Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
And how is activity theory incompatible with persona creation and dissemination? The challenge here is that you are using something that is fictional to convey something that is based on real data. That is not to say that Activity Theory is answer, and I agree that AT maybe should be part of the Tool set. When you use a Persona you are adding Fictional information to help bring to life boring dry data. I will take Jared's example of the nurses workstation. Let us image that we carried out observations of 32 nurses (n=32). We took the data and to help us convey this information to the rest of the team we create 5 Personas (p=5). To further use some of Jared examples lets us imagine that 3 of them have poor eyesight, 6 of them are training nurses, 10 them have many years experience, 10 of them are on short teem rotation, and 3 of them have a family dog. We combine the data from different real nurses, into Personas, to make it easier to understand, and convey the information to the rest of the team. So we create a Persona who has poor eyesight, and is a training nurse. We create another one who has a family dog and is on short term rotation. We are challenged because none of real nurses actually have both poor eyesight and are training nurse, and none of them are on short term rotation and have a dog. None of 5 Personas represent any of the 32 real participants. We effectively thrown away all our data away. Instead of the 5 personas representing 30 nurses, what we end up with is 5 personas and 30 nurses. We effectively end up with a fictional brief. There may be an argument that you could use a Throw Away Persona, as Norman suggests. A one time example, as I have used here. Jared argues to reduce the amount of information for each persona, I guess to get around this issue. Why not go all the way and then just label each of the subject with a name? Throw out the fake and not the real data. Activity Theory is describing behaviour that is happening at the point of research. Like Ethnography it is not a predictive method. While I from what I can understand people are using Personas as a way of predicating behaviour. Personally I don't think AT is the answer, but UCD needs some philosophy. Both Art and Science has Theory to help. All the best James On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 10:57 AM, Jared Spool [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Nov 13, 2008, at 5:49 AM, James Page wrote: The point I am trying to make is that Activity Theory output is the activity and actions of individuals. The Persona acts as a stereotype between real users and the designer. There may be a problem with Activity Theory been dry. One can see from this discussion that people don't understand it. But the advantage that it has got is that it has got a theory. And it is based on the behaviour of individuals. Activity Theory has allot of problems, and don't think it is ideal, but at least it does have a theory to back it self up with. And how is activity theory incompatible with persona creation and dissemination? (the other) Jared Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
So I'm wondering why Jared framed ACD as ignoring the goals, needs, and contexts of the users. Because from what I have heard is Jared is neither Swedish, nor has background in Marxist Theory, either of these qualifications is really important to fully comprehend Activity Theory. :-) I think what Jared is trying to say is that AT is not predictive of behaviour, but rather describes it, but I may be wrong. James Activity Theory On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 7:43 PM, Joshua Seiden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Right, and in that article, in the context of advocating for ACD, Larry writes, The first and most important thing to understand is why people engage in activities. All human activity is purposeful. So I'm wondering why Jared framed ACD as ignoring the goals, needs, and contexts of the users. JS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
James, I think that you are mis-characterizing personas. A persona is simply a model. It can be a good model or a bad model. When you write: None of 5 Personas represent any of the 32 real participants. We effectively thrown away all our data away. This is simply an example of a bad persona set. In a good persona set, no data is thrown away. Instead, all data is represented, but in a manner that organizes it in a useful way. JS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Hi Joshua, In this paper, I see at attempt to describe a rigorous system for modeling and understanding user activity in the context of goals, intentions, social context and all of the other higher-order constructs that we say makes good UCD good. To me this places ACD not on a continuum with UCD, but rather next to it--and simply working to accomplish the same thing, but from a different perspective. I Larry's paper, seems he integrated activity modeling with his usage centered design, which dosen't mean he come up with ACD, isnt it? (but from the other link, it seems he address the meaning of ACD), And UCD more like a claim for the goal, that we should design to meet user's needs and motivation; while ACD more like a advocate, that activity (analyze or similliar stuff) should be at the foundation of design practices. If so, there are not in parallel, aren't they? And ACD could be one way of UCD? Regards, Jarod ( not jared) -- http://designforuse.blogspot.com/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Theory Re: Where that ACD thing fits
