EJ's Physical Computing: 2007-09-16

Friday, September 21, 2007

Conclusion of the observation

While I was observing people’s action, I was thinking about ‘reactions from the machines.’ Communicating with machines, there is no option. For example, when you charge your card, if machine spew your money, we cannot ask it “Why? What is the problem?” Finally, we repeat same action until machine responds to our actions. When we use devices it might not work as we expected or there can be some mistakes between machines and people. But like these situations, devices cannot accept these unexpected situations. They are just demanding expected actions over and over. In other words, when we use the machine there is no real interactivity; there are only “determined situations” Many people already know their expected action using digital devices and also machines expect that actions. But if there are some problems, we are totally stuck. Machines make us save lots of time, but sometimes we have to be patient to communicate with machines.

Depth Observation_NYU Card Charger

I went to the basement to do my laundry with my roommate. When we arrived at the laundry room, she stood in front of the card charger. What she was doing with this machine was like this:

Have you ever seen this machine? This is NYU card Charger.

First step, she looked at the machine and read messages.
Machine said "Choose Option:
Add value to your NYUCard or Check account balances."
She pushed upper button to choose first one.

Then, machine showed second step: "would you like a receipt?"
She pushed No button.

Third step was showed: "Please swipe card."
She swiped her card.

Machine showed forth step: "Insert bill below."
She tried to put $5 but machine returned her money.
She did again but machine return her money again.
She did again and finally machine got her $5.

And machine said fifth step then she pushed bottom button.

Machine showed last message. It showed balance of her card.
As she pushed exit button, all peosses were done.

Whole processes were consisted of 5 steps. What only she did was ‘standing’, ‘swiping’,‘reading the messages from the machine’, ‘putting her money again and again’ and ‘leaving the machine.’ And she took 3 minutes to do it.

Daily Observation

In the School Bus

Today, in the morning, I took a shuttle bus to go to school. I found 4 people whose ears were plugged in their earphones. I could easily observe the girl who was sitting beside me. She grasped her iPod with one of her hands, and she looked at it. And she touched her machine several times; after that she took out her cell phone from her bag. She took down her iPod on her lap, and grasped her cell phone with two hands. And she hit her cell phone with her thumbs. After that she grasped her iPod again, and looked at it and looked at the window often times even though that machine did not say anything. It took about 20 minutes to go to school. I could see many many people who plugged in their ears by earphones through the windows. And I could see lots of people who put their cell phones on their ears and talked with their cell phones. I got off the bus. In front of the school building, there were many cell phone users as well.

In the elevator

I came into the building, and I walked to the elevator. In front of the elevator, someone push the button, and the button lighted. And then he did not take care of his action, he looked his cell phone. But the man who stood beside him looked the lighting number on the top of the elevator. Finally elevator made sound like “beep” and then everybody walked to the side of the elevator’s door. After the sound, button didn’t light anymore. Door opened and 5 people got off and then about 8 people were packed in the small room. Inside the machine, there were many buttons and each of them had a number in it. People pushed buttons and buttons lighted. Whenever elevator stopped, some people got off, and the button was dimmed.

In the classroom

Finally I arrived at the classroom. All students had their lap-tops except a student. Every student, who put their lap-tops in front of them, did something. I saw the student who sat beside me. Whenever she hit the keyboard, her screen responded. Sometimes she just looked her monitor. When she left her lap-top without any attention, it dimmed itself.

At the dining hall

After the class I went to a dining hall for lunch. I entered the hall and picked up some food, and I got in a line to go out. There were three people in the line. The casher set in front of us with a machine. First student gave her ID card to the casher, and then she hit some buttons and swiped her card on the machine. Machine made a sound and she could pass. There is no bar and no sign to make us stop before we went out, but everybody was waiting before a sound “Beep.” I observed people who went out their food while I had lunch. It took minimum 3 seconds and maximum about 30 seconds to pass the casher. Very simple but very strict.

At the computer store

After I had lunch I went to bookstore. I was waiting in the line as well, a guy bought his stuff and walk to the exit. When he went through the sensor, machine made a sound. Everybody looked him, and a casher who accounted his stuff walked to him and said “Oh, sorry. This kind of stuff you bought often makes the machine sound.” She looked his bag again (I don’t know what she did), he could walk through with no problem.

Card swiping

I came back to my place by the shuttle with a lot of cell phone users and iPod users. I entered the dorm following other student. There were some students who were waiting for their swiping turns. Before they swiped the card, this machine had red and green lights simultaneously. As swiping their card and hitting the number button, red light dimmed and then they could control the spin bars. Finally they could go through the gate.