Congratulations to the GROCS 08 Talking Points team for the fabulous article in Concentrate!
and to the GROCS 07 Eat This Michigan! team for coverage of their project in the current edition of LSA Magazine (see the article "The Reluctant Farmer".
Posted by lkendall at 03:24 PM | Comments (0)
2008 Open Houseful
The Design Lab One Showcase
Friday, April 18
4:00 – 6:00 PM
featuring
GROCS 2008:
Casepedia * Noteworks * Ouroboros * Talking Points
The Moving Image 2008
Animated shorts from David Chung's students
Limited Fork Theory
New work from Thylias Moss' students
Character Design & 3D Modeling and Animation
2D prints with their rapid prototype counterparts; and 3D animations from Elona Van Gent's students
Posted by lkendall at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)
All GROCS participants - advisors included - are invited to celebrate the teams' great work immediately after the Open House on Friday. Here's the plan:
4:00 - 6:00 Open House in DL1
6:00 Gather in the parking lot behind the Walgreen Center to carpool
6:30 - 8:30ish Dinner at the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti's Depot Town
Location: 720 Norris St., 48198. It's on the Corner of Forest and Norris Map
Tables are reserved for us in the Beer Garden - yup, outside, weather permitting! Dinner will be catered - it's tasty Syrian fare from Exotic Cuisine!
Posted by lkendall at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)
This past weekend, we had the Noteworks demonstration in the central collaboration area. I think that it was a great success. People really got into it!
Here's a video of the setup. We linked the six machines up into a gigantic network. That is to say, the network on each machine actually hooks up to its neighbors networks via an ethernet hub. This represents about a 700 node network.
Bluestream Keywords: Noteworks Demo Setup
I (John) also showed off my Michigan-shaped composition. Definitely the worst-sounding composition, by far, but we got the best video of that one. Probably because I wasn't the one taping.
Bluestream Keywords: Noteworks Michigan-shaped
We're waiting for some other video to show the other presentations. When it becomes available, we'll post it here.
Thank you to all those who attended!!
Posted by umbaugh at 09:16 PM | Comments (0)
Rob composed something really interesting with the latest build of Noteworks today. He calls it "Bedtime Music." I don't know if that's an official title, but it certainly works for me.
Bluestream keywords: Bedtime Music
Here's Rob's description:
Put this on for a while as you're tuning out for the night (the motor is @ the bottom). As you can hear I was very much inspired by John's work, but this has an open fifth as the central theme. The general movement is upwards and to the left... and then meandering back down.
Rob makes really good use of stochastic vertices - particularly in conjunction with feedback loops. Sometimes the loop feeds back into itself, and sometimes it feeds into a [set of] sink rest vertex [vertices]. I had some of these same structures in my last (much less interesting) composition; it's interesting to see the patterns/tropes that emerge from the fundamental node types. Same with the motor, as Rob has characterized them - the two rests pointing towards each other. They drive the rest of the piece.
The echo nodes (i.e. the blue nodes with the letter E inside them) are something new this time. The idea is that an echo expresses in the same way that the calling node (or the caller's caller, and so on if applicable) expresses. The interesting part, however, is that these echo nodes can effect a change on those input nodes - for example, transposing the input key, or increasing/decreasing the volume or duration. Rob uses this to really interesting effect to construct a simple subnetwork that kind of generates [recursive] thematic motifs.
Patrick was pretty excited when he saw Rob's work this evening. He IMed me:
I have been listening to [Rob's composition] for like 20 minutes.... [I]t has been super different the whole time i have been listening to it.... [I]t is like someone is performing for me.
This notion fascinated me. In a sense, we are not creating compositions with this software; we are abstracting one level higher, where we're designing a composition embedded with its performer, in that we're specifying constraints on how a performer (read: stochasticity) can interact with the network. In fact, I hesitate to call these creations compositions, because they're more than that; perhaps I should start calling them, in earnest, Noteworks. Anyway, it's like we've successfully broken down an artificial barrier between performance and composition. Or something close to this.
