A Tour of Accessibility

We were able to have the luxury of a guest speaker at our last class, whose main focus is on accessibility (which is the focus on trying to make our designs able to be used by a wider audience). During this talk, we learned a great deal about how much accessibility should play into our designs (and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!). Here’s a recap:

* Sometimes people think those who are disabled aren’t too smart, or have a lot wrong with them – but this not the case. Rather, they are very clever and smart in figuring out ways to overcome their problems in their ordinary lives.

* Accessibility is something that is pretty easy to start seeing in the world around us. Take a look at curb cuts in the road, the different types of technologies which assist people, and also in the web.

* Accessibility is not only for those who are disabled, but it also helps those who have the full use of all of their senses as well.

* If one is designing for a government, one has to know about accessibility, as it helps to grant equal access to those who can’t necessarily speak up for themselves. One may also lose their job in this situation if their designs are not accessible – it’s the law!

* It is also cheaper to design with accessibility in mind at the beginning of the design process than to stick it onto a redesign.

* There are many tools out there which can help designers make sure they are following the minimum standards of accessibility, but one should also use common sense when designing as well.

* It is also important to note that 1 in 5 in the US has a disability, making accessibility a big issue.

* Using a screen reader and designing for the blind is just one facet of the accessibility problem. These aren’t the only problems out there.

* Technologies have been created to help people with this issues. For example, motorized tables have been created to make using a computer easier for someone who can’t use a normal table.

* There are standards out in the real world to help designers – one just needs to take a quick look on the web and one can find them! It is actually only a couple additional steps to design and code with accessibility in mind.

* One can begin to start feeling the pain of accessibility issues by role playing – but don’t take it too far (e.g. blindfolding oneself while driving to simulate being blind. This is just a dangerous situation waiting to happen!).

* The only way to start thinking for someone who may have accessibility problems is to tap into our powers of people here at IU. There is the Stonebelt Center. One could take another person shopping who has one of these issues to see how it is firsthand to have issues like these. One can also look at the Adaptive Technology Center of UITS to begin to get an idea as to how IU tackles this problem.

* Usability testing is completely different when testing out a design for someone with accessibility issues. It takes care, patience, creativity, and empathy to do this correctly (this also applies to the whole design process as well!).

Thanks again to our speaker!

Taking A Look Back and Forward

Here’s A Wrap-Up of the Course So Far

The class can be summed up in 7 parts (of which, I arrived during step 5):

1: Experience design is so hot right now (catch the Zoolander reference?)
2: As designers, we need to know about experience and what it can tell us
3: Anthropology and others have already given us a good theory set on what experience actually is, and we don’t need to reinvent the wheel
4: It is not necessarily easy for us to get at everything philsophers and anthropologists work on (so sometimes dissecting their work is tough)
5: We can get at experience through our practice
If we do this critically, we can get at experience through the use of both studies and with critical thinking. This is sort of how we approached the analysis of the films we saw in the beginning of the semeseter. If we do this systematically, we can get at the relationships our knowledge we help to give us, and then we can become close to the actual experience and begin to design with these insights in mind. We can also use the frameworks given in class to help us get at this data and develop this closeness.
6: When we get at what the nuanced experience actually is, we can then design for it (like mentioned in 5)
This is the critical eye we are trying to develop, and to develop that understanding. It is not just theories (although they help), but it is the capacity to use these as an analytical tool to get at the critical understanding we need to develop for when we work in the field, or in our work as a distinguished HCI practicitioner. This can be summed up by the following quote referenced in class: totally, tenderly, and tragically. If we can take this to heart, we can develop true empathy with the people we are designing for and also to create better designs for them.
7: The need to design for experience, and not just making of stuff (because stuff is just stuff, and we don’t need more stuff).

So then we decided to look at the different types of thinking in the history of our discipline, while reflecting on Bodker’s waves of HCI.

