CICS Weblogs

CICS Human Factors Institute Announces 2009-2010 Weblog Awards

The Human Factors Institute of User-Centered Design, Development and Deployment (HFI-UCD3)
is a research enterprise within the Applied Research Institute of the Center for Information and Communication Sciences.

HFI has built a weblog community as part of its Distributed Collaborative Community (DCC) research initiative, founded by alumni Joel Patrick and Charles Tuite when they were masters candidates at the Center.

The cicsworld.org weblog community is the largest and longest-running blog project at Ball State University, and one of the largest academic blog initiatives in information systems education in the United States.

With the input of HFI's Distributed Collaborative Community researchers, this year's weblog awards follow:

Blogging and Social Networking

Is blogging a ‘thing’ of the past? In my opinion, for anyone to have a successful blog, one must have a niche and be able to stick with it daily and feel passionate about what they have to say. After all, if you blog, you have one focus – to entice others to read your blog. Since many of us do not necessarily have a favorite topic or niche yet we enjoy communicating about certain entities of our lives, social networking is on the rise, and for me, Facebook is what I use.

According to a Pew Internet Project survey, blogging has had a decline over the past years. In 2006, twenty-eight percent of teens between the ages of twelve and seventeen were actively blogging, however, in 2009, this number has fallen to fourteen percent. (Lenhart, 2010) Unless a blog has some sort of collaboration associated with it, they become static and dull; perhaps technology will change the future of weblogging, but for me, I’m much more interested in social networking.

Leonardo's Laptop - Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies

With Ben Shneiderman’s credentials, he brings knowledge and expertise to the area of technology and how it interfaces with human factors. He is both a professor of computer science at the University of Maryland and the founding director of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory. His teachings explore how technology can enhance human capabilities.[1]

A brief review of "Leonardo's Laptop" by Ben Shneiderman- Chapter 2

Ben Shneiderman in his book "Leonardo's Laptop" discuses the usability issues that users face when they use computer. Users face a lot of problems that prevent them from completing their job. California-based SBT Corporation conducts a survey that includes 6000 computer users, and the result of this survey was amazing. It was discovered that most users waste more that 5.1 hours per week in learning how to use the computer or specific program as Sheiderman reported.

Usability testing in the Usability labs

In the industry world the usability labs become more important than before. The testers use the usability labs to evaluate their products and improve them after the testers go through many processes.
The usability testing needs professional usability labs to be conducted in. Generally, the usability labs consist of two rooms that are sprit by two-way mirror. The first room is called the observation room. This room consists of large table and a number of chairs that are set like a meeting room. White board to write comments or draw diagram. A computer user sits at a desk; two or three video cameras that are mounted in the room, which are used to focus on the users from different perspectives. For example, one camera might be focused on the user's hands whereas another camera might be recording the user's facial expressions. In the control room, usability evaluators sit at control panels where they can observe the users in the room through the two-way mirror or any of the video screens displaying selected aspects. Most professional usability labs have third room that has comfortable sofas and coffee tables where the testers welcome the users when they arrive. Then the users can use it to relax during the break time. This room is called break out area.

HFI Final Summer Meeting

The last meeting of HFI for summer concluded yesterday on July 19, 2010. It was a good meeting with food, fun, and work. We went over the accomplishments that HFI has had, as well as the accomplishments of individual students as well. The possibility of HFI’s future existence was also brought up, and from everyone in HFI it seems like the students would like to see it continued. HFI helps students further their education in specific research areas and it has also helped students get jobs. I personally think that it should be continued as there are many benefits that it provides for students to excel in something they are interested in as well as teaching management to those students who aspire to that role in HFI. In all it was a good meeting that covered the many projects that have been and are being worked on in HFI.

Society, Culture, and Technology: W. Brian Arthur's "The Nature of Technology"

Globally, technology is a driver of innovation and subsequently, job creation. Niche markets and specialization have helped to create such segmentation across all global industries that broad concepts of technology are hard to come by. This allows W Brian Arthur's book The Nature of Technology to stand above publications that dabble with similar concepts, providing the ultimate clarification of technology in the modern setting.

