to the philosophical hero of Camus.

      But it is also fucking exhausting

    4. “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

      puh-lease no one enjoys struggle

  3. Apr 2019
  4. www.interaction-design.org www.interaction-design.org
    1. These four types of affordances are mapped to Norman’s model of action: a need for cognitive and sensory affordances is located at the step of moving from an intention to act to planning a sequence of actions

      So for helping people develop an intention to act and for them to plan a sequence of actions use good labels

    2. cognitive affordance

      Norman's perceived affordance becomes cognitive affordance = labels.

    3. Norman (1986, 1988) describes the structure of human action as an execution-evaluation cycle comprising seven stages: (1) setting a goal, (2) developing an intention to act, (3) planning a sequence of actions, (4) executing the sequence of actions, (5) perceiving the state of the world caused by the execution of the action sequence, (6) interpreting the perception, and (7) evaluating the interpretation. If the goal is achieved, the action is completed. If not, the cycle is repeated over again or the action is terminated.

      usability in short

  5. Mar 2019
    1. A useful tool for establishing causal links between antecedents and outcomes is counterfactual thinking, or considerations of ‘‘what might have been” (

      Hmm so establish user goals, i.e the outcome and the things the user did from research and to establish link between them think "What might have been" If only I had..., If only I had not...

    1. A fourth principleis that even though people tend to keep in mind justtrue possibilities, they can think about what might havebeen because they can envisage possibilities that once

      aha so multi-stability indicates a connection of past usage, one that was replaced with. Ones that existed before but no longer.

      Hence it's important to ask how did they deal with it earlier, a history of similar tool usage, coping mechanisms as that will help us find out what kind of alternatives might be conceivable for our users

    2. The critical psychological difference between factualand counterfactual conditionals may lie in the possibilitiesthat people think about.

      hmm

  6. Oct 2018
    1. I described them theoretically as a mapping from the sensory, cognitive, and social human world to these collections of functions exposed by a computer program

      Another great def

    1. Now, if every individual widget in a user interface is its own self-contained model-view-controller architecture, how are all of these individual widgets composed together into a user interface? There are three big ideas that stitch together individual widgets into an entire interface

      Wow so that's how it gets complex to design, maybe that's why you have design system

    1. In other words, how you design a user interface can change society, in addition to providing functionality. Apple's Face ID, for example, may be a convenient alternative to passwords, but it may also lead to transformations in how society thinks of privacy and identity.

      This kind of perspective is sorely missing from design practioner's day-to-day work.

