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Argentine tango blog
/ with Interaction Design interludes / by Oleh Kovalchuke |
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January 2006
Electrical Dog
lyrics by Boris Grebenschikov (Akvarium)
Long memory is worse than syphilis
Especially in the tight-knit circleProceeds the bacchanal of recollections,
Which one wouldn’t wish even to an enemy.And an aging youngster in search of high
Nurtures an eternal question in his eyes,And waters it with wine,
And from somewhere at the side
With focused attention observes Electrical Dog.We carry on our vigil in smoky kitchen
In hats made from feathers, in briefs made of leadAnd if someone has died from suffocation
The troops have not noticed the loss of the chap.The closeness of rows testifies to the friendship
Or to the fear of taking your own personal step.And there, like fortress hanging high in the kitchen,
Floats looking like swimsuit and smelling like mildew flag.And everyone here has preferred method
To revive the glitering corpse:Guitarists admire their photos,
Poets get stuck into the other’s phone numbers.But for a long time they have been calling each other
Only to discuss how exquisite is our circle.The dog, on the other hand, gnaws at the walls
In eternal search of new and welcoming hands.Now, those women who could have been like sisters
Paint with poison working surface of their nails.And in everything that moves they see competition
Even though they assure that they see whores.And from this evidence of love toward their close ones
I am afraid for reason and mores.But this dog isn’t unacustomed to paradoxes
He is in love with these womenAnd from his point of view he is right.
Because others here do not inspire
Neither to live, nor to die, nor to write a few lines.And one with wonder looks to the West
And another with admiration looks to the East.And for ten years everyone has rehearsed their roles
Which should have been forgotten for ten years.But this dog laughs at us
He is not busy with the question:"Who am I and why do I exist?".
This song does not have the end or the beginning
But there is an epigraph, several phrases:“We grew up in the field of such enormous tension
That any device would burn out here at once.And logically this dog is impossible
But he is alive like even we, the sages, have not dreamt of.”And the friends will ask me: “Who is this song about?”
And I will reply mysteriously: “If only I knew”.----------------------------------------------
The clumsy translation is mine, all mine.Jan. 30, 2006 - The ugly charm of pie charts
Comments on both properties of single pie chart and on comparison of multiple pie charts.
The Good
Pleasant to look at – circle is womb symbol, conveys wholesomeness, target and focus.
Recognition: everyone has encountered and recognizes them.
Nutritious name.The Bad
More than 5 data points (slices) per pie are difficult to show.
Low data density.The Ugly
Two dimensions (area) are used to display changes in one variable.
Ambiguity of interpretation: size of slices is estimated based on size of arcs (51% of test subjects), area (25%), angles (23%) or chords (1%) by different users.
Size of larger circles is underestimated in comparison. Perceived area of a circle grows 0.8 times slower than actual area. Significant personal variability in the perception data.
Often diameter is chosen instead of area size to compare two pies.Jan. 29, 2006 - 'The Visual Display of Quantitative Information' by Edward R. Tufte
Ever since I have started publishing charts I wondered where graphics came from, and why would one choose one format over the other. Sadly the topic of graphics was somewhat neglected in my curriculum (the course in statistics was mostly concerned with numbers, not their visual representation). This deficiency became even more pronounced when I began to work on information summary "dashboards" for Configuresoft. Where to use tables, where charts, which charts and why? In some cases I knew the answers from my science past, in others I have wished I knew more.
This book is not a text book on graphics (for that look for "Statistical Graphics" by Calvin F. Schmid - some recommendations and advise are rather bad or pick "Semiology of Graphics" by Bertin - one of those books, which live in the world of their own). Rather "The Visual Display..." is an extended essay, which classifies several kinds of graphical information presentation (Data Maps, Time Series, Comics, Relational Graphics [scatter plots], Histograms, Stem-and-leaf, Box Plot, Quartile Plot), shows the ways to improve them, compares graphics to tables, dabbles in history. The gist is self-evident: emphasize data, erase ink which does not contribute to information, have reasonable concepts underlying juxtaposition of data sets. Many examples are ingenious to behold. Unfortunately the narrative is somewhat wandering with some examples detracting instead of supporting the text.
It warmed my heart to learn that people wrote papers on pie charts and found them sorely lacking, amounting essentially to chart “ducks”. Couldn’t agree more.
One point I disagree with: removing zero point in the “range” frame removes visually important point of reference, can lead to data misinterpretation (Y axis in the figure at the bottom of page 132). This can be easily remedied by using gray Y axis outside the data range with break if needed.
