Summary:
William Buxton explains how he was invited to work on a new project at the National Research Council of Canada developing and testing a digital music machine. He detailed the use of its various components that allowed him to compose and record music. He notes that the system was in fact intended to study HCI, with the music machine acting as an ideal way to do so.
Discussion:
I have been asking myself how HCI could be effectively researched, and in this chapter, reading about the music machine was designed not only for music composition, but also as a way to study and observe HCI, I think this serves as a good example.
Chapter 4:
Summary:
Joseph A. Konstan discusses his experience with the SketchPad graphics application by Sutherland. This CAD program offered a very large display along with a light pen and various buttons and dials as input devices that allowed users to create very diverse systems, even circuit diagrams. He uses his experience with it to demonstrate how HCI is closely related to computer science as a discipline.
Discussion:
Much like the NRC 1970, I found the SketchPad to be an interesting and innovative method for researching HCI. Having been a mechanical engineer for 2 years, I found this study even more engaging.
Chapter 5:
Summary:
Wendy Ju recounts how her first viewing of the NLS demo led her to pursue her research at the MIT Media Lab. There, the rigorous "demo-or-die" culture made her somewhat disillusioned and demoralized with demos, realizing that hype was very important. But upon watching the NLS demo a second time, she decided that proof (of concept) in a demo was far more important than hype.
Discussion:
I found and watched the first few minutes of Engelbart's NLS demo here, with the demo split into multiple parts. Later on I will watch the rest of the demo. In the parts that I watched, Engelbart demonstrated tasks that would now seem trivial, such as cut/copy, file creation, metadata and view control. So I immediately got the sense that "this was genesis". But since I haven't watched the entire video, I was more focused on the features he was demonstrating than the mouse, unlike Ju.
Chapter 18:
Summary:
This chapter centers around Saul Greenberg's study in computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). He details a study by John Tang (inspired by Sara Bly) on how groups use and collaborate on a shared drawing space on different surfaces: on a table and on a whiteboard. He compared the two work surfaces by observing how orientation, proximity and simultaneous access played a role in the group effort. Greenberg and others developed a similar sketching system called GroupSketch. It is concluded that defining human factors relevant to collaboration is key.
Discussion:
This reminded me a lot of Google Docs, which allows multiple users to view and edit documents, spreadsheets and powerpoints simultaneously. Before this class, I had actually postulated the creation of a similar collaborative. I also was surprised that a system design like this existed and was already being researched in the '90s.
Chapter 20:
Summary:
In this chapter, Geraldine Fitzpatrick describes how she began her studies in CSCW knowing very little. She summarizes Schmidt and Bannon's paper "Taking CSCW Seriously: Supporting Articulation Work", which defined cooperative work as the key concept and critical aspect of CSCW. Cooperative work requires some level of mutual dependence among those working together. Their paper also opened up CSCW with questions about how better to understand and support work.
Discussion:
I especially agree that cooperative and articulation work are key to CSCW, as opposed to software and business process models that Fitzpatrick was initially focused on. Basically, the social aspect of CSCW is more important from a research standpoint.
Chapter 23:
Summary:
Brian Smith recalls having to use video conferencing to allow his mother in hospital for chemotherapy to watch her granddaugher's first year of life. Smith also recalls a paper titled "Beyond Being There" by Jim Hollan and Scott Stornetta that explored computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools that would either enhance face-to-face communication (F2F) or would be preferred by people in lieu of F2F. An analogy with crutches and shoes is also given and referred to using more examples: crutches provide temporary assistance to those with leg injuries, whereas shoes improve mobility. Using IM during a presentation to have discussions is on such example. Smith notes that for CMC tools to develop this way, emotional/sensual aspects of technology should be considered.
Discussion:
I think it's a very novel and noble endeavor to develop systems that attempted to create interactions or environments as similar as possible F2F. Even more ambitious was Hollan and Stornetta's ideas to design tools that could extra human communication and provide interactions that enhance F2F.
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