Digital audio assignment

I started off following information about the Design Night. The Design event in Tallinn 24-27 Srptember. I had in mind making a podcast on the program and intentions of the event. But as the assignment was to be finished by the 1st of October I felt it was a bit off-topic. So I went on thinking and kept in mind the four keywords from The Design Night: Ingenuity, Innovation, Sustainability and Recycling. It seems to me that Innovation is the term most close to our themes and topics here that I just decided to pick out some statements about it and work with them for my podcast.

Podcast
1. I chose a background track by Bonobo
2. I recorded my text about innovation. (text_originaal)
3. Edited recording

• Normalyze
• Edit clipping (3)
• Noise removal
• Compression at -18
  

4. Record "Innovation" and add it to separate track, edit and "repeat", manual fadeout.
5. Manual duck for background
6. Adding the "repeat" tracks in total two at the beginning and two at the end. Adding Change speed to "repeat 3&4"
7. Naming the tracks
8. Labeling intro, text and outro.

InnovationPodcast Maarja by maarja

Ad
1. Background is a track beginning from Bonobo again
2. Recording three times my text (ad_original)
3. Naming the tracks
4. Editing recorded tracks - silence, normalize, compression, change speed (up, down and 0)
5. A dding a sound from freesound (glass)
6. Adding one more track

AdProject Maarja by maarja

Here is the original recording of my text.

Text originaal by maarja

Online protest

An online protest against Ongoing Animal Killings in Kerala.

Having in total 65 signatures to support the protest.. not exactly a success.

Interaction design

I appreciate finding interviews with different professionals from the field in "Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction". The first interview is with Gitta Salomon who has over 20 years experience as a practicing interaction designer. It is nice easy reading getting to know her practices and experience on how to reach the best results in communication between the client and the team. I would like to state out something that has been a topic also in our lections - the principle of sharing vocabulary well-known to all participants. In case of (and mostly it is so) not having clear idea of the terms used, they have to be made clear and understandable so that the following conversations and cooperating will be carried out using these terms. Miss Salomon evaluates her success with clients also based on the development of information exchange quality. If her clients easly start using incommon terminology, she has met one of her goals.

I will continue with this book, so maybe following opinions are soon to appear here.

Surrogate travel

I have used GoogleMaps for some years now to find the best way reaching a destination - will I be on time on foot? Should I take public transport? Which alternative way to choose? Some time ago I discovered GoogleMaps StreetView functionality and became a huge fan of it as I can '"walk around" in the places I have been to or where I will be in close future and look around as if I was really there. I have become familiar with the house, streets and the surroundings of my future home. I find paths to prefer for walking from one point to another. Maybe I will choose to avoid it in the future to let the new places surprise me and introduce themselves to me in live but at the moment my excitement over the application exceeds the will to wait for getting there.

I have introduced this great novelty to many of my friends and family members. And now I read over the history of hypertext and must admit: there is nothing new in this world, also not StreetView by Google. In 1978 Aspen Movie Map developed by Andrew Lippman and his colleagues at MIT Architecture Machine Group was introduced and said to be probably the first hypermedia system whereas the hypermedia aspects of the system come from accessing these pictures not as a traditional database but as a linked set of information.

I find it better to quote to give the overview of the technology used: "The Aspen system was implemented with a set of videodisks containing photographs of all the streets of the city of Aspen, Colorado. Filming was done by mounting four cameras aimed at 90° intervals on a truck that was driven through all the city streets, each camera taking a frame every ten feet (three meters)." The system also allowed the user to choose the speed of moving around in the city up to 110 km/h and to step into the buildings as they were also filmed from inside. The city was also filmed in different seasons of the year allowing the user to switch the time of the year of "visiting" Aspen.

Visiting different locations of the world like that gives the possibility of surrogate traveling and reaching the best travel target. It can also be an excellent educational environment or used for training soldiers in hypothetical locations.

More on the GoogleMaps StreetView (the original google site for it is not working for some reason):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View

The history of hypertext:
http://www.useit.com/papers/hypertext-history/

Complexity == Unreliability

The text by Vannevar Bush was an interesting reading. First of all the moments of surprise or amaze how at that time he described his visions for future developments. And secondly I find it quite amusing to read "... picture a future investigator in his laboratory..." and then the ideas of Bush, because for us it is no question of imagination, we just think of some processes close to which his thoughts had reached but we now relate to as something usual.

I loved this sentence, it just made me laugh and read it over again: "..for at that time and long after, complexity and unreliability were synonymous." I am happy this has changed.