Another slight disagreement: Tufte recommends to use table instead of chart if there are less than 20 data points and legends are overly long. Given how good we, humans at recognizing patterns, I think I would err on the side of chart with data values explicitly specified or with complementary table. Arabic numbers are tools of reflective thinking (Norman). A bunch of smaller charts or bars integrated in the table could be more useful for rapid overview.
The two follow up books by Tufte have more curious examples of graphics and elaborations but much less focus and fewer ideas - could be skipped (I have read them about four years ago, long before this one, this one was very difficult to get hold of).
From Statistical Graphics. Design Principles and Practices by Calvin F. Schmid. There are four essential communication skills: Literacy, Numeracy, Articulacy, Graphicacy (visual communication, this one includes design, photography, dance). OK book with some ideas obsolete.
Jan. 27, 2006 - Two brushes with Buddhism
“Lust leads to desire to posses and that leads to murder” – a quote from Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring.
Well, as the song goes: “It ain’t necessarily so”. Unless visceral is the only manner you react to the world. Which of course could be the case… Then those instructions are really unnecessary as this movie self-fullfillingly predicts. The original monk comes accross as rather short sighted fellow as a result.
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“From cognition to consciousness” - lecture at Colorado College by ?, a translator to the Dalai Lama. In this case the key word was translator. I have missed it because of juxtaposition of Dalai Lama and cognition. Serves me right: Multiple name droppings. No original insights whatsoever. The simple word “yet” would make a lot of his cognitive science examples moot. Philosophy is skipped in favor of religion and mysticism. It is remarkable how hairstyle can expose the character.Random
Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti analyses all kinds of crowd as a creatures. I'll read it once I have a bit more time.Jan. 26, 2006 - The interaction design part of the story
David Heller asked:
I am just wondering if any of you have ever been accused of suffering from perfectionism when you're designing and working on projects. Somebody just told me that many usability folks suffer from perfectionism and it's their biggest downfall.
I bet that Somebody comes from the business side. Perhaps trickled via techs but still originating in business. This is where I have heard it from and here is why.
As an interaction designer you have to consider and reconcile vast variety of inputs: sociology, behavior, cognition, linguistics, technology, art - you cannot help but to make your decisions ponderous simply because you happen to be aware of all these influences, which is hardly an asset if you are an entrepreneur constantly fighting for that perception footprint in the market, where often even below "good enough" is perfect.
Of course this comment was especially relevant for yesterday's technology market, not for rapidly expanding technology as commodity reality. That's why today we have significant increase in demand for Interaction Designers and even though there always will be some Negotiations and Love Songs between business and design (as well as technology) sides, design begins to hold stronger suite.
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Note that in my experience usability means many different things in different companies, from strictly specialized usability testing, to anything user related including design and even some marketing.Jan. 26, 2006 - Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita" and Gogol's "The Evenings at the hamlet near Dikan'ka"
Bulgakov uses many of the same stylistic (poetic) devices as well as fantastic elements, but where Gogol wrote humorous, frightening, magical fantasy Bulgakov wrote fantastical satire and that is his novel's biggest handicap. Satire plays off culture, cultural references become obsolete and more often than not are unfamiliar to outsiders. "Master and Margarita" does not spend much time on exposition.
The story of "Master and Margarita" is actually that of Satan and his four knights visiting Moscow in the thirties to play subversive pranks off the common traits and rites in that period of soviet society. Devil here does not so much seduce as exposes people for what they are. The milieu is mostly writers and artists and if you are one of them you might recognize and enjoy the natural buffoonery of the scene.
The story of Master and Margarita is second storyline, the story of "true love". The common motif running through it is that of dignity - a rare commodity in the repressive society. No quips about this one except for the idyllic ending - a cozy country house "somewhere over the rainbow", is rather coy to be good.
The third is the short, tight story of Pontius Pilate and crucifixion. The ending here bears some references to The Terrible Vengeance by Gogol, I think.
Random
Two great old movies: 'The Browning Version' and 'The Third Man'. The one thing I strongly disliked about 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' was single pitch emotional hysteria of the characters. People I see do take occasional breaks. Not so in Browning Version - the settings are very similar - your usual not-so-happy matrimonial couple gliding through customarily comfortable tension in academia settings. The story is more subtle even though it is still just a story. The marriage of Gray Cardinal and Scientist.