  7. Jul 2018
    1. In Prosch's view, it was a recovery of belief in transcendent ideals that grounds a free society; this recovery most concerned Polanyi. Polanyi argued, "we needed to develop an epistemology adequate to humane thought and to use it in the reformation of those views of man which will lend an ontological basis for his grasp of his own dignity and high calling in the universe."
    2. Polanyi believed that it was possible to preserve a basic polycentric system and yet also make significant socially desirable modifications of the system of spontaneous order that the market establishes. Nevertheless, Polanyi recognized that even while humans work for the moral improvement of society "we must acknowledge that we can reduce unjust privileges only by graded states, and never completely."
    3. Prosch neglects to emphasize that Polanyi uses the term broadly to point to the opportunities that are present in any person's historicalsocial setting. Polanyi consistently resists deterministic modern historicist views and Prosch should make such convictions clearer.
    4. He discusses Polanyi's account of freedom and his criticisms of Marxism, fascism, utilitarianism, and pragmatism as popular modern perspectives that all fail to recognize the importance of specialized communities (e.g., science, law, religion, etc.) that serve transcendent ideals.
    5. all of the broader human endeavors of the noösphere that Polanyi affirms as worthy pursuits are possible only in a certain kind of social environment. Thus Polanyi was vigilantly "concerned about securing the conditions essential for these activities."
    6. Their validity therefore rests for him precisely in their power to do this and to continue to do this for us
    7. The meanings of symbols and art are thus a special class of meanings that Polanyi designated "transnatural," and the transnatural meanings of works of art are set off from the ordinary run of daily life in which the indicative integrations of perception and non-symbolic inquiry are normative. The self-giving integrations of representational arts thus always involve incompatibility and require imagination in a way that self-centered integrations which produce natural meaning do not.
    8. Metaphors are meaning structures that require imaginative participation and they move us: "Metaphors, through our participation in them, literally establish meaning in our lives—a meaning that could never be established through perception or scientific knowing, and certainly never rendered explicit and 'told' in any prosaic fashion.
    9. Self-giving integrations thus involve a kind of engagement or participation that is not present in self-centered integrations.
    10. The subsidiary particulars of self-giving integrations are intrinsically interesting, unlike the focal object of such integrations; such integrations produce meaning that moves us deeply because the focal object is a perceptual embodiment of diffuse memories and other inchoate but emotionally important matters
    11. Polanyi late in life came to distinguish the class of tacit knowing operations involved in normal sign operations (indication) from symbolic operations, calling the integrations that recognize symbolic meaning "self-giving" as opposed to the "selfcentered" integrations of indication ("self-centered" here does not suggest an egotistical focusing upon oneself but refers to the way the self participates in the processes of integration).
    12. But Prosch wants to make plain his view that "Polanyi, of course, never lost sight of the fact that there are differences between the integrations and realities forming the noösphere and those existing prior to the noösphere.
    13. the meaningful integrations achieved by man in the noösphere form a continuum with those achieved in perception and knowledge, in the sense that they are all examples of the tacit triad: (1) a mind (2) dwelling in subsidiary clues and (3) creating a meaningful integration of these clues into a focally known whole.214
    14. He summarizes Polanyi's ideas about the operation of principles within boundary conditions and his account of "ontological hierarchies as structuring everything."211 He outlines Polanyi's notions about the "achievement" of living beings, which is for Polanyi an "essential concept."212 He summarizes Polanyi's criticisms of the reductionistic accounts of evolution in his time.
    15. the key to discovery is understanding how scientists come up with good problems. Prosch lays out Polanyi's views about discerning good problems, as well as the way Polanyi emphasizes commitment and universal intent, and the passionate and deeply personal nature of the discover's contact with reality.
    16. Polanyi built his conception upon ideas first developed in Gestalt psychology's partial rejection of mechanical approaches to perception, but he also rejected Gestalt notions about spontaneous equilibration. Prosch discusses how Polanyi conceived the operation of signs: they "function as clues and are known in a subsidiary way as bearing upon a meaningful integration of them forming that which is known in a focal way.
    17. The second section of Prosch's book moves from a review of Polanyi's diagnosis of the sickness of the modern mind to a fivechapter discussion of his prescription to cure the sickness. The cure was, of course, to develop a new understanding of knowledge and how persons acquire knowledge. All of these chapters treat important topics as they build on each other. First Prosch sets forth Polanyi's ideas about how tacit knowing operates at a foundational level in human perception. He then moves to a broader discussion of Polanyi's account of indwelling and generalization, followed by his analysis of Polanyi's ideas about scientific discovery and the problems of verification.
    18. . Polanyi saw the modern obsession with exactitude and countered it by hinting at the value of the inexact in most areas of inquiry.
    19. Prosch very aptly describes Polanyi's sense that intellectuals and others in the twentieth century acquired an "all-pervasive moral dissatisfaction" 202 with everything about modern industrial civilization.
    20. the simple fact that cognitive activity is a social phenomenon does not entail that it is bogus or that its results are unreliable.
    21. social and political considerations factor into the discovery and formulation of knowledge," but Polanyi takes a quite different stand regarding the "proper interpretation of the significance of such factors
    22. Gill argues, for example, that Polanyi's discussions of language, tacit knowing, and meaning do not, like the deconstructivists, "overshoot the mark."172 "The dynamics of tacit knowing preclude the possibility that any symbol can be thought of as attached to any referent in a permanent manner. Just as reality continuously reveals itself, so do linguistic meanings."
    23. Polanyi's approach to knowing is one that emphasizes that "knowing can and must have a place to begin that neither guarantees certainty nor leads to subjectivism.
    24. how Polanyi's philosophy has "heuristic threads" running throughout that touch "the theme of finding, discovering, growing, expanding, [and] enriching."138 He nicely captures Polanyi's optimism and realism about human beings: Polanyi is a thinker "who sets before us the opportunity for unlimited exploration if we can learn to live with the infinite under the conditions of finite existence."139 Gelwick's discussions outline the finer details of Polanyi's ideas but he also always is keenly attuned to the broadest parameters of Polanyi's philosophy: "Viewed in its totality, Polanyi's philosophy is one that is aimed primarily at the equipping and encouraging of humans in the unending task of pursuing meaning and truth."14