Peter, I agree in what you are saying. Where we are now is very dangerous. The practice that we are is not a pure aesthetic discipline (and there is loads of theory there anyway but it matters less), but one that is making a claim that by using it it will lead to more usable software, or a better experience of using machines. That would put it in the realm of Scientific method. Are we a pseudo science or real science? What side of Scientific Philosophy people use, (Kuhn, Simon, or Popper) matters less than people understand that there are differences of approaches. I don't know if the answer is that everyone gets grounded in theory -- that can be stultifying. But there's no way to get anywhere with these methodological discussions without appreciating the theory underlying them. I think that people would benefit getting some basics in the different Philosophies. Most Art Degrees here in Europe has some theory taught. HCI claiming to be science should have some Scientific Philosophy taught as well . We need to make a strong argument to our clients that good interaction design can help them. But at the moment we do not know how to argue our point. HCI has taken many techniques from other disciplines. For example Ethnography from Anthropology. But a very narrow one based upon Grounded Theory which has many limitations. Then on this argument about Activity Theory is very hard to penetrate unless you read it from a Marxist standpoint. Activity Theory is about the sociality of work, members of the system, working division of labour, and artefacts. (get out your Marxist Theory for Dummies [I do :-)]) More people knowing more about theory would help move the discipline forward, as people would know the trade-off between the different approaches. James On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Peter Merholz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This discussion on UCD/ACD has been both frustrating and enlightening. The single biggest thing it demonstrates to me is just how thin our understanding of theory is, and the impact that theory has on how we work. What do I mean by theory? Theory is a robust conceptual framework that undergirds a practice. In the discussion of ACD, I was surprised how long it took for someone to mention Activity Theory, because talking about ACD without talking about Activity Theory is like talking about biology but neglecting evolution. Now, Activity Theory is an extremely robust conceptual framework for considering how people work, and their relationships to elements in their environment. Activity Theory is not about looking at activities and designing for them. User-Centered Design is predicated on a cobbled together set of theories, most of them coming out of the HCI community, which has been heavily influenced by cognitive psychology. So you have things like distributed cognition, perception, information processing, etc. Since the dawn of the Web, there's also been significant inroads by the Library and Information Science community (Information retrieval, metadata, etc.). I think it's problematic that so many people are working in the context of these theories and don't even realize it, because folks then don't know how these assumptions are coloring their approaches. I don't know if the answer is that everyone gets grounded in theory -- that can be stultifying. But there's no way to get anywhere with these methodological discussions without appreciating the theory underlying them. --peter On Nov 13, 2008, at 3:13 AM, Jared Spool wrote: On Nov 12, 2008, at 5:56 PM, David Malouf wrote: If I were designing it from a UCD perspective, I do care, or that the person is elderly and needs large print, or any other demographic type information. Just for the record, properly done UCD wouldn't care about demographics. It would care about behaviors. It doesn't matter what age someone is. If they need large print to complete their objective, they need large print, independent of age (or income group, geographic location political persuasion, gender preference, dental history, dislike of sushi, . . .) Jared Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [IxDA Discuss] SnifTag
It's Sports Do for dogs! http://www.sportsdo.net/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35610 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Josh, It can be a good model or a bad model. Most theories would argue that a good model needs testing. How do you test your Persona's? Testing means that you need to measure the output of your model, and compare it to the real world. I really do not see how you can do this with Personas. How can I be certain that the model has no confirmation bias in it? This is simply an example of a bad persona set How do you know if it is a bad persona set? What test can I do see if it is a good one, or a bad one? John von Neumann said, 'with four parameters I can fit an elephant and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.' See http://mahalanobis.twoday.net/stories/264091/ Instead, all data is represented, but in a manner that organizes it in a useful way. It may help the conversation if you try to building a Persona from the example originally given by Jared. James On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 3:18 PM, Josh Seiden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: James, I think that you are mis-characterizing personas. A persona is simply a model. It can be a good model or a bad model. When you write: None of 5 Personas represent any of the 32 real participants. We effectively thrown away all our data away. This is simply an example of a bad persona set. In a good persona set, no data is thrown away. Instead, all data is represented, but in a manner that organizes it in a useful way. JS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] Recap: Chicago IxDA November Event - Social to Mobile
Here's a recap of this week's IxDA Chicago event, Social to Mobile! We had a great turnout and a lively conversation, facilitated by Mike Wood of Motorola. In particular, discussions centered around the design challenges of having 4 different groups with vested interest in the mobile application design: - The designers and manufacturers of the hardware and model-specific applications (such as calendars) - The creators of the operating system, who generally wants to develop something once and apply it across multiple phone models - The service provider (ATT, Verizon, etc) - The developers of key sites and applications that want to be presented in the mobile interface, such as Facebook - and the resulting design challenges of moving a rich, broad web interface into a small interface used in a mobile context - balancing fidelity to the brand against efficiency of the UI Thank you to Motorola, in particular to Mike Wood and Joi Roberts, for hosting the event and providing food and drinks for the evening! In respect of Motorola's policies around confidentiality, we will