Implications

Morville, P., & Rosenfeld, L. (2007). Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (3rd ed.). Cambridge: O'Reilly.
chapter 1

highly valued principles of IA: change, balance between stability and flexibility & scalability

IA - defined:
structural design of information environment, shaping experiences with information through support of usability and findability (?? searchable & accessible?)

data - information - metada - knowledge

"invisibility" the concept of invisibility is important in emphasizing the need to make the transactions (with information & interface) transparent to the users so that they are not burdened with how to use the system. However, it is the job of information architects to make this invisible visible.

chapter 2

2 critiques on the chapter
1. IA as mediator: from my past working experience, the biggest role of IA is that of a mediator between disciplines. Once the client requirements are assessed, they are constantly in discussion with designers and technical staffs to address the requirements and to understand how they can be addressed. IAs do not come up with the initial design of functionality, it emerges in discussion between discipline leads. The implication, IAs are not specialists in any discipline but they need to have sufficient understanding of each discipline to understand the suggestions from each discipline and the rationale.
2. technology is no longer the center of attention in design of websites. Graphic design is. People are very easily sold by what looks good.

Factors that determine the distinct content of a site:
ownership, format, structure, metadata, volume, dynamism



An interesting observation of the readings on information architecture, design and more is that they are devoid of design intentions or purpose. All websites or information experience is provided with particular purose. In commercial world there is promotion and marketing in mind, in education there is pedagogical purpose and style in mind. These are hardly discussed and addressed by the literature, probably due to the fact that they are trying to cater to diverse industry.

Interaction Design IV

Steuer, J. (1995). Defining visual reality: Dimensions determining telepresence. In F. Biocca and M. R. Levy (Eds.), Communication in the age of virtual reality (pp. 33-56). Hilldale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

The author attempts at redefining the concept of Virtual Reality, emphasizing on the 'experiential' aspect of it rather than the technological definition, which limits definition of
1) unit of analysis
2) dimensions of VR
3) means for examining virtual reality in relation to other mediated experience.

Thus, the author defines it as
"Virtual Reality is defined as a real or simulated environment in which a perceiver experiences telepresence"

Communicator A <--> [virtual reality] <--> Communicator B

The concept of 'telepresence' refers to mediation perception (c.f. natural perception of presence), the extent to which on feels present in the mediated environment. This includes similar concept of teleoperation.

Dimensions of VR can be identified as
1. variables that induce the sense of telepresence (Sheridan, 1992)
Technological
a) extent of sensory information
b) control of sensors relative to environment
c) ability to modify the physical environment
task or context-based
d) task difficulty
e) degree fo automation
2. dimensions that define communication technolgies
a) vividness: breath and depth
depends on the breadth (the number of perceptual information available) and depth of sensory information availabe in each perceptual channel
b) interactivity:
refers to the degree to which users can participate in modifying the form and content of the mediated environment
depends on
b.1) speed
b.2) range (i.e. number of attributes in the mediated environment that can be manipulated)
b.3) mapping (i.e. which human actions are connected to actions within a mediated environment)



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Moreno, R., & Mayer, R. E. (2000). Engaging students in active learning: The case for personalized multimedia messages. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92, 4, 724-733.

Personalized message can induce
1. active engagement by learners
2. lowered cognitive load
3. better performance

Experimental manipulation presented instructions in personalized style or 1, 2, 3rd point of view.
Theoretical background
- cocktail party effect: people can easily detect personally relevant information while attentding to 2 conversations simultaneously
- self-referential effect: retention is facilitated when personally relevant information is presented


Assumptions were that self-referencing instruction will lead the learners to believe that they are the active participants of the learning process thereby promoting deep understanding of the material via increased elaboration of the material and less cognitive effort to process information. (interaction hypothesis c.f. transmission hypothesis)

The results show that while self-referencing effect manifest in better retention and transfer, it is not due to increased interest in the material. The paper fails to explain the mechanisms involved in the effect (the article goes as far as reducing processing effort and interaction with existing schema) but other hypothesis can also be suggested:
1. personalized message assists selective attention whereby personally relevant information is more easily attended to (and thus reducing mental effort)
2. implicit attention is increased due to induction of social context through informal, self-referencing message. the effect of social context on cognitive porcesses can be seen in social psychology literature.

Interaction Design III

Dickey, M.D. (2005). Engaging by design: How engagement strategies in popular computer and video games can inform instructional design. Educational Technology Research and Development, 53, 67-83.

