ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg Interactivity Design and Construction Paradigms Nuno M. Guimarães

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 2 Summary Illustrations of a problem Visions of the world and language … A way out! Design framework

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 3 Question In the context of the design of interactive artifacts to used and explored by people... … which principles, motivations, methods, make the design process effective ?!

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 4 Pixels, words, or meaning ?

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 5 Pixels, words, or meaning ? … Lisbon Portugal (well, more or less…)

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 6 Pictures of “reality” ?

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ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 11 So what is this ?

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ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 15 So what is this ?

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 16 Problem/Claim There is no information (by itself), only data... We (people) “make” the information through interpretation and assignment of “meaning”... “Meaning” is incomplete, shared, sufficient,...

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 17 Implications What is absolute or relative in interative artifact design ? More specifically… –How universal are the indexing schemes in digital libraries ? –How far can we go in standardizing metadata (like the “semantic descriptions in MPEG7”) ?

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 18 Visions of world and language Philosophy of Language & Cognition –Wittgenstein : from a universal to multiple “languages” –Heidegger : the rejection of the dualism objectivity- subjectivity, situated existence (dasein, throwness) and interpretations of breakdown –Neurobiology [Damásio94] : emotion as unavoidable in “rational” behaviour –Logic and Linguagem [Devlin97]: from language to communication

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 19 Visions of world and language “Pragmatic” theories of language –Speech Act Theory [Searle69] : from language as a logical system to language as an action and communication medium; Argumentation [Toulmin58] : from theoretical logic to the logic of argumentation Cognition in the Technological Context –Augmenting the Human Intellect [Engelbart66] –Understanding Computers and Cognition [Winograd86] –Plans and Situated Actions [Suchman86]

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 20 …conclusion... From facts and reflection, … … socially constructed “truths”, contextual and situated dimensions are paramount in the design and usage of interactive artifacts...

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 21 Myth after Myth after Myth... The “quality” of coded speech The “transparency” of distributed systems The “consistency” of distributed hypermedia systems The “intelligence” of tutoring systems The “understanding” of natural language

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 22 So... A framework to see the world of artifacts, and to design new ones... –Augmentation –Affordances, mapping, constraints and feedback –Breakdowns –Cognitive modes : reflective and experiential

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 23 A design framework Augmentation, as in H-LAM/T - Human Using Language, Artifacts and Methodology in which he is Trained [Engelbart66], Memex… Affordances : functionality and behaviour that are perceived for an object; Mapping : correlation between an artifact’s interface and the (spatial or temporal) accessibility to the perceived functions; Constraints & Feedback. [Norman88, Norman92,Norman93]

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 24 A design framework (affordances)

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 25 A design framework Breakdown –Cognitive breakdown determines, or activates, processes of interpretation –Breakdown : blocking or progress factor [Winograd86, Suchman86] –“The design of an artifact should be guided by the organization of the space of possible breakdowns of action ” [Winograd86]

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 26 A design framework ( breakdown )

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 27 A design framework Experiential Cognition Sensorial and mechanized tasks Reflective Cognition Learning and reasoning activities, that generate changes in the “cognitive structures” of the person [ Norman92,Norman93 ] From experiential to reflective and back : management of cognitive breakdowns

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 28 Example Classification and Search in Video Archives “…building a universal ontology for describing AV content is probably impossible since as communities evolve, their ontologies also evolve…” [Auffret99] There are no universal ontologies in information (or data) classification. Rapid and flexible visual interaction are the main solution to effective access. Navigation and exploration are augmentation processes Characteristics of multimedia data (video) can be used to create interactive visual representations providing effective manipulation mechanisms

ECDL’ Lisbon, September 2000 © 2000, nmg 29 Conclusion As usual “there is no silver bullet”… Information is “our” interpretation of data Support people interpreting data, as fast and easily as possible Machines cannot understand, only mimic the understanding of one of us (or some of us, or most of us, but not all of us)