Comment: Research on the Scrapheap

A visitor in Lancaster University at the beginning of the month might have noticed an odd hush After wandering the empty corridors, she puts her eye to the iris scanner and enters the Innovative Interactions Laboratory and is suddenly thrust into a melee: soldering, duck tape, holes drilled in old desk drawers, and deodorant sprayed onto the underside of a glass coffee table.

Those of you who were at the British HCI Conference (HCI2003) in Bath might have noticed my frenetic behaviour on Tuesday: seeking places where I could find both power and signal for my mobile for long and strange telephone conversations, enigmatic text messages.

In fact I had been setting and judging one of a number of 'scrapheap challenges' between teams back at Lancaster. On each Tuesday of September the teams are being given a challenge and then must produce something IT-ish to meet the challenge. In the previous week they had a mobile challenge "audio graffiti" and I had set the HCI challenge last Tuesday "absent presence" ... aptly I was absent.

On the Friday, when I returned to Lancaster, I got to actually see the creations - all different ways in which one can get some sense that the place you are in has in some way been occupied or visited before. A senses of human presence over time.

I saw a floor covered by a checkerboard of coloured squares which changed their colour as one walked over it an then faded; a screen where 'fairies' appeared to keep company those sitting on the armchair and then stayed to greet future visitors; a table where ghostly images of objects that had previously been there remained projected on its surface.

It was amazing to see what could be produced in so short a time - many three year research projects would be happy to have demonstrators like anyone of them! Furthermore these were not just 'lash-ups' that had a team of programmers behind the scenes keeping them up and alive. Each had been running continually, largely unsupervised, since Tuesday when I saw them on the Friday ... how many demonstrators of large EU projects could say the same?

Theoretically, each creation also raised and explored so many issues: technical such as video processing and web services, human issues of how to evoke a sense of human presence. Also it was often evident that the constraints of having to produce with available technology and materials over a short time had produced solutions that were better or radically different from those that a large budget and timescale would have allowed.

Does the overplanned nature of many research projects and our funding regimes preclude this kind of innovation? I fear so. However, there are examples of this kind of activity within more formalised settings. The Equator project has had focused periods when people from many institutions have gathered to prepare for large experience events. Extreme programmers get together for similar events and at the HCI conference I heard about a recent hack-fest (I think in Croatia) on open-source software for NGOs.

These examples seem to be rare, but show it is possible.

Perhaps one day all multi-million euro projects will be able to achieve as much as this single-day event ... perhaps?

Associated Link: More on the Scrapheap

'Internet addiction' linked to Depression
Source: BBC, 9 February 2010
 
There is a strong link between heavy internet use and depression, UK psychologists have said.

Could *You* be more Usable?
Source: UN, 8 February 2010
 
Bet you could.

Stowe Boyd on 'Steampunk' thinking about the Future of Computing
Source: Stowe Boyd's blog via Experientia, 6 February 2010
 
Are established metaphors of user experience holding us back from new ways of structuring our interaction through computers?

Nokia's User Experience Programme
Source: UN, 5 February 2010
 
Nokia has put together a rich and informative website covering the key elements of user experience.

Interfaces magazine: latest issue available now
Source: HCI News Service, 4 February 2010
 
The latest issue of Interfaces is now available in pdf format, free from the Interaction Website.

A Lighter Brigade of Chargers
Source: UN, 3 February 2010
 
Lots of gadgets, one charger. At last.

Mobile Touch Screens could soon Feel the Pressure
Source: MIT Technology Review, 2 February 2010
 
A quantum switch could add pressure sensing to mobile screens.

Usability, Usability, Usability: why the iPad will Succeed
Source: Econsultancy, 1 February 2010
 
The tech critics love it, hate it, love it again, shrug it off. What do usability experts say?

British Airways - at last some good news
Source: Loop11, 30 January 2010
 
In a recent website usability study for the world's leading airlines, the British Airways website proved to be the most user friendly, with Malaysia Airlines and Virgin Atlantic having the lowest user experience rating.

Computation of Emotions in Man and Machine
Source: Royal Society, 29 January 2010
 
Advances in computer technology now allow machines to recognise and express emotions, paving the way for improved human-computer and human-human communications.