    25. Thus by "following through the nature of discovery, we are led to a total rethinking of the general ideal of knowledge in our culture.
    26. Gelwick also shows that Polanyi found in Gestalt psychology some clues to the way creative imagination plays into the problem of scientific discovery. Gestalt thinkers recognized that seeing a pattern involves the creation of a coherent whole (itself more than the sum of its parts, or pieces), but "Gestalt psychology had stopped at a more mechanistic point and had regarded perception to be an internal equilibration of external stimuli."127 What Polanyi added was the conclusion that seeing a pattern "is the outcome of an intentional effort of the person to find order in reality.
    27. Polanyi thought that the selection of a problem to investigate was a key factor in discovery. Often the importance of a problem was not recognizable until after a discovery. Polanyi's experience taught him that strictness and rigor of procedure were secondary to creative imagination in scientific work and that this meant that matters of personal judgment were deeply a part of scientific discovery.
    28. Gelwick argues that Polanyi always respected the methods of science but, based on his experience as a scientist, increasingly came to disagree with the common views projected by objectivism about the methods of science. Polanyi turned toward discovery as the key to science and he realized that not much work had been done on discovery.
    29. Polanyi reasserted that "science progresses by guessing at aspects of reality indicated by clues in what is seen and heard, just as we guess that certain sounds indicate the presence of a real burglar and go to look.
    30. Polanyi's notion of "reality" is not a simple notion that focuses on tangibility: "we recognize something as real because it draws us on, makes us feel an obligation to search and discover, rewards us by revealing more and unexpected but recognisable meaning."87 Minds are, for Polanyi, more richly real than cobblestones, and we can know rich realities only by deeply dwelling in their particulars.
    31. Not all knowledge is explicit, exact, and testable, Polanyi argues, but all that is explicit, exact, and testable relies upon tacit elements used by a knower to attend to what is of interest. By carefully discussing skills, Scott shows how Polanyi broadens and reworks the traditional understanding of acquiring and holding knowledge. She discusses Polanyi's interest in the practical, skillful, and bodily elements of all knowing by reinterpreting Gestalt ideas and partwhole dynamics:
    32. Mitchell emphasizes how tradition is always linked to a community that embraces and passes forward valued practices and ideals: ". . . knowing requires the existence of a society committed to a particular tradition and engaged in passing it on.
    33. First there is a discussion of what Polanyi draws from Augustine, the recognition of the "indispensable role belief plays in all knowing." 37 But according to Mitchell, "while Polanyi embraces an Augustinian approach to epistemology, he is decidedly non- Augustinian in his view of social progress
    34. Out of his interest in belief and commitment grows a richer understanding of what Polanyi later called the "structure of tacit knowing."36 The sections in Mitchell's chapter are meant to mirror this development in Polanyi's ideas.
    35. Mitchell clearly sets forth Polanyi's account of the moral and political implications of objectivism, showing how the turn to modern philosophical suppositions ultimately leads to what Polanyi calls "moral inversion," which is a "combination of skeptical rationalism and moral perfectionism.
    36. n science, Polanyi argues that "individual freedom is restrained by an authority that is created by the practioners themselves but it is ultimately rooted in a common commitment to transcendent ideals
    37. Polanyi is not a garden-variety libertarian opposing totalitarianism. His early writing provides a liberal vision of an evolving, pluralistic society in which human beings take on responsibility within the many specialized communities of interest like science and the law, and the work of such sub-cultural groups benefits society as a whole. This vision is an application of Polanyi's support of polycentricity as it pertains to moral and intellectual rather than primarily economic matters.
    38. Polanyi's position is that "[c]apitalism is the only viable option, but this does not imply that the state has no role beyond enforcing contracts and preventing fraud. On the contrary, the state can work (albeit at the margins) to ensure that the market operates as effectively as possible."22 Mitchell nicely summarizes Polanyi's ideas about how the government might influence the money supply to affect the employment rate. This is a synthesis of Keynesian and monetarist economics that went largely unrecognized by economists of his time.
    39. how the modern conception of knowledge contributes to the political and moral problems of the twentieth century.
    40. I somewhat expand my discussion of Harry Prosch's Michael Polanyi, A Critical Exposition not only because it is an interesting and valuable book, but because its author was co-author with Michael Polanyi of Polanyi's final book, Meaning.
    41. There is, however, an array of secondary literature that anyone initially put off by Polanyi's texts should know is available. An overview as well as some detail about Polanyi's ideas can be helpful to prospective Polanyi readers. My purpose here is to review some of the best of this secondary literature, which puts Polanyi's ideas in a context and shows their scope and coherence.
    42. Polanyi's real agenda was not only to criticize some of the popular philosophical approaches of the mid-twentieth century but to attack some of the assumptions of the modern turn in philosophy beginning in the seventeenth century. Polanyi attacks some Enlightenment values, but he affirms other Enlightenment values. Therefore, grasping the contours of his constructive philosophical alternative to "objectivism" in Personal Knowledge is not easy.
  8. May 2018
    1. The MVPs are evaluated in terms of the current ways in which they are being used; they are not being evaluated as (prospective) designs. Certainly these platforms are not finished products; there is a clear sense that they remain in-process; ever-frequent updates and even complete pivots will be made. In this sense, prototyping is no longer a stage within design, but the only outcome of design. Without forethought, prior evaluation, whether against a strong vision, or of consequential risk, is this still design? Is designing as foreseeing disappearing beneath permanent iteration?
    2. Designing is the process of making futures (see the important Open University textbook Man-Made Futures, [8]). There are at least two distinct aspects to this process. Each aims at a different sense of “the possible” or what it means “to create.” One is disruptively innovative; it seeks to break with how things currently are, open up the new. The other is more instrumentally pragmatic; it seeks to work out how current things might be transformed, what it is practicable to make.

