HCI Remixed

Comments:
Ross Peterson

Summary:
The first chapter we read from HCI remixed highlighted a music system.  The paper, written by the musician that used the system, gave high praises to the system and its easy to user interface.  The author was very explicit regarding his love for the system and even went so far as to say that the engineers who designed this system knew more about HCI than anyone would for the next 60 years.

The second essay was about Sutherland's light pen system.  In the 60's a researcher named Sutherland designed a system that worked somewhat like a CAD program.  Using constraint programming he provided a light pen that a user could point at something that they were trying to draw and the computer would record the input that the user gave and display it to the screen.  The impressive part of this program was that it set the stage for so much work in the future.

The third and final essay we read was in regards to the creation of the mouse and its initial demo.  Written by an MIT graduate, the essay marveled at how good the demonstration was and how simplistic the mouse was. The author gushed over the creation of such a simple device and how it was presented with such modesty.

Summary:
This book and the three chapters we read were pretty interesting.  I really liked the one about the mouse, the way it was presented was pretty interesting.  The music chapter was pretty cool as well.  Initially when I started reading it, I was concerned that it was going to be very boring and I would just have to get through it.  The further I got in however, I realized that he was actually talking about something quite revolutionary.

The essay about Sutherland, while impressive, was somewhat boring.  I found it pretty impressive that they had a light pen as early as the 60's but I would have to question its usefulness.  I highly doubt that even the best systems of the day would have been unable to run the light pen smoothly enough to be worth anything though.  I guess having the jump start would have been helpful though.

Opening Skinners Box

Comments:
Ross Peterson

Summary:
In Opening Skinners Box, the author, Lauren Slater, provides a summary of 10 of the most prolific psychology experiments done in the past century.  The title, Opening Skinners Box, is very misleading because while she starts talking about Skinner and his boxes the book quickly diverges off this path and discusses other experiments.

In her presentation of the experiments, she uses a point-counter point system that helped motivate the experimenters.  For example when Harlow "proved" that a real mother wasn't needed, the field began searching for evidence to the contrary and Slater presented it as such.

The experiments ranged from Skinner and his boxes, to why no one calls the police when witnessing a murder, to Milgram's shocking experiment.  Covering a diverse range of topics, Slater gives a great introduction into the world of psychology in an easy to understand and easy to read format.

Discussion:
I thought this was by far the best book we read this semester.  While it isn't the most directly applicable, it is still very relevant to the field and opened my eyes to a different way of thinking when it comes to interacting with the user.

I really liked how Slater presented the experiments but at times I had to question her own sanity.  For example when describing the experiment where the experimenter got a lot of people to purposely get themselves institutionalized, Slater decides to do this herself.  Luckily she got turned away every time but it seemed like a few times she really took it too far.

Obedience to Authority

Comments:
Aaron Loveall

Summary:
The book was an ethnography on Milgram's shock experiments. Written by Milgram himself, the book goes into great detail regarding the experiments and their results.

For more than half the book, Milgram goes into great detail regarding his alterations of the experiment.  From including more teachers, to more students, there were many variations off from the initial experiment.  Each variation, of course, included some analysis from Milgram about what they might ahve meant and why they might have happened like they did.

The rest of the book was spent attempting to explain why the results came out as they did.  He explained a few theories and put a considerable amount of effort countering some theories that would have disproved his results

Discussion:
I generally liked the book even though at times it was very bland.  The variations of the experiments were pretty interesting to read about because it was cool to see how slight adjustments could result in drastically different results.  The last part involving the thick psychological analysis, however, was not very interesting.

Near the end of the book, when Milgram was defending the ethics behind his study, I sensed that Milgram felt tired and just beaten down.  It was as if so many people had questioned him that he was tired of giving the answer.  His explanation just didn't seem to lack the fire that I am sure it once had.