'The Third Man' - interesting characters, OK story, really great cinematography. Light used as a character. Unfortunately the inquiry of cowboy story teller about stream of consciousness was somewhat bungled.Jan. 24, 2006 - Observing society at work
Entrepreneur is someone who inspires smarter people to work for him. Hence an entrepreneur is a person with extended, outsourced mind. Hence much smarter than any single smartest person working for him (there are exceptions).
Random
Have read film script of another feminist "Who needs the men" movie. "Ya-ya Sisterhood" light. Don't be hatin'. One good page.Jan. 22, 2006 - Communal living for wireless age
A friend of mine has space on MySpace.com. Curiosity had overwhelmed me and so I went to check it out.
It's like group sex without sex; instead everyone is standing in circle waiting hopefully for an encounter. Everyone is super quirky, cute and ready. Naturally I have joined right away.
Well, get on with it...
My Space is one of those social websites which work in spite of poor design. For instance link "Home" means three different things, none of them is what I would think about as home.
Random
Local library is veritable treasure trove. Some recent discoveries:
"Master and Margarita" by Bulgakov. In Russian. I guess I'll have to postpone other things by couple days to do some enjoyable reading. The first time I have read it about twenty years ago it took me twelve hours - one sleepless flowing night.
I have decided to get out from under the stone and watched "P.G.Wodehouse's Jeeves & Wooster". A lot of wishful thinking, some quiet chuckles sprinkled here and there and considerable amount of stiff lower bottom grammar.
"Jazz" by Ken Burns is great cinema about good music and interesting people. Beautiful still fotography too. Someone needs to do the same for tango.Jan. 19, 2006 - Recent photography
Some purists I know flinch when I mention digital photography. I say: "Hm".
Jan. 17, 2006 - Marketing and blinking decisions
First marketing quote from Harvard Business School article:
"People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!" - Harvard Business School marketing professor Theodore Levitt
The above statement is the essence of goal-oriented design. In this case Marketing overlaps with User Experience. The common difference between the two is that Marketing deals with buyers and therefore emphasizes immediate visceral perception of the product, while User Experience is about users and is more concerned with long term effect of the product on the customer.
Another article is from Nature, Web users judge sites in the blink of an eye essentially reiterates conclusions of Blink by Gladwell this time for websites. Visceral, reflexive choices (Norman) made via ventromedial prefrontal cortex (Gladwell) due to repeated exposure to 10-20 favorite sites such as Google. In fact the title of the article hints at that book.
Google factor:
"These days, enlightened web users want to see a "puritan" approach"
"People enjoy being right, so continuing to use a website that gave a good first impression helps to 'prove' to themselves that they made a good initial decision."The last quote describes common "Aesthetic-Usability" effect. Mimicry via pure graphic design also might create it. Keeping and deepening this effect with subsequent usage is what frequently overlooked by Marketing, of concern to Usability and where blink judgement could fail.
Jan. 16, 2006 - Ah, the times, the mores, or more on magical thinking
From NY Times:
...our culture's enshrinement of subjectivity - "moi" as a modus operandi for processing the world. Cable news is now peopled with commentators who serve up opinion and interpretation instead of news, just as the Internet is awash in bloggers who trade in gossip and speculation instead of fact. For many of these people, it's not about being accurate or fair. It's about being entertaining, snarky or provocative - something that's decidedly easier and less time-consuming to do than old fashioned investigative reporting or hard-nosed research.
Needless to say very often and then software design decisions are based on the same "time-saving" opinion approach. What is the cause? What are the consequences?
Jan. 16, 2006 - More on cabeceo in Buenos Aires
If cabeceo does not quite work for you in Buenos Aires. From Dolores:
BTW, obviously it s ok [to walk over and] to invite at the table at Parakultural and La Viruta.
Try to make eye contact during the cortina, before the music starts. Once the music starts she will have somebody in mind and will be focusing on him, your odds are better during the cortina, at least of her noticing that you want to dance with her, it might not happen in that tanda, but maybe later.
If nothing else works and you believe that the woman has not noticed your efforts, go to her table during a cortina, tell her you would love to dance with her and that you hope that maybe later you can do so, then go back to your table.
Random
"Trouble In Paradise" has got to be one of the most exciting, if not the most exciting romantic comedies of all time. It is not a coincidence that it was shot in 1932, just before the Production Code began to be enforced. Beyond 1933 began the age of formulaic, "father knows best", impotent women movies. Do yourself a favor and see what complex yet entertaining, adult entertainment could have been. It's a pity to see anemic "The Shop Around The Corner" and "Heaven Can Wait" shot by Lyubitsch after the code was enacted. It's plain painful to watch Hepburn in "Philadelphia Story", which also professes to be a romantic comedy after you have glimpsed the possibilities of ambiguous subtlety of "Trouble In Paradise".Jan. 15, 2006 - Kingdomality – an astrology for modern age
I went to community dance at Denver Turnverine this Saturday. The very first thing one of the girls has asked me there was: "In which month have you been born?". The question is so common that instead of April I have answered: "I am Aries".