The Nature of Technology- What It Is and How It Evolves- part 2

W. Brian Arthur In his book "The Nature of Technology- What It Is and How It Evolves" explains about the nature of technology. In the first three chapters, he focuses on what is technology and how it evolutes because without evolution it will be born and improve independently, which is of course unacceptable.” The Oxford English Dictionary declares with a lovely stuffiness that technology is the collection of mechanical arts that are available to culture to make its economy and society function” (2009, p. 27). In addition, in merriam-webster dictionary, it shows that technology word comes from Greek word technologia which means “systematic treatment of an art, from technē art, skill”.Also, It defines technology as “the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area : ENGINEERING”. All of these make it easy for us to understand where the technology comes from. Actually, technology was born out of creativity and thinking to develop through different processes to come up with a new things.

Basic Requirements of Learning in Training and Development

The traditional meaning of learning is the meaning that will jump to our mind when we hear the word "Learning". We understand the learning processes as registering in classes in a field, attending classes regularly, taking good notes, doing our assignments, and passing all exams that are related to this class. With all of this, any student can complete the master's degree in any program. However, after the student goes in these processes, is this student willing to apply the new information that he/she learned in his classes when he/she comes to the real work world?

Mark Twain's Autobiography now published in scholarly edition: controversy sure to follow

I was delighted to see that the Autobiography of Mark Twain is being published in a carefully edited scholarly series. Here's a writeup from the New York Times of 10 July 2010, "Dead for a Century, Twain Says What He Meant." Then and now, these literary reflections are controversial, sometimes made so deliberately, by Samuel Clemens, the American writer who shielded his identity under the pen name "Mark Twain."

This is another in the scholarly editions of The Mark Twain Papers and Project
of the University of California, Berkeley. I was privileged to work there early in my career and have never forgotten the scholarly quality and intellectual integrity of the people and the project. Some of those people still work at "MTP" in this premier research, writing and publishing enterprise. It is supported by the university, its donors and sponsors, and the United States National Endowment for the Humanities.

Below is an excerpt the New York Times published:

Review of "The Nature of Technology- What it is and How it Evolves"

W. Brian Arthur provides a powerful framework for understanding technologies that play an important role in our live. In his book "The Nature of Technology - What it is and How it Evolves" he tries to answer some questions, such as "what is technology? What is it in the deepest sense of nature? What are its properties and principles? Where does it com from- how does it come into being? How does it develop? And how does it evolve?" any many other questions that help us to understand technology.

The future of R&D: job creation. part 2

While companies like Microsoft may use R&D to look into the unknown and explore with no boundaries (as noted in my previous article here), it is clear that the usage of R&D knowledge workers within any enterprise or corporation are dependent on their respective market. Yet, the beauty of information and communication technologies is that virtually all companies in all markets around the globe are increasing technological capabilities and expanding their companies simultaneously with the growth of the current information era.


One example of this can be found within the R&D lab of the New York Times, who in 2009 was focusing heavily on the next generation of marketing and advertising. As quoted in an article from the Nieman Journalism Lab online (from Harvard), some of these innovations included the following:

Usability Colloquium

On Monday the 28th of June, 2010, CICS held a usability colloquium on a conference that was held in Germany of this year and their theme was Embracing Cultural Diversity. Nick Marsh and Lou Ann Stroup who were in attendance of this conference in Germany presented some of the things they learned.

Some of the things they brought to us were what seems to be obvious but often overlooked things to think about when creating products with usability in mind. Standardization is one of the key things to think about in usability, and also symbols and pictures. Some symbols, colors, and pictures may have different meanings in different cultures and this is something that must be thought about when creating products.

It was a very informative talk and if you have more interest I would advise you to get in contact with either Lou Ann or Nick.

There were a number of Organizations represented at this conference, here are some of them:

UPA
SIGCHI
STC
IxDA
UIE

Review of "The Trouble with Computers"

The computer is invented to help human being to accomplish their job easily, effectively, and fast. However, when people come to use it, they face a lot of problems that slow their work and take their attention from the job that they try to achieve to the problems in their computers and try to work very hard to solve them as Thomas K. Landauer points in his book The Trouble with Computers. He points that most of the computer problems are related to the usability design.

Collaboration Platforms

The Internet, mobile, and broadband technologies have changed everything - from the way we search for information and consume media to how we interact with our peers. Social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, along with smart phones, and blogging have become part of our everyday lives. Today, we are able to enjoy unlimited content on the internet with no barriers, and have the ability to communicate in numerous ways.