Engaged learning (Jones et al, 1994& Schlechty, 1997)
consist of elements: focused goal, challenging task, clear and compelling standards, protection from adverse consequences for initial failures (??), affirmation of performance, affiliation with others, novelty and variety, choice, authenticity.

Game design can inform development of problem-based constructivist learning environment.

Strategies to engage users in game design & applicability to educational design
1. POV (player position or point of view)
"god's eye" view to more immersive environment, in line with the more active participation of learner's in the learning environment (learner control & engagement)

2. narrative
Narrative as a means of reasoning and of representation.
Narratives are inherently sequential and linear in nature, however game designs are nonlinear. One solution around the discrepancy is to allow branching stories according to user interaction/choice or allow dynamic access of different parts of linear narrative.

3. interaction
"hooks" afford actions and feedback to players
Hooks are types of choices a player makes in teh course of the game. (Howland, 2002)
i.e. action, resource, tactical and strategic, time hooks
(the concept of hooks as different types of choices available to users sounds similar to the issue of learner control which is much addressed in educational research. is it always engaging? is it always benefitial?)

a) 'setting' defines the gamespace supporting narrative and a sense of immersion through manipulation of physical(spatial), temporal, environmental (visual), emotional, ethical dimensions
b) 'roles and characters'
c) 'actions, feedback, and affordances'
rules define possible actions in strive of a particular goal



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Schwann, S., & Riempp, R. (2004). The cognitive benefit of interactive videos: Learning to tie nautical knots. Learning and Instruction, 14, 293-305.

3 main characteristics of "new media" is defined as
1. non-linear structure
2. concerted use of a great number of different symbol systems
3. interactivity, which gives users the opportunity to decide on the "what" and the "how" of the information presentation

The interactivity (often referred to as learner control) is discussed in detail for the cognitive implications (direct experience vs media presentation; cognitive benefits of interactive visual media).

In non-interactive presentation, media-based information presentation restricts information processing to the perspective of the designers of the material. This could enhance the experience of information processing in comparison to direct experience by presenting in a way that assists for better comprehension. However, such approach is typically designed to address a general audience as opposed to specific cognitive characteristics of each user.

Interactive presentation affords "epistemic action" (Kirsh and Maglio, 1994) where by interactive manipulation of presentation by users allows users to moderate the amount of information, mental steps, speed at which they receive the information, facilitating cognitive processing. However, interactivity could potentially increase cognitive load (extraneous load) by requiring users to hold control-related information.

Therefore, interactive dynamic visualization can only benefit learners if
- interactivity allows users to substantially reduce the cognitive demands in processing the inforamtion
- cognitive load induced by interaction with the system is minimal

In the experiment presented in the article, where learners viewed video to learn how to tie knots of different complexity in either interactive (control) or non-interactive condition, learners took advantage of the controls provided with the video and demonstrated more effective learning outcome. However, there is a limitation in extending the results of the experiment to other dynamic visualization, for the learning material was mainly procedural in nature, and the interactivity was confined to 'control' as opposed to active searching for information, which most interactive media affords.


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Rieber, L.P., Tzeng, S., & Tribble, K. (2004.) Discovery learning, representation, and explanation within a computer-based simulation: finding the right mix. Learning and Instruction, 14, 307–323.

In an experiment, the researchers explored how graphical or textual explanation assist learners interacting with the system that uses Newton's law to kick a ball to a target. The result (as assessed by knowledge test on Newton's law as well as performance in the system itself) shows that graphical explanation was more benefitial. Thus, aligning the representation type of the feedback or explanation with the task demands is important.

Questions:
1. why are they referring to feedback literature when what they are providing is essentially a scaffold of information (information on the positioning of the ball)? Feedbacks in educational research pertains to the metacognitive information, assisting learner's with their self-regulation of their learning (i.e. knowing their own progress) as opposed to acquiring additional information.
2. textual feedback is not informative by design for it provides x,y coordinates of the target and the ball, implying that learners receiving such feedback had to mentally convert x, y coordinates into graphical representation, requiring an additional mental step, thus causing extraneous load, irrelevant to the concepts being learnt. This can be seen from the result where the M of principle learning for textual feedback is none different from Graphical interface without explanations and also from the frustration result. (no wonder!)

Interaction Design II

Saffer, D. (2007) Designing for Interaction. Berkeley: New Riders. [chapters 4, 5]

Design Research - investigation of product or service's potential or existing users or environments.
Hunt statement: research objectives to focus research efforts.

