Extra Credit #2 - Media Equation

Extra Credit #2 - Media Equation

        I really enjoyed the experiment talked about in this chapter.  I would say that I interact with my computer as a person from time to time.  from this experiment, I am certain that I do more often then I think since they all did not even know they were being polite to the computers they were interacting with.  It was interesting that we see separate computers as individuals even though they are all connected.  I wonder if it is the computer itself that we see as a person or only the monitor.  If monitors are switched out would we treat it as an "other" or would we recognize it as the same computer?

        Grice's maxims were very interesting.  I did not realize that politeness had key attributes that could be explained so simply.  Before reading this politeness was simply a way of interacting in my mind.  I feel as if I now know secrets to get anyone to like me.  I did not think that it was possible to pinpoint ideas that span over any culture to explain politeness.  The actions may be different, but the same ideas are there as explained by Grice's maxims.  

        Before reading this, I always thought that the wording of text in a program was needed for clarity.  Making what an action in a program does is very important, but now I am aware that it is best to make it polite as well.  It makes sense after thinking about the benefits of politeness in a program.  Especially after learning that users unknowingly interact with computers like they are humans.  Making a polite program is so easy and politeness has great benefits.  I will now take the time to make sure every program I make  is polite to the user.

Extra Credit #1 - Why We Make Mistakes

Extra Credit #1 - Why We Make Mistakes

        This was a very interesting read considering I just drove for an hour and a half earlier today on my way home.  I did not know that the majority of plane crashes are caused by the crew's attention being distracted by various control systems or other small distractions.  The same thing happens in cars.  

         It happened to me on my drive back home today.  I was taking my normal route on 359, a small farm road going towards Houston that does not have much traffic. I had forgotten how sharp a particular turn was, and did not slow down enough.  I took the turn faster than I should have, so the force of the quick turn made some things I brought back for the long break fall over in the back seat.  It unexpectedly made a loud thud momentarily distracting me.  I instantly took my eyes off the road, and looked into my back seat out of surprise.  It then took me a few more moments to refocus on the road.  Remember I was turning this entire time and so kept turning even after the turn veering into the oncoming lane.  When I realized I quickly got back into my lane. Luckily, there was know one coming the other way before I had time to steer back.  I was extremely lucky there was know one else passing by me at that very moment, or I do not think I would have been able to finish this extra credit in time.

         On the rest of the way home all I could think about was how quickly I could loose focus on a very important task by a distraction and then how long it took me to return driving.  It all took a second, maybe two, but thing could have been very different because of that moment.  The human mind was not meant to process multiple tasks at the same time as clearly noted in this chapter of Why We Make Mistakes.  Personally,  I do not think evolution took into consideration all the various tasks we deal with today.  Back in the day, all we thought about was food, shelter and reproduction.  There was not much need for multitasking since know one can do two of those things at once or had a need to. 

Assignment 10: Chapters 9 & 10

Opening Skinner's Box by Lauren Slater

Chapter 9

        Psychologists began to remove pieces of the brain to try and "cure" mentally ill patients. It was soon discovered that if the hippocampus was removed, the patient could no longer formulate new memories.  They had effectively removed the part of the brain that created memories.  This was a massive leap forward because the theory before was that memories are formed scattered all over the brain.  This was an unexpected outcome from an experiment to cure a man suffering from chronic seizures.  The author refers to him as Mr. M.  After the operation, he did not seize nearly as much, but he had no short term memory whatsoever.  Even into his old age he would weep when someone reminded him his mother died many years ago as if he had just found out for the first time.  I feel very sorry for him and all of the mentally ill patients that were put under the knife for an experiment.
Chapter 10
        Psychosurgery was first done by Antonio Moniz.  He also is the one that created its negative image in societies eyes.  He operated on patients that were available with little disregard for them.  He did not even clean his surgical tools between operations.  They were treated horribly because of their mental illnesses.  His work was not well documented, but the results that he did publish were astounding.  He reported that he was successfully curing patients with mental illnesses.  Many went on to live normal lives in society.  There was a sense that they were not completely the same person after the operation.  The author mentions that they were missing a certain spark or humanity.  They simply seemed odd.  Nonetheless, many thousands of operations were undergone by other psychologists because of Dr. Moniz's work.
         The pharmacological industry today is seen as a more humane way to cure mental illnesses.  Whether or not it is any better is up to debate.  The author explains some statistics that show very few patients actually see significant improvements from pharmacological drugs.  The companies backing the industry would like everyone to think otherwise.