The fact that Patrick could listen to a network that was ostensibly so simple - and yet derive enjoyment out of it for twenty minutes and more - tells me that we're really on to something pretty incredible here. I mean, a lot of the credit has to go to Rob's talent as a composer, for sure. But all of us have been incredibly surprised and pleased at our success in designing a tool in which the "core mechanic" is to define the composition as a set of relationships between sounds.
Also: we finally have the Internet nodes implemented - though they were not present in the above notework. Internet nodes allow you to connect noteworks over the Internet - effectively expanding your notework across machines and constructing a far more sophisticated soundscape.
Posted by umbaugh at 07:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
We've been thinking about it since November, and it's finally here!
Enjoy Your Flight
Friday, April 4 and Saturday, April 5
6 - 8 pm
Video Studio, Duderstadt Center
North Campus, University of Michigan
Experience surveillance and suspicion in an interactive airport environment.
An interactive performance funded by the GROCS grant exploring issues of privacy and surveillance in a simulated airport.
This is a performance unlike any you've ever experienced, where the line between actor and audience doesn't exist, fiction becomes fact and your flight may in fact be delayed.
Spread the word - the more people who fly, the better the experience for everyone.
And make sure to see Noteworks' demo starting from 5 pm both nights!
Posted by kralko at 12:17 PM | Comments (0)
Casepedia will be demonstrating an early version of the prototype system at today's GROCS design review. Presented below is a list of features that are done and those that we plan to implement by the wrap.
User Functions:
* Add and edit (non-collaborative) – FRIDAY finished case is static WYSIWYG, WANT FOR FRIDAY live-blogged case is a blog page
* Publish and update case studies (non-collaborative; templates)
* Comment on cases (anonymous or identified, forum format)
* Report as inappropriate (subject identifiable)
* Classify cases (use pre-defined classification, e.g. MeSH)
* Tag cases (folksonomy, recommend existing tags in case)
* Automatically suggest tags based on content
* Predictively suggest tags from taxonomy while tagging
* Page Templates
* Export pages (PDF, HTML, etc.)
* Find similarly tagged cases
* Attach in line video and audio to cases
* Rate comments
* Rate cases
* Rate users (? indirect from comments/cases) – compile reputation score from case contribution rating quality, page views, amount of discourse
* Search for cases (faceted and/or free-text)
* Edit/update user profile
System Functions:
* Authenticate users
* Maintain user profiles (identities)
* Maintain user roles
Wish List
* Maintain user reputations (# and/or ranking of cases or comments?)
* Authorize users to publish cases (credentialing physicians)
* Present custom UIs based on roles
* Verify consent or de-identification of cases
Posted by rupatel at 02:27 PM | Comments (0)
As we continue to prototype, we are refining an online survey that we will be distributing to physician bloggers. We are selecting the sample from a list of blogs tagged in Technorati (a blog aggregator) with the following words:
physician
medical blog
medicine
doctor
Any other suggestions for good blog tags are welcome!
An aside: Casepedia also presented a poster at the School of Information's Expo and received wonderful feedback. Stay tuned for a design review March 28.
Posted by rupatel at 01:06 PM | Comments (0)
Call for Actors
Are you interested in being involved in a theater piece like no other? Minimal lines, minimal costumes, minimal rehearsals and maximum impact? Enjoy your Flight is looking for you! We are a GROCS funded project presenting an interactive theater piece dealing with issues of privacy and surveillance in a simulated airport setting.
The roles have various levels of commitment and require little to no memorization. The idea is to react at a certain time to a certain stimulation, whether that be an action, a speech, or a noise. Roles range from the more visible (a provacateur, Patriot Act Supporter) to more standardized (Security Guard, EMT) to the minor (Victim, Messenger).
Performances are at 7 pm on Friday and Saturday April 4-5 in the Video Studio in the Duderstadt Center on North Campus.
For those with more intensive roles, there will be a brief discussion/rehearsal on Friday, March 28th at 6 pm. Dinner will be provided :).
If interested, please contact Katy Ralko at kralko@umich.edu.
Posted by kralko at 10:12 PM | Comments (0)
Talking-Points presented at the School of Information expoSItion on Monday, March 17th. We received a flood of positive response on our demonstration at the exposition. In addition to a display board containing information about the Talking-Points project and video clips of our WOz (Wizard of Oz) exercises, we were also able to have a clickable dummy of the Talking-Points system available to individuals, giving them the ability to gain an interactive sample of the Talking-Points experience.