Another Look at Rationalism/Cartesian Dualism

This type of thinking relies upon the principle of mind-body dualism, where we get an idea, we form an intention, our mind creates instructions, and our body is just a vessel to carry out this intention. This type of thinking is typical of traditional science, as it tries to be as objective as possible. This is nicely summarized on the quote on pp24, in which we learn about this type of thinking and its discursive practices. This type of thinking is embedded in our methods, as they are abstracted and algorithmic. This allows the data generated to be as objective as possible.

But there are problems with this type of thinking, at least with focusing on the experience people have. This type of thinking transforms the computer into an idealized input/output machine, in which the person is just a thing to make this machine work. This is also present in the Michael Garrett’s IA framework/representation. This creates a mental model of a website that anyone can understand – but unfortunately, this reflects the rationalist way of thinking, in which a person is just a mental model holder. There is also no consideration to the context in which something happens to this person. This was sort of solved by Winograd and Flores’ paper/book about that rationalism is not enough for proper HCI thinking.

Phenomenology (With a Song Cue)

This study helps us to understand understanding and sensemaking. We look at artifacts as transformative of tradition, but still allowing people to do what it is they still want to do. This then helps to drive new needs from people, while still partaking in the activities and traditions they want to continue. As we design, we will have to adapt to this continually changing traditions – it’s a never-ending cycle, which means we may get to keep designing and having jobs for a while at least. As we are designing, with this mindset, we can also tap into sustainability, as we can put this thinking into very simple practices to allow people to keep doing what they want to do, but still be practice whatever they are doing in a sustainable manner (and we should look into the work of Anne-Marie Willis and Ontological Design as well). This, esentially, is trying to get at the geneologically, and try to examine how we have gotten to where we have gotten, and then we can get a better idea about the traditions and practices we have ended up creating. This practice also wants to look at the collectivity of lifeworlds, as this is what we need to tap into to make better designs and utilize the way people go about their buisness.

Talking About Ethnography

If one really wants to delve into this world, one should really take a look into the work of Geertz – but that’s an FYI tidbit. From today’s reading, we learned that this study boils down to an interpretive description of what occurred. There is also an especially insightful quote on pp34, reflecting on the type of discourse this field is. We also ended up talking about this study as observing the changes in oneself while observing another culture, and one is in the thick of interpretations (which are inevitable). This is a fundamentally subjective way of studying other cultures, in which the ethnographer produces a substantial descriptive text, which enables the reader to try to get into the lifeworlds of the culture that is studied. This is quite a complex field, and one has to remember one may end up changing forever the culture he/she wants to study.

Political Thinking and Design

So has design been management centered (pp37)? Though we would like to design for the user, sometimes design ends up making an artifact that takes the user out of play. For example, the McDonald’s (sometimes broken) register. It has been reduced to just pressing numbers and buttons to make many more sales, rather than having an employee learn and become satisfied using the artifact. This design also reflects the difference in powers there are in the normal work structure – the manager has power over the employee, who’s job is to listen to the manager. The designed artifact, the register, allows the manager to use the employee’s time as much as possible to push the most amount of hamburgers out the door. As we are designing, we may have to keep this power, ethical, and judicial struggle in mind – especially if we work for the government, or McDonalds. As a side note – it’s always good to treat the employees well, as we found out that Costco employees steal less than those from Sam’s Club. How bout them apples?

An Experience – The WoW Lunar Festival

Before we get into the meat and potatoes of what happened yesterday, we went over a reminder – the tools and the technical vocabulary we have been given are tools to explore what an experience truly is, and how to play with it and capture every detail. We get to play with these tools, as they will help us get the most out of an experience, while still being able to get into ourselves and the subjectivity of our own selves.

And Now to WoW

Given the above thinking, we entered story time: our professor and his wife wanted to celebrate the new Lunar Year together by attending the Lunar Festival in WoW. So they logged on (PvP server) and started to engage in the quests of the Lunar Festival, as they found the setting to be quite beautiful. As they were walking along, and nearly done with all the quests and enjoyment of the festival, they ended up getting pwned (in gamer terminology) and spat on by someone 50 levels higher than them and spitting on their corpses. Bad story? Your call. The point of this was to bring up a question: was there a mistake made in this on behalf of the designers (a video from YouTube showing footage from this year’s Festival is below)?