Assignment 10: Chapters 5 & 6

Opening Skinner's Box by Lauren Slater

Chapter 5

        This chapter is about Leon Festinger's studies of cognitive dissonance.  He and some others infiltrated a cult that believed the end was near, but when it was not they rationalized to fit why doomsday did not happen.  They said that enough humans repented their ways and believed in their god to save the entire race.  When faced with even the exact opposite of what they believe so strongly in, they rationalize a reason in order to help make what they believed significant.  No one likes to admit that all they believe in is for nothing.  The human mind is ready to rationalize very strong inconsistencies in the name of self preservation.
        I thought that the author was incredibly rude to Audrey's mother throughout her conversations with her. I do not believe in such miracles like the author, but I do realize that others do.  She repeatedly prodded at the fact that her daughter has not saved her.  I felt as though the author was picking at clear sensitive areas to get a reaction she wanted out of her.  I can only imagine the pain that poor mother was going through loosing her daughter at such an early age, knowing she will die from cancer soon and not knowing what will happen to her daughter after she passes.  I am sure anyone would make up very strange rationalizations of it all.  I would probably just go crazy.
Chapter 6
        Harry Harlow's experiments disproved Skinner's theory that all actions are caused by stimulus such as hunger.  There are other elements in play.  His experiment showed that the love of a child to it mother is not based on the supplying of food.  Touch is overwhelmingly more important, though it is not the only thing required.  A baby monkey will attach itself to a comfortable surrogate mother even if it does not supply food.  The babies grow up to be mentally unstable without any interaction with other monkeys even though as babies they are very happy with the surrogate mother.  Harlow clearly did not see child rearing as very important when it turned out to be more complicated than he had thought.  He continued research to see what exactly the elements were to create a normal adult monkey.  Touch, movement and just thirty minutes of interaction with another monkey a day seemed to create a normal monkey.  It was not until they had offspring that it was clear they were not normal.  The mothers killed or neglected their offspring.
        I believe that these experiments are incredibly unethical.  Pain is pain no matter what the organism.  They clearly were feeling pain and being completely mentally debilitated.  That being said, the outcomes of the experiments help humans raise children and is rather beneficial over all.  Do the end justify the means in this case?  It is hard to say.

Assignment 10: Chapters 3 & 4

Opening Skinner's Box by Lauren Slater

Chapter 3

        This chapter Talks about Dr. Rosenhan's experiment in the 1970's where he and some of his friends were admitted in to psychiatric wards under a false evaluation to see how long it would take the doctors to realize they were sane.  After their initial lie of hearing a voice say thud over and over, They acted completely normal.  Much of their normal behavior was evaluated to fit their false condition.  It took weeks and even over a month for a few to be let out of the wards.  The psychiatric field was in an uproar by this experiment, but it showed just how unscientific the evaluation of patients was.  over the years they have lost a lot of credibility and respect as scientists.  

        To test if the new and improved practices of psychiatric wards are better, the Dr. Slater went to a few and did the same experiment Dr. Rosenhan had done.  To her surprise she was almost always given a prescription for pills.  She was never once admitted as Dr. Rosenhan and his speudosubjects were.  I believe that it is very hard to diagnose a disorder when all of the symptoms are given by the patient.  Since there are no clear objective evidence for many mental disorders, it would be easy for anyone who can act out the symptoms to fool people.  It is the same for medical doctors prescribing pain medication to someone who says they have chronic back pain.

Chapter 4

        There have been many small experiments done to study how easy it is for people to ignore others in distress.  This chapter uses the extreme example of the murder of Kitty Genovese.  A woman was brutally murdered after three separate assaults by an attacker over a period of about 40 minutes.  There were 34 witnesses that heard her scream for help during each assault, but know one went to save her or even call the police until well after she had died.  Why were people so reluctant to help her?

