Paper Reading #16: Mixture model based label association techniques for web accessibility

Comments:
Kevin Casey
Joe Cabrera

Reference Info:
Mixture Model based Label Association Techniques for Web Accessibility
Muhammad Asiful Islam, Yevgen Borodin, I. V. Ramakrishnan
UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology

Summary:
This paper discusses Internet access for the blind. Currently, the model used is audio based browsing. This is done by assigning text labels with relevant information on a page. This is difficult when dealing with pages with no labels or incorrect labels assigned to them in the HTML. The paper addresses this issue by introducing their Finite Mixture Model algorithm. This associates text with nearby elements. Anything not having a label is assigned a label from a database. An algorithm calculates the likeliest label to be assigned.

Discussion:
I think this sounds like a good idea. Never experiencing this type of technology, I am not sure the issues faced by users needing this. Also, I am not sure how effective just reading off a page is. I feel this is a solution to fix a broken solution, which should be reworked anyway.

Paper Reading #15: TurKit: Human Computation Algorithms on Mechanical Turk

Comments:
Kevin Casey
Joe Cabrera

Reference Info:

TurKit: Human Computation Algorithms on Mechanical Turk
Greg Little, Lydia B. Chilton, Max Goldman, Robert C, Miller
UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology

Summary:

The Mechanical Turk is a capable of supporting human computation tasks requested by users. Workers get paid to do these human intelligence computations for the user. MTurk can replace this by supporting iterative, sequential tasks such as iterating on an image description for example. The Crash-and-Rerun type of programming allows a script to be re-executed without re-running side-effecting functions. This works for those type of problems that require computing over time. The TurKit system is works well but it does have some scalability issues associated with it. This is because the crash-and-rerun program needs to re-run all previous iterations of the loopwhen it re-executes, which leads to the space requirment of the database to be too large to sotore the actions.

Discussion:

I do not seem to understand the application of this other than research because I dont see many tasks that can be done by a human that connot be done by a computer that will be asked on this Turk machine.

Paper Reading #14: A framework for robust and flexible handling of inputs with uncertainty

Comments:
Kevin Casey
Joe Cabrera

Reference Info:
A framework for robust and flexible handling of inputs with uncertainty
Julia Schwarz, Scott E. Hudson, Jennifer Mankoff, Andrew D. Wilson
UIST '10: Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology

Summary:
This paper discusses natural errors in today's new user input devices such as touch screens. The devices seem to be error prone and are computed to boolean values by the program which leads to a loss of data. In order to address the issue, this paper discusses replacing the boolean values with a decimal scale. This allows for logic to be used to assign a probability of an action opposed to just true or false.

Discussion:
This seemed like an interesting idea to me. I can see it being used in touch screens where a users fingers are too big. Accidentally pressing multiple buttons can give each different button a different weight or scale and if there is one button that has a greater weight than those around it, it can be interpreted as that button being the button meant to be pressed while the others were pressed accidentally.

Book Reading #42 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Appendix III

This part deals with explaining how the Samoan culture has developed into what it is today. Samoans have takes all the simple parts of lives in developed countries and applied them to there own way of life. Changes in clothing, the household, and other areas have taken place. They still stay true to their roots though and depend heavily on the food they harvest. Many of them are Christian. Mead describes the influence as befitting the Samoans without any repercussions.

Book Reading #41 - Why We Make Mistakes

Ch 2
This chapter deals with viewing things objectively. A case is described where a robbery was acted out and a the thief robbed a woman of her purse. Men are able to clearly describe the thief but woman are more clearly able to describe the woman's actions. This is one thing that may lead to mistakes, the difference in views of a situation. Another issue is that sometimes we just get tired and stop observing situations in which valance is required. AN example given was that a good percentage of screeners missed to identify items in carry-on bags that could be used to make explosive devices.

Ch 3
This chapter discusses the things people remember when meeting someone new. Humans are bad with remembering names opposed to remembering faces. It is easiest to remember a visual representation of that person (face) opposed to their name. Also, we tend to remember how that person made us feel when we first met them. This emotion stays with a person for a good while. It seems the characteristic of a person we tend to remember most is the persons hair. The interesting thing is that this is the easiest characteristic to change on a person. Finally, we tend to remember better looking faces than average ones.

