March 26th: Non-Determinism and
Other Fun Machine States

Plan of Attack

• HAL Ch. 3 and 4
• Planning for User Doc #3

Turn in User Doc #2 tonight.

Non-determinism in Machines

We've heard this word "determinism" in relation to technology, but Johnson meant something different. What's with words? Because you know sometimes words have two meanings (Led Zepplin). Let's think about the difference between the two meanings. Check out the poem on the first page of Ch. 4 (p. 49).

Let's head over to our Taming HAL page.

User Document #3 Overview

Your last document, User Doc #3, is going to be slightly larger than your previous User Doc #2. The new feature for your proposal/planning documents is the abstraction. Depending on the instrument you come up with, you may or may not end up having the user critique your abstraction diagram. Since we have nice, powerful Adobe software, I would like those of you who know how to use the software to use it for your next document. Of course, that isn't a requirement...but it would make me happy.

Think of Instructional/Educational Guides as well. Don't limit yourself to just instructions or manuals.

Also, you may do this with a partner--NO MORE THAN TWO!!!

Planning for User Doc #3 User Testing

Your user test will be next week (4/3)--we don't have the same three week period for this document. So you must have something for users to test. An instructional-type document will be at the heart of this assignment, so I want you all to come up with three personas for the instrument you'll document. Of course, Instructional/Educational guides can also have personas.

I want you to include the following for your meta-analysis persona document (assignments page link):

• Describe the instrument or educational value

• Explain how the user would IDEALLY approach the set of instructions, and plan how you would IDEALLY test your draft.

• Create an abstraction (if applicable...there's a little room for not having one) for you system. (See HAL)

• Describe the three (3) personas you had in mind when creating the document or IDEAL testing situation. Personas don't really work after the fact, so come up with them prior to starting your document.

• Come up with five post-test questions that use a Likert scale and have a comments section

• Set at least four goals and make sure they're measurable. You may specify these in your planning document.

Remember, you need to build on your skills throughout the semester (and from the previous semester, year, or what have you), so I want to see some sophistication.

Because this user test is next week, you shouldn't run out of here immediately. Use your time wisely and get some work done.

Persona Research

It might be a good idea to ask questions about your persona research tonight.

HAL Presentations for 5181 Students

Those of you enrolled in 5181 will be doing a nice 4-5 minute presentation on HAL or inspired by HAL. I originally wanted you to take an aspect of user design from the book and discuss it. For instance, you could take one of the big case studies/examples and present the issue to the class in your own words. One of the disasters or mishaps would work well. Just get up in front of class and convey the information to the non-expert audience.

Remember, presentations are not ALL ENCOMPASSING descriptions; they're astutely concise representations of a topic.

Before We Go...

Keep reading Degani's Taming Hal: Designing Interfaces beyond 2001 . We'll go over Chapters 5, 6, and 7 next week (4/2). Look at that, next week is April! How fast time flies.

Please a user-ready draft of your User Document #3. This may be a group (as in two people) or individual assignment. Don't forget to turn in your User Doc #2 tonight.

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