Check out our blog to see more details.
Posted by jhild at 10:07 PM | Comments (0)
WRAP UP
AMIA Poster Submission
We will be submitting a poster for the American Medical Informatics Association Conference in November 8, 2008 in Washington DC. Rupa and Maureen have been working industriously on the abstract this week. It will show the results of our competitive analysis and primary interview results.
First Talk Presentation
Rupa and Maureen presented for the UM School of Information's Featured Information Research Student Talk (FIRST). They presented on our initial results, the evolution of Casepedia, and future directions.
Prototype Presentation (and usability testing?)
We are aiming to complete a prototype by the end of the wrap-up. The prototype will be functional for users to add cases into it. Once the prototype is built we will eventually move towards usability testing to evaluate the software.
Process and Experimentation
Casepedia has experienced some pretty radical changes since its inception. Our results from our semi-structured interviews with key informants have changed the way we conceptualized the content and user populations of Casepedia. We are now targetting Chief Medical Residents' Morning Reports as our primary contributors and practicing physicians in isolated or rural ares, who are far from tertiary or academic medical centers like UMHS, as our primary user population. Medical Residents and participating UM departments will use the site as a repository for their Morning Rounds materials. The content of morning rounds includes a description of a case that is used to demonstrate topic points and case management. Chief Residents already are creating Chief Sheets which are documents that outline the case they are discussing that day. Therefore, they already are putting in time into the case, so it will not be too much extra time to complete the case online.
Posted by shahas at 05:24 PM | Comments (0)
Out of all the GROCS groups this cycle, our wrap seems the most clear cut. We've been working all semester with the idea of a final set of performances in mind.
Enjoy Your Flight : Encounter Surveillance and Suspicion in an Interactive Airport Experience
Duderstadt Ceter Video Studio
Gallery opening at 6 pm with Noteworks
Performance following the reception at 7 pm
We're working hard with the DMC staff and Noteworks to coordinate all of the details (and all the projectors we need!).
All seems to be progressing well, we're knocking task after task off of our to-do list. Check out our poster image in Bluestream!
Have a happy and safe weekend!
Posted by kralko at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)
There are a couple of news about our Talking-Points project. You can read them by going to our own Blob at http://talking-points.org but I will also put a little summary here:
First we defined what our "Wrap" is going to be. We hope to deliver a research paper, a prototype of a Talking-Points mobile device and a working internet database to create and edit location information. Read more ...
Then we will be presenting our project at the School of Information's expoSItion on Monday between 12:00 and 2:00pm. Read more ...
And finally we started developing our client software last week and wrote a blog post about how the client architecture is going to look like. Read more ...
Posted by jhild at 09:49 PM | Comments (0)
The Noteworks final presentation is scheduled for April 4th and 5th in the Central Collaboration Area in conjunction with Ouroborous who is using the Video Studio and the hallway leading to the Video Studio.
Noteworks will need 6 “kiosks” set around the Central Collaboration Area. Each kiosk will contain a small table, a Windows OS computer with speakers, keyboard, and a mouse, a projection screen and a projector with rear-projection capabilities. The user at each kiosk will face away from the center of the room as they interact with the Noteworks program. The idea is to have the projection on the screen mirror what is on the computer screen, but have the actual computer screen out of view. The projectors will also be out of view if we can hook them all up with rear-projection. The user will interact using a mouse placed on a small table in front of the screen. The final piece that we need is a switch with 6 ports and 6 Ethernet cables, so we can network the computers together.
Breakdown of equipment:
6x small tables
6x windows OS computers
6x stereo speakers
6x mice
6x keyboards
6x projector screens
6x projectors with rear-projection capabilities
1x switch with 6 ports
6x Ethernet cables
The permanent record, or “wrap”, for Noteworks will include the piece of work that we present to the event attendees. This could also include a piece that audience participants produce each night of the demonstration. We will also include a manual, which will be a set of instructions on how to use the program, and what capabilities the program has. In addition, we can describe the process of creating the program from conception to application, including hurdles we faced as programmers, musicians, designers, and a team.