Full BLog Emotional Design

Summary:
In this book, Norman talks about design but describes the aesthetics of a design and its utility. He aims at designers having more pleasing designs as well as having a relaxing environment to increase the potential of the design. Norman explains designing according to users emotional and cognitive systems. He explains the visceral, behavioral, and reflective levels when it comes to design. Visceral deal with the initial perception we have of the design, behavioral deals with how we use it and its functionality, while the reflective deals with emotions of the past, present, and future to gain a perception on the overall design. These three things when taken into account can make an excellent design.

Discussion:
I did not enjoy this book to much because I feel it makes to many assumptions on emotions and feelings. I feel emotions are too complex to design an overall good design. I feel that these can be applied if making a design for a specific person or small group of people, but never for larger overall groups.

Book Reading #40 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Ch 14

Summary:
The life of an American girl is viewed in this chapter from the view point of that girl. She tries to show the number of choices she must facing everyday life and what leads them to make decisions. She then proceeds to talk about education of these children and how parents should educate their children to face many choices.

Discussion:
I do not agree with this teaching method, especially rewards if you do good. I feel the way I was raised has had a good impact on me. I was raised knowing that I had to do good in school and did ot expect any rewards but as soon as I did bad, I would get punished. The only rewards I ever recieved was when I went above and beyond my obligation of doing well in school. Now because of that, I feel doing well in school is no big deal.

Book Reading #39 - Why We Make Mistakes

Ch 0
In the introduction of the book, the author discusses how frequently people make mistakes and is attributed to the person in stead of the device or object. We are also willing to sacrifice use of an object by accepting all the things that are bad with it so long as we get the good as well opposed to only the good.

Ch 1
The cause for our mistakes is our inability to pay close attention and see or realize what we are doing. The author notes that for the most part, we only see part of our action and not all of it which can lead to mistakes. This is is made on the assumption that users only notice what they feel they need to notice and block all other things out on the functionality or their actions when using a particular device.

Discussion:
This book seems like it will be a bit dull only talking about mistakes an d errors. We will see as I read on how this book unfolds.

Ethnography Results Week 7

Went to the midnight premiere of SuckerPunch. There were many people there that night all to watch the same movie. I mostly saw large group of friends opposed to couples or families. I may have seen 2 couples but it was hard to tell without going up to them and asking. I tried counting the numbers but people kept moving and coming in that I lost count. I did notice after the movie, only very few people stayed to talk about the movie outside. Mostly everyone else walked to their cars and left.

Book Reading #38 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Ch 13

Summary:

This chapter discusses the many choices teens in our society have to make and what is expected of them. Young people have to decide whether to continue their education or if they will work or become a professional. Children begin moving out and start having choices and decisions about their life and sex life.

Discussion:

This problems views choices are “problems” faced by teens but I view it more as freedom given to young people. I don’t not see why they are problems and should enjoy it.

Book Reading #35 - Obedience to Authority

Ch 1-8

The first chapter discusses obedience and its importance in the fabric of social life. Here he gives an introduction of his experiments on the topic. In the second chapter he goes further in to the details and description of the different parts of the experiments. He explained them from the ground up from how the test subjects were obtained to the mechanisms used in the experiments. He set the stage for the experiments. The third chapter deals with the expected behavior of the subjects in the shock experiment. The expected behavior of the subjects are hypothesized and discussed explaining why a subject would stop once the actor begged to stop. The next chapter, Chapter ,4 deal with the reaction of the subject in correlation to vicinity. The close a subject was to the actor, the more prone they were to stop. Chapter 5 deals with those subjects that confront authority and the factors that go into this such as background and interaction. Variations and control is the subject of chapter 6. It deals with the different changes to the experiment such as proximity, women in experiment, personalities. Different controls were modified to see the outcome and the effect of these. Chapter 7 is a lot like chapter 5 in discussing those subjects and their reactions to authority and why these actions are triggered. The last chapter, chapter 8, dealt with the importance of the hierarchy of authority that affected subjects.