        There are many theories that have been proposed and many experiment to try and shed more light on the subject.  My favored theory is the theory of group responsibility.  When people are in a group, they tend to not take personal responsibility for the actions or lack of action by the group.  People are less likely to take action in a situation where help is needed if they are in a group because they do not feel as responsible for what happens if others do not take action with them.  Everyone in the group always hope that someone else will take action so they do not have to and the more people in the group the less responsibility they feel because there are more inactive people.  If a person is alone in a situation that requires their help, they are more likely to take action because they are forced to take all responsibility for the situation.

Assignment 10: Chapters 1 & 2

Opening Skinner's Box by Lauren Slater

Chapter 1

        This first chapter is all about B. F. Skinner's life and work as a psychologist.  It talks about his life was riddled with scandals of him using his baby daughter as a lab rat which is completely not true.  After meeting one of his daughters, the author find out that he was actually amazing with children and they all loved him very much.  

        His famous boxes helped realize how positive reinforcement is a much better teaching tool than punishments for mental conditioning. By using variable reinforcements he is able to make selected behaviors happen more frequently and slowly developed more intricate behaviors such as playing hide and seek or ping pong.   I myself now want to test Skinner's techniques on a dog or even my roommates sometime.  He also found that random reinforcement creates a behavior that is harder to replace once instilled than set reinforcements.  This can explain such things as gambling and other extremely low chance possibilities that cause mental addictions. 

Chapter 2

        The second chapter focused on Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority experiment that we learned all about in his book.  Dr. Slater takes a more broad approach about the experiment focusing on Milgram himself for most of it.  I did not know how the experiment made him famous, but also destroyed his reputation with other psychologists.  He was kicked out of Princeton and had a lot of trouble finding work.      

        It was also said that Milgram spent a lot of time trying to find out how to classify the subjects as obedient or disobedient.  He ended up theorizing there are too many variables to take in account with human mental processes.  The major variable is the situation itself.  Many sociologists believe that the power of the situation makes the individual personalities negligible.  Milgram's argument to this theory is what separated the obedient from the disobedient.  If the situation truly has the power then all subjects should have been either obedient or disobedient.  There should not have been any differences between subjects. 

Assignment 9: Obedience to Authority

Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram

Chapter 1, The Dilemma of Obedience: It begins by explaining the part of human nature the experiment tries to shed light on.  Many atrocities have been committed throughout history where the assailants are "normal" people.  The author believes that a possible cause is the humans ability to lose sight of human decencies under authorities.        

Chapter 2, Method of Inquiry: The entire experiment is explained with considerable detail.  This experiment is incredibly well thought out taking into account all angles of approach to ensure the collected data is targeted at the hypothesis.

Chapter 3, Expected Behavior: Different groups ranging from psychiatrists, college students and middle class workers were explained the experiment and asked to predict the outcome.  All thought that very few would go all the way to 450 volts with the mean point of disobedience being around 150 volts.

Chapter 4, Closeness of the Victim: New slight variations of the experiment were tested where the learner is in three different locations.  Them being in another room, across a table from the teacher and finally right next to the teacher requiring them to touch.  The results found that the closer the learner was to the subject, the more likely they were to disobey.

Chapter 5, Individuals Confront Authority: The dialogue and experimenter's thoughts on a few specific subject are given.  The difference in thought processes among the subjects is remarkably different even though only one of them actually disobeyed.  

Chapter 6, Further Variations and Controls: Even more slightly different experiments are tested.  The introduction of female subjects, proximity of the experimenter to the subject and locations are a few examples.  Results show that women act the same as men, more disobey if the experimenter is absent and the location has little effect.

Chapter 7, Individuals Confront Authority II: specific subjects are focused on in this chapter.  Subjects from different variations of the experiment are analyzed in detail thought the experimenting process.

Chapter 8, Role of Permutations: The three roles in the experiment are now altered in different ways to further test the power of authority figures. When there are two conflicting equal authorities, all subject disobey in the freeze of authority.  When an authority takes on the learning role they effectively give up their power as an authority.

