Conclusions

As a final conclusion to this Blog we express the knowledge that we have gained in this course, as well as our level of satisfaction.

Mention that the three members of this group took the subject of Human Computer Interaction being quite satisfied with the concepts learnt. Basically for this reason we decided to take this course. Many of the things we learnt in the previous course we have gone back to review them but from the point of view a little more advanced. Also, obviously, have delved into concepts that were already explained and added new ones.

To evaluate this course, we can say our expectations have been amply fulfilled. At first thought it would be more broadly oriented in design, but the truth is that we have learnt many practical concepts that are very useful.

Finally, say that the area we found most interesting about this subject has been ubiquitous systems because it was an issue that we had no previous knowledge and a good area for future research.

Design for all

After reading the slides given in class and some items that we have searched the internet to have an even greater knowledge about the subject, we can say that the design for all is a concept that comes from a Scandinavian tradition and has been promoted by the European Institute for design and disability. In 2004 adopted the following statement:

"Design for All is design for human diversity, social inclusion and equality. This holistic and innovative approach constitutes a creative and ethical challenge for all planners, designers, entrepreneurs, administrators and political leaders" The EIDD Stockholm Declaration (http://www.designforall.org/en/documents/Stockholm_Declaration_ang.pdf)

We believe that this concept arises because designers do not take into account the needs of some people so that products are always targeted the same audience. The groups that we believe are more often excluded are the elderly, children, people with disabilities and often left-handed people. As for the elderly, would have to have them much more into account because every time the number of existing older people is higher and this makes them a very large group of consumers in the market. Beyond economic reasons, to achieve a design for all makes society fairer.

Today we find many examples that have been designed for disabled, elderly, left-handed ... and designs have become de facto standards. We think it is very likely that any product designed from the beginning including such people, would greatly facilitate things to certain groups.

The first of these examples to which we refer to is something we use every day to day and do not realize that his real aim in the beginning were people with disabilities. We refer to the type of tap that appears in the picture. It is much easier to use than traditional taps where you have to use some force to open or close.


Another example of design that fits all of society and is very common, are the automatic doors that can be found in any type of establishment. Were initially designed for people with mobility problems and then realized that they were useful for everyone.

The final design which we will refer is the Nintendo Ds. This product has been the most sold in the market for the simple reason that was referring to all users looking beyond just young people who are the most commonly people that use such products. To achieve this, they created a very simple hardware and applications for all types of audiences: memory training, learning languages, learning to cook, etc. In 2009 has reached 40,000,000 units in Europe.

These three examples show that it is possible, and can also be very profitable, find solutions to suit all of society.

Ubiquitous Systems

We can define a ubiquitous system as a system that provides access to information at any time, place and circumstance. Thus, we can say that a ubiquitous system is the sum of a mobile system and different aspects: physical integration, context sensitivity, adaptability to environmental conditions, integration and transparent interaction (proactivity).
When we say physical integration we refer to environments with smart furniture, fitted with sensors and processing capabilities and communication.
On the other hand, context sensitivity is perhaps one of the most important aspects since the system must collect a series of environmental parameters such as:

* Location and orientation.
* Physical parameters.
* Resources available in the environment.
* Presence of others.
* User physiological parameters.
* User's psychological state.
* Recent History.
* ...

By these parameters the system is configured, resulting in one of the following actions:

* Volume of speakers.
* Brightness of the room.
* Room temperature.
* Mode of interaction (multimodal).
* ...

We have concluded this set of parameters and actions, considering the following example: Normally at night, we do not usually make or receive calls ... If during this time the mobile phone detects that the battery is depleted, it should shut down without warning acoustically. Why this is not the case right now?

Another interesting example that we came up with, is a ubiquitous system embedded on a mobile. The system would make a control signal received by the mobile phone. If the mobile stayed without signal, had wifi network available and the user wished to make a call, the system would provide for a ubiquitous mobile IP-voice connection through the wifi connection.


The advantages of ubiquitous systems are endless and obvious. Some of them are:

* Making life more comfortable for users.
* Provide useful information at any time.
* Work anywhere.
* They adapt to user needs.
* You can automate certain tasks.
* ...

However, we have also found some potential problems:

* Difficult to acquire initial values.
* False adaptation: The system receives information but misinterprets.


To conclude this blog entry we include a number of points to keep in mind when designing it:

* Selection of relevant and observables parameters. What information can I know?
* Definition of the set of parameter values. What values each parameter can take?
* Definition of appropriate behavior for each context. How the system behaves for each value of each parameter?
* Stereotypes of context.
* Set parameter values that characterize a given context.
* Reasoning about the current values of the parameters observed.
* Assigning a stereotype.
* Detection and resolution of contradictions.
* Adjusting to changes in parameters.
* Adapting the interaction in the current context.

Analysing our calendar [Simplicity]

We are going to comment our calendar design from the simplicity point of view. As we all know, the simplicity has 10 laws:

1.- Reduce
2.- Organize
3.- Time
4.- Learn
5.- Differences
6.- Context
7.- Emotion
8.- Trust
9.- Failure
10.- The one

Our design can be considered as a reduced one because in the main screen the user will be able to see just the necessary things in order to handle all the events he could have. One aspect that is not very usable and simple is the fact that the user will probably have to use the scroll bar to look for a specific day and its events.

From the point of view of organization, we believe that our application is well organized. The most important part of a calendar is to show the days of specific month in order. In our design, the user has the possibility of going through all days, weeks and months. Also, we have included a combobox where the user has the chance of sorting the events by some category.