Full Blog Obidience to Authority

Ch 1-8

The first chapter discusses obedience and its importance in the fabric of social life. Here he gives an introduction of his experiments on the topic. In the second chapter he goes further in to the details and description of the different parts of the experiments. He explained them from the ground up from how the test subjects were obtained to the mechanisms used in the experiments. He set the stage for the experiments. The third chapter deals with the expected behavior of the subjects in the shock experiment. The expected behavior of the subjects are hypothesized and discussed explaining why a subject would stop once the actor begged to stop. The next chapter, Chapter ,4 deal with the reaction of the subject in correlation to vicinity. The close a subject was to the actor, the more prone they were to stop. Chapter 5 deals with those subjects that confront authority and the factors that go into this such as background and interaction. Variations and control is the subject of chapter 6. It deals with the different changes to the experiment such as proximity, women in experiment, personalities. Different controls were modified to see the outcome and the effect of these. Chapter 7 is a lot like chapter 5 in discussing those subjects and their reactions to authority and why these actions are triggered. The last chapter, chapter 8, dealt with the importance of the hierarchy of authority that affected subjects.

Ch 9
Milgram discusses the differences between conformity, imitation, and obedience, hierarchical. Conformity is more implicit in its actions where obedience is more explicit. It then describes the experiments done with the teachers and shocking. This is shown in the museum exhibit where patrons follwed the instructions of only walking on the black tiles.

Ch 10
The root of obedience is sought in this chapter and also describes agentic state which is the condition a person is in when they see themselves as an agent carrying out another's wishes. This is seen in the shocking experiment where participants do as they are told while checking with the experimenter.

Ch 11
Milgram digs deeper to study the factors that impact a subject before experiments. Things such as their family structure, settings and environment, and reward system are analyzed. There is also an analysis when the subject is in the middle of an experiment to look at factors such as perception of authority figures, the appearance of authority, and the lack or excess of authority. It also discusses the famous prison experiment.

Ch 12
This chapter takes a look at disobedience. This is a way people release stress from strain by denying authority and becoming disobedient. Disobedience is a mechanism for avoiding or denying strain.

Ch 13
This chapter deals with aggression and different experiments conducted on the subject.


Ch 14
Discusses the findings of all his experiments indicating that all subjects met the typical expected findings and that they could be applied out of a laboratory setting.

Ethnography Results Week 6

I went to the theater and there were not that many people  on a Monday afternoon. I went at around 1pm and it was empty. I saw an old couple with what looked like their granddaughter and a pair of college students, both female. Every now and then, either a couple or 2 friends would walk into a movie but there wasn't too much movement. The staff behind the concession stand seemed to talk and joke around when it was dead while a few other cleaned the lobby.

Full Blog Openning Skinners Box

Summary:

This book took a look at different and extreme cases of psychology in order to learn more about behavior an interactions. All tests involving cases sought out to understand behavior in humans and animals. It starts off from the case of conditioning a new born child’s mind and finishes off with ways to change or alter the adult mind such as lobotomy or medication. This books takes an in-depth look at the psychology of the mind with extreme tests and helps understand ourselves more

Discussion:

I enjoyed this book a lot and can see how understanding people and they way they think can help influence the field of CHI. Understanding the psychology of the user is one way to be able to design something more suitable for that person. I recommend this book to anyone and is as much an interesting read as it is an educational one that spans across different disciplines.

Book Reading #36 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 12

The chapter deals with the changes that occur in an adult male’s and female’s life. The 2 major changes observed were those that happen when people get married and when they get old. When people get married, they are not considered a household unit, but are still tied to their family households. With age, a man’s role is decreased while a woman’s increases due to her growing knowledge.

 

Discussion:

This is very different from our own culture although Mead does point out some similarities. It is just a unexpected how a male’s importance dwindles over time. I did expect older aged folk to be regarded as wiser and important but I did not think it would pertain only to women.

Book Reading #37 - Obedience to Authority

Summary:
Ch 9
Milgram discusses the differences between conformity, imitation, and obedience, hierarchical. Conformity is more implicit in its actions where obedience is more explicit. It then describes the experiments done with the teachers and shocking. This is shown in the museum exhibit where patrons follwed the instructions of only walking on the black tiles.

Ch 10
The root of obedience is sought in this chapter and also describes agentic state which is the condition a person is in when they see themselves as an agent carrying out another's wishes. This is seen in the shocking experiment where participants do as they are told while checking with the experimenter.