Chapter 9, Group Effects: Next, the effect of being in a group where a fake teacher disobeys then gives the naive teacher the idea to do so as well.  When fake teachers obey the entire way, the naive teacher is even more likely to obey as well.  

Chapter 10, Why Obedience?-An Analysis:  The rest of the chapters focus on the analysis of the experiments and its findings.  The author explains the human nature that is most likely behind the reasoning for obedience instead of disobedience in straining situations such as in the experiment.  

Chapter 11, The Process of Obedience: Applying the Analysis to the Experiment:  Dr. Milgram goes through the steps he observed subjects going through during the experiment.  People want to obey when they see a clear authority figure, so they go through different thought processes to explain or dodge responsibility to keep a positive self image.

Chapter 12, Strain and Disobedience: Dr. Milgram adds to his obey or disobey process tree by adding a new strain variable.  When the strain a person feels is larger than their need to obey, then they will disobey.  He then goes into explaining what reduces or eliminates strain.

 Chapter 13, An Alternative Theory: Is Aggression the Key?: Some critiques suggest anger is the root to obeying a command that clearly harms another person.  The author explains that the mass majority of the subject exhibit no signs of aggression.  If a subject was aggressive, they would not be under strain and the result of the experiments showed that most of the subjects were under some level of strain.

Chapter 14, Problems of Method: There were three main critiques of the the experimenting.  The  people were not diverse enough, they did not believe they were administering shocks to the learner and it is not possible to generalize to the larger world.  Dr. Milgram refutes these accusations to further prove that people, given particular situations, are capable of harming others when yielding to authority figures.
Chapter 15, Epilogue: The last chapter was used to tie all the other chapters together. Dr. Milgram uses the Vietnam War where examples of soldiers under a clear authority committing atrocities happened, but many soldiers did not feel any personal blame since they were simply taking orders.  It can happen in any society and we should all be aware of the dangers of authority.
Book Response:
        I found this book and the experiment it explains incredibly interesting.  I learned about the Milgram experiment in a psychology class my freshman year, and I was very excited when I found out we were going to read this book for this class.  Of course at first everyone is appalled at how many people would shock another person with lethal amounts of electricity just because they were told to.  After a while it does not seem all that unusual when it is thoroughly explained in this book.
        There have been many times where I have heard a story from someone, and I immediately thought their actions were terrible and how I would have handled it better.  The fact of the matter is I have no way of knowing how I would react unless I was in the exact same situation.  This experiment is one of those situations.  We always think of ourselves in a positive light in theoretical situations. Small differences in situations can change a person's thought process and actions dramatically.  The amount of detail the experimenters used in the Milgram experiment to keep every test the same is incredible.  I am one of the people that would want to know how I would do in this experiment for my own personal knowledge about who I am.
        Everyone agrees it causes emotional strain on the subjects.  It clearly does to the mass majority of subjects.  Does that make it unethical?  Maybe.   I believe that brief emotional strain is worth the large amount of insight gained from the experiment.  Both for the individual and society as a whole.  The ends justify the means since the means is much less than the ends in my opinion.  I also believe that experiments should not deceive subjects which this experiment clearly does.  In this particular experiment, deceite must be used.  The only case, in my opinion, that deceite should be used is when there is absolutely no other way to run the experiment.  A pre-experiment brief with the subject would greatly effect the outcome of the experiment making the the entire project useless.
        This book should be a required read to everyone. If everyone was aware and would then hopefully take responsibility of their actions even if it is an order from a respected authority.  Atrocities such as the ones taken place in so many wars could have been stopped.   

Assignment 8: Gang Leader for a Day

Gang Leader for a Day  by Sudhir Venkatesh

Chapter 1 starts with Mr. Venkatesh attempting to learn about the poorer communities around Hyde Park in Chicago on his own.  As his interest grew, he attempted to collect data from poor people and ended up meeting J.T., a gang leader.  I was surprised as to how fearless Mr. Venkatesh was with a gun pointing at his head.

Chapter 2 follows Mr. Venkatesh's observation of J.T. and his gang as they transition into the Robert Taylor building J.T. grew up in.  Mr. Venkatesh began to meet people living in the building that were not part of the Black Kings gang.  I had never thought about it before, but I found it very interesting that people were so tolerant of the large presence of the gang in the building.