      Making futures? Haha. For UX and UI it's futures of convenience then

    1. They can enable individuals to reflect on the personal and social impact of new technologies, and provide a provocative, speculative, and rich vision of our technological future that avoids the clichés of consumerist-oriented industrial design.

      Although this article emphasized the difference between critical design and critical making, the later being more process oriented and involving information systems than only physical objects I wish the author could have illustrated that with an example. How to make a digital object critically? How to think of UI design patterns critically? All the tacit knowledge a UI and UXer is expected to have in order to get hired and that they use everyday. If the aim of critical making of information systems concern is to uncover the embedded values in software and the process of designing of software than it also needs to question the industry jargon and process which forms the lived experience of designers everyday.

    2. Critically engaged language can do detailed surgery on a topic, but critical objects can hit like an emotional sledgehammer if thoughtfully implemented.

      Also they give an opportunity to create work, professsions, hobbies. Entire groups of people can organize their time and energies around the creation and maintenance of that object. Communities could willingly decrease the complexity of their needs by negotiation of values in objects in order to create lower thresholds to economic participation

    3. reflection on unconscious values embedded in computing and the practices that it supports can and should be a core principle of technology design

      Yes but how? What if one doesn't even have the vocabulary and lived experience to identify that value and it's influence?

    4. Values in design is an approach to studying sociotechnical systems from the perspective of values, and starts from the assumption that technology is never neutral

      Ahh so similar to Shannon Vallor's virtue epistemology approach to tech? https://global.oup.com/academic/product/technology-and-the-virtues-9780190498511?cc=in&lang=en&

    5. Ratto wanted the term to act as glue between conceptual and linguistic-oriented thinking and physical and materially based making with an emphasis on introducing hands-on practice to scholars that were primarily working through language and texts, such as those in the fields of communication, information studies, and science and technology studies
  9. Apr 2018
    1. The Gulf of Evaluation is when users try to understand what state they are in and whether their actions were successful. The app addresses the Gulf of Evaluation by providing feedback and letting users know their actions were successful. For example, when users add or remove meditations to their own playlist, a feedback notification pops-up confirming the user’s action.