One of the most important issues we dealed with when we thought about our final design was the time. Note that our application starts in the current day and also shows the 7 following days in the main screen. We thought that when the user wants to add a task, this will likely be in the same day or week.

About the "trust" point, we have to mention that we do trust in simplicity, indeed, our design is the result of thoughts that would make the application be as much usable and simple as possible.

We also believe that, as everything, this design can be somehow improved. Our intentions from the begining were to get an intuitive, usable and good interface for the user, but we are aware of a good design is the result of a very hard work and it is very difficult to obtain rapidly.

To finish this comment about our calendar we would like to note that every part, every button... we added has a very clear meaning, there is nothing that is hardly ever used. We also think that all the components that we used to build our application were meaningful.

Social Media

We have been thinking about what kind of applications require the use of social media to be improved. We thought that a web page of car reservations, hotels, apartments would be desirable to offer the opportunity to make comments and assess their offers. Therefore, we selected a site for online booking of hostels, which lacks any kind of feedback from users. We noted that all hostels belong to the same company so we have concluded that it does not provide any kind of feedback so that users cannot do negative reviews of the hostels. The site (http://en.duerme.net/) only includes a search for vacancies among its hostels and a list of several hostels, location and price. We propose a system allowing users to make comments/critiques about their experience in hostels. For the user have a complete overview, we propose a voting system in the different characteristics to qualify in a hostel.

Design

We propose that only those members who have made reservations, are allowed to make an evaluation to avoid false reviews. Once the user accesses the site assessment window, is able to assess the host with percentage in several areas: cleanliness, stuff, fun, location, and services. Users can also rate the usefulness of the other comments to exclude comments if they disagree with what they say.

Benefits

Through these improvements the user has extra information apart from the commercial information offered by the hotel owner. This can help people to avoid going to places where service is not good. It also provides interaction among the users. Through the system of punctuation users can see at a glance if the hostel is well appreciated. The information is generated from collaborative and democratic way to ensure their veracity. Through the system of valuation usefulness of the comments we can discard the comments to try to fool people.

Conclusion

At the time of booking, you provide an email message, and the user would receive a reminder after the date of departure from the hostel reminding the possibility of a site assessment of the hostel. This would promote the participation of users. Also the comments will be in a visible place on the page for users to access quickly.

MicroCal Proposal

We had to create a first approach design for a micro calendar to be used in mobile phones. We started thinking that this application would have to be available for all kind of people, this means, that there is no special function that makes it usable for any kind of specialist.

The result of this design has been discussed among the 3 group members based on the experience each has gained in the use of different kinds of agendas/calendars either electronic or paper format. Therefore, each design is chosen the part which we thought was more usable. This is for example, every page of a paper agenda is simulated by an entry in our microcalendar. In this post you can see the current date or the one you want and then the task list for that date stacked. This means that on the main screen of the application you only have the chance to see the 7 days after the current day through the scroll bar. Even so, the user has the possibility to consult the work of months/weeks either before or after.

We think that an easy and intuitive way to add tasks, was adding a representative icon next to the date by which, when pressed, allow the user to add a task. Equally visible are other icons like delete and indicate if a task has an alarm or not. If you want to edit a particular task, you would have to click on it and then open a new window with the description of the task and a section for editing.

With this design it is intended that the user at a glance can see the tasks done for the same day, as we believe that are those that have more priority. However, using the scroll bar and without having to switch screens, you can also see the tasks remaining for the next few days. We think this is important because in this way, we avoid that the user could waste time or feel to be lost while he is navigating through a lot of screens.

The Pursuit of Creativity

Creative Moments.

During this week in out daily life, we have noticed that you can have a lot of moments of creativity in the kitchen. We live in a city full of students that come from all over the world with different culinary habits. This makes that when you are cooking, you can not avoid looking at what your neighbor is cooking. In this moment is when a lot of possible combiantions come to your mind, combinations that at the begginig did not seem to make sense. For example, in Spanish cuisine it is always cooked with olive oil no matter what dish you are preparing. However, we could observe that most of dishes cooked in Sweden are made in base on butter

Other creative moments are when we spend a lot of hours studying or doing any assignment or work that demand intellectual effort. During this time, in our head appears some ideas or projects that make us think about different things that are not the one we are focus on. This is due to our brain is working and in those moments it is specially predisposed for creativity.

Many times, facing certain problems like for example programming issues, we get stuck in order to find solutions. It is true that we can find the solutions to these problems at the most unsuspected situations or places. One example of this is dreams. While we are dreaming, our conscience is more uninhibited and that is why the subsconcius can express the ideas in a better way. Something similar happens when we are having a shower or other relaxing situations.

Other creative moments depend on our moods. For some strange reason, periods of anger, for example, are particularly successful when you have ideas. I formerly drew and I remember this specifically. There are cases that are very famous songs that were written at a stretch in a few minutes.

Inspiring Things.

Each person has a different source of motivation. One very common, that is really helpful for people, is reading any kind of press. In those moments when you are sitting in front of your computer without having any idea of what to write, get up to date with what is happening around you (reading newspapers, magazines, documentary, online articles, etc) can suggest you new creative ideas that make you start writting again.

Creative Tools.

In order to obtain creative ideas, one of the most successful tool is being surrounded by creative people. That is, working with those kind of people will make us be able to think as they do. We can always observe their creations, their manners of working, their habits... in order to, somehow, try to obtain the appropiate creative product that we are looking for.

One way to seek sources of inspiration is to study cultures very different from ours. There have been products of certain cultures that have had great success in other cultures. For example, people from Turkey that travel abroad, have noticed that people from those countries would like turkey's food. That is why they began to export the national products like the famous kebab.