Posted by dapafi at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)
I spent the break in Scotland visiting a friend that goes to University in St. Andrew's and was fascinated by the prevalence of surveillance cameras and signs about their presence I found there. Every private residence just about was displaying some sign of being a client of a private security firm. Every store, restaurant and pub displayed some sort of notice that 24/7 surveillance was in place in the establishment. In order to fairly assess congestion taxes, cameras photograph license plates entering into London, and send a bill to the registered owner for the tax.
Despite the feeling that I was photographed more by the UK government than I was by my traveling companions, it was certainly an experience to see th prevalence of the surveillance technology, and the extent to which the residents had accepted its presence in their lives. Crime is in fact lower in the UK, so the constant surveillance might in fact be an effective deterrent. Personally, I'm interested to see if the atmosphere that we create in our performance can replicate this feeling of pervasive, ubiquitous surveillance, and whether or not our audience will accept its presence with the same nonchalance I saw in the UK.
Posted by kralko at 04:09 PM | Comments (0)
OUR NEW GOAL: "You-tube for Grand Rounds!"
We spent the last few weeks looking at a few different directions to take Casepedia and researching what is currently available for each of the purposes outlined earlier (Adverse Drug Reactions, Patient Contributed, etc). After reviewing our options and feasibility for our project, we've decided to go with the Grand Rounds idea and focus just on connecting the UMHS departments GRs into a central repository. This idea could in the future be opened up across other Universities or countries. This is keeping with John William's suggestion during our design review of going 20% before we can go 100%.
We're focusing our interviews in the coming months on department administrators who have insight into the needs of those who view the GRs as well as faulty who have presented at GRs. Interviews are on-going; if you know a UMHS Department head or a faculty who presents grand rounds at UMHS, we'd love to have a chat with them. Let us know! Surveys will target students and physicians who attend Grand Rounds and faculty who present the cases.
We are exploring XWiki as a platform for our prototype. In fact, our beloved Bluestream might serve as the backend for our interface.
Maureen and Rupa are presenting the evolution of Casepedia at the SI Featured Information Research Student Talk (FIRST) this Friday, March 7 from 11:30-1pm in the first floor Dan Atkins room in SI North - this is open to the public; feel free to stop by!
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "computers are a lot like people; they go right to sleep but take forever to wake up" -Paul Saxman
Posted by rupatel at 06:58 PM | Comments (0)
Our Team had our Design Review on Feb. 15 and we were able to gain a tremendous amount of perspectives and ideas from the members present. Our main question we needed answered is what is an incentive model we can create to attract physicians to add content to the site. Through our initial interviews with various physicians, we learned that doctors are very busy and most likely will not have the time to post material on the web. Doctors that do publish materials usually do it to gain recognition in peer-review groups or through journals. It would be tough for our site to offer similar incentives or recognition.
At our Design Review, we first discussed the main challenges we see with creating Casepedia. They included Credibility, Reliability, Incentives for users to contribute, and Ethics.
Next, we discussed 4 possible directions to take the site to overcome these challenges:
1. Publishing without Publishing
We discussed methods of creating incentives for physicians to publish online with out having to go through the long requirements needed to publish in a journal. Publishing in a journal requires an extensive approval, literature review, and peer review before a final publication can be made. Therefore, we are looking for a way to maintain the legitimacy of a journal without all the background work.
2. Adverse Drug Reactions
We would focus primarily on creating a database that complied information on different medications causing adverse reactions for patients. These could be listed by either the provider side or patient side. We will be examining the current system used by the FDA or physicians to keep track of these events.
3. Patient Contributed Cases
Instead of looking for physicians to contribute the clinical cases, we would create a database that was comprised of cases by patients. When we conducted our Competitive Analysis, we learned that a majority of comments on cases were coming from patients. There for we would overcome the challenge of physicians' incentives.
4. Grand Rounds Platform
Grand Rounds are forums where physicians come together to discuss their recent cases. These can be either public or private. Physicians present in Grand Rounds using various multimedia. So our site would videotape the Grand Rounds and also upload all other multimedia from the grand round. They physician or institution would be able to pick how private/public they wanted to make their information.
