Human Computer Interaction

My 2010 Spring semester starts with IST 649, Human Interaction with Computer.

I always consider myself have a huge interest in HCI, especially user experience, I can always recall and recognize the differences and specialties among software and applications, however, when given a sheet and asked to write down my understanding of HCI and why it is important, I didn't know what to say. Definitely, HCI course is right for me!

Something I learned today:

Slogan: To users, the interface is THE system.

The psychology of everyday things:

• Functionality. "The collection of an object/system’s operations or services available to users". Refer to the intended functions.
• Affordance. The object/system can be used/acted upon, could be intended and unintended function.
• Visibility. Make the functions visible to end users.
• Natural mapping. The natural way/implication of the functions and controls.
  

For the visibility, you really cannot design a perfect function without letting the users know its existence. I read a post several days ago, introducing some excellent features in Windows 7. One of them is PSR, Problem Steps Recorder. You can access it by typing PSR in Start menu. But what if you don't know there is PSR? You need to go to Control Panel - All Control Panel Items - Troubleshooting - Get Help From a Friend. Congratulations! You finally see the "Problems Steps Recorder". Obviously, Microsoft developers do NOT make such useful tool visible.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some of my recent experiences regarding HCI.

Windows search

Recently, I have installed Windows 7 on my laptop and found it excellent. However, it seems there is a setback in Windows search in the new system, from the user-friendly aspect.

In Windows XP, when search in a specific folder, you will have options to define several search criteria, including file format, modified time, and you can choose to search in the file name or a word/phrase in the file. You will see similar screens as the ones one the left:

While in Windows 7, first difference you may discover is that it seems offering no option to search for the file content, only the file name, very inconvenient. In Windows explorer, go to Organize-Folder and Search Options, you can see the two options:

• In indexed locations, search file name and contents. In non-indexed locations, search file name only.
• Always search file name and contents. (This may take several minutes).
  

I'm not sure which locations are "indexed", only know that Desktop is definitely one of them. And I think offering the option to choose "search file names and contents" for every specific search while providing the default option as "file name only" is more user friendly. Needless to mention that not everyone could discover the search option when they need to search for the contents.

For other search options, when I search in Desktop, I could see four criteria, Kind, Date modified, Type and Size, while in other locations, there are only two options, Date modified and Size. I guess it is "indexed" V.S "non-indexed" again. But I'm not sure if there is significant improvement of search performance with such limitations.

Updated: Drew told me that I could go to Control Panel - All Panel Items - Indexing Options to decide which locations should be indexed. And of course, you can type "indexing options" in start menu to access it.

Thanks for your help with the post, Harry, Nick and Drew.

Updated Feb,4, 2010:

According to feedback from Prof. Ping Zhang, Affordance in psychology of everyday things could include both intended and unintended function. The distinction between functionality and affordance is that functionality is about what the artifact has, regardless whether perceivers/users can see or know about while affordance refers to the latter concept. Thanks Prof. Zhang for clarifying it!

Twitter-like Service in China-Sina Miniblog

After China's most popular miniblog Fanfou being shut down in June, 2009, web portal company Sina started its miniblog service 新浪微博(sina wei bo) in September 2009. Similar to its market strategy of blog service, the company is trying to attract more users by inviting the popular celebrities to use the service.

Miniblog users on Sina are classified into two categories with slight but significant difference. The user ID followed by a letter "V" indicates (a) the user is a public figure or (b) the user has registered his/her identity with the company(surely will help the company to control and censor information)(former policy, now disappeared in help document). The worst thing of the classification is, information posted by users without letter "V" is only accessible to Sina users, the messages could not be seen, or subscribed to without logging in, in other words, such "Web 2.0 information sharing" application is limited in a certain range. Is it the strategy that the company is using to encourage users to authenticate their real names with the website? Or, attracting more new users because they are unable to read their friends' messages without registering. Anyway, the true value of miniblog service is largely underestimated and reduced.

Another ridiculous characteristic is, the system have generated and is still generating "ghost users", mostly with no display picture, posted nothing or very few messages, following exactly 30 users or so. It seems that sina tries to encourage the non-V users by giving them followers, or at least, displaying a satisfied number of followers instead of a poor but real number. Who wants so many FAKE followers?

Though sina's miniblog is definitely cloning from Twitter, it offers better user experience in commenting and forwarding. Comments are posted directly after the original message and users can also publish the comment as a new message followed by the original post. However, that's the only advantage I have discovered so far.

SU Library Petition and the Open Forum

In November 2009, there was a petition in Bird Library, Syracuse University, where university undergrads and graduate students were protesting against the library's plan to move some of its collections to 4 house away warehouse in Patterson.