      Nice! Could use gulf of evaluation and execution for usability review

    2. However, the application provided different lengths of mediations including five-minute meditations. The app thus allowed users to match their desired level of difficulties. The different lengths of meditations cater not only to users with limited time but also for users like myself who do not have the skill set to meditate for longer periods of time.

      This could come under Strengths, or greatest asset

    3. Hence, the app looks beyond why people are downloading the app, which is in this case to meditate, and goes further by looking at the root cause of why they are trying to meditate.

      This seems to fit under "Key objective" o

    4. The principle of the app follows one of Norman’s principles of design, which is to design for “human behavior the way it is, not the way we wish it to be” (Norman, Pg. 6).

      Overarching principle behind the entire app. Good idea to put that upfront.

    5. In this day and age, people are extremely busy and can find it hard to find the space and time to meditate. The meditation app Simple Habit is specifically designed to cater for that by providing on-the-go meditations.

      The situation that leads to the problem. Situation: extreme business Problem: unable to meditate

  10. Jun 2017
    1. For instance, a set of stairs does not just afford climbing, but based on the angle of construction, may facilitate an easy climb, pose challenges to climbing, or be unclimbable entirely

      Ah so an object may have a property that gives clues to people to do something, but do it so poorly that it may appear that the object doesn't have the affordance

  11. Mar 2017
    1. The result of this externalization, Blair notes, is that we come to think of long-term memory as something that is stored elsewhere, in “media outside the mind.” At the same time, she writes, “notes must be rememorated or absorbed in the short-term memory at least enough to be intelligently integrated into an argument; judgment can only be applied to experiences that are present to the mind.”

      Indeed memory is being atrophied as a result of easy to access externalization, the temptation to just offload it onto the computer makes the forgetting curve even sharper. The concepts don't present to the mind when needed because since we didn't commit to our memory we can hardly perceive correlations to what we previously read. Simply we miss our chances to recall & connect new concepts and knowledge because we don't commit them to our memory.

    1. On the other hand, because the identities depend on technology for their presence in the world, they may, in fact, be anti-human human-identities. In other words, though they are identities which humans can pursue through the mediation of technology, the pursuit of such identities may be detrimental to the humans who pursue them.

      Yes! completely agree on that, for example the fake identities in leaderboards in games, social media identities - followers, bio, tweets, a picture, following, mutual followers & followings, like, retweets.

    1. My perception is informed by my ability (or lack of ability) to move.

      Understanding what participants perceive in what they lack and how but most importantly why they perceive that could give insights into identifying problems

    2. I see and understand an object in terms of what I can do with it.

      most important line in phen with regards to IxD

    1. One implication of the naturalness with which we divide cognitive labor,” they write, is that there’s “no sharp boundary between one person’s ideas and knowledge” and “those of other members” of the group.
    2. Among the other half, suddenly people became a lot more critical. Nearly sixty per cent now rejected the responses that they’d earlier been satisfied with.

      great experiment to see your thoughts expressed from another head

    3. As is often the case with psychological studies, the whole setup was a put-on.

      ha!

    1. his ongoing efforts show that it is possible to have a satisfying and safe user experience while using federated alternatives, this is only possible because, unlike any other XMPP client developers, he is in the position of working on this project full time. The problem has not been solved but shifted. If economically sustainable XMPP federation were to scale to the point of being as successful as the centralised solution offered by Signal, it would have to face the consequences of doing so in the context of a free market driven by competition. In that situation, each XMMP client's economic viability would depend heavily on its capacity to capture enough users that can provide income for their developers. The problem therefore is not so much a problem of the technical or economical sustainability of federation, but more a problem of the economic sustainability of open standards and protocols in a world saturated with solutionist business models

      The inconvenient reality of open source: hungry devs.