Posted by shahas at 05:30 PM | Comments (0)
We are now able to drag and drop audio files directly in to the interface, save and load compositions, and add, delete, and connect nodes in the UI (hooray). John has informed me that we’re exploring the possibility doing beta releases with the JNLP framework. So if you’ve been following the blog and are interested in getting some hands on experience, you’ll soon be able to download the app and try it out for yourself! And if you’re interested in getting involved you could send us your questions and comments. We’re not there just yet though, so hold tight.
Continue reading "Noteworks - Update + Q & A"
Posted by rlalexan at 10:48 PM | Comments (0)
After another hugely productive meeting on Sunday, we have finally thought through/documented all of the nodes of our performance. Instead of a traditional script with actors and lines, our performance is based loosely on the game Mafia. We have a set group of characters, divided into three groups based on their knowledge of the overall performance. Their actions and interactions trigger events, and hopefully the line between audience and performer is blurred to a great extent.
We also have a rudimentary sketch of what the Video Studio will look like in terms of set design. We will of course be cleaning this sketch up and finalizing the location of our set pieces in the days to come, but being able to see the space on paper was a huge excitement for us this week.
Over Spring Break, we all have our separate tasks to accomplish, whether starting to record some of the audio for the space to making contacts with the Theater Department. Once we return, we have exactly one month until opening night, which is so exciting, and also terrifying.
One final note: We are also looking for a name and description of our performance as Ourobouros is unspellable as well as hard to pronounce. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Posted by kralko at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)
Due to the fun time that is midterms, Ourobouros has had to take a small break this week. We promise to blog again on Sunday to share all the details of our script workday, but to tide you over until then check out the PA announcements in the repository.
Posted by kralko at 04:11 PM | Comments (0)
In our opinion we had a very productive GROCS design review last Friday. We got a ton of very valuable feedback what people (in this case only sighted people) would like to get from the Talking-Points system. In this post I will just try to summarize some of the requests we got from people. If we got anything wrong, if we forgot something, if you thought of something else, please go ahead and write a comment. So here are the requests:
I would like the system not to be so consumer oriented. I don’t want to buy things I don’t want information about businesses. I want different types of information, for example about libraries.
I like the advertising part. I could imagine that businesses would notify me about special deals or maybe give out “coupons”.
For me it is very important to have options to opt-in or opt-out certain information. So I can control what I get to hear.
Even after living in a city for many years, I still pass certain locations and ask myself: “what’s that is all about?“. But I never take the time to ask or look it up at home. It would be nice if the system could tell me that.
I think it could be a great help if you come to a new city where it normally takes you some time to figure out the ins and outs. The system could give good insights about that.
I would like real-time information. For example the number of available seats or the length of the cue when I pass a restaurant.
I would like to get directional information and distances to places.
I’m a big beer drinker and I would like to be notified about beer specials and whether I’m in the happy-hour before I enter a place.
I would like some extended sensory information. For example, what kind of ground I’m walking on, which people have been here before, …
I’m interested in the evolution of publishing and this could be new and exciting format.
There could also be really different information like that there is a cocoon next to the path when you walk in the Arboretum.
I got a hot chocolate the other day at Starbucks and then found a much nicer place where I could have gotten the chocolate just a block away. I would like to get notified about those kinds of business alternatives.
I think the most important feature is that it is customizable for my perspective and can somehow understand my current situation. If I have coffee in my hand I don’t want to hear any information about coffee shops anymore.
I would like to know where the next restroom is.
Could the system give me information about it when I point at a location it instead of walking by it?
Summarizing this we concluded that by far the most important part of Talking-Points is going to be customization! In this one meeting alone there were so many different people with very different needs, that could hardly be satisfied with a "default" system.
So our approach is going to be to collect as much different information about each location as we can get and try to store and organize it so that it will be easy to pull customized data. The abstract approach right now is to have all kinds of small, different information pieces linked to one location and labeled with tags that represent when they might be useful. For example tags like "blind", "tourist", "history", etc. Hopefully we will be able to pull relevant information for a particular person in a particular situation using these tags.
Posted by jhild at 11:53 PM | Comments (0)
The first round of Friday afternoon design reviews have been fun for all, and it looks like each project has received a boost from the comments. Casepedia is up for this Friday.