Interview: directed storytelling, unfocus group, role playing etc.
unfocus group-> unlike focus group which gather typical users with scripted questions, unfocus group approach gather experts from different persepctives to get diverse opinion on the product or service.

Design implications: draw out the requirements from design research

brainstorming

Research models: communicate findings from design research
Use cases and task analysis: outline what the product needs to accomplish
mood boards (emotional landscape), scenarios, storyboards, task lfows, sketches, wireframes, prototypes: piece together waht the product or service will be in visual form
Personas: document to describe archetypal people involved with products or services, listing only those characteristics relevant to the product (user profiles) - componenets include experience goals, end goals, life goals to describe what the product means to the user
Scenarios: outline design concepts in use



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Wittrock, M.C. (1992). Generative learning processes of the brain. Educational Psychologist, 27(4), 531-541.

Model of Generative learning and teaching
is based on the understanding of our brain processes involved in cognition and learning from neuropsychology (i.e. Luria's functional systems of brain consisting of arousal and attention, integration of sensory information, and generative processor)
Learning is seen as the effects of generation of meaningful relations, implying the active engagement by the learners.
The model consists of 4 processes
1. attention
2. motivation
3. knowledge and preconcpetion
4. generation

Studies support the model that more generative methods of learning/instruction is more effective in learning comprehension, math, science and more.


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Betrancourt, M. (2005). The animation and interactivity principles in multimedia learning. In Mayer (ed.), The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning, pp.287 -296. New York: Cambridge.

Schnotz and Lowe (2003)
Animation can be characterized over 3 levels:
technical - technology used for delivery
semiotic - signs and dynamics represented
psychological - perceptual and cognitive processes involved when viewing animation

types of Interactivity
- control: capacity of users to pace and direct succession of frames
- interactivity: capability to act on what will appear in the next succession

The advantage of animation over static representation is not clear due to either cognitive limitations in processing dynamic information or that each discrete screen in the animation might be perceived as static steps despite being displayed in continuous manner. Providing learner control might help overcome such limitations for better learning with animation (well, learner control throws in whole another slew of problems and limitations) as well as segmenting the animation into smaller chunks (similar to control solution)

'illusion of understanding' since animation visualizes the dynamic processes of the system being represented, this might lead to shallow cognitive processing by the learners in forming the visual representation of the phenomenon.

5 design priniciples for animation
1. apprehension principle: to reduce visual complexity, representations should be readily comprehensible and non-redundant
2. congruence principle: dynamic changes should represent conceptual change rather than behavior of the phenomenon
3. Interactivity principle: learners should have control over the pace of animation, higher level of control should only be provided in learners can handle it
4. Attention-guiding principle: signaling etc. to guide learner's attention to reduce overwhelming cognitive capacity
5. Flexibility Principle: provide option of static or animation version of the material, without redundant presentation

Interaction Design I

Saffer, D. (2007) Designing for Interaction. Berkeley: New Riders. [chapters 1, 2, 3]

Interaction design: designing the behavior of product and services, i.e. how it works
Historically, interaction design emerged as product design shifted focus from 'engineering' to 'designing'. This is in alignment with the technological sophistication where as the computers became more capable, more attention could be put into the issues of usability.

4 approaches to design:
user-centered design - focus on user's needs and goal
activity-centered design - focus on acitivities or tasks to be accomplished through the system
systems design - focus on components of the system, useful for seeing the big picture
genius design - focus on the designer's ability

Elements of interaction design:
motion, space, time (rhythm), appearance, texture, sound

Laws of Interaction Design
Moore's Law - Intel guy hypothesizing that processing power will double every year
Fitt's Law - larger the target, faster it can be pointed to
Hick's Law - faster the choice of navigation if lesser number of choice available
Magical number seven - George Miller's identification of working memory limitation ranging 7 +/- 2 chunks
Tesler's Law of the Conservation of Complexity: tasks have inherent complexity
Poka-Yoke Principle - putting constraints to minimize error as soon as possible
Direct and Indirect Manipulation
Feedback and Feedforwrad

Characteristics of Good Interaction Design
Trustworthy, appropriate, smart (sharing cognitive load), responsive, clever (delightful intelligence), ludic (playful), pleasurable