    1. She was the same person. But her situation—her environment—was different, so she acted differently.
    2. No, one afternoon, she rearranged her office. Now, when people came to see her, she had to turn completely around to face them. Her computer was totally out of sight. No more email temptation.
    1. When we are playing the role of observer, which is largely when we look at others, we make this fundamental attribution error. When we are thinking about ourselves, however, we will tend to make situational attributions
    2. “When we are trying to understand and explain what happens in social settings, we tend to view behavior as a particularly significant factor. We then tend to explain behavior in terms of internal disposition, such as personality traits, abilities, motives, etc. as opposed to external situational factors. This can be due to our focus on the person more than their situation, about which we may know very little. We also know little about how they are interpreting the situation.
    1. Governments don’t really mention that monetary policy agenda. It isn’t catchy enough. Rather, the key weapons used by the alliance are more classic shock-and-awe scare tactics. Cash is used by criminals! People buy drugs with cash! It’s the black economy! It supports tax evasion!

      haha modi's black money

    2. Not all cards are created equal, even if you can get one – and not everyone can.

      Insightful, the company with the most market share would be the most readily available...

    1. In examining the context sensitivity of a word, researchers can present information inthe vignette to establish the discourse context and set the target concept. Being in a casual settingmay communicate to the reader that the epistemic standards of the discourse context are low.

      So I have to be mindful of the setting in in which I am asking or probing the question, statement by which the user is assuming the epistemic standards of the discourse context. Casual context in a conversation compared to high pressure client work in terms of taskly. Therefore to truly understand the relevance of a feature to their goals, experience or rather the relevance of the design of the feature i.e objects, operations, attribute names & values to the target experience and goals and vice versa i.e the relevance of a goal, experience to a certain feature or the design feature I HAVE TO BE MINDFUL IN SETTING THE DISCOURSE CONTEXT

    2. If we are interested in studying a complex concept, wecan examine  participants’ integration of a set of concepts that merely approximate its trueconstituent concepts

      So suppose a calendar application allows scheduling and has a list of objects, operations, attribute names & values for it.

      I can test if a certain attribute name, value, objects, operation should be a constituent or not by testing for false recall of the lexicalization

    1. Actions are implemented through automatic operations. Operations do not have their own goals; rather they provide an adjustment of actions to current situations.

      Attribute

    1. The discourse legitimates alienation from the artifact functioning by limiting user’s interest to being merely consumers of the commodity things provide (

      YES!! Sadly most of UX in commercial setting.

    2. al possibilities of human behavior within an activity. These possibilities are altered by mediation of an artifact: people can act in many ways that without the artifact would not be possible. That’s what we call mediated agency.

      Human Agency: All possibilities of human behavior within an activity. The best definition ever!

      Behaviors enabled only through the artifact. Wow!

  12. Feb 2017
    1. hose processes are not deterministic: neither people are subject to the properties of the mediator nor are they free from constraints. In the process, people and mediators mutually transform each other.

      Aristotle's golden mean ;D. Phronesis.

      The user's aspects of behaviour are sometimes encouraged & discouraged, while he too is able to sometimes resist those encouragements & discouragements and decide what to do with those embedded characteristics

    2. riticism arises from conflicts and is essential for changing current statements. Also, criticism is a precondition for ethics, since if there is no questioning about human action, there is no reason for ethics.

      Ah so conflict is a precondition of questioning. Amazing insight. And questioning is a form of criticism.

      So find conflicts.

      But what is the precondition of conflict? Doubt?

      And questioning is the pre-conditioning of ethics

    3. When dealing with technology, there are two dominant discourses that permeate research and practice: determinism and non-determinism. For the former discourse, ethics is only an issue for the designers of technology, because they determine what users should do; for the latter, ethics is only an issue for users, because they ultimately define what to do with technology. Both

      So determinism makes the designer responsible/hold accountable assuming they "determine" what users "should" do,

      while non-determinism absolves the designer leaving the burden of responsibility of the consequence of interactions, on the user. So non determinism assums that the embedded characteristics don't work on the user, or that he is able to resist their encouragement or discouragement. That he can shape the aspects of those certain characteristics than the other way around, thereby ultimately defining what to do with the technology.

