To conclude.....
Real world architecture has definitely had a major impact on the interactive designs of 21st century technology. From the way we play use our computers and play the games to new forms of household pet, there have obviously been some major influences.

The most innovative inventions using the real world architecture have proven to be a useful addition to the entertainment genre whilst providing little in the way to essential needs. Gadgets such as the AIBO or the PINO sure are an interesting adaption of a real world object (in this case a house hold pet), but prove nothing more than just a gimmick.

However, there are some serious beneficiaries to this real world based interactive design, VR and MUDs add another dimension to conversations to people all around the world. Not only can you converse with them, but now there is the ability to actually see them (or in the Habbo Hotel example, see a caricature of them). As mentioned previously, as new technology facilitates itself with the modern generation it may be possible to create scenarios whereby you can actually physically see, smell, touch someone, or do shared activities remotely.

Moreover, the potential improvements in the education and health sectors can be comprehended. Educational items such as , what Lauryn's mentioned, the CAVE can be fully explored and taken advantage of, to give users a full on impression of many things that would normally be inaccessible. Whilst the Diversity University eduMOO concept allows users who are more computer-literate, and lets face it more and more of todays youth are, to access educational material in a more laid back, entertaining method.
Health benefits cannot be underestimated, for instance Emma's post on how doctors are now using Virtual Reality based programs to cure people of their phobias, shows how designers are abstracting the real world ideas for interactive based systems. Such systems could prove invaluable as people will afford with what is being shown on the screen with what they recognize from the real world, thus curing them of their phobia.

In conclusion, interactive system designers have utilised the anthropomorphism experienced by users of computerised systems, with the affordances developed from real world architecture to create successful inventions. In the future, it is more than likely that the real world and the information world will blend together until they are indistinguishable. Interactive based systems will allow users to perform tasks exactly how they would in the real world whilst also increasing the efficiency of existing systems.

- posted by Adam @ 9:00 am 4 comments

 
Habbo Hotel & Online Messaging
Another example of a virtual reality based system is Habbo Hotel, following on from what Lauryn and Emma discussed, it is another form of interacting with people all over the world. This time with less emphasis placed on reality, and more on a fun, enacted environment

Habbo Hotel: The Friendliest Hotel Around

For those who are unaware, Habbo Hotel is a virtual 'hotel' whereby people from all about the world can chat to people with the same interests as them, or to chat to their mates.



The user creates a character through many different configurations, and then enters into a virtual lobby whereby they wander around as if it were a real hotel, although the graphics are very cartoony, it is very easy to work out what everything does as it is based on what would happen in a real hotel. There are then many differenet rooms that you can visit, all with people from different parts of the world, and with different interests.

Primarily this site is intended for kids, and using the Hotel analogy, gently introduce them to the concept of online virtual chatting.

Even more 'adult' forms of instant messaging have been influenced by the hotel analogy. When a user first logs in on any chatting server they are taken to the 'lobby' whereby they can enter various different 'chatrooms', and although there are social implications of it being too easy to create a false image, it is undeniable that this similarity means that people can acclimatise to a new surrounding quickly. This is the main reason why online messaging has taken off in the 21st Century.

Next generation systems could be complete 3D interactive chat rooms where by people will actually physically be able to see and possibly even interact people from all around the world, through many more means such as touch, smell etc.

- posted by Adam @ 10:39 pm 0 comments

 
How does real world architecture influence interactive designs? ***
How does real world architecture influence interactive designs

A HCI presentation by #533706, #330612, #533933, #530995 and #537907
Introduction

The real world itself has had a great influence on many interfaces and interactions between users and computer based designs. The idea is that people will be able to quickly adapt to new surroundings as they already have associated with the analogy. A term that is frequently used amongst HCI specialists is standardisation. Essentially, standardization facilitates learning and reduces errors by taking advantage of knowledge the users have gained from other products or from other parts of your product.

HCI Standards Explained

For instance, as James mentions in one of his previous posts, the key reason to why Firefox has recieved such appraisal is due to the look and feel being identical to the industry standard (Microsoft's Internet Explorer), thus people don't need to reaclimatise to a new surrounding. Good HCI revolves around this ease of use, whereby a well-designed interface will encourage users to reuse a program or revisit a site at a later date.

The main question for designers is how can we apply real world architecture, like buildings, offices, etc to interactive information systems. Would implementing this architecture have a positive effect on its users?

To answer this question we will investigate into the many instances of where real world architecture has had an influence on the designs of current interactive-based systems. As James, Lauryn, Emma, Rick and I will highlight these range from the obvious, such as how the computer desktop has evolved of late into a more 3 Dimensional environment and how may real world ideas such as virtual online-shopping and chatting in web-based environments, to the more obscure, like a program created by Professors (or students?) at Reading University which allows users to take a walkthrough a human body. It is also important to consider that real world architecture has also had a large influence on non-computer based design, which we will also discuss into more depth.

- posted by Adam @ 1:06 pm 2 comments

 
Sort it out russell!
While we are still on the topic of web design, i couldn't help but notice a perfect example of this not too far from home. Whilst looking through the resources page of the HCI website, i was appalled by the poor layout.

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~rxb/Teaching/HCI/resources-active.php

Even if you discount the poor, dull colour scheme, the page itself is badly presented. There is an overload of information on the page, which has resulted in the page being overly long. The user is blatantly going to get bored before actually attempting to read everything on the page. I'm sure a lot more people would actually do more extra reading if this page was more attractive and interesting.
Furthermore, it is very easy to get lost in the website hierarchy. I was trying to find my way to the page containing all our blogs to check out what other people have been writing, but finding your way around is a nightmare.
I'm sure this is actually just a clever ploy on Russells part as the only pages i could seem to find where the ones with his portrait and an image of his book.