Some more background before we get to the meat of this discussion: special event quests like this only happen for 2 weeks over 1 year, so these don’t come up often; the Festival is located in an area where normally higher level people are; our professor and his wife were level 10; this is one time in the year where both factions and races can actually come together and celebrate something, rather than kill each other; they also received Chinese dumplings in another town, which is important to this Festival; the symbolism of the Festival is extremely powerful for those who participate and engage truly in the festival (to the point where one holds the day in reveration by not doing much else).

A Gamer’s Opinion

So, being a gamer and having played games similar (but not MMO) to this and having watched a sibling play WoW for a while now, I’ll pitch in my own 2 cents. I wouldn’t have done this on a PvP server to start with, as I am a person who enjoys the style of PvE much more. If I had been on a PvP server, though, the experience would have been ruined for me as a player, as I would be expected that a festival such as this would allow me to transcend the bounds of the game and let me enjoy something to this extent. Not being able to do this would let me rant on about how much the people who designed this experience would have messed up. Big Time. I like fair play, and this type of experience is exactly why I would never play on a server like this if I ever did play WoW. I could rant on much more about this, but I’ll cut that diatribe short (because it has to deal with morality and things of this nature, and we don’t want to have that type of discussion here). I also think that there is enough evidence to say there is an error here, as if I were in the same situation, I would be in the expectation that this would be a safe ground, and anyone who violated this trust should be banned (or at least flamed or trolled, in my opinion). Simply put: DO NOT WANT.

The Class’s Opinion

As a class, there were mixed opinions about where the designers messed up or not. Some had the opinion it was our professor’s idea to engage in this festival at such a low level and on a PvP server. Why didn’t he use a different character? We didn’t really get an answer.

Others had a mentality that this was messed up – people just randomly killing each in WoW – that’s just not right. But then we heard an alternate perspective – in PvP, many have fun going around and just killing others randomly. It’s just what you do (but it’s part of the reason I don’t like PvP – the experience gets destroyed in an instant) and how one has fun. This was a heated discussion.

But then an even more informed perspective was brought to our attention. The Festival foreshadows what type of year one is going to have. Death is not even supposed to be talked about or even hinted about on this day. To go about killing people on this day is the antithesis of what the Festival is about, and is quite offensive to those who partake in the festival.

With all that said, a spectrum emerged about this type of play: there is normal PvP play, then there are diegetic festivals for players in WoW on PvP servers, and then there are non-diegetic festivals. We came to a consensus that this type of play is OK the further to the style of play in normal PvP action, but as the style of play starts to shift gears towards non-diegetic festivals, the more not cool this type of play is, and offensive it is for some.

To take away from this an experience, we have to remember that our unit of analysis was the felt, subjective experience (in the narrative and presentation of it) of our professor, not the interface of WoW. We analyzed the felt experience and expression of this experience and brought it to our own horizons and were able to critically interpret and realize what is really going on. In addition, we had to pay attention to intricate, particular details of the expression and experience, and from these, we can become informed and have a better view as to how people experience and go through their lives, even if it is in a virtual world, like WoW.

The Emergence of Subject

Yesterday’s lecture helped to focus on an important topic: the emergence of subject(-ivity). This allows a person to be a part of the world and has agency within it. There is also the concepts of doing and undergoing, just like in Dewey. Cleo does much undergoing: her body may have cancer (and the changes she undergoes) and she undergoes the changes the city of Paris imparts onto Cleo. Cleo also is an agent, as she gets to do “stuff”: she changes as a person (change as person, as she becomes reflective, perceptive, authentic, and prepared to face cancer).

These aspects of doing and undergoing can also happen on global and smaller levels within the movie and the characters. In the singing scene (shown last time), Cleo shows her the ability to turn on her singing skills, as she changes from fooling around to singing more passionately than she has throughout the whole movie. She also finds out the meaning of the songs words in her life over time, including the metaphors which she sings, which are not her own words. At this point, this is a confluence of all of these factors which craft the aesthetic experience, and this is what we want to realize and be able to make eventually.

