So, I broke the rules - I decided to write about the tools before my final impressions on the course. Why you ask? First, because I find that this post is a better closing chapter than that. I wouldn't want to sound like a band who plays a nice epic final song at a concert and then comes back for an encore and completely breaks the experience. Not that I think this is some epic Queen song, quality wise, but please, let's not spoil the metaphor with technicalities.
Second, because I wanted to speak of how my use of tools during this course influenced my view of my idle times. That's because the most important consequence of this course is I'll never see idle times the same way again.
When I (and most of us) think of human-computer interaction, we think of humans doing something to computers (action) and computers response to this (reaction) in a cycle of communication until a task is completed (interaction). But not all interaction is two-way, and not all interaction is initiated with a purpose, and not all interaction preempts reciprocation.
Computers try to communicate much more than we request of them - they're always telling us what time it is, how much battery is left, how many emails on God know how many inboxes are begging for your attention. And these can be passive information, but most often than not are not - computers are needy, greedy beasts - "Hey, look at me, there's a very important email from your mom you must give your undivided attention to, right now!"
And we also tell computers the most stupid stuff sometimes - why do we spin the mouse around when we are bored, bringing an idle screen back to life and spinning the hard drive up? Are we now begging their attention? Asking for an interruption? Or is this just payback for all those notifications in improper times - "Hey, look, I moved your mouse for no reason whatsoever - who's needy now?"
Maybe I fixated a little too much on our first experiencement, but I'd like to think otherwise - I think it opened my eyes to a whole bunch of interactions that we, interaction designers, neglect - incidental interactions, accidental interactions, non-reciprocated interactions.
All of these are communication and should be studied, improved upon. And now I have more than a fixation - I have a purpose. I don't think I can pretend my thesis will go the same direction it was going only six months ago. I have you to thank and to blame, Emanuele, for killing any chance of me writing anything other than these tiny neglected interactions I had paid so little attention to before!
Computers try to communicate much more than we request of them - they're always telling us what time it is, how much battery is left, how many emails on God know how many inboxes are begging for your attention. And these can be passive information, but most often than not are not - computers are needy, greedy beasts - "Hey, look at me, there's a very important email from your mom you must give your undivided attention to, right now!"
And we also tell computers the most stupid stuff sometimes - why do we spin the mouse around when we are bored, bringing an idle screen back to life and spinning the hard drive up? Are we now begging their attention? Asking for an interruption? Or is this just payback for all those notifications in improper times - "Hey, look, I moved your mouse for no reason whatsoever - who's needy now?"
Maybe I fixated a little too much on our first experiencement, but I'd like to think otherwise - I think it opened my eyes to a whole bunch of interactions that we, interaction designers, neglect - incidental interactions, accidental interactions, non-reciprocated interactions.
All of these are communication and should be studied, improved upon. And now I have more than a fixation - I have a purpose. I don't think I can pretend my thesis will go the same direction it was going only six months ago. I have you to thank and to blame, Emanuele, for killing any chance of me writing anything other than these tiny neglected interactions I had paid so little attention to before!
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