The reason for moving the books is the limited space of the library. Library needs space for collaboration, learning commons, computer use, and also stacks for new books. The library intended to remove those books which haven't been checked out in a certain period of time(a year or so) and the idea was"if nobody read the book, why we still keep it here when the space could be used for other purposes?"

And for people who want to check out the books in the warehouse, they can request the books through library services and the books will be delivered in 24 hours if requested before 2 pm. According to the library, if the book is checked out 2 or 3 times in a month, they should be considered of returning to Bird.

For the protesters, such method eliminates the ability to "BROWSE" materials and creates environmental problems due to the daily transportation of the books. "You have to know exactly what you are looking for", said the flyer of the petition. The argument also focused on the selection of "unused books" fearing it may lose the value of "discovering something new" since people will no longer have the opportunity to browse and "rediscover"the materials that scarcely known. And the removal of books may increase the ignorance of minority groups.

In response to the petition, the library held an open forum "What is a Library" in Peter Graham Scholarly Commons, Bird Library on Dec, 9, 2009 and the notes of the forum could be retrieved here. All the participants, including students and faculty, showed concern about the library as well as the community of Syracuse University and appreciated the opportunity to participant in the development of Bird.

The participants shared stories of their experiences with Bird library, opinions about the future of library and proposed suggestions and alternatives for the current situation. I am listing some of the ideas and the full version could be found here.

The suggestions include:

• Use abandoned buildings in Downtown Syracuse instead of warehouse in Patterson.
• Reconsider the use of library basement, first and second floor which are mainly used for collaboration spaces now.
• Reconsider the use of spaces in Schine student center, could be used for learning commons and tutoring services.

The common agreements:

• Faculty and students need enough resources to do academic research.
• Need more communication between departments and library.
• Faculty and students should be involved in the decision making of the library.

Questions will be discussed in the future:

• The reason that library needs more space, space allocation.
  
• Mandate from faculty committee.
• University priorities.

SU Bird Library has been through a hard time last year with 24 employers lost due to the budget cut. We have excellent staff here in Bird and they are doing their best to make it a better place for SU community. Again, appreciate your effort and the open and transparent environment.

Privacy no longer a social norm?

Reading Philipp Lessen's post on Spiegel's article about Google Goggle's face recognition makes me freaked out.

I thought Goggle was a very cool application allowing user to capture objects in real world and obtain information about them, e.g., an artwork, a book, a place of interest. All you need to do is to use your cell phone to capture the image(even video) and upload it using Google Goggle. Traveling could be much easier when information could be obtained precisely and instantly. However, I never thought about the privacy issue the application may bring about.

According to Spiegel, Goggle now lacks the ability of face recognition. Why the application wants face recognition?

this may include the beautiful female stranger who just entered the coffee place. If there happens to be a photo of her in the vast depths of the internet, then there’s a good chance Google has it stored – and everyone taking a photograph of the person in question can now try to identify her.

The above example is NO science fiction, it may become true in the near future. Tim O'Reilly received the demo version a few months ago and thought it was "a taste of the future".

If the technique and the service becomes real, "We might be facing the end of anomity in public space". You even have no option to change your name to get rid of the web presence because you are so tied to your past by face recognition.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, gave a talk in San Francisco at the Crunchie awards. According to Zuckerberg,

"People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time."

I'm very uncomfortable of putting personal information online, including photos, profiles and preferences. The reason I'm still using Facebook is that I believe I only share information with certain people I know and Facebook can help me to share photos effectively with many friends. However, I pay careful attention with information I put out there as well as access control.

Zuckerberg also mentioned:

"We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are.

Obviously, the social definition and the perception of "privacy" has been changed. But not as what Zuckerberg said that they "reflect" the current social norm. Facebook actually is one of the influential factors have contributed to such change.

According to Kirkpatrick, Zuckerberg said so because he wanted it to be true. Even Facebook users realize "the social norm of privacy is out of date" and make the user content public on Facebook, the website would receive more page views and advertising revenue.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Companies like Google and Facebook show less respect to user's privacy for their own good, even they say they are "reflecting the social norm", and they are trying to make people believe that privacy is not important. Under such circumstances, the awareness of privacy is becoming more essential and should let everyone gain a better understanding of it. Even you are comfortable with everything public, you still need to know the potential consequences and the what the companies are using your information for.

In the Age of Web 2.0, Keep Updated, not Disorientated

When I first heard about "Web 2.0" several years ago, I was so fascinated by the concept of user content, new ways of communication, high efficiency of information dissemination. However, now I'm more confused of the tools and the impact on people's real lives.