Ch 11
Milgram digs deeper to study the factors that impact a subject before experiments. Things such as their family structure, settings and environment, and reward system are analyzed. There is also an analysis when the subject is in the middle of an experiment to look at factors such as perception of authority figures, the appearance of authority, and the lack or excess of authority. It also discusses the famous prison experiment.

Ch 12
This chapter takes a look at disobedience. This is a way people release stress from strain by denying authority and becoming disobedient. Disobedience is a mechanism for avoiding or denying strain.

Ch 13
This chapter deals with aggression and different experiments conducted on the subject.


Ch 14
Discusses the findings of all his experiments indicating that all subjects met the typical expected findings and that they could be applied out of a laboratory setting.

Discussion:
The experiments and observations made are very shocking but this book intrigued me so much i could not put it down. I enjpyed this read and Milgram's experiments.

Book Reading #34 - Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 10

Summary:
This chapter talks about psycho surgery and the effects it has. The surgery is described as injecting alcohol into the brain to kill nerve tissue, thus "curing" the patient. It goes further by comparing it with Prozac by stating that it is unclear how it works but that it works none the less.

Discussion:
This chapter reminded me of the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind because it aims at helping people by causing brain damage. I also feel that if the surgery provides results with the results outweighing any side effects, the people should continue doing so. I say this because I have taken Prozac and I feel the side effects are sometimes worth the results.

Book Reading #33 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 11

Summary:
The chapter mostly deals with girls who have broken away from the group for either one of two main reasons: they wish to have more freedom that is usually granted or are considered delinquents.  The chapter then goes into further detail with the recounts of several groups of girls that fall into one of those two categories. The main difference is the conflict that arises with their families if they are delinquents.

Discussion:
It was interesting to see what differentiated girls who wanted more freedom from troublemakers.  I got a better sense of Samoan life with the different accounts from the different girls. It made this chapter seem less generalized to all Samoans by focusing in on a few.

Paper Reading #13 - Gestalt: Integrated Support for Implementation and Analysis in Machine Learning

Comments:
Joe Cabrera
Stuart Jones

Reference Info:
Gestalt: Integrated Support for Implementation and Analysis in Machine Learning
Kayur Patel, Naomi Bancroft, Steven M. Drucker, James Fogarty, Andrew J. Ko, James A. Landay
UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology


Summary:
Gestalt provides users a graphical way to display and perfect the field of machine learning. Gestalt allows users to implement the learning, analyze data and provide easy transitions from implementation to data. Widgets were also added that gave different abilities to the users such as parsing data or train and test models. There is also a table with shared analysis so that developers may see what attributes were used to classify things in the learning. Test data was presented was used to test against the learning code.

Discussion:
I enjoyed this paper because I feel I understood it more having taken AI and a good foundation of machine learning. This tools seems like a great way to test machine learning, especially when one needs instant results of the code displayed. I feel like this if a big step forward in machine learning and hopefully will help out the field alot.

Book Reading #32 - Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 9


Summary:
This chapter starts of with the tale of a tragedy in which a doctor tries to cures a patient's epilepsy by performing surgery. In doing so, he cures the boy of epilepsy but also takes the boy's ability to form memories. Kandel then uses this story to research memory and how it works. He uses sea slugs as his subjects and discovers that memories are best made by electrochemical produced in the brain. Through further research, he hopes to one day may a drug that will enhance memory.

Discussion:
This seems like the plot to some Hollywood blockbuster. It seems like an interesting concept, pills that increase memory. I can see these as being considered only as a subscription medication and not for everyday use. I think it would follow the same paths of Ritalin and Adderall.

Book Reading #31 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 10


Summary:
This chapter dwells on the life and personality of the average Samoan girl. It mostly focuses on the average girl's individuality. Mead studies and gains insight on different girls and their personality and even mentions how death and other mature topics have intruded on their lives without the parents even protecting them or comforting them. It seems the average young Samoan girl must learn to mature early on.

Duiscussion:
It seems shocking that the subject of death is not that big of a deal as it is here. It makes me wonder what else had different emotional charges that they may not see as a big deal. The rest I feel is covered in the earlier chapters discussing the young girls.