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Shedroff (1999). Information Interaction Design: A Unified Field Theory of Design. In Jacobsen, R. (Ed.), Information Design, pp. 267–292. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

data - information - knowledge - wisdom
The distinction between them probably comes from information technology field where it is necessary to identify the characteristics associated with different level of 'organization'. It is interesting to see how cognitive psychologists do not make such distinctions and they almost feel it unnecessary. This might be because the distinction really comes from the perspective of people that manipulate meaning for presentation (provider), while the psychologists come from the perspective of the meaning making (receiver). In this sense, it is rather problematic when Shedroff says that knowledge can be affected directly by the designers...Information can indeed be directly manipulated but knowledge is constructed 'actively' by the perceiver, through their selective attention, perception and organization, in that there really is no way we can 'directly' influence the process.

the continuum of interactivity
feedback; control; creativity;productivity;communications;adaptivity
defines the level of interactivity from passive to active participation by the users. It is interesting that the author notes, it is not always desired to provide the most interactivity, this depends on the goal of design. (defying the assumption that more interactivity is better)


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Shneiderman, B. & Plaisant, C. (2005). Designing The User Interface. Chapter 2: Guidelines, Principles, and Theories (pp. 60–106). Boston: Pearson.

guidelines - principles - theories
at different levels, they serve different purposes by informing designers with differing specificity and understanding.

Guidelines provide specific rules that can be readily applied in design practice, however, due to their specificify, might not apply to all cases.
- Navigation
- organization of the display
- managing attention
- data entry
few principles keep coming up throughout the guidelines: consistency (theoretical explanation: easy to learn & maintain), sufficient user control, non-distracting

Pinciples
Good balance of attention between individual difference and universality is needed in consideration of their skill, preference, task

8 golden rules of interaction design
1. strive for consistency (managing expectation)
2. cater to universal usability
3. offer informative feedback
4. Design dialogs to yield closure (satisfaction of experience)
5. Prevent errors
6. permit easy reveral of actions
7. Support internal locus of control (especially for experienced users; balance between automation and control)
8. Reduce short-term memory load

Theories
cognitive theories inform how users process information the cognitive task demands.
Taxonomies to categorize tasks, preference etc.

levels of analysis
- conceptual level
- semantic level
- syntactic level
- lexical level
The distinction appears to be more of categorization (of information) rather than the pure sense of level (i.e. hierarchical leveling). Also, the distinction is outdated due to the fact that the levels were based on command line interface (c.f. modern GUI)

Stages-of-action models
Based on user interaction with tools (Norman)
Forming the goal - forming the intention - specifying the action - executing the action - perceiving the system state - interpreting the system state - evaluating the outcome
The model fits well in identification of
- gulf of execution (user's intention vs allowed action)
- gulf of evaluation (user's expectation vs feedback)

GOMS model (Card, Moran, Newell)
goals - operators - methods - selection rules
keystroke level model - simplified version of GOMS predicting the error-free expert performance of achieving the goal

Action Grammar (Reisner) -> Task Action Grammar (Payne & Greene)
outline multiple levels of consistency

OAI model (Object Action Interface)
Task, interface hierarchical models

Information Design IV

Tidwell, J. (2006)

Designing Interfaces

patterns: "structural and behavioral features that improve the 'habituality' of something"

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Alexander, C. (1977)

A Pattern Language

The author introduces us to a new 'pattern language' that he devised to represent architectural problem solving.

Each pattern has the format of picture (shows examplar of the pattern); introductory paragraph(set the context); diamonds (beginning of problem); headline (essence of problem); problem (more detailed description of pattern & problem); solution. Such format serves the purpose of presenting connection between patterns and present problem & solution that are generic enough to be applied to wide number of cases but still hold essential information for practical application. He makes an analogy to research process himself, but it is interesting how his organization of concepts are similar to typical guidelines presented in applied research such as in instructional design.

While in recent times, what with all technology that is available, we try to present symbolic information in more visual representation, he actually attempted to do the other, whereby presenting pictoral/visual information in a symbolic manner. Perhaps this is related to Peirce's conception of Icons, the likeness or the 'pictorial ideas', which he describes as containing no information. In order to present the added information (indices and symbols), Alexander chooses the most symbolic representation of mankind, textual representation.

