Interactions 

About: Interactions is an academic journal published by Association for Computing Machinery. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Computer science & Citation. It has an ISSN identifier of 1072-5520. Over the lifetime, 2949 publications have been published receiving 51023 citations.

Design: Cultural probes

Abstract: A As the local site coordinator finished his introduction to the meeting, our worries were increasing. The group had taken on a glazed look, showing polite interest, but no real enthusiasm. How would they react when we presented them with our packages? Would disinterest deepen to boredom, or even hostility? Cultural Probes Homo ludens impinges on his environment: He interrupts, changes, intensifies; he follows paths and in passing, leaves traces of his presence everywhere.

Affordance, conventions, and design

Abstract: I was quietly lurking in the background of a CHI-Web discussion, when I lost all reason: I just couldn't take it anymore. " I put an affordance there, " a participant would say, " I wonder if the object affords clicking … " Affordances this, affordances that. And no data, just opinion. Yikes! What had I unleashed upon the world? " No! " I screamed, and out came this article. I don't know if it changed anyone's minds, but it brought the CHI-Web discussion to a halt (not what good list managers want to happen). But then, Steven Pemberton asked me to submit it here. Hope it doesn't stop the discussion again. Mind you, this is not the exact piece I dashed off to CHI-Web: it has been polished and refined: the requirements of print are more demanding than those of e-mail discussions.

Value-sensitive design

Abstract: Human values impact people's information behavior. Imagine, for example, that a young Muslim man is interested in exploring the historical roots of jihad for a term paper. Imagine, too, that his library logs all digital reference interactions, and has a policy that if subpoenaed, such logs can be made available to law enforcement agencies. Under such conditions , this man might well decide to seek relevant information by other means, as he seeks to balance the value of access to information with other competing values such as privacy, consent, personal safety, security , and religious freedom. Despite the clear importance of values in human information behavior, the information behavior field does not yet have a comprehensive way of approaching this area. Value Sensitive Design offers one such approach. Value Sensitive Design (VSD) emerged in the 1990s as an approach to the design of information and computer systems that accounts for human values throughout the design process Two overarching goals motivate VSD: 1) to be proactive about human values in system design, and 2) to do so in a manner that is principled, comprehensive, and systematic. VSD particularly emphasizes values with moral import, including privacy, trust, human dignity, respect for person, physical and psychological well-being, informed consent, intellectual property, access, universal usability, freedom from bias, moral responsibility, and moral accountability. While emphasizing the moral perspective, VSD also accounts for usability (e.g., ease of use), conventions (e.g., standardization of technical protocols), and personal predilections (e.g., color preferences within a graphical interface). Key features of VSD involve its 368

On education

Abstract: in learning, and the critical ingredients seem to translate to a strong pedagogy of education. These ingredients include primary and generative research, active participation, critique and coaching, and the ability to take risks (and potentially be wrong) without negative consequences. The similarities between the process of design and the process of learning in Littky's school are striking, and he's not alone in pursuing a new, designerly approach. His educational model is one of several, which may form a zeitgeist: We may, in fact, be perched on the brink of an educational revolution. And so, I offer a series of predictive recommendations about the evolving nature of education and how to best structure both pedagogy and content to succeed in the coming educational shift: 1. Assume that anything is possible. As an educator you quickly become aware of the relative boundaries of your students, and it's easy to set expectations based on these perceived limitations. Traditional teaching models are quick to group students by these segments—usually defined by socioeconomic boundaries—and these segments have unusual staying power. The educational revolution to come will operate with the assumption of adequation, where students are empowered to try. 2. Understand the \" whole student. \" At all levels of education, the homogenous body of knowledge that is taught en masse has come to mirror the assembly line, with teachers focused on their own tasks with no awareness of the larger context. The educational revolution will empower teachers to support a whole student, realizing that any factual content needs to be positioned in a much larger and broader context. 3. Leverage the content democratization afforded by technology. It's almost colloquial to espouse the rich benefits of Internet content, yet in many educational settings, this repository is ignored. Traditional, and highly conservative, textbooks are used, which are neither engaging nor as broad in focus. During the educational revolu-Recently, an article by Anya Kamenetz, author of DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education, in which she paints a picture of how much education has changed, was featured on the cover of Fast Company. First graders use proprietary software and hardware; curricula self-adjust to the pace of the students; and the massive amounts of content presented on the Internet have democra-tized—at least on the surface—the challenge of access. Large companies like HP are offering integrated packages like TeachNOW (designed in cooperation with frog design), which …