With this theme comes another important concept: theme: the subject has experience, the subject has perspective, and the subject is the one for whom something is meaningful. This is so true with all of us, and the papers we wrote. Other examples which we all find different meanings are: the book of symbols and the frog guy. The big note: without a subject, there is no meaning. This can be seen in Cleo’s growing in order for her to deal with the possibility of her having caner.

The Film Aesthetic

There has been a lot of theory about aesthetics in film, and here are a couple of points relevant to our discussion and future knowledge. The film aesthetic is there to put us in same perspective as actors, through the eyes of the camera. We are at a normal human distance with the people on the screen, rather than sitting in the balcony of a play. This helps us to be able to create a similar reality to the characters we see on the screen, and this allows us to identify and potentially empathize with the characters we see. This is a type of thrill for some. Directors help to create a merging of subjectivities, ours, his/her own, and the characters, which help to create a duality, or even a blended world that is the mixing of all of these. This is part of the true craft of filmmakers, as they can create these emotions. Some of their tools they use are mise-en-scene (everything in the shot, and the shot itself – a good rule is that they don’t show you nothing for nothing, which is especially true for video games) and montage (the use of editing, putting images and shots together, and the ordering of everything). These are in film classes, and are pretty neato concepts at your disposal when you can use them.

The perspectives that are created allow us to share that perspective (both literal and figurative perspective) with the characters and elements in the movie. For example, there are 2 Cleos: Cleo1 thinks of Paris as her playground (and all the men are at her disposal), and she is everything we have already mentioned – this is her lifeworld (or horizon). When Cleo1 becomes Cleo2, she finds Paris to be not the playground it was, and it has its own life, independent of her. An important point to note is that we never see objective Paris. There is no scientific account of this city in this movie, but rather only from perspectives.

One could also look at the objects and artifacts used to try to create a structure inside of the movie. The mirrors can have many different meanings, but there are only few which are correct interpretations in light of the film: identity, revelations, a reflection, distort the world, show vanity, use as a portal. The correct interpretations are related to the actions in the movie, which help us to decode the proper meaning of what a mirror should be in this movie. Also, there are some mirrors which have something wrong with them: they have lines or cracks in them, and help to create more meanings. These elements are also meaningful in relationship to other elements in the movie, which then finally create an organization of the film. In this movie, the mirrors help to show Cleo as a pure decoration, who is as “vapid as a hat”.

So here is an organization that emerged during our class:

*** the first/second half of the movie is a mirror of itself (think of Cleo and Paris)
*** there is two of everything (scenes, artifacts, etc.)
*** we can make comparisons between each two
*** an example: Cleo as premadonna vs Cleo just being there
*** as a critic and a viewer, we can find these opposities and make comparisons

After all of this, we finally see how the last reading comes into play: if we look at all the perspectives and other details mentioned above, we are taking a hermeneutic approach. If we take a view of the world where we look at the relationships and how they create differences, paradigms, and structures, we are in the camp of structuralism.

To Come Away With

We always need to remember the unit of analysis when we are designing and creating experiences. Some questions are: What are we looking at? What is that made out of? These help to guide our thinking and be human-centered (and user-centered – this is when we center on peoples’ consciousness).

If we were to look at this movie in the way hermeneutics does, we need to look at the lifeworld(s) (or horizons) created by Cleo in the movie, which are her perceptions and associations. It’s her world, and her subjectivity of it. If we were to look at this movie in the world of structuralism, we need to look at the structures in the movie: the elements out of the expressions in the movie, the exact sequences of the movie, and the paradigmatic choices the director makes to show us certain aspects of the movie. It is also considered to be more objective than hermeneutics.

Rant waiting to happen

“Experience can’t be a code word for usability.” This could turn into a long discourse and rant, which would be entertaining and useful.