In explaining his purpose of devising new pattern language, Alexander claims that "the languages which people have today are so brutal, and so fragmented, that most people no longer have any language to speak of at all". It is rather difficult to accept such claim since language is none other than arbitrary assignment of object(meaning) - representation that it is constantly evolving according to the community that share it. The very language that people speak 'today' might be brutal and fragmented but this is no indication that it is limiting people's ability to communicate but could also be a reflection of the contemporary culture of communication (and their needs). This fallacy is almost like a deja-vu which we saw from the sad example of unsuccessful attempts at creating a universal language.

on the metaphor of 'information architecture'

the article brings to mind the term 'IA' as used for information & interaction design, which implies that we are borrowing the rules of practice from the field of architecture. This accoutns for the fact that we are designing to promote certain behaviors (thus accounting for the interaction design) but what we are missing is the account for information design. while behavior is the 'end' for architectural design, behavior (i.e. interaction) is only the means to and 'end' in information & interaction design in that we are trying to promote certain interactions/behaviors in order for the users to arrive at certain information/knowledge. This also relates to the 'object' that is being represented with the 'pattern language' as proposed by Alexander in comparison to the 'object' (or the nature of the object) that is being represented in educational material.

on 'poetry of language'

Alexander speaks of the 'dense' nature of poetry, whereby he advocates the need for such density in the pattern language. On a similar note, Eisner speaks of representing educational research in forms of art or poetry. While the idea of poetry is so appealing with it's creativity and potential for multiple interpretations, it cautions the use of poetry exactly for that reason, specifically the notion of poetic license. What poetic or artistic license allows is exactly the researcher's worst nightmare, interpretation without any explanation on the perspective that it is grounded in.

reusable patterns/resable components/object-oriented

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Saffert, D. (2007)

Designing for Interaction: [chapter 6]

interface reveals designer's intentions in regards to "how people can engage with a product and how that product should respond"

Control elements have standard feedback mechanism (which is often overlooked in web designs).
latches???

widgets: building blocks for applications/devices

function of icons: can be too abstract to denote functions, and if space permits, are replaced with text.

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Peirce, C. (1894)

What is a sign?

Apart from his elaboration of different types of sign, Peirce makes an interesting distinction, which modern psychologists would argue against, between cognitive processes: Feeling VS Thinking

Obviously, he is writing in a pre-cognitive revolution era and his definition of them are quite different. Thinking for Peirce is reasoning by rules, with means and end, and a sense of learning. On the other hand, feeling is similar to cognitive reaction without any conscious effort to reason.

Then, he makes distinction between 3 kinds of signs:

Icons (likeness)

convey ideas of the things they represent simply by imitating them such as imitative sounds, gestures and pictures.

There is a natural relationship between the representation and the object but does not contain information. Icons are 'pictorial ideas.' Has a requisite of 'capacity for experience'. There is no dynamic connection between representation and object due to it's characteristic of 'likeness'.

Indices (indications)

show something about things, on account of their being physically connected with them

Indications marks the junction between two portions of experience and needs to have embedded experience for understanding. Representation and object are physically connected (to mark the junction/relationship).

Symbols (general signs)

become associated with their meanings by usage (arbitrary assignment of meaning)

Conventional: assignment of symbol and object is made according to convention or contract between those that share the symbol. Representation and object are connected & reconnected (thus the dynamic relationship) by those that share the symbol. Symbols form the basis of thinking.

When we think (or in Peirce's terms, the rule-governed reasoning) occurs in signs, thus the combination of icons, indices and symbols.

"The art of reasoning is the art of marshalling such signs, and of finding out the truth."

It is ironic how he describes our thinking as occuring only in signs (in other words, not the truth itself but a mere representation of the truth, whether it be naturally or arbitrarily assigned) but then they take us through the journey of discovering the truth.

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Lee, H., Plass, J.L., & Homer, B.D. (2006)

Optimizing cognitive load for learning from computer-based science simulations

The experiment manipulated
- intrinsic load by displaying simulation on 1 (HC) or 2 screens (LC)
- extraneous load by using symbolic only, icon + symbolic representation; displaying controls next to or far away from representation; displaying immediate data point or all data point on the graph

The result shows that both manipulation proved effective but slightly different for learners with different level of prior knowledge as measured by general science knowledge.
LC was effective for all learners but especially high prior knowledge learners (probably disadvantaged low prior knowledge learners due to split-attention effect). The manipulation used for intrinsic load is debatable for it might seemingly appear to reduce intrinsic load, the demand still exists when all information needs to be integrated in the second simulation, in other words, the split-attention effect.
Manipulation of extraneous load helped both learner types, especially low prior knowledge learners. It is a shame, however, that three different measures of reducing extraneous load was used and we cannot readily recognize which design principle helped reduce extraneous load, limiting interpretation of the result.
Expertise reversal effect was also observed whereby low prior knowledge learners demonstrated different performance only in LC condition, high prior knowledge learners demonstrated reversal of effect in both LC and HC condition. What is interesting, is that compared to most expertise reversal effect studies that report reversal effect as measured by difference in 'instructional efficiency', this studied observed the effect from raw test score.