Chapter 3 focuses further on the close nit relationship of the community and the gang.  After J.T. started taking on more work with the BK's, Mr. Venkatesh became more free to meet other people in the community with power.  I thought it was very interesting that it was impossible to be neutral in the community.  Sides must be made to keep loyalty and trust.

Chapter 4 is a short chapter taking place mostly in a single day when Mr. Venkatesh attempts to do J.T.'s job for one day.  There were many tough decisions to make and things needed to do to keep the gang's business running smoothly.  Mr. Venkatesh thought it would be easy when in reality it was not at all.

Chapter 5 changes perspective and goes into detail about the relationship between the families living in the building and Ms. Bailey, the leader of the building.  She lobbies the CHA to get things done for the families as well as taking "donations" from businesses.  I am surprised what she is willing to do to get things done, and at the same time she seems very power hungry.

Chapter 6 takes another perspective when Mr. Venkatesh begins to interview many people of all sorts that live in and around the Robert Taylor buildings J.T. controls.  He makes a huge mistake by then telling J.T. and Ms. Bailey all that he found, and they use that information.  The community felt betrayed by him and rightly so.

Chapter 7 begins Mr. Venkatesh's return to following J.T. around as he gains access to the higher circles in the BK.  He got an opportunity to get the perspective of the police with Officer Reggie as well, but found that it was very dangerous so much as being seen with the police.  He is beginning to lose his welcome in the building from everyone except J.T.

Chpater 8 leads up to the inevitable demolition of the Robert Taylor building and how people are dealing with their forced evacuation.  It also finishes with short stories about where all the people he got close to ended up.  I felt like it ended rather quick in comparison to the detail Mr. Venkatesh goes into with other events earlier in the book.

Summary:

        I found this book incredibly interesting and very easy to read.  I had trouble putting it down after I finished a chapter.  Mr. Venkatesh seemed surprisingly naive during the entire book, but I believe that he made it seem that way in order to make a better story.  This book is not meant to be scientific ethnography, it is meant to inform and entertain the general reader.  Because of that, there were not as many solid facts and a lot more subjective findings that make for a much more interesting read.  He could not have simply reported his experiences in the Robert Taylor buildings and stated facts.  Not many people would by such a dry book.  

        A lot is still to be learned from this unique story of an ethnographer embarking on a morally questionable ethnography study of everyday life in a very poor community.  There would have been no way for Mr. Venkatesh to uphold a normal moral ground and stay alive in the society.  Everyday life in the Robert Taylor buildings held so many illegal activities that they were often overlooked as crimes at times.  They are considered necessary in order to survive.   

        Basic public services I take for granted are not available in the Robert Taylor buildings.  Things like ambulances, police or repairmen.  Almost every service is provided and done by the community as a whole. People like C-Note act as mechanics, repairmen and even sometime militia.  The BK act as security and keep things calm.  Though there are many drawbacks to the gang being there, the community would not be able to keep the peace without them.  

        The BK gang shows how complex gangs are.  Before this book I thought they acted more like an oppressive autocracy with the gang leader in charge and his thugs doing what he said.  This was a naive outlook, but until now I had only movies to go from.  The BK are depicted as community members with a dark side that is the source of their power and what they are most known for. 

      My eyes seem more open after reading this.  Not everyone is what they seem and no matter how criminal a persons' actions may be, chances are they had a strong motivation behind that action.  They are not simply bad people.  Bad is a hard word to pin on a person.  Actions can be bad, but that does not make the person inherently bad.

Ethnography Idea

A potential organization I thought of to do an ethnography about is Habitat for Humanity in Bryan. I believe that the people working and even regular volunteers would have developed a unique relationship that is key to the organization's success.  Habitat has done well all around the country in many different societies.  What makes them so successful in so many different places? It would also be very easy to get in close with Habitat as a volunteer.  I have only volunteered with Habitat twice.  Only once at the one in Bryan, and that was early last semester.

