Here’s a whole site dedicated to the study and research of how we interact with the computer via the mouse and clicking. “The Click” says this site, is unnecessary. The whole site is designed to be used without clicking the mouse button but once! I liked it! Check out dontclick.it and see if you can navigate without the click.
Category: Academic
Writings, research, and findings that have to do with history, scholarship, and everything in my academic sphere of life.
The design of everyday things
I’m facinated with why things are designed the way they are. I recently found a blog about the history of the electromechanical button. In class tonight I was introduced to a series of books about the design of everyday things. I’ll have to check them out at a latter date.
Video as content
I read an article recently that noted a paradigm shift in the Web industry. It’s actually a shift that is taking place right now! Due to the advances of technology, video is increasingly more common, even expected in a web site. Just as the web moved from a representation of a piece of paper to an online magazine (another web paradigm shift I should delve into), the web is moving from video seen as a novelty to video being expected as actual content.
Read the article here by Tom Green at digital-web.com.
The history of paradigm shifts
While reading a book for one of my classes (Hist 698), a reference to a paradigm shift was mentioned in regards to using the web in classroom teaching. The example given was of the motion picture industry.
In the beginning, motion pictures were basically filmed versions of plays which were enacted on stages, with a set and props. After a while the movie people realized, hey, I’m not bound to the stage! I can take my camera anywhere! So instead of making fake trees I can film real trees. Instead of creating a set that looks like the beach, I can just go to the beach!
They had a paradigm shift. They started out using new technology to do the same thing they had always been doing. But once they realized a far better potential for the technology, and broke out of the old mold, they were able to do great and wonderful things (and also terribly awful things – think of the immorality pervasive in movies nowadays).
How many other paradigm shifts are there in history? Countless, I’m sure. A very cursory search (“history paradigm shift” as a google search) turns up very few references to a historical look at paradigm shifts. A book by Thomas Kuhn seems to be it, and it’s limited to scientific revolutions.
History of Human-Computer Interaction
Here’s a look at the future of Human-Computer interaction, and as a by product, it includes a history of what has already come. I haven’t read it yet, so I’ll post a reaction later.
The History of Computers….
I think I’ll start gathering information about the history of computers and all things computer related, since I like the two things soo much.
So for post #1 in History of Computers….
The great debate of the UI (User Interface). How the people communicate with the computer.
I get a lot of ideas and info from reading Slashdot, and today’s episode of the history of the UI is no different. The article references an article on the macobserver.com by John Keit. It briefly describes the state of the modern UI, and a brief history of the UI. Of most interest to me was a link to, and the movie of, a presentation given by Doug Engelbart (creator of the mouse and sooooo many other computer marvells including the basis on how we all use the computer today). Amazing stuff!
critique of site… The last day of class!
Organization:
description of links needs to be much more clear.
about link = needs to be about the site, not about zeppelin
booklet = going to by one
research = change to resources
Keep an about about the site….
Visual communication:
consistent…
blob on the upper left corner, remove, replace with a different image, bump up the text of the
don’t scroll left on the bigger images….
Other things, from other sites:
use special characters for elipses and stuff
check for usuability – bump up the font size and see what breaks.
captions for the images (put the float left,right for the div), make the images clear and consistent in image size.
tighten up the letting on blockquote and image captions (make the line height smaller)
sub-headings
no space around em or en dashes
NEED TO HAVE A PRINT CSS Style
I'm no good at design…
That’s why I enjoy this class. It helps me realize where all of my weaknesses are….
It’s here and ever changing…
The wife and I were up until 2am (just as Matt was heading off to work…) trying to pound out a good design. She’s had many classes on design (for print, and other hard arts), so I trust her opinion. She does really great at it. When I showed her what I already had… she said it stunk.
So I made her design a site for me. The mess you see is a result of frustration on my part (trying to get stuff to go where she said it needed to be) and that funny haze that covers your brain from lack of sleep.
Anyhow, despite her expertise, it doesn’t look all that good yet. But I’ve still got a week until the ultra final date of due-ness.
Myst, in German, means "poop"
That about sums up my experience with Myst. I appreciate the thought of getting immersed in the game to learn about how it applies to teaching and learning. But after spending over an hour trying to turn all of the squares in the elevator/fireplace red (because there’s no clue about what to do, so that’s what I figure you had to do) I quit playing it.
I’ll just fondly remember my days as a youth, anticipating the weekend where I could spend all Saturday playing Metroid on my old Nintendo (the first version). That’s some gaming that I could get enveloped in.
So the question then becomes, how do we harness that ability to teach history. Or how can these principles be applied to teaching history in the digital age. Well, now, that seems to be part of the quest we’ve set for ourselves, now hasn’t it.
Frankly, it's disturbing…
Virtual reality…
Gee’s hung up on using video games for education, while some people are wanting to move it into the business sectors.
All this has some companies mulling a wild idea: Why not use gaming’s psychology, incentive systems, and social appeal to get real jobs done better and faster? “People are willing to do tedious, complex tasks within games,” notes Nick Yee, a Stanford University graduate student in communications who has extensively studied online games. “What if we could tap into that brainpower?”
from Business Week