Information Design III

Ahhhh.... emotion, what a messy messy subject.



Designing Emotionally Sound Instruction: The FEASP-Approach.
Astleitner, H. (2000)

It is unfortunate that we do have such dichotomy between cognition, motivation and emotion for it appears to provide a false sense of 'distinctiveness' of the constructs, which in reality might be an extension of one another.

Emotion might well be understood as an attentional mechanism influencing our cognitive processes by modulating valence (incentive) and expectancy (probability of success), components that make up (surprise, surprise!) the motivational theory!

"the questions of what should be learned to develop certain student's feelings"

It is assumed that we could develop emotional development, implying purposeful manipulation of emotion independently. What might have been overlooked is the fact that emotional reaction is built on cognitive processing of information (situational & personal) whether it be conscious or unconscious. For sake of research, such distinction of cognition and emotion might be necessary, but this should not fool us into thinking that they are distinct constructs acting independently. Emotion could be approached in the most cognitive manner whereby conscious cognitive procesing results in an emotional 'reaction' to the situation (or behavior) whereby influencing our future emotional, motivational, cognitive reaction to similar situation.

The author has made good integration of theoretical understanding from different fields based on empirical data. It is also interesting how he came up with certain principles applicable for practice. Only if he didn't dedicate so much space to meditation....hmm....

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Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction
Sharp, H. (2007) chapter 5

topic of error messages: don't know where to begin
from the user's perspective, i do want to see more informative error messages,
from a developer's perspective, i consider different kind of error messages.
the concept of error handling is crucial from a programmer's perspective and time and thought is alway put & dedicated to error handling. However, from the interaction design perspective, what with burden of endless deadlines, time is never really dedicated to design user-friendly error messages. Thus, users are left with geeky error messages that they can't quite decode. Who's fault is it?

Interaction:
The word interaction is misguiding us in some ways when it comes to interaction with machines. The word puts in our mind the concept of social interaction. We expect to receive the same kind of response that we get in social interaction with another human being. However, we do not treat machines the way we would treat another human being in a social interaction. Perhaps it's the greed but how could we address this rather paradoxical relationship? Would emotion expression be an answer?
The author brings up the topic of anthromorphism in a similar sense. But if we already possess the tendency to treat our machines as humans, do we need to try an fake the 'humanness'?







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Emotional Design
Norman, D. (2004) chapters 1–4

Interestingly, after a while, most cognitivists come to realize that their intended exclusion of 'emotion' in their study of human mind & behavior can go only so far.
Norman's model of visceral, behavioral & reflective levels of emotion is interesting, although rather perplexing. There seems to be a sense of hierarchy in these systems, which probably are more like an interative loop where each level is constantly informing the others.

Norman, however, appears to maintain a clear distinction between function and emotional value of design. Perhaps the distinction is useful for the purpose of isolating factors influencing human behavior (as a response to tool in use) for reaserch but in design practice, I wonder if we could make such distinction, or even if it is needed.

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The Effect of Positive Emotions on Multimedia Learning


Um, E., Song, H., & Plass, J.L. (2007)

Very interesting how the postive emotional design has improved the satisfaction and showed influence on learning. The only caveat is that the article did not extrapolate on the actual principle applied to make such positive emotional design. (well, only because I do know that they did use specific principles!) For the instructional designer, pointing out to what design principles were applied in the design of the instructional material (i.e. baby face effect) might be very helpful.

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Overall...

the readings definitely reflect the initial attempts at addressing the issues related to emotion in design. Donald Norman attempts to address the levels of emotion as response (as a result of) using a tool. However, with further sophistication of emotion research in instructional design, differential involvement of emotion (as distinct processes) in educational environment needs to be identified. Emotion is a very broad term just as cognition. While cognitive processes are studied with added specificity, i.e. long term, short term memory, attention, perception etc., emotion is dealt in a fairly generalized manner. Emotion is definitely involved as a response to interaction of the design, but purported use of emotion can also be made to influence certain cognitive and behavioral response. (emotion as a factor of motivation, usability, attitude, behavior and cognition etc.) The reason why we see the focus on emotion as reaction to tool use might be due to current research focusing on the issue of usability.