Assignment 7: Non-obvious Observation

        The group I was in decided to start on the north side of campus in front of Zachary.  From there, we individually crossed University Drive and walked into the McDonald's on the other side.  We stood in line for the register and ordered an item from the menu.  Then we had to wait for our order, receive it and walk back across University Drive to the starting point.  There are many interactions we were faced with. Such as people also waiting at the light to cross the street, cars going by, people waiting in line to order, talking to the lady behind the register, people also waiting for their food and passersby all along the way.
        My group had some technical difficulties with the camera.  Two of our recordings out of the five did not record (I will not say who's since it will give away which video is who's), so they had to redo them.  Unfortunately we did the originals right before sundown, so when we realized they were not recorded and could redo them it was already dark.
        The major non-obvious thing that we can observe from our video is what we do when waiting.  Most of us had to wait for the cross walk light twice when crossing University Drive, waiting in line and then finally waiting for our food to be made.  There were a lot of forced waiting in our particular path.  All of them were short, less than thirty seconds, besides the wait for food for some of us.  People do things they are not always aware of when they are waiting.  I am very curious as to what the different things that the other people do as well as what I do that I am not aware of.
        Another non-obvious thing  is how we interact with others passing by or going through a door at the same time as someone else.  How specifically react to another person opening a door for them or vise versa.  Where do they look when passing or interacting directly with other people?  The exact place people cannot be observed, but the general area can be since the camera follows the head not the eyes.
       

Ethnographies

        Ethnography is the scientific study of a culture.  The exact details of a culture that are taken into consideration varies across disciplines.  An ethnographer becomes a part of the observed culture and participates in basic cultural happenings in order to better understand them. An ethnography is not a look on the outside type study.  It is important to fully embrace the culture to be able to observe every aspect of the culture and not miss any key measures.  It is not possible to observe everything there is about a society, but it is critical to absorb as much as humanly possible in order to get a more full understanding.  The majority of ethnographic studies are done by anthropologists and sociologists.
        The collection of data is always subjective since the majority of data is the ethnographers' personal observations. Because human societies are so complex, an aspect of the selected culture is usually focused on.  That does not mean other aspects should be ignored because there are always links between aspects of societies.  Links are not always obvious, so it is important to keep a sense of broad ideas as well as the details throughout the societies aspects.
        There are many ethical issues that need to be taken into consideration when studying a culture.  The study should not negatively impact the society individuals under study in any way.  The ethnographer should keep an emotional distance from the people of the society as to unnecessarily effect their actions and gather false observations because of their own impact on the society.  They should also not discuss the aim of the ethnography so as to manipulate the peoples' actions to skew their responses.
        An ethnographer also needs to be aware that observations may not always be the exact or full representation of what happened either from a false observation or a loose interpretation of the data.  The fact that the ethnographer is also a participant in the culture means they will always effect the research in some way.  It is the ethnographer's job to keep their effects to a minimum and also consider their influence when observing.
       Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead is an ethnography about the life of young women on the island Ta'u in the Samoa Islands.  It was incredibly influential when it was published in 1928, but it was not received well by many Westerners because of the great difference in culture found on Ta'u.  It opened the eyes of many and solidified Mead as a popular anthropologist in America.  There were many critics that pointed out flaws in her descriptions of the Samoa culture.  There will always be inaccuracies in all ethnographic studies because they are subjective, but they can still strongly influence views and provide valuable knowledge about cultures.

Emotional Design

Emotional Design
By: Donald A. Norman

Book Comparison

        The book Emotional Design has a much different view point on the design of devices from the book Design of Everyday Things, also by Donald A. Norman, after reading just the first chapter.  Emotional design in Design of everyday Things is described more to be a trap for designers to make devices that are not friendly to users, but are aesthetically pleasing.  In Emotional Design, studies making a device "pretty" are proven to be easier to use than a similar device that is simply not as visually like able.  Each book has a different emphasis of possible aspects in designing devices.  