    4. his relation of human agency and mediation characteristics should lead to seriously ethical considerations,

      Agreed! The notion of path dependence further adds to the argument.

    5. nteraction designers try to impose structures upon human action by shaping coercive environments where people are punished if they do things the “wrong way” and by hiding or not providing options for changing artifact adaptations. Interaction design mediates human agency and power, but if it does not provide choices for action, there is no room for ethics: people act based on conditions, not on considerations of what should be done.

      Point on reward & punishment feedback is a really good point, darkpatterns comes to mind.

      If IxD does not provide choices for action, there is no room for ethics: People act based on conditions, not on considerations of what should be done

      This reactive behaviour is what UX practioners of gamification feel proud to do. It's disgusting to see them feel proud doing it, how come they feel no remorse doing it?. I too will have to do it in the near future, but I won't fucking have a glitter in my eye and a wide smile across my face doing it.

    6. We argue that artifacts support human behavior by providing adaptations, but these adaptations can expand or restrict human actions.

      Those adaptations are also framed under the guise of fulfilling the prime objective of fulfilling the business needs, i.e to compete for market share, increase profit margins or simply, "Will this make "them" give "us" more money?. This objective is constrained to view humans in the identity of consumer. It is through this identity we derive the canvas of needs which our bosses and their bosses let us create adaptations.

      Many designers are limited to designing a set of adaptations in their artifacts by what markets signals as profitable. Those who are fortunate enough to work in non-profits or worker coops may have more freedom to resist the unethical demands of the market forces.

    1. When you truly understand a problem, it becomes your problem, emotionally. That’s empathy. You will feel it.

      How do you know that you've truly understood?

    1. As individual pursue implementation of the project they begin to learn more and more about what they didn't know when they started and they begin doing revisions to the project plan. Revisions which seldom represent decreases in cost or time.

      I am myself experiencing this as I realize how much time I am taking to complete the tasks of the course

    2. The project plan is at best an educated guess. An educated guess that can be improved upon by capitalizing on the expertise of others that have been previously involved in projects of this nature. And yet there are many projects for which there are exists no similar requisite expertise. As such, the project plan remains very much simply ones conscientious best guess at what needs to be done.

      I believe here is where fear creeps in, since nobody in the team has encountered a situation with that problem set before. They literally have nothing to fall back on, no past knowledge or experience, they have to create knowledge.

  13. Jan 2017
    1. If we are to escape the presentist bias of both moral philosophy and moral economy, we need to start mapping the ways in which the future is represented in contemporary economic institutions (for better or worse) and also how it fuels the critique of contemporary economic institutions. That in turn might help us better to appreciate the value of alternative economic systems in the present.

      as well as give us an idea on their conception of time - How they view time for themselves, for other people and the unborn in their "present" and their "future" as represented in their conception of the future.

      My aim is to understand temporality in the minds of the different generations of the advantaged, the disadvantaged and how that influences their moral economic framework for making normative stances for themselves and the society, and conversely how normative stances affect the understanding of temporality in the minds of the different generations of the advantaged, the disadvantaged for themselves and the others. In other words how their understanding of time makes them choose economic decisions for themselves and others and how the economic decisions they choose for themselves and others shape their understanding of time

    2. these serve as an obstacle preventing alternative visions, utopias and economic valuation systems, which might conceive of time in a wholly different way.

      Yes indeed, how can we claim a normative stance on the interests of our unborn generations. How can we deny the opportunity of the future generations to conceive of their own future in their own way? The current generation perception of current, future and past time is completely different from the previous generation's of the current and future time

    3. housing

      Is housing a public asset that when converted into a private reproduce disadvantage?

    4. the field of ‘moral economy’ has demonstrated the ways in which economic institutions are fundamentally constituted as normative conventions

      How recently was this? and How was the demonstration carried out?

    5. economic sociologists have highlighted the various ways in which seemingly amoral, technical and mathematical dimensions of capitalism are tacitly derived from moral commitments and norms.

      What are those ways?

  14. Mar 2016
    1. What kinds of objects and subjects do interaction design practices make, and how do those practices produce them?

      The question could also be re-framed as what experiences of our lives do the objects of interaction design encapsulate?