Living in multilingual environment and facing from time to time some problems with misunderstandings has made me think of 'one-language-fits-all' environment.. But I never thought of having one 'transmitting and recording fitting' language. Bush did. I find it also a remarkable idea for his time. Has anyone produced it yet?

Assignment: Locative media

Assignment:
Find Internet hot-spots in Tallinn

We went to Kadriorg with a group of course mates and spotted several open Wifi areas on Narva street, Weizenbergi and at Kadrioru Park.

Assignment: Bike trails

Assignment:
Web site design mock-up for biking trails

Persona:
Interested in sports, likes active life-style, goes often biking after work, takes family to tours in other cities and country side. Would like to find trails and additional information online.

Features:
User profiles - users can join, secure their profile with password, connect with other users, share photos and information (can use their already created profiles and openIDs)
Community - discussions, events, etc
Map adding, editing, sharing (based on GoogleMaps)
Interactive maps (with illustations of scenery, hot spots, bike rentals, bike shops, train stations, etc)
Photo adding, naming, sharing, removing
Bike site (bike parts, fixing, designing, driving rules, bike ettiquette, etc.)

Thoughts on the 'cocktail party effect'

If I am listening to someone but not paying much attention to it and suddenly understand that there was a question asked, my first reaction often is - 'what did you say?". But before hearing the question again I already answer, usually at the same time with the repeated question and then we both can ask - 'what? what did you say?' as neither of us was listening any more. I always thought that I suddenly understood what I had been asked. Now I found out that it is my temporary memory acting out and helping me reproduce the information and bringing me the understanding of my partner in conversation.

We have all attended numerous lectures given by a variety of lecturers. I am sure I do not speak for myself alone if I say that it is rather exhaustive to sit an hour and a half in a lecture if the voice of professor is silent, monotonic and the text far from dynamic. I have always thought it is just boring. Now I know that trying to get that information has just been silly optimism. I simply do not receive it as my ears and consciousness can not work that message out.. the signal has been weak. While hearing text spoken in monotonic voice and having little clue about the meaning of the text it becomes technically difficult for the receiver to get the message.

On the other hand, we can perceive a voice and message even if it has strong background noise and other voices around it. It is the cocktail party effect that lets us selectively hear one voice and get the message. This is human capability that is researched to develop into computational application for speech user interfaces - hand-free, eyes-free applications. The conclusion of given paper introduced me to another angle of user interfaces that I now wish to explore a bit more.

Thoughts on:
http://pubs.media.mit.edu/pubs/papers/arons_AVIOSJ92_cocktail_party_effect.pdf

Good night.

"Viewers" against "Users"

I have found some nice questions and comparisons while reading the chapter ''Who was dissatisfied with old media?' in the 'New media: a critical introduction.' As it says, it is critical.. It really is a critical approach and no celebration to the arrival of new media. For sure interesting reading, great volume and density of text offers a variation of viewpoints and discussions.

In class we have discussed a variety of terminology that has to do with knowledge sciences and consciousness. Also this chapter discusses psychoanalytical aspect of new media reception.

Did we need the 'new' media to overcome the limitations of the 'old' one? - the culturally dominant analogue media? The dominant media that was followed by a number of inactive viewers.. even masses. In case of new media we can speak of users instead of viewers (so called 'couch potatoes') and expect them to be active. From here on we can ask if media was something negative in pre-digital days or if just something better was sought.

For the closer framing of the concept the development and reception of new media are considered. I like the idea of the 'technological imaginary' that stands for 'dis-satisfactions with social reality and desires for a better society are projected onto technologies as capable of delivering a potential realm of completeness' (Lister)

I will return this critical approach book to TLÜ library and go on with 'A Review of The Cocktail Party Effect' by Barry Arons...

In search of up-to-date articles on interaction design

My interests are mostly connected to user experience and therefore the user interface or interaction design issues. I have searched the scholar.google.com and read some from there but I must admit, in search of up-to-date problems in field I could not find what I was hoping for.

Still there was a simple quality criteria paper for effective interaction design that I found compact and helpful for starters and good to use as a checklist when going through the process of planning and designing an interface or user application. It is composed for The ACM interactions Design Awards that are the awards acknowledging quality in interaction design, as distinct from software engineering and research. The paper rounds up the essential questions to be asked for understanding the level of the quality of user experience.

I am sure there is good material on the topic to find online. I will be glad to receive your suggestions also for more deeply going into the technical aspects of it. Just for the purpose of academic reading I was trying out the given sources. I now hope to find some good chapter from a book and try to share my thoughts next time.

Startup

Welcoming at new media course..