Book Reading #30 - Emotional Design

Chapter 3

Summary:
The chapter discusses the three levels of emotional design. The first is visceral.  This deals with the physical aspect of a design. This includes look, feel, sound, touch, and any other initial impacts a design may have on a person. The second is behavioral design. This deals with the function of the object and most closely related to his views of Design of Everyday Things. Lastly, reflective design focuses on the meaning of the design and product and what message it conveys.

Discussion:
This book was a contrast of what Norman wrote in his Design of Everyday Things. This has a more subjective tone and deals with emotions more than functionality. I enjoyed this book because it was a nice change of pace.

Ethnography Results, Week 4

We went all as a group this week to observe the movie theater in College Station. We observed a large group of students who we could not tell if they were freshmen in college or local high school students. They had 2 chaperons and were all minorities. It was hard to decipher if they were a group at school or some sort of organization. I also witnessed a mother and her older son who could have been in his last year in high school or a freshman. We also saw a few older couples, which was very high for what we expected, and some even had their grandchildren with them. There was also the usual college student couples as well as 2 friends going either male-male or female-female. There was 2 couples that appeared to be locals and not college students. Upon entering the movie, we noticed that most of the people, besides the older folk, were in our theater watching the same movie. We also noticed that operas were being advertised in the theater and this might change the lobby culture. This took place at about 1:45 which proved difficult to tell if students were in high school, being that they should be in school at the time.

Paper Reading #12 - Gestalt: Integrated Support for Implementation and Analysis in Machine Learning

Comments:
Joe Cabrera
Stuart Jones

Reference Info:
Gestalt: Integrated Support for Implementation and Analysis in Machine Learning
Kayur Patel, Naomi Bancroft, Steven M. Drucker, James Fogarty, Andrew J. Ko, James A. Landay
UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology


Summary:
Gestalt provides users a graphical way to display and perfect the field of machine learning. Gestalt allows users to implement the learning, analyze data and provide easy transitions from implementation to data. Widgets were also added that gave different abilities to the users such as parsing data or train and test models. There is also a table with shared analysis so that developers may see what attributes were used to classify things in the learning. Test data was presented was used to test against the learning code.

Discussion:
I enjoyed this paper because I feel I understood it more having taken AI and a good foundation of machine learning. This tools seems like a great way to test machine learning, especially when one needs instant results of the code displayed. I feel like this if a big step forward in machine learning and hopefully will help out the field alot.

Book Reading #29 - Opening Skinner's Box Ch 8

Chapter 8

Summary:
This chapter deals with implanting false memories into a subject and seeing if manipulation of that memory could happen. The experiment is done by having subjects read off accounts of them being lost in the mall. These stories are written by their family who write 3 real stories and one false one. Ofn the subjects tested, 25% of them seemed to recollect these false memories and were able to describe them in greater detail as time went on. Some argue that this experiment proves nothing as traumatic events are stored differently in the brain than regular memories.

Discussion:
I really enjoyed this chapter. I have implanted false memories in myself and it sometimes becomes difficult to remember that I made the scenario up and it did not truly happen. I know they are false but i catch myself instinctively saying 'Oh, that happened to me once."

Book Reading #28 - Coming of Age in Samoa Ch9

Chapter 9


Summary:
This chapter focuses on exploring the personalities and attitudes of Samoans. Once a Samoan is unwilling, it is left at that and not questioned. The word used for this is "musu". Another thing Mead notices is that when A Samoan describes a person, their description usually follows a pattern of sex, age, ect. It is almost like a cookie cut-out description where just one fills in the words for the person. Alot of times when asked question "I don't know" was the answer most of the time but Mead explains this is used to protect the little privacy they do have.



Discussion:
I found it interesting that people do not question "musu". I could just say not to everything and I wouldn't be hassled by it. I am assuming a psychologist would not be liked in the Samoan village asking and questioning your emotions.

Book Reading #27 - Emotional Design Ch 2

Chapter 2

Summary:
This chapter discusses the way processing within a design works and the the negative and positive affects they have with each other. It also talks about visceral design of the object; it's initial impact, its use, and its understanding of use.Memories are also discussed. Norman explains how objects can remind people of memories. These memories have a major effect on us.

Discussion:
I found this chapter interesting. IT makes me think of the design on appearance and use, not just intuitive functionality. I enjoyed this chapter and look foward to reading the rest of the book to see what else about design is uncovered.