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August 13, 2007

Status Report

Current Primary Tasks

Ambient Orb Study Paper
Living Lab Specifications
SoundWall Prototype
Find out how many classes I still need to take

1) Ambient Orb Study Paper
I've worked a bit more on how to restructure the paper, and I've been editing the orginal draft to match the revamped emphasis.  We will be focusing on the issues that arise when attempting to conduct user studies on technologies that act as ambient information displays. I'm pretty sure this will be a relevant contribution if we can get it published. I generated a nice infographic showing what the state of each user's orb was over the course of the study. It does a nice job at showing just how little the orbs changed in regard to the data.  Hopefully this will make a strong case that the reason that people did not perceive it is because it did not ever appear to change. I am not sure how to articulate it yet, but I think this means that the ambient device is doing its job.  It is telling the user that they do not need to check up on the data, but at the same time telling them the current steady state of the data. I'll have to work on that. See current draft of paper here.

2) Living Lab Specifications
I met with Jason Pierce (former Aware Home lab manager) and got a little bit of insight as to how the Aware Home functions as a research/project space.  I started to get a little concerned that no one was preparing for my visit so I sent out an email reminding them that I was coming. Sure enough someone emailed me back saying the were not aware that I had scheduled a trip.  Some of the issues that Jason Pierce brought up were

  • The amount of wiring added to the space can mess with wireless functionality
  • The logistics of keeping the demo's running are difficult
  • Lots of projects died because students graduated and moved on
I did get an email from Brian Jones, who is the current lab manager for the Aware Home. He said he did not know that I was coming, but that he should have time on Wed to give me a tour.  I am really concerned that they have no interest in my visit :-). It's costing $500 to make the trip, I hope we can get our money's worth.

3) SoundWall Prototype
I haven't touched this since last week.  What I would like, at the very least, is to have the solenoids mounted  behind the stonework and write a small program that will take input from the motion sensors to trigger them. I did send a detailed message to Leslie Sharpe to ask if she would be interested in collaborating on this project. It is as much fine arts related as it is HCId after all. She said that she liked the idea and had some students that may be interested. We are planning to meet after she gets back to Bloomington sometime after the 22nd of August.

4) Finding out how many credits I have left
I spoke to Erik about this and he suggested that I speak with Marty. I need to have this figured out by the time school starts, but I'll be starting qualification exams on the 20th.  I probably will not work on this until after quals are done, probably the 9th of September.

Note: The DiamondTouch table we were awarded has arrived. I am working with Erik now to find a place to install it and a computer to drive it. I really hope we can get some students doing interesting projects.

Plan for the rest of this week: Work on the Paper, prep for the Atlanta trip, prepare for quals.

Posted by whazlewo at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)