Kevin Schofield's WeblogMusings on life, kids, work, the Internet, Microsoft, politics, orcas, etc.CHI Session -- Privacy 2- April 26, 2006 I'm in another CHI paper session on privacy issues. Hi session -- Privacy I'm in the CHI session on Privacy. The first paper is on incidental informational privacy. The scenarios is that you're at work, or in an airport gate area, and someone might look over your shoulder. They surveyed a broad set of users on their preferences and behavior. Not any real surprises here, just some good quantitative results that reinforce intuition. Second paper: Being Watched or being special. They reference a..http://radio.weblogs.com/0133184/2006/04/26.html#a551 CHI Panel -- Tagging- April 26, 2006 I'm in the CHI panel on "Why Taggigng systems work." This is really frustrating to watch. There are representatives from YahooFlickr, Google, and various research institutions on this panel, all trying to define tagging, but REALLY trying to define tagging in a way where it's more important and signficant than just metadata. In essence, they're trying to define the "tagging phenomenon" while skirting around the fact that they all have a vested interest in tagging being an important phenomenon..http://radio.weblogs.com/0133184/2006/04/26.html#a550 CHI Session: Mashups- April 26, 2006 I'm in the CHI panel on Mashups. The BBC Backstage guy is giving a "Basics" talk on what Mashups are. Why do developers get involved in building mashups new business opportunities it's cool they're frustrated with missing featuresabilities in what the main provider supports to get noticed. BBC Backstage is BBC's developer network for supporting third parties creating mashups with BBC's data. They only support non-commercial use, and stress that all intellectual property remains solely with...http://radio.weblogs.com/0133184/2006/04/26.html#a549 This is Really Appalling- April 26, 2006 I guess we shouldn't be surprised at this point, but Bush just threw another freebie to his buddies in the oil industry. He just temporarily suspended the environmental rules on gasoline production, to try to make it easier to increase production. Of course, it's not at all clear that the high gas prices actually have anything to do with restrictions on production. In fact, there was a study last week that showed that the profit margins of the major oil companies have shot up. By making it...http://radio.weblogs.com/0133184/2006/04/25.html#a548 CHI -- Security Papers- April 25, 2006 I'm in the CHI papers session on Security. The first paper is "Why phishing works." Interesting point: both security designers and phishers use user interface techniques to accomplish their goals. Three basic categories of reasons why phishing works: lack of knowledge ( e.g. about URLs, security indicators) visual deception (e.g. "vv" istead of "w", overlaying windows,embedding fake address and status bar in page ) bounded atention (i.e. inattention to secuirty...http://radio.weblogs.com/0133184/2006/04/25.html#a547 CHI Session: Managing Deviant Behavior in Online Communities- April 25, 2006 I'm in the CHI panel session on "Managing Deviant Behavior in Online Communities." The first panelist, from IBM Research, studies intranet online communities and made the point that managers should just "chill out" about extreme behavior on corporate online presences -- there isn't that much downside, there are social corrective measures, and efforts to prevent the use of these systems within a company would be a far greater negative than trying to manage their use well. The second speaker is..http://radio.weblogs.com/0133184/2006/04/25.html#a546 CHI session -- i-schools- April 25, 2006 I'm in the CHI 2006 session on Schools of Information, aka "i-schools." The session chair suggests that i-schools focus on information as the central concept vs. computers or computing. There's no single model for an i-school; some evolved from computer science, some from library science, some are hybrids of several departments. There are about 20 i-schools in North America. They tend to grow up in places where there isn't already an independent School of Computer Science, at least partially as.http://radio.weblogs.com/0133184/2006/04/25.html#a545 CHI session -- XBox 360 critique- April 25, 2006 The plenary session this morning at CHI is an "expert critique" of the XBox 360. Two of the user experience managers for the XBox team are presenting a photographic history of the design process, followed by a panel of experts giving their critique, followed by opening it up to the audience for comments and critique. I applaud the XBox team for doing this; it's pretty brave to stand up in front of a highly critical set of experts (and an often MS-unfriendly group to boot) and lay it all...http://radio.weblogs.com/0133184/2006/04/25.html#a544 CHI -- alt.chi session- April 24, 2006 I'm in the "alt.chi" session, which is a collection of papers that are very interesting projects but for one reason or another would not compete well against traditional research papers to make it into the conference programs. First project: incorporating digital technologies into a playground. Their first prototype was a mat (looks sort of like two sets of train tracks, side by side) that kids could step or run on, and hitting pressure mats would activate motors. In their..http://radio.weblogs.com/0133184/2006/04/24.html#a543 CHI Panel -- Managing International User Research- April 24, 2006 I'm listening to a panel on how to manage international user research -- whether you're trying to build a product directed at a far-away market, or trying to design for a worldwide audience. There's fair consensus that international research is budget constrained more than anything else -- in fact, Microsoft keeps coming up as an example of a company with the "luxury" of having user researchers in many parts of the world and the money to send them to others (as if making those investments...http://radio.weblogs.com/0133184/2006/04/24.html#a542 |