Information Design II

The Design of Everyday Things

Norman (88)

Chapter 1


Ok, just as I came to terms with myself to overlook his 'folk-psychology' bashing as his philosophical orientation as a mere cognitive scientist-snobbery, DOET book is revealing more of his faults in completely overlooking the wisdom of human society and culture! (alas, he worked for Apple! I should have known.^^) As a subscriber of cognitive approach in understanding human behavior, even to me he has gone way too far into the errs of congitive revolution.


i.e. the example of scissors vs digital watches


yes, truly it is much easier for me to form a conceptual model of scissors compared to digital watch. I can easily figure out where to place my fingers and operate this tool in comparison to a digital watch. However, he is completely overlooking the 'folk psychology' of how I came to have the conceptual model of scissors in my mental model. It was 'LEARNED'. even the simplest tool such as a bar of wood to knock down on objects need modeling and learning (as seen from the classic movie 2001 space odessy) in order to form a conceptual model. A 5 year of child who has never observed anyone use scissors would have no mental model nor would readily have the ability to form a mental model of its affordances and functions. As william james says, a volutary action arises from the mental representation of the action formed from previous experience, may it be direct experience or indirect (learned through modeling). And tool use indeed is a voluntary action.

Then, what about the myth of intuitive design?Can there be such thing as an intuitive design? Well, there is a conflict of concepts here. Wikipedia defines it

"understanding without apparent effort, quick and ready insight seemingly independent of previous experiences or empirical knowledge. " In this sense, no, there can be no such things as an intuitive design. What we strive for, however, is something nearing intuition, building on top of our accumulated knowledge and wisdom, rule of trade as agreed by the society over years of practice. Our seeming 'intuition' towards a new design (of tool) can arise from it's similarity to our previous experience with tools/design that hold visible similarity with the new tool but a true intuition cannot arise for the idea of 'innate knowledge of a tool' is ungrounded.

Chapter 2

Interestingly, Norman borrows the principles of social psychology to describe human interaction with tools. Is this reflecting the Mcluhan's idea of media being the extension of us?

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Construction and interference in learning from multiple representation

Schnotz & Bannert (2003)

text VS picture as fundamentally different forms of representation

-> descriptive VS depictive representation

-> represent different kinds of subject matter VS suited to draw inferences

In a sense the learning phase did not influence the mental model in terms of adding knowledge to be accessed later during problem solving (test) phase, but it merely effected the performance through activation of mental model regarding time difference with different structure. Can this be applied to learning situation? Perhaps by assisting activation of appropriate mental model for better processing of learning material?

It is interesting to see the distinction between descriptive and depictive representation, functionally distinctive representation. Perhaps this was pointed at Clark's remark on functionally equivalent symbol systems?

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Return of the mental image: are there really pictures in the brain?

Pylyshyn (2003)

picture theory: why do we hang onto the picture theory while none of the evdence can support the picture theory? Because in terms of cognitive processes as we can consciously experience, picture theory appears to apply. Therefore, while there might be some different or similar form of representation in our brain, it might not matter for much of the cognitive process that we study such as learning and perception.

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Designing The User Interface : Information Visualization

Schneiderman & Plaisant (2005)

information visualization VS scientific visualization

2D VS 3D

task oriented visualization definitely seems to be the theme of readings for this week. however the chapter addresses the issue of task from technical perspective (from data-manager's perspective) as opposed to the cognitive processes involved with the tasks at hand.

And of course, the high learning curve has got to be one of the challenges here... couldn't make sense of most of the visualizer tools featured in the chapter!

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Multimedia Learning

Mayer (2001)

Personalization & Interactivity principles

I wonder if they have been explored further, for the principles as has been described in the book appears too simplistic. For instance, personalization principle appears to tap into the topic of motivation (more engaged in social context) without actually mentioning a word of motivation or affective construct. The studies on learner control (interactivity principle) is also widely studied topic that does not appear to be reflected in the principle as mentioned in the book.

This perhaps reflects the often made criticism towards the multimedia learning theory as being exclusively cognitive without consideration of affective constructs.

