Building a Better World via the User-Centered Design of Technology

Invited Technical Speaker: Mary Czerwinski, Research Area Manager Visualization and Interaction Group, Microsoft Research

The meta-view of this session is that there are many new and interesting ways present information visually. The speaker covered visual presentation of data from Social Media, Businesses and Entertainment communities.

There were three aspects of this presentation which struck me.
First, the presenter’s credentials were in psychology. As a geek without a CS degree, I found this comforting.

Second, the presenter believed that multi-tasking “hurts people”. That is, makes deep-thinking harder and supports shallow, disjointed thinking. Most interestingly for me, that people can learn more information more effectively visually. This is a very brave thing to talk about, since the old guard in Computer Science preaches that all information can be gained through text (at least that is the summary of arguments against cool interfaces like Alice).

Third, she told us that the challenge for the next 10 years for social computing is to integrate computing with social sciences, with other disciplines. This has been a big theme this Hopper starting with Fran Allen’s keynote. Fran Allen’s concerns and ideas, like those of many CS visionaries, is a bellwether for what other people are concerned about in CS. I believe this integration of Computer Science into many other disciplines will be a growth field in the future (not just because that is my interest ).

Three cool Social Media observations:

1. People subconsciously make opinions about you very very quickly–the photo is a big deal. Found that people “don’t buy it” when you polish your profile *after* they have formed their first impression of you.
2. Social Media provides a great deal more opportunities for self-representation.
3. Advice for apps designers–what “sticks” is what is useful.

7 Lessons Learned with First Formal Research Project

I really enjoy listening to speakers at GHC–unfortunately, I also get inspired by them.

Unfortunately because I find I am constantly writing down which have only a tangential relationship to the speaker’s topic. This list is one of those inspired writings–I jotted it down while listening to the awesome talk by Fran Allen.

Lessons Learned with First Formal Research Project (in no particular order):

1. Finish earlyThis allows ideas and designs to stew. There is also something to be said for the power of last-minute adrenalin-panic for increasing productivity.
2. Annotate the bibliography.My bibliography for my Combating Plagiarism poster was about 6 pages long and I found NoodleBib’s annotation box indispensable in keeping track of sources. Noodlebib is a free citation help guide which has forms for citing different sources and maintains working bibliographies.
3. Talk about the project.I learned nearly as much about the implications for my project in last night’s poster session that I had in weeks of reading articles. I found learn well by engaging in dialog and debate with others about issues I care about.
4. Create a list of resources as part of the initial research process.I found myself going back again and again to the Chronicle for Higher Education, and the webpages for different institutions’ plagiarism policies. The ones I didn’t bother to site early I found myself searching for again and again.
5. Contact human resources early.Turn around time for email replies to my research queries ranged from a day to two months. Beginning early saves stress.
6. After half of the basic research is done, look for a really good summary of the field to reorient yourself.More broadly, make sure to take a breath and get perspective on your project and goals.

7. Most Importantly:

   It is ok to say “I don’t know”. I found this realization so liberating. In writing papers, in most debates, certainly in many classes, it is never ok to say “I don’t know”. But I found articulation to myself what information I was missing helped me stay on track and discover new paths for research.

I really enjoyed my research project and am planning on applying for funding to research how YouTube and Podcasting can be used as educational resources. Wish me luck!

Links to know at GHC

I am posting the links to the GHC wiki, bloggers page, flickr page, YouTube channel, and homepage because last year I had trouble finding all the links and am fascinated by the diversity of content being generated. Enjoy!

My Poster’s Up!

This year I am excited to be presenting a poster at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing! I have created handouts for people at the conference, but if you don’t get a chance to stop by in person you can check out my poster page. There you can download a Power Point version of my poster, a handout version, as well as my project bibliography and links to some of my favorite articles from the project. Check it out and feel free to come on by if you’re around!

Jessica Dickinson Goodman

15-100 Rocks Because of Alice

I have been having such a blast in my Intro Computer Science class. While I have taken an intro Java course before, I am finding significant added value taking it at a college level. A large reason for that added value is that I am in one of the few sections at CMU this semester which is helping alpha-test Alice 3. Alice is a fourth generation programming language, or a drag and drop IDE, or Java on training wheels, or a 3-D animation program. Mostly for me it is a great creative outlet (as you’ll see below).

Not only is being involved in the testing process fascinating but the program itself helps give concrete meanings to objects, classes and parameters *shameless plug*.

More than that, I am finding myself having to tear away from working on side projects in Alice–it is so much fun to work on the logic puzzles and explore the different characters I have trouble moving on to other assignments.

Below are screen-shots of a program I wrote after our first class on control statements.

Fairy and Hamster enter the scene

Fairy blinks at Hamster

Fairy casts a spell on the Hamster

Fairy accuses Hamster of carrot-theft!

Fairy taunts Hamster

Fairy realizes she may have made a mistake in her spell

Fairy decides she must act to stop the rapidly encroaching hamster!

Hamster explodes after being Ctr-Alt-Deleted by the Fairy

Hamster realizes it has been poned (defeated)

The method I spent the most time on is named Hamsterblowup. In it I used nested If/Else statements to get the fairy (who comes in as a parameter) to say different things when the distance between the hamster and herself is less than a certain amount. It still has some bugs but I figured it is good enough to show off for now.

By the way, I have Dr Dann’s permission to show screen shots–as Alice 3 is in development (which is why it is so exiting) some things you see here may not be there when it comes out officially.

I hope to learn more about projects like Alice at next week’s Hopper Conference!

Inspirational Quote:

Christopher Morley – “There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.”