As we head into the second round, I'd like to introduce a format that has been helpful to GROCS teams of yore. There's a template and an overview in Bluestream, if you're interested in adopting the format wholesale.
There are two important purposes to the format:
'Course, it's not as fun as Mafia!
Posted by lkendall at 05:23 AM | Comments (0)
Sorry for the delay in posting, but Ourobouros has been very busying hosting Design Reviews, working on their script and writing long entries that are deleted by the magical world of technology.
Design Review on Friday was a huge success! We led a game of Mafia after a short presentation on our work so far, and had a very enlightening discussion about what can make people suspicious of one another. It seems as if prior information about the relationships between groups and individuals is the chief way to determine the "culprit" in a game like mafia, as well as eye-line matches :). We received lots of helpful feedback on our performance structure and qualities of our audience to keep in mind, and look forward to having another Design Review soon, where we can test out a more advanced version of our "game".
We are also working furiously to get the "script" done before we all leave for our much anticipated spring break. If we were to post our script as it stands right now, one of two things would happen. We would either give away all our secrets, or it would be so far from a conventional script that it was incomprehensible. The document is hard to represent in words, as seen by the fact that we had a whiteboard and a scribe and we still were confused. It is most like a list of characters and their motivations, and the ways that their interactions with each other as well as the audience trigger certain events or actions. We are hoping that once we get the bulk of the performance thought through and plotted out, it will become easier to start planning the set design, the lighting and all of the other more traditional theater elements. In any case, we are right on schedule and very optimistic about the work that we've done so far, and hope to continue at this pace even past spring break.
Posted by kralko at 02:55 PM | Comments (0)
Continue reading "[Talking-Points] Wizard of Oz study"
Posted by jhild at 01:54 PM | Comments (0)
Quick Update:
We’re currently bringing the UI up to speed, users can now zoom in and out with the mouse wheel, and move the view within the window! Ease of use will increase exponentially from here on out as composing moves away from the code level.
Not so Quick Update:
Our design review stirred up a number of thought provoking questions, and I believe everyone on the team was amazed by the sheer variety and quality of comments / suggestions. It’s all too easy to become short sighted and single-track minded with any project of this magnitude. If there’s one word that would best describe the piece of software we hope to create (and one word I’ve overused in my blogging to date) it’s “dynamic.” The environment from which this project emerges could not be any less so, if it’s to be successful.
The discussion tended toward the subject of what sort of visual metaphor’s we’d be invoking. Will the distance between two nodes represent the delay between them? Will louder nodes be larger? Will melodies and instrument timbres be represented by different colors (a common synaesthetic phenomenon)? Could waves propagate outwards from firing nodes and amass in swirling vortexes? These are all valid questions, however, thus far we’ve been focused on the musical aspects of Noteworks, and haven’t devoted as much time to design aesthetics.
When I began working with the computer-music software package “Reason” I was so sold on the studio rack metaphor that I took it for granted when I pushed tab and “took a look at the back of the synths,” the chords jiggled and swung as I re-routed the wiring. Even though this was a new piece of software, I was immediately able to understand how routing worked because I applied my knowledge of how to route physical devices.
When I began working with Logic Pro I was immediately drawn to the synthesis and effect modules not only by their sound, but also by their look (which I will admit, though it may reduce my credibility with the audiophiles). The synths have a polished, racecar like finish. Switching audio filter modes between parallel and series (on the ES2 synth module ) causes a central disk to rotate around in a way that conjures up images of the star-trek enterprise. It’s a pleasure to watch, and the interface begs to be interacted with. Bottom line: the interface can make or break a piece of software.
This is either a screenshot of: A. Sculpture, one of the many synth modules in Logic. Or B. A time machine, sent back from the future.
Our current situation is addressed in one of my research papers for Prof. Sheila Murphy’s course on Digital Media Theory:
“While advances in technology have allowed for increasingly precise levels of control, ease of use has always been a top priority for software engineers. This becomes especially apparent in applications that generally call for a high level of creative freedom… The ability to digitally sculpt sounds has allowed composers a higher level of control over sonic spaces than was ever possible through common music notation methods. However, as rhythmically driven genres of computer-music have been assimilated into mainstream listening environments, the production tools have undergone a similar commercialization. This commercialization is seen as a forfeit of precise control of programming languages for the functionality and accessibility of graphical user interfaces...