Why is it that so many people are taken with astrology even these days when we know that humans are rather insignificant in scale to be of any concern to planets and stars? The reason seems to be that we find comfort in simple labeling. Knowing that someone is Ram and Tiger let us project their behavior, future income and even prospects of successful of marriage to Scorpio Rooster. In other words by using conceptual models of human interactions astrology explains society in simple understandable terms. Too bad that stars and planets are not aware of the ulterior motives assigned to their movement. Given this celestial ignorance mistakes about projected outcomes of human interactions are bound to be made. The common misfire are blamed on human error of interpreter – "stars suggest" etc.
It is fairly obvious that there is an persistent need to be able to answer the perennial question: “What is the Matrix?” or as others put it thousands years ago “What is the perfect City?”. Here is where numerous personality classifications step in. By the way I think Aristotle’s engineered totalitarian City was overly mechanical and therefore both exceptionally cruel and unexceptionally silly.
I like personality type classification presented in Kingdomality for two reasons. First, the classification is simple, rational and therefore easy to apply. Second, interactions among different personality types are clearly defined. Thus one can easily see not only his own strengths and weaknesses but also how those are amplified or subdued by interactions with other personality types. In other words it provides “good enough” model of society on personal level. As a purely practical application Kingdomality personality types can be used by interaction designer to provide initial rough sketch of primary user persona.
Why are so many women so out of touch with and even downright hate their bodies?
Too much (outside) pressure to be Barbie-lovely, I think.
Too few strangers (both men and women) even attempt, not to mention succeed to look beyond what is under the clothes (many do succeed in looking under the clothes).
What's to be done? I say the strategy should be two pronged. First and foremost one needs to start with self-inflicted flagelation. Punish that imperfect body of yours for being subpar to your picture perfect mental image. Who needs body anyway when you have mindful of emotions and higher aspirations!
Second, make others to repeatedly and willingly inform you that you look gourgeous.
The real solution is none of the above, of course. Those are self-perpetuating coping strategies.
As is very often the case the real solution has to come from within. One needs to learn to stop seeing body as a separate foreign object, to recognize that physical is part of your personality, it informs and motivates you, to cherish it, to live comfortably within your skin. Any kind of meditation should help. Once you do that you will begin to understand and enjoy other bodies not as objects but as part of personalities too.
Vagina Monologues and The Hite Report: A National Study of Female Sexuality could be good starting points. Helped me to get in touch with my own vagina (:).
The unfortunate caveat to all of this: all too often there is not much to look at beyond the skin in both men and women.
Jan. 2, 2006 - What's in the word or taxonomy of mind
Motivation: Reflective + [Behavioral + Visceral] (Donald Norman)
Structure: Superego + [Ego + id] (Sigmund Freud)
Conscious vs. Subconscious (Sigmund Freud)
Reaction: I like Reflective vs. Reflexive thinking since it is immediately obvious (to me) what lies behind these two labels.And while I am on the subject, three hierarchies of needs (satisfying lower level enables higher needs):
Maslow's motivation needs: Physiological - Safety - Love - Self-esteem - Self-Actualization
Product feature values: Functionality - Reliability - Usability - Proficiency - Creativity
McCloud's 6 steps of learning: Surface – Craft – Structure – Idiom – (Form – Idea/Purpose)Jan. 1, 2006 - Reflective and Reflexive thinking
The usual way people process new experience is to reflect on the nature of the experience once they have time to reflect. After the experience repeats several times people adopt a set of specific responses to the irritant – newness wears off and routine, reflexive thinking (also known as intuition) takes over. This path is obvious whenever one learn new subject, be it learning new gadget, language, acquiring professional judgment (snap or “blink” evaluations covered in the recent “Blink” book) or dancing tango.
This natural reflective to reflexive path is disrupted when one watches TV. The visual feed is incessant so that there is no time for reflective analysis of what is presented. On the other hand, reflexive thinking (applying existing sets of responses to presented information) is very close to being saturated, the new stimulus is always there to bring fresh reflexive response – that’s why it is rarely boring to watch MTV while you watch MTV (unless you happen to drift away for a second of reflective thinking and suddenly realize that it is indeed tremendous waste of time).