not be posting a webstream of the event. If you were unable to join and would like to explore the topic further, please join us at the next Chicago event - an IxDA happy hour on December 10th - for more lively discussions with fellow interaction designers. Please see below for a job posting and several upcoming events. See you there - or in December! JOB POSTING User Experience Research Manager - Cars.com Tracking Code 1164 Help us learn about our users! Cars.com, a top-tier online destination for automobile shoppers and sellers, seeks an experienced and passionate User Experience Research Manager to continue to grow our user research practice. The User Experience Research Manager will collaborate closely with other user experience managers, product managers, marketing managers, editors, designers and front-end developers to design and conduct user research studies throughout the product cycle. The User Experience Research Manager will also be responsible for managing our in-house usability testing lab, including lab equipment, software, policies and procedures. This position will offer broad exposure across Cars.com and excellent advancement opportunities. In this role you will: * Continue to improve our research process for testing product changes and gathering user feedback throughout the product development lifecycle. * Advise and guide project teams in planning user research activities that inform and support product development; help teams determine best research methodology to use to meet business objectives. * Coordinate and execute all phases of usability testing performed in our in-house lab, including developing screeners, consent forms, test plans and interview guides and moderating usability lab sessions and managing lab setup. * Manage test recruiting, partnering with vendors to recruit external test candidates and navigating the business to recruit internal users when necessary. * Provide post-research analysis and top-line reports; make recommendations to project teams based on research findings. * Manage and administer site-wide feedback surveys; provide survey analysis and reports; make recommendations to key stakeholders. * Collaborate with our Marketing team on large-scale user research initiatives. * Help product teams plan and execute external user-research and usability tests with research vendors as needed. * Manage in-house usability lab, including hardware and software assets used for testing. * Make user-testing budget recommendations. * Be an advocate for user research early and often in the process. Required Skills * Experience planning and conducting different kinds of research, including heuristic evaluations, card sorts, mental models, persona development, paper prototypes, focus group moderation and usability tests. * Patience for long term research initiatives but the flexibility to do just-in-time guerilla-style research as well. * Must be highly organized and be able to juggle and lead multiple user-testing initiatives in varying stages simultaneously. * Willingness to 'get your hands dirty' managing all steps of the usability testing process. * Excellent written and oral communication skills; strong relationship-building skills * Experience presenting research findings and recommendations to all levels of stakeholders, including executive management. Required Experience * Bachelor's or Master's degree in Human Factors, Cognitive or Experimental Psychology, Cognitive Science, Anthropology, Information design or related field (or equivalent professional experience) required. * At least five years experience conducting and leading user research, applying a variety of research methodologies including usability testing, in a corporate or consulting environment. Direct experience managing an in-house testing
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Jarod-- just to be clear, I'm not making any claims about Larry's work, other than to say that in his definition of ACD, he accounts for goals and other higher-order concepts. This seems to contradict what Jared posted about at the beginning of this thread: that ACD did not account for these things. So I'm just asking Jared (not Jarod :-) to clarify. James-- I know that you've created a bad persona set by definition. If the persona set ignores or discards the data, it's not what most serious practitioners call a persona. It's what most serious practitioners call a bad persona. I'm also hesitant to get into a long discussion of personas here. That's another thread. JS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Call for Volunteers: Drupal People
Hi There, The IxDA is working on a project, the Board blog, so we can get the word out about what we're up to. We're running the blog on Drupal, and we need help creating a theme that can make it match the ixda.org site more closely. There are other side projects in the works based on this platform, and if you (or someone you love) is a Drupal afficionado, we'd love to get you on board to help us start tweaking and building! People outside of the UX community are also welcome. Thanks, and hope to hear from you soon! Nasir Barday Director of Geekery Interaction Design Association Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Hi Josh, On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 3:37 AM, Josh Seiden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jarod-- just to be clear, I'm not making any claims about Larry's work, other than to say that in his definition of ACD, he accounts for goals and other higher-order concepts. This seems to contradict what Jared posted about at the beginning of this thread: that ACD did not account for these things. So I'm just asking Jared (not Jarod :-) to clarify. Sorry for miss-interpretation of your intention. And I agree, that Jared's ACD definition contradict with normal Activity Theory's activity definition. more links may as 1. http://www.amazon.com/Acting-Technology-Activity-Theory-Interaction/dp/0262112981 2. http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1558608087/181-0321423-0466727?SubscriptionId=1100889MK2XY9PSTV5G2 Both clearly define activity holds user's motivation, context, and tool mediators. Regards, Jarod -- http://designforuse.blogspot.com/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