…While analyzing a computer-music production interface such as Reason, it is easy to lose a sense of creative potential that has been rendered possible through computer technology. The user interface is seamless to the point that the user potentially realigns their expectations of what is possible in a digital system with that of a physical system.”
To address the questions I raised initially, I’d love to see a tight visual correlation between what’s seen and what’s heard, but not at the expense of stifling the creativity of the user. The million-dollar word here… options. A relevant example: spell check and auto formatting in Microsoft Word. It’s great when Word indents numerical lists exactly the way one would like it to, or when it automatically corrects spelling mistakes that would have gone un-notice… It can be a huge timesaver. The flipside of the coin: it’s equally frustrating when word auto-formats when the user has no intention of doing so. If I didn’t have the option of turning off auto formatting, I’d have pulled out half my hair by now.
It was mentioned during the design review that it’s tricky to design software easy enough for a child to use, with advanced functionality for the expert (die-hard) user. Children all over the world can use Word, but it’s also the go-to app for many corporations and higher learning institutions. So is word a success story then? Well, Word conjures up the “piece of paper” metaphor. I used to draw all over the paper when I was young, where’s the “doodle” tool? I used to love making paper airplanes, where’s the “fold this document” command? These functions must not have been deemed important enough to be included within the scope of the visual metaphor.
The reason many people haven’t noticed that Word doesn’t have a doodling tool is because users quickly begin to think within the scope of the application they’re sitting in front of. Instead of “what’s possible?” the question becomes “what’s possible with the tools I’m currently using?” I’m not ready to put a cap on noteworks capabilities; similarly, I’m not ready to commit to any visual metaphors. Although, I am wondering exactly how a “fold this composition” tool would work…
Noteworks isn’t just a different application for creating computer music; it invokes a different way of thinking that will need new metaphors. I’m not looking to re-invent the wheel by designing a sleeker, more user friendly MAX/MSP, or a more flexible Reason. I’m hoping months after noteworks is released, I’ll be able to look at the compositions of others and say, “wow… I never thought about that possibility.” I can’t say exactly which direction Noteworks is heading, but I can say I’m working with the most talented programmers on the planet. So long as we create something flexible and dynamic (bingo!) enough for the mind of a child, I think the adults will warm up to it.
-Rob
Posted by rlalexan at 03:31 PM | Comments (0)
We had a hugely productive meeting on Sunday afternoon and have made a lot of headway in the script planning. In fact, we've moved away from the idea of a script completely and have found a great deal of inspiration in a children's game, Mafia.
Mafia is a game where a group of people sit in a circle and a narrator drives the game. The narrator chooses a number of people to be mafia members, unbeknownst to the larger group. The game progresses as the mafia decides which members of the town to kill, and the townspeople, through a process of nomination and voting, decide who they think are guilty. Those who are decided guilty by the town, and also those killed by the mafia, are "killed" and must sit in silence for the rest of the game, but are able to observe the proceedings. Depending on the personality of the group, more and more conditions and roles can be introduced into the town. The game ends when either all the townspeople are dead, or when all of the mafia have been found out.
What makes people suspicious of one another? Many factors could contribute to this phenomenon: race, gender, previous information about the person, social conditioning, the circumstances under which the person is encountered, and the list goes on and on. We want to base a performance around a group of people who are forced to be suspicious of one another and the ways that this affects the group dynamic.
Our idea as it stands now is to frame the experience as if the audience are passengers in an airport, waiting to embark on a flight. They will pass through a "checkpoint" in order to enter the airport gate. As an audience member, the experience should be similar to waiting for a flight - banks of TVs, conversation, chairs, newspapers, magazines, PA announcements, security. However, suspicion rises among the group when alerts are sent out about terror levels, suspicious persons circulate and packages are introduced. The outcome of the "experience" is not predetermined, but the responses to suspicion will determine the sequence of events.
Next week, we are holding a Design Review in DL-1 during the regular GROCS Friday meeting. We hope to play a round or two of Mafia and have a discussion about what arouses suspicion. We're hoping for lots of ideas and inspiration from our lovely colleagues. Have a great, snowy weekend!