Information Design 1

*** Norman (93) ***

[Chapter 2 - Experiencing the world]
Issue of motivation:The reference freqeuntly appears as to how the game developers 'have figured out' the ways to cleverly motivate and engage gamers in learning the rules and strategies, all the desired cognitive processes targeted by educators. However, the question remains. Did they really figure it out? Or is it simply that the purpose of design was so different that the resulting designinherently embedded different motivators? Perhaps it's the task delivered by the games isis motivating enough and the design strategies have cleverly followed through the pattern.Then what is the task? Problem solving? Challenge? Competition? This leads to the controversy of problem based learning VS direct instruction.
The assumed 'illusion' in comparing informal to formal learning. The table itselflists one as consisting of 'motivating goal' while the other as not. It could be illusory to assume that by replacing learning goal with incidental learning(a mere phemomena) experienced while striving for a goal other than learning would suffice.
experiential VS reflective thoughts

[Chapter 3 - The Power of Representation]
Power of representation comes from the potential of abstraction, as long as it servesto represent the essential information.
experiential VS reflective artifactsact upon represented world VS act upon representing world
Power of representation comes when reflective cognition is afforded by the representing artifacts to allow experiential cognition with no added reflective process.
Representing NumbersThe nature of additive VS substitutive representations
Naturalness principle-> perceptual principle: perceptual & spatial representations preferred (probablyreferring to minimizing cognitive load in processing perceived information)
The question about naturalness: reflective information with practice becomes experiential.Arabic numberal are discussed as 'unnatural' for it requires years of training. However,once it has become so familiar to us, isn't this an experiential congition?

[Chapter 4 - Fitting the Artifact to the Person]
Cognitive tools - representation tools as shifting the cognitive task from one to the other by sharing the cognitive capacity
surface VS internal artifactsthe example of book being a surface artifact is TRULY wrong for he is overlooking the layers of represetations embedded in letters!
'the more powerful way of representing'visual/perceptual graph is discussed as more powerful method of representation than a table or matrix. perhaps due to the experiential cognition taking over reflective?


*** Horn (1999) Information Design: Emergence of a New Profession ***
Information design: focus on efficiency & effectiveness
VLIcons - Visual Language Icons : integration of words and images to compensate for lackof information (thus possible communication failure) afforded by icons alone
Despite long history of information design, the field has only recently received attentiondue to emergence of IT technology.

*** Plass & Salisbury (2002) A Living Systems Design Model for Web-based Knowledge Management Systems ***
Due to the dynamic nature of a 'living systems' as if referred by the article, dynamic knowledge systems where knowledge is incrementally accrued, require different instructionaldesign framework. More interative and circular phase is suggested whereby evaluation (formativeassessment) and analysis of requirements are frequently conducted to revise the design ofthe system. This accounts for not only the learning and cognitive processes (and the needs)of the users but also their changing needs according to the dynamic nature of the system.
The context of the users is important for they would have their unique needs as well asfamiliarity to different interafaces.

*** Goldman, R. (2007). Video Representation and the Perspectivity Framework: Epistemology, Ethnography, Evaluation, and Ethics. ***
Points of Viewing : an attempt to minimize the hazard of bias, misrepresentation, missed-representation.
While video is an effective medium for educational research, problems remain regarding theepistemological framework (should this matter?), possible effects of presence of the camera (the problem of subordination), and understanding the utility of video as an effective mode of research.
reperesentation as "production of meaning of the concepts in our minds through language" (Hall)a 'process' rather than a 'thing'
Video as representational medium has great power in being able to convey more information(perceptual) than can be conveyed by any other medium. Doesn't this also lead to concernfor this very property readily conveys false impression of 'truthfulness' to the viewers.How could researchers overcome such problem? "points of viewing' or 'perspectivity' is providedas a resolution, where the researcher's perspective should be made apparent to the viewers.How does this translate into practice?

*** Hall, S. (1997). Representation, meaning, and language. ***
Representation defined: "production of meaning through language"Here, the word language is used to emcompass all symbols that allow communication.
Systems of representation consisting of1. concepts (conceptual maps)2. language (forming correspondance betweenconceptual map and set of signs)shared amongst the members of culture to allow meaningful representation.However, the meanig of social, cultural, linguistic conventions (cultural code) isconstantly changing.
3 theoretical approaches to explaining practices of Represetation:"where do meanings come from?"
1. reflective: meaning lies in the object or idea being represented2. intentional: meaning lies in the 'intention' of the communicator3. constructionist: meaning is constructed by members of society through conceptual and representational systems, independent of the actual world The relational connection exist between concepts and signs, reflecting the 'non-fixed' and arbitrary nature of representation. 3.1. Semiotic 3.2. Discursive