        In Design of Everyday Things the emphasis was clearly on usability and intuitive devices.  In my opinion, usability is much more important than aesthetics.  An ugly design that is easy to use will trump a majestic design that is impossible to understand.  Explaining how to create a usable design is also harder to do.  This book does a great job at isolating what makes an intuitive design and what went wrong with designs that are unusable.  It is not easy to know if a design is intuitive by looking at its as it is easy to see if a design is appealing.  Usability is always more important, but a great design has a bad chance of getting noticed if it is not also visually appealing.  

        In Emotional Design, the benefits of visually appealing designs are discussed. As well as the psychological reasons people are drawn to particular designs and the thought processes behind them.  Dr. Norman explains that natural human tendencies effect how people see things.  This does not mean that all people have the same opinions about devices because that is clearly not true.  Our experiences can either emphasize emotions people are born with or dampen them to where they are nonexistent.  The fear of heights is a good example Dr. Norman explains.  Everyone is born with a fear of heights, but through experiences some people may develop acrophobia or on the other hand have no fear of heights at all.  Every emotion is developed like this by everyone.  These emotions are what decide every aspect of how people interact with devices and should be considered in a design.
        

Book Reading #1: Bad Design #5

Bad Design #5: Unlabeled Sinks

This is the sink in my bathroom.  As you can see, there is no visible way of knowing which knob is the hot and which is the cold.  I constantly get them confused and have even had arguments with my roommates about which one is which.  The hot water takes a while to get warm and the cold water gets warm for a little while before getting cold, so it sends a lot of mixed signals about which is actually the hot one and which is actually the cold.  I have let the cold water run thinking it was the hot water. I would be waiting for it to get hot only to realize I just wasted a bunch of water for no reason at all.  The sink in our kitchen is the same way which is even worse since hot water is needed more in the kitchen than in the bathroom sink.  I have made the mistake so often that I do not even try to get hot water anymore.  I simply do not care anymore.

Book Reading #1: Bad Design #4

Bad Design #4: TV with no remote

This is my TV.  There is noting wrong with the TV itself.  The problem lies with what it did not come with.  A remote.  I checked the manual and there was no mistake, this model simply does not come with a remote.  The remote in the picture is a cheap universal one I had to buy separately, but guess what?  It does not work on the TV.  I have been able to connect the remote to my roommate's TV's, so there is no problem with the universal remote.  A TV without a remote is just a large monitor.  That is all I use it for which is a real shame.  I have thought about buying a more expensive universal remote, but I haven't in fear that it would be a waste of money if it does not work with the TV either.  I now hate this brand and will never buy anything from them again.  No they did not say there was a remote in the box, but I still feel cheated.  It is commonly assumed that all TV's should come with a remote.  The idea that a brand new TV could be bought without one would have never crossed my mind if I had not bought this TV. 

Book Reading #1: Bad Design #3

Bad Design #3: Garage Door Opener

This is my garage door opener.  It has a single button to add new garage door signal transmitters(remotes) so that they will open the garage door.  The downfall? The same button also clears all transmitters currently known by the garage door opener(receiver) if held too long.  When I was connecting my remote, I read the first line of the instructions that say press and HOLD the button on the transmitter.  I was not thinking clearly and held the button on the garage door opener instead.  That wiped the other remotes that were already known by the receiver.  This annoyed my roommates since they then had to connect their remotes again.  I have had to connect many wireless devices together such as computer mice or the controllers to an Xbox 360 which built a standard that requires buttons on both devices to be held down.  This presents a problem when the garage door opener design goes against this standard and instead clears its memory when the button is held down.

Book Reading #1: Bad Design #2

Bad Design #2: Passenger Car Door Lock

This is the passenger's door lock in my car.  It  is not intuitive to the first time user.  I can't even count the number of times passengers have gotten stuck in my car because of the lock.  I always have to unlock the doors from the driver's seat when there is a new person in my car for fear of having to awkwardly wait for them to eventually figure it out. The left picture is the door in the locked position and the right is unlocked.  Since my car is rather user unfriendly, I have paid attention to other car's locking mechanisms which mostly unlock after the first time the handle is pulled.  All that is needed to open the door are two pulls. My car does not do that.  The motion to unlock it is also rather unnatural when you do manage to find the small stub that is the lock.  New users shouldn't even try to find it in the dark.