Posted by kralko at 04:11 PM | Comments (0)
This is a first try of a diagram for the social database that is going to store all the location data for the Talking-Points project. The database has two main goals:
1) make it as easy, accessible and usable as possible to contribute to the database
2) provide relevant and reliable information for each location
The format of the diagram is similar to an ER diagram but at this point only intended to show the concept of the database and not yet the actual tables that it will consist of.
The basic concept of the database is to differentiate between two kinds of location information. On the one hand (marked with the red ellipse) the core location information and on the other hand additional information.
The core information is supposed to include the most relevant, straightforward and reliable information about the location. This includes a meaningful title, a short description and location metadata such as coordinates, address, official URL and so on. This information is created when a location gets tagged with an RFID tag. Important about this information is that it needs to be objective and reliable. We are not 100% sure how we will ensure this, but there will be some form of checking and moderation. You can think of it a little bit as stable versions for Wikipedia.
The additional information is where the social part comes into play. Once the user has some basic information about the location he might want to know more. In this case we would like to offer different directions/types of additional information:
* One direction is going to be opinions. Here the users can rate the location on a 5-star scale and state their opinion.
* A second direction would be current information about the location. This could be opening times, news stories related to the location or also current special offers in case the location is a business.
* The last direction would additional general information about the location. This information would be stored in maintained in a wiki page so that every user could add what they think is relevant concerning the location. One topic that would probably be interesting for many locations, would be something about its history.
In addition to that you will also be able to add links and tags to the locations. The tags could be used to only get notified about certain locations that are tagged with for example “blind” or “tourist”.
To see which information will actually be presented to the user of the mobile device I have marked those with the green ring. Anything else will be used only indirectly for this part.
One really major thing that we still need to address are incentives for putting information into the database. The design should already be fairly easy and usable, so that barriers to use it are low. But lack of barriers is not enough, there also need to be positive incentives. There is the incentive that you will help blind people by maintaining location information in this database, but how could user make personal use of that?
As with anything on this blog, any feedback that you have concerning our database design is very welcome and will be highly appreciated.
Posted by treker at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)
Our group received feedback from IRB for our IRB application. They suggested a few updates and our team will apply those suggestions and submit them for approval by the end of the week. Once final approval is granted we can start our structured interviews and surveys with physicians.
We began a process of analyzing the features and content of other online health sites and case studies sites. We will be compiling the data and using it to determine which features should be developed on Casepedia.
We have contacted a few physician ethicists regarding the process of posting real medical cases online. There were some differing opinions so we will be meeting with them over the next week to discuss the process in-depth.
We started discussing the platform and what features we wanted Casepedia to have. Some of the features we discussed is enabling users to blog, upload content, and review and comment on other cases. We also thought it would be very useful for users to have search results that included results from Pub Med to also be displayed along with the results from our site.
Posted by shahas at 05:23 PM | Comments (0)
Any situation in which a node is triggering more impulses than it receives results in a system that grows exponentially. This is something we’ll be able to take advantage of, and exploit towards our own ends. Rather than starting with a stable system, and racking our brains as to how to make it generate more dynamic and complex compositions, we’re starting with a system which grows quickly and non-linearly, and finding ways to control this complexity (which, in my opinion, is a much more enjoyable way of doing things).
Here are some ways we’ve drummed up for keeping the system in check:
I don’t foresee the GIT as something people will generally be excited about. Half the fun of messing around with this sort of system comes from pushing it past its limits and seeing what sort of sounds come out. However, I believe once a user becomes adept at using the noteworks system, they’ll be better able to anticipate and handle the inherent complexity, and compositions won’t even begin to approach this threshold. As composers adjust to this new compositional model, their deepening understanding of complexity will be audible in their compositions. My undergraduate thesis was heavily focused on generating sounds through finely balanced complex systems, finding that balance is half the fun for me.
Posted by umbaugh at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)
GROCS '07 PROJECTS [Winter 2007]
GROCS '06 PROJECTS [Winter 2006]
GROCS '05 PROJECTS [Winter 2005]
grocs.info@umich.edu
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