The truly important consequence of this reflexive mode of watching TV is that the reflection (reflective thinking) is outsourced to TV program producer. She makes the decision which reflexive stereotypes will be used in the program. Recall that we acquire reflexive stereotypes due to constant repetition of the experience. In this case we get the repetition of preset responses selected not due to our reflective thinking but selected by someone else.
Let’s say you watch news feed from location on TV. Once the footage ends announcer will give you immediate facial response offering appropriate judgment on the subject. Without reflective thinking viewers ape the facial expression of commentator and get a healthy dose of freshly minted indoctrination (notice that words are actually not all that important in this case). Since there is no time to reflect on what has been said (very often there is little to reflect upon anyway) it is very easy to see how TV medium is a perfect vehicle for spreading and reinforcing reflexive bullshit.
On somewhat different level if your news coverage is dedicated to gang shootings and disasters of any kind, well, then number one - the entertaining reflexive responses are very easy to induce and number two – subdued commercials point the way to safe and pleasant shopping heaven. Isn’t it what TV is all about anyway?
Another popular vehicle for exciting reflexive thinking is video games.
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Inspired by “Things that make us smart” by Donald Norman, “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell and “Understanding Media” by Marshall McLuhan.Dec. 30, 2005 - It is human to err
It is human to err. Indeed it is and so whenever a mistake happens and system works as designed in the typical engineering “blame and train” approach operators are blamed. Of course this blame is misplaced since very often “as designed” is the real culprit. Here is why.
There are two kind of errors: slips and mistakes. The slips are errors of reflexive thinking – we do stuff without conscious thought, “as usual” while circumstances have changed. Mistakes arise when there is misalignment of mental and operational models. By the way we operate with the mental models of not only instruments and objects, but also images of others, world in general and images of ourselves. In case of objects the errors can be effectively prevented by design (mental models of other people are improved via communication and mistakes of self-perception require psychoanalysis).
What are common errors of design leading to human errors by operator? I think misinformation is catch-all definition. Misinformation leads to erroneous mental models and hence to mistakes. Misinformation also does not provide clear feedback of changed circumstances and thus leads to slips. Misinformation includes information clatter – too much of irrelevant info (especially under stress).
There is another effective error prevention mechanism which should be considered in design (this one has been pointed out in many of Donald Norman’s works). We, humans happen to be social animals and if there is an effective way to share tasks among group of people the collaborators might be able to catch mistake in time for it to be corrected. This is where Wiki excels in spite of recent attempts at fraud (and why corporate Wikis could be life saving for progressive companies built on lateral cooperation).
Specific techniques for error reduction: use of constraints and affordances; provide clear system feedback, which reinforces correct conceptual models; reduce noise; provide tools of collaboration within design, and of course whenever possible include system history and undo action.
Nov. 30, 2005 - How Argentine Tango relates to Interaction Design
The dearth of recent posts is due to lack of fresh insights worth writing about. I guess I have approached my usual three year saturation period. The only attribute I could add to “tango is intimacy without responsibility” definition is that the intimacy is inspired and facilitated by music since musicality is essential to getting in synch with each other.
Another reason for not writing to the blog is that I am spending more time thinking about interaction design. Tango did help me to figure out some of my personality traits aside from purely physical. Those are creativity, analysis and to some extent empathy. As well as weaker sides – dislike of pure maintenance. All of the stronger traits are important to become a good tango dancer and I think I will certainly keep tangoing as a hobby. Especially since tango is very therapeutic (for those of us who "live the lives of quiet desperation") - trip to Buenos Aires has been especially eye opening in this sense. All of the stronger traits are employed to even larger extent in interaction design. Hence the switch of focus. Possibly with another, "Interaction Design" blog.
Random
The Long Emergency by Kunstler is rather depressing if true book in spirit. The gist is: 1. Suburbia cannot be reformed to adjust to permanent lack of oil. 2. Moreover economy growth in the last century completely relied on unlimited supply of oil (this includes agriculture fertilizers, Wal-Mart business model, globalization etc.) 3. US economy and lifestyle high on cheap energy for the last century and a half will have much further to fall than societies with thriftier "backward" lifestyles. The fall will be very, very traumatic to every aspect of human life as we know it. His predictions for future however are off simply because he took nineteen centuries lifestyles and put them into the future without consideration of accumulated and shared knowledge available in all branches of human activity since those days. I thought Europe could do somewhat better since suburbia has not sprawled as much there but recent news about Golfstream and predicted 10 degree drop in temperature there are rather discouraging.
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