Book Reading #1: Bad Design #1

Bad Design #1: Switch for Power Outlet

This is a light switch that controls a power outlet on the wall.  The outlet is behind the recliner, so you will just have to trust me when I say that the lamp is connected to a normal looking outlet and is controlled by the switch.  This may seem like a great design at first when it is being used properly, but after further analysis it will not seem as so.  When my roommates and I moved into the house the switch appeared to not do anything when switched on or off.  When we attempted to use the outlet, nothing would work in it because the switch happened to be in the off position. Only later did we realize the invisible connection between the switch and outlet by luck. How were we supposed to know?  There was absolutely no visible aid to show that the switch was connected to the outlet, so we assumed it was just a faulty outlet.  We live in an old house, so some things are bound to not work.  Many down falls go through my head when I think of this.  What if we had connected a computer or TV to the outlet when the switch was in the on position?  Every time someone hit the switch, the device would go off potentially damaging it.  There is no other outlets on that side of the room either, so this one outlet effectively forces us to put all our other devices in the other outlet on the opposite side of the room.  Only our lamp may plug into the outlet since it is the only device we want to be controlled by the switch even though there are two plugs like all normal outlets.  The other plug is completely useless.  Who needs two lamps in the same spot?

Book Reading #1: Good Design #5

Good Design #5: Printer and Scanner

This is a printer and scanner that actually works! All I had to do was install the software on my computer and it works perfectly.  The software has a single button to begin scanning with advanced options being secondary.  I have never used them and never had to, but it is nice knowing they are there.  The printing has never failed on me over the three years I have had it which is saying a lot for a printer.  I have always heard or seen horror stories about printers which makes me very great full to have one that I can rely on.  It does require USB plugin, but it only takes seconds to plug it into my laptop and print or scan.  It does exactly what it should do with only a few clicks with the option to go into details.  Even the details are in easy to understand terminology or contain pictures to explain options.  All the buttons on the printer itself are clear and there is a display to display helpful feedback to the user.

Book Reading #1: Good Design #4

Good Design #4: Great Spice Cabinet

This is a multi-layered spice cabinet.  The picture does not completely show all the space it contains in such a small area because there is so much.  The left most and right most parts are the outer doors that have many shelves.  The piece of wood in the center is an inner door that swings from the center to look like the shelving just right of it when closed.  Behind the two inner doors that hinge in the middle is another foot of  stationary shelving for even more items.  There is more space on top of the inner doors as you can just see.  My house has a small kitchen, but my roommates and I can jam a whole lot into this one greatly built cabinet.  I had never seen anything like it before moving into my current house.  We also have a normal shelved cabinet that is a pain to deal with in comparison because it does not give the potential of organization as this cabinet does.  This style of cabinet also makes it easy to get to all the objects even ones in the back where a normal cabinet would require you to move things around to get to which messes with organization.  This cabinet is the only organized space in our entire house because it forces us to be.  It is truly a diamond in the rough that is our kitchen.

Book Reading #1: Good Design #3

Good Design #3: Alarm Clock

This is my alarm clock.  There are quite a few buttons and switches on top and the sides of it.  There is a lot of functionality to it that requires many different inputs in order to keep them all straight, but they are relatively intuitive.  There are two settable alarms that can be set by holding down one of the top buttons and pushing the up or down arrows on the right.  That is the only counter intuitive part of the whole clock.  On the left side are switches that turn off and on the two alarms.  It is clearly labeled and a light on the front goes on when an alarm is active. Currently, the second alarm is on signified by the bottom right LED.  The speakers are very loud and you can choose between turning on the radio or a very annoying alarm when it is time to wake up.  There is a battery backup in case of a power outage. It is also satellite linked, so the time never needs to be set and synchronizes the time and date in seconds after turning on.  The LED screen has a variable brightness on the left side.  All the radio settings are on the right side.  It has a few problems, but it is by far the best alarm clock that I have ever had and does not need to be turned off on weekends and turned back on for the week. It knows what day it is and can be set to only go off on week days.      

The one problem is that it does not take into account day light savings, so I have to change the time zone to get the right time, which I usually take a minute to figure out how to do, twice a year.