Appreciating the convenience of RSS readers to obtain information, I even believe that there is a digital divide between people who use RSS reader and who don't. The former ones are more likely to being updated with the outside world, with the cutting edge technologies, gain a better perception and have more opportunities. But, when you subscribe more than 100 feeds, you may receive hundreds of new posts everyday and have no patience of reading long but valuable posts. And you may even lose your own voice. Needless to mention that the time spent on RSS reader could be done with something more interesting.

Twitter provides a different way of exchanging "what is happening". The limitation of 140 words of every tweet encourages people to publish hot and real time information. The best thing about Twitter is that users are offering information in their professional fields, exchanging experiences, ideas and viewpoints, rather than posting stories about personal lives. If following the right people, you can get very valuable information in the desired fields. If have any questions, they could be answered instantly with enough followers after posted on Twitter. When combined with search engines, firsthand information could be retrieved only minutes after an incident happens. Last week, Google real-time search spotted earthquake in San Francisco 6 minutes after the earthquake.

Although Facebook is more likely to be used for personal interactions, the website could also be used in professional ways. Library digital branch and service manager, David Lee King asked why librarians use Facebook, and answers showed that librarians are using it for both personal connections and library work. Facebook is a powerful tool to reach out to the patrons. While your patrons are using Facebook, why don't you use it to let them know the recent activity of your library?

However, with such convenience of accessing information, some people also feel that their real lives have been destroyed by these applications. Spending time on virtual connections instead of talking to people in the real world. And do you really benefit from the information you get? or you just have gained lots of junk which will not make your life better? According to such concerns, Web 2.0 suicide machine is aiming to help you to get your actual life back by closing accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

For me, the question is not to keep the account or delete them, I still believe they will do me good. But how to make the best use of the applications? To get useful information without being disorientated. Keep the subscriptions and followed Twitter users in a handle acceptable amount and make sure they all worth reading. Anyway, the sounded-simple strategy is not easy to accomplish.

Presentation on Global Privacy Laws and Rules in Financial Firms

Ms. Lynn. A. Goldstein, Chief Privacy Officer from JP Morgan Chase Co. gave a presentation on global privacy laws and rules in financial firms, Dec 3, 2009.

She first introduced the major difference between privacy laws in US and EU, EU laws are more conservative which covers everybody and everything dealing with EU’s financial data.

In EU, consumers’ financial data cannot be shared. In US, such data can be used and shared under various circumstances. Information can be shared with third parties and be used for channel marketing. Information can even be shared with affiliate firms for marketing purposes unless the consumers “opt out”. The consumers could choose to opt out so their credit information will not be shared, however, their transaction information are still shared for no condition.

To regulate information sharing with third parties, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) was initiated in 1999 which provides limited protection against the sale of information. GLBA requires financial institutions to offer privacy policy to the consumers and the option to opt out to share with unaffiliated companies, or not to share limited nonpublic personal information. However, if financial institutions want to share consumer information with a third party company, even a non-financial party, all they need to do is to include the notice in the privacy statement. And consumers could choose to opt out.. In California, the law is quite different. According to California Financial Information Privacy Act: Senate Bill 1, consumers need to opt in to allow the financial institutions to share their information with third parties. This policy protects the consumers better because of the nature that people don’t opt in even with benefit.

US also has regulations to limit the use of credit information. Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) gives the consumers rights to know what are in their credit files and to limit access to the files. Employers must obtain the consent from the consumer to access the credit report.

Telephone Consumer Privacy Act (TCPA) restricts the use of telemarketing. It limits the time to call by solicitors, prohibits the use of artificial voices or recording, advertising faxes without consent. And the Act requires solicitors to keep a “Do Not Call” list and the list mush be honored for 10 years.

Ms. Goldstein also introduced Data protection/breach. For JP Morgan Chase Co, data breach is applied to both paper and electronic information. When a data breach happens, e.g., an unauthorized access to protected information, the consumer must be notified, along with other actions to cover the potential loss of the breach to guarantee the right of the consumer.

Compared to U.S, EU Data Protection Directives is broader covering all information related to every individual, and there is no distinction between natural person and legal person. For financial institutions, there is limit for them to keep the private information in a certain period and for reasonable purposes. Consumers have the right to know what content is included in their files. For special categories, private information cannot be used without consent.

For global institutions such as JP Morgan Chase, a challenge is to transfer financial data among districts with different privacy laws and with countries like China without a privacy law. For example, EU Date Protection Directive restricts data transfer to countries with no adequate level of protection. To promote privacy protection and flow of information in Asia Pacific regions, APEC issued a Privacy Framework in 2005 which facilitates information transfer. However, the framework is still in the stage of path finding.