Physical interactions that I remember:

• Videogames:
  • Different implementations of the Floor Pad were really popular in videogame playing places in Argentina. Pump it up was the most popular. I even know a guy who played in tournaments! (Yes, these tournaments were shown in cable tv
  • There was one about shooting football soccer penalties. The player kicked a plastic ball firmly attached to the machine, and, supposedly based on how he kicked it, the penalty shot was shown on screen. I was always skeptic about the real interaction of this.
  • I have to mention the Wii and the Kinect.
• The interactive dolls, there were lots of them on tv
• Mechanical mirror: the wooden mirror at ITP from Rozin of course!
• Meditation Helpers: in the first class, when we had to think of fantasy objects, someone mentioned a room that adjusted its ambience according to the mood of the person in the room. I don’t remember seeing something like this for real anyway.

Some random comments:

I really loved the drum gloves. I’m always hitting the table with my fingers, so being able to play with that and have more meaningful sounds would be awesome.

There is a TED talk about using some sensors in the hand for almost anything. I think it’s really amazing, but I’ll believe it’s an utopia until I see it realized: http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html

About strengths and weaknesses:

I believe a big weakness is when it’s not clear how the interaction works. This can lead to a frustrated audience, or even believing there is some kind of cheating in the implementation. Like my soccer videogame above, I always thought that it was just a feint to make people put money in it. Maybe it wasn’t, but for sure it was not clear how much the force and direction of the kick, and where you hit the ball, actually influenced the shot. Anyway, my friends from highschool enjoyed it.

Something I like is when the installation allows a longer cycle than just

1. User puts some physical input
2. Machine shows some physical output
3. Over

An example of the above would be the mirror. Well, you can play with the mirror all the time you want, but for me there is no sense of continuity or evolution into this. On the other hand, the bird flight simulator seems that you could be engaged for a long time. Because it seems that you can actually improve your flying, compare, etc., every action kind of builds on the past actions.

During my first days in NYC, I had some trouble swiping my metrocard correctly. I always had to try once or twice before it actually worked. ‘Swipe again’, ‘too slow’, ‘problem reading the card’ were common responses of the machine. For this assignment, I observed people trying to get into the subway, in the Union Sq. station.

First, only very few people had trouble swiping their cards. I guess that once you get used to the expected speed, it comes naturally. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I did it wrong.

Most of the people whose metrocard wasn’t accepted found out about that when trying to go in – instead of reading the feedback from the machine. Once they find out, trying to push the metal bar, then they read what the machine say. So, if the next time there is a problem, they know it by reading instead of trying to push. Because of this, if the card didn’t have enough money, people wouldn’t keep trying; after the first attempt, they read the feedback and go immediately to recharge it.

Relating to Norman’s readings, I would say that there is a lack of natural mapping with the feedback from the swiping machine. There could be a different sound depending on wether the user is allowed into the subway, one that sounds positive and one that sounds negative. The same could be done for the visual feedback. The written response now is too small and located far below the eyes, so it goes unnoticed. There could be a light that users naturally map to success or failure, like green and red, and even another one for when the card does not have enough money.

One thing that surprised me was that I thought that hurried people would have more trouble swiping the card correctly, but that was not the case. There seems to be no relation between the state of the person and the rejection.

I would define interaction as an effective communication between at least two agents, where the roles in the communication are alternatively exchanged. I mean, the emitter has to become the recipient and vice versa. An interaction would be then a communication that goes in both ways.

Following that definition, I would say that good interaction is when the exchange of roles between the agents occurs frequently and many times. And, needless to say, they understand each other.

One thing that Crawford does not mention and I would like to add is, in software, the asymmetry between the program and the user. By this I am referring to the situation that the program is a provider and a user is a consumer. This will have to be taken into account when designing a successful interaction, it is not the same as when two friends are talking to each other.

Specifically about the rant, I am not sure if there is a better interaction when we use more of our potential.

While reading ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, by Douglas Adams, and stumbled upon this, in the beginning of chapter 12: ‘A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wavebands for news of himself. The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive-you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same programme.’