User Research

Today I discussed the concept of transient memory with three people aged between 19 and 53. Two were group conversations, the others were between myself and a single individual. In these conversations I introduced participants to the concept of transient memory which I explained briefly as 'memories which don't last long in their physical form'. I explained the theory that this could increase the value iof memories and experiences as well as creating a sense of presence. I also explained potential side-effects i.e. the creation of false memories.

I asked them to explore the ways in which people currently 'hold on' to memories and why they do so. I asked them to explore situations where people would instead 'let go' of memories and how this could improve experiences. The conversations were very open ended, based on general questions and themes were explored in an unstructured way. I allowed participators to talk and explore their own ideas. Feedback from me was solely in a developmental fashion: to agree or to disagree and take the conversation forward to an unknown destination. The conversations were discreetly recorded.

This conversations were not only an exploration of the concept, but also a test whether users could relate to it and understand it and find a way that it could apply to their own lives.

The first conversation was between myself and Janelle, 21. The conversation was brainstormed. It was very unstructured and minimal prompting was required to drive the short discussion forward.

She explored the way that in an effort to capture and store 'the moment', you are arguably not IN the moment. In a way transient memory could force individuals to stop trying to cling onto memories, and instead enjoy the experience itself. She suggested the creation of an experience where people are not trying to 'take away' anything. Transient experiences are naturally more susceptible to false memory, but it doesn't necessarily matter as long as the people are able to fully engage with the experience. 'Once people know that they cant hold onto this memory, then they can stop focusing on that and free up their mind to just enjoy it.... changing peoples mindsets and focusing the moment, and now'. 'Maybe instead of a product to sell... make something for the public to see... make something to lift people up.... when people see certain things it makes people happy... stop trying to think about tomorrow....'. It is interesting how transient memory is about the future, not just the past.

Could i design a transient experience? Something to make people think about 'letting go'... Below is the sound recording.

listen to ‘Janelle ’ on Audioboo

Below is a diagram of the process of moving from the edge of an experience to being inside the experience as suggested by the participant. It is interesting how it has been drawn with boundaries, which represent both time and space to me i.e. the duration of the experience as well as the  physical boundaries of it.

The next conversation was with Margaret, 53 and Marcel, 19 jointly.

The discussion was of sunsets and skyscrapers: how sometimes an experience is meant to be enjoyed but when you attempt to capture it, you are almost reformatting it into what you want it to be instead of what it really was. Perhaps this is the creation of false memory: when you edit something, you change it. For this reason i have not edited the recordings.

Capturing a moment is sometimes a very contrived thing, and you attempt to capture the best of it, rather than what it actually was i.e. trying to get the best camera angle and the right lighting conditions. 'You're meant to just see it and enjoy it... not dissect it and break it down... the minute you try to break it down you lose it... the experience just becomes your judgement of it'.

listen to ‘Sunsets’ on Audioboo

The third conversation a one-to-one conversation between Margaret and myself. It was about the reasons why people might try to hold onto things rather than letting them go. Margaret said that people don't want their lives to be meaningless, and they want to be remembered. Collecting things and physical memories are 'Ways of giving us some kind of eternal aspect', of permanence.  I then asked the question 'what if we didn't do that?'. In response she said 'there is a lack of meaningfulness... the memory would be there, but there is a lack of connectivity to them... the memories are placed within objects which can give an idea of continuum, and if you didn't have any external memory, your memories over time would fail...'.

Memento's spark memories, and if they didn't exist would we forget them? In times where there were no photographs or videos, where there were just oral stories which naturally change as they are handed over she described it as 'creativity'. This natural change and 'false' memory may be just that, creativity.

FALSE MEMORY=CREATIVITY?

http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2008/11/you_can_create_a_false_memory.php A phenomena titled 'boundary extension' in which we automatically extend the boundaries of visual input i.e. making up visual information which isn't there.

'Boundary extension is a phenomenon we've discussed a lot on Cognitive Daily. It's typically described as a memory error: We remember scenes as having bigger boundaries than what we originally saw. If you only saw picture A by itself, then later you'd remember seeing a picture that looks more like picture B. Intraub and Dickinson say this suggests that boundary extension is a fundamental part of the process of visual perception. While it's related to memory in the sense that memory is required to build a complete visual representation of a scene, it's occurring literally as fast as we perceive the scene.'