- posted by Adam @ 6:57 pm 1 comments

 
Good Web-based Interface Design used in Applications
In Monday's Lecture Russell was talking about the methods employed by web designers to create an effective, attractive, efficient web page. In designing an interface we must consider 3 factors; the audience, i.e who you are aiming the site at; the architecture, how is the site going to be organized; and the information, i.e. what is going to be displayed on the site.
One thing i have noticed though is that most modern day programs are now adopting this web-based look themselves. Take for instance Football Manager 2005, the developers of this game had to go back to the drawing board and develop a new interface for the game after their last game's (CM4) interface was heavily criticized for being overly crowded and clumsy.



As you can see from the screenshot above, the interface is well thought out, using many proven techniques. For instance, FM05 sets out the page with a title bar at the top, which is pretty much fixed as you scroll through the various pages. This alerts the user where they are currently and any other important information (date, time, etc). Then there is a side bar on the left, which is menu driven. The user clicks on a '+' icon next to a word which expands the menu into menu sub-areas, to directly get to a particular part of the game quickly. Along the bottom of the screen, there is the 'bread-crumbs' styled progress bar, which tells the user exactly how he has navigated through the game so far. So far instance if he is viewing the premiership table it would be displayed as: Home > England > Premiership > League Table. The main glut of information is dynamically displayed in the middle of screen.
In my opinion, as the internet has become more user-friendly in recent years, application and game programmers have learned a lot from web pages and are beginning to adopt these successful interfaces for use in their applications.

- posted by Adam @ 1:25 pm 0 comments

 
Go Phish!
Hi-tech tools fuel phishing boom

The danger with real-world architecture having such a large influence in the ease of use in modern day interactive designs is that people are unaware at the risks posed by unscrupulous computer geeks who come up with fake emails, apparently from financial institutions stating for instance that they are upgrading their systems or so forth and thus require you to re-input your information (name, bank account number, address, etc). When the user then clicks submit, it will email a copy of all your details back to the hacker. Thus allowing him to freely help himself to your hard-earned life savings.

Phishing Email example

As you can see above there is very little evidence from the actual email that this is actually a scam, the From field looks genuine and the website you are taken to looks like the real thing.

Looks genuine....

As online banking has been rapidly been integrated into present day lifestyle, people have been unaware that their safety online is not quite as secure as their safety in a real bank. It is imperative that future websites to consider possible dangers with designing their systems. As no matter how good HCI is, if people don't believe they are safe online, then internet banking and shopping will never be properly taken on board.

- posted by Adam @ 5:51 pm 0 comments

 
and Londero comes through to take the chequered flag!
Back to my poor old grandad again, but the lecture on monday reminded me of what him, and im sure many others do when playing racing games on a console.
Many times we get so involved in a game that we tend to forget that we are actually playing and am not a daredevil superhero, magic mushroom popping plumber, or lunatic formula one driver. We develop a bond with the console, momentarily we forget that it is just a computing device, we begin to empathise with it. Feelings that are normally reserved for other humans, such as happiness, anger, etc, we display subconsciously.
One example of such affordance is when pretending to be the next Michael Schumacher in racing games, moreso if you have a steering wheel as it closens the comparison between virtual and reality. Whilst battling wheel to wheel often you could find yourself hurling abuse at the drivers going past or whilst going around corners, you might sway into the corner as if you are driving the car yourself.

- posted by Adam @ 1:07 pm 0 comments

 
Clothes: here today, gone tommorow?
New night vision mobile camera sees through clothes

New technology invented by a Japanese company allows voyueristic Japanese perverts take sneaky shots of people naked. By picking up the heat given off the camera is able to produce an image of our body, excluding clothes.

Surely this is a sign of technology getting too advanced and too intrusive on our lives. Even though the camera was not intended for this use, it is probably more than likely that Yomada (the company behind this device) genuinely are innocent in believing that they didn't know about this. These criteria, and any side effects as a result need to be taken into consideration when designing new products. Gadgets such as these ensure that it becomes more difficult for people to accept modern day technology.

- posted by Adam @ 1:29 pm 0 comments

 
Are you sure that's your final answer?
Just a little note, as Emma was saying it can take a long while to integrate yourself with a new unknown device. Take the playstation 2 controller for instance, last christmas when my grandparents came over to visit, they wanted to have a game of Who wants to be a Millionaire. Being the know-it-alls they always have been, I was shocked when they both crashed out at the £100 question. Why? If you take a look at the directional digital pad on the controller:



The problem they had was that they were confused with which button to press to move the arrow left, right, up and down. According to them, the button on the left was pointing right, and up was pointing down, and vice versa. This is bad design on Sony's part as they just assume that we would use our common sense to know which button to press. This could be made more obvious, by having the controller more clearly indicated.
To be honest though, i'm pretty certain it was just an excuse that he couldn't answer the questions...

- posted by Adam @ 11:40 am 0 comments

 
Out of the frying pan....
Good morning everyone, thought i better get started on this blog thing. Anyways, I was thinking, to fully investigate HCI should I limit myself to computers or computerised technology? I thought i would take a look and see some of the bad interfaces used in common day use stuff. Take my cooker for example, a prime modern piece of kit (or so my landlord would have us believe).
.






See the pictures above, it is far from clear which switch you have to turn to activate a hob. The only way to really know is to actually turn on the hob. The light then turns on, but it begs the question why have 4 LEDs on each knob if only 1 ever turns on, this is a bad case of human interface if there ever was one.



- posted by Adam @ 10:59 am 0 comments