False memory enables us to 'situate' a scene more effectively and therefore identify with and remember it better. It is a form of creativity; we fill in the blanks. False memory isn't necessarily a bad thing; it exists in so many forms in the human cognitive system.

listen to ‘margaret’ on Audioboo

'NO PHOTO ZONE'

This was the product of a conversation between myself, Margaret and Marcel.

It started off discussing what if photos were still very expensive-would we have less of them? Children now have lots more photographs taken of them than say 100 years ago. If we had less of them would we value them more? My two users say 'yes'.

I suggested that there would be a 'no photo zone' in London. Marcel said that there would be a different kind of person there-the type who wanted to enjoy the experience for what it was. A zone like that could intrigue people, and draw people in... like in a museum in an area where you couldn't take photographs. People always want to do what you tell them not to. Margaret says that 'we are very aware of the finite nature of things so want to commemorate them'... Marcel disagreed and said that 'we take a lot of things for granted... when something is threatened, THEN we are interested in it'. Applied to making memories transient, it might make people more interested in something.

listen to ‘no photo zone’ on Audioboo

How to enforce a no photo zone? Does it need to be enforced or should it just be up-to the participators? It forms part of designing a transient experience for experiences sake.

Below: an early NO PHOTO ZONE sketch.  Its intention was to demonstrate the concept. I have brought false memory into it in one way-where everyone can experience it different or to design slightly different things that can only be seen/experienced at certain physical locations.

listen to ‘no photo zone’ on Audioboo

Finally was a discussion suggested by Marcel about 'what if people werent allowed to comment on their own experiences for a day'. Margaret suggested that when forming a judgement of an experience, we are in fact judging it and critiquing it which can be a negative process. She suggested that we might become happier as we might not see the benefits of a thing.

listen to ‘no comments’ on Audioboo

The things that i will take away from these conversations are the ways in which you can design an experience that cannot be captured or taken away, and to encourage users to fully commit to an experience and possibly have a positive effect on people for a day or for longer than that. In not reformatting our memories we are not judging them and in not attempting to capture memories we may not lose a part of them. False memory is also not a bad thing, and people will naturally always experience things differently. It could also be considered to be creative. Letting people know that they cant capture a memory may encourage them to fully engage with it.  It can be applied to other aspects of peoples lives, and make a comment on many peoples instinct to hold onto things. It may be contradictory to human nature; this 'letting go'.

I am employing aspects of a user-centric design model in which users form the central part of all decision making. I believe that engaging users in the project at a conceptual level is can be very valuable and can help a designer to explore avenues of thought which cant just come from a single person. I found this exercise extremely useful.

'We were here': Transient Memory

An element of the concept of 'I was here' is that of community, and of commonalities between different people. 

There are lots of systems in place for preserving memories for a community i.e. time capsules. Transient memory turns this idea of 'hoarding' on its head and suggests ways in which 'letting go' of memories in a physical manifestation can be valuable. If everything about the past was certain would it be as interesting? Letting go of the physical manifestation of memory in a way does open up the experience to fale memory: if there is no evidence can anyone be really sure of what happened? WIll it encourage people to 'live in the moment'?

 'Bringing communities together' is an organisation which aims to improve cultural integration and cultural understanding. An expansion of the 'I was here' concept is that of 'We were here'. A possible context of use for this is to bring people together and to offer them some kind of engaging interaction. Transient memory is impermanent: an experience of which users cant have keepsakes. 

Connection with other people is arguably central to human nature, and it is the often social aspect that makes things like gaming fun. 

Week 24 Log: Tutorial

Week beginning 19/03/2012

Transient Memory was thoroughly re-explored this week and all possibilities were considered. Four different transient memory architectures were identified: self, one-to-one, -one-to-many and many-to-many. It was also explored as a counter-factual; current everyday scenarios and systems are seen through transient memory as a ‘mediating lens’. When applied to things such as labelling or writing, false memory came into play. Writing creates a permanence to concepts and ideas: where they are passed down verbally there is the potential for ‘Chinese whispers’ syndrome and can change. If writing became transient this could start happening. On the other hand there is the aspect of it improving the user’s memory; would people memorise more things properly if they couldn’t rely on writing? However the human mind is susceptible to corruption and degradation so these memories could end up being false.

Books read this week were ‘Designing Interactions’, ‘100 things every designer should know’ and ‘Survey Research’. Some survey research will be conducted so a formalisation of this process was essential.  The book ‘100 things every designer should know’ aided with some cognitive psychology revelations such as that it is good that people forget things. The Ebbinghaus ‘Forgetting Curve’ is a formula for the degradation of memories and was taken from this book.

The RAPID software development technique was utilised for a prototype which illustrated the concept of transient memory ‘in a nutshell’. This produced the fading light prototype which illustrated the ways that memories would leave a digital artefact. Requirements were identified and the RAPID method selected due to its fast prototyping structure.

From this visualisation of the concept, different types of transient memory were explored for example people, spaces, presence and things. Memories of presence and space was explored in most detail, and the concept of ‘I was here’ was explored in detail. ‘I was here’ is leaving a mark of your presence in some way in a space. Various real world examples of this phenomenon were identified, from the illegal graffiti of Banksy to the notes places in the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The big question that was asked was what value transience could add to the idea of ‘I was here’. Arguably people leave their mark in the hope it is permanent and new 

contexts of use to validate the concept application in this way.

Mock ups of the concept of ‘I was here’ were then developed in various forms including scenarios, storyboards and Google SketchUp prototype models. There is also some exploration of using photography in the project and methods to do so.

False memory took a few different forms within the week, from false presence to storytelling.

Goals for next week: Usage of prototypes in the real world and user testing. 

Exploring 'I was here'...

Sketchbook ideation work to explore the concept of 'I was here' further.

I explored  the different type of architectures that transient memory can encompass: ONE-ONE, ONE-MANY, MANY-MANY. ONE-ONE can also be between a person and themselves.  There can be single input or multiple inputs which would allow multiple people to interact. Would it stand alone or would there be some element of a surveillance remote system, This could allow the capture of the memories shared and then reformatting for a website for some other purpose. Questions were posed... Can you manipulate the type of presence? Can you leave anything behind?

There are also the possibility for the different points in a multi-point system to interact with eachother.

Sound was explored: standing next to a device sparks a sound which fades after the person leaves. A distance-seperated architecture was considered which is similar to previous concepts. An element of false memory was introduced to a system where the presence of people at a remote location is visible to people at a seperate location.

Smell was also considered, and a quick drawing of a panel where people can choose their smell, or even a random smell was considered. There was also the concept of 'leaving something behind'; a voice clip., a message or a virtual/tangible 'thing'.

I AM here & False Memory

There a lots of examples of 'I WAS here', for example the Geo-tagging feature available on many social media platforms such as photo-bucket where you can search photos by location. On the contrast, there is the idea of 'I AM here', which is the impression of presence that transient memory enables. It can show BOTH 'was' AND 'is'.

The fading light prototype built earlier, if brought into a two-location architecture could show IS and WAS.

For example take a public place like a park bench applied to the fading light prototype. <Photo taken in Finsbury Park>.

Applied to a single-location scenario: 'I WAS here'

There is also the possibility to design the bench a different way, and rather than having anonymous panels, to have something like lit-up panels saying 'i was here' and making it more self-explanatory. Otherwise there would need to be an instruction panel on the side or something similar. This would be an example of a 'WAS' scenario.

Applied to a two-location 'IS' scenario:

1. Two park benches at different locations in the park

2. When a person sits down, their bench sends a notification to the partnered bench. It would show if a person IS there. If there is somewhere there already it could say 'hi', or if there isn't it could invite passers by to sit down. It could also show 'WAS'.



Why? Essentially just to bring people together.

This idea of 'IS' and 'WAS' is a step forward from the ideation work a few months ago involving a bookshelf: It was where gaps in the bookshelf signified things that WERE there, versus book that ARE there. Pink post-it notes were labelled and stuck onto the shelves.

What if the people on the benches could share memories or stories?

False Memory

What if there was nothing distinguishing between real and false, and that any story could be shared? What if the lights stayed on for longer and shorter periods of time so users walking by didn't really have any idea of how long ago a person was REALLY there? What if the only way to tell if someone was really there was to be there when their light initially turned on!

What if the bench captured images of everyone who sat down, and shared them, but what if they didn't match up correctly all the time...

Visual Memory

Photographs capture visual 'memories'.

To incorporate photography into this project a dgital camera hack could be used.

These are some interesting links

http://www.zipfelmaus.com/blog/hack-a-canon-camera-and-controll-it-with-an-arduino/

This was the most useful as it illustrated the correct way to use a transistor.

There was also some useful sample code which involves turning on and off digital pins as per my own experimentation code.

int CamPin = 8; // Cam trigger connected to digital pin 8

// The setup() method runs once, when the sketch starts

void setup() {
// initialize the digital pin as an output:
pinMode(CamPin, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(CamPin, LOW); // set the CAM trigger off
}

// the loop() method runs over and over again,
// as long as the Arduino has power

void loop()
{
digitalWrite(CamPin, HIGH); // set the CAM trigger on, capture image
delay(1000); // wait for a second
digitalWrite(CamPin, LOW); // set the CAM trigger off
delay(4000); // wait for 4 seconds
}

http://www.instructables.com/id/Time-Lapse-Photography/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Hacking-A-Keychain-Digital-Camera-for-Arduino-Cont/step4/Hack-The-Camera-Part-II-Solder-a-Ground-Connectio/

They build upon knowledge gained from my mp3 player hack experimentation.

A system could be created which captures memories. The arduino is great at interfacing with hardware despite not having a huge amount of on-board processing power!

'I was here': Time Lapsed Presence Indication

'I was here' is essentially time-lapsed presence indicator between one individual and other observers or participators. It is similar to the 'one to one' hierarchy explored earlier, but without the element of secrecy and with the introduction of an element of anonymity. They could possibly 'leave' other things behind which are more permanent than their presence i.e. notes, drawings or photographs. Their presence at a space is the memory which they are sharing; it doesn't have to be formatted, and the memory which is created at the other end is a group memory which will be different at every point in time.

There are lots of different versions of the concept of 'i was here', and there are many different purposes and contexts of use. In a public space users could be free to engage randomly, or there could be some kind of subscription service.

One interesting example of Transient Memory in a public place is one i found on a travel blog from germany... Couples mark the bike locks with their initials and a date and chain it to the gate. There are lots of them and it represents almost frozen points in time. There is a permanence to it, yet what it represents (love) can be transient. It is the idea of leaving a piece behind you, but you do know that at any point the gate could be torn down or the metal could corrode.

http://sarahlyn-idiotabroad.blogspot.co.uk/

There is a sense of anonymity to it. It could be interesting to see a record of who was there, when they were placed and a sense of history. Although engagement with the artefact is transient, there could be a service which allows users to 'tap' into the history after the fact.

It will be interesting to find out if people like to 'make their mark'. I could conduct a survey of people and find out ways that they 'make their mark' and their general response to the concept. The difference between transient memory mark making and the usual is the 'planned obselence' of the memories. Perhaps the people would like a choice in how long to leave their mark? I could use 'tabular analysis' and  pay particular attention to the problem of 'sampling error', as described in chapters 8 and 9 of 'Survey Research' by Roger Sapsford. 

The problem of sampling errror is in misrepresentation of subjects in regards to the general population and even between eachother. 'there is a genuine difference between the groups in the same sample'. It is important to take into consideration who is being sampled and who they represent. Also to explain differences between people in the same study.

Some questions i would have to ask myself are (from page 13)

• What's the problem?
• What kind of answer am i looking for?
• What kind of an argument might lead from the question to the answer?
• What kind of evidence will i need to sustain this kind of an argument?
• How is this kind of evidence to be collected, and from/about whom or what?
• How shall i demonstrate to the reader that the evidence is valid?

These are questions that i will have to answer in the report, so they 'are questioned we need to ask at the very beginning' p.12.

With transient memory, although the users experience things transiently, it could also be useful to have some kind of general use monitor for administrators to understand usage and to make improvements. In 'Undercover User Experience Design', the importance of iterative design are stressed and it was said that design is never finished. I believe this to be true... What works now may not be appropriate in 5 years time. Take web design for example. 

With 'i was here', the users might want to 'see' what activity is happening with whatever they were engaged with. A website might encourage participation.

http://www.chasingducksblog.com/ducks

This website allows users to tag ordinary rubber ducks and track their progress around the world in the form of photographs. It seems to be a progression of the concept where children release balloons with postcards and see which ones come back! Users interacting with the ducks experience them transiently, and can log in to the website to see where they've been. You can see where other peoples ducks have been too. The ducks can be found randomly or sent to specific people. 

This is the websites description of the process

• 01 | Get your 'duck'
  Any portable object tagged with a URL and code can be followed on the Chasing Ducks website
• 02 | Add multimedia
  Attach pictures or videos to your duck, blog its adventures and find out where it's been
• 03 | Keep the duck alive
  Use social media to share, follow and hunt ducks. Get quacking!

It is a mixture between surveillance and transient memory. The ducks don't stay in one place for very long, but at the same time you can 'tap in' to its history, as described earlier. The randomness of the process is what is so intriguing about it. There is also the sense of community around the concept.

Below is a song by Beyonce coincidentally titled 'I was here' about leaving something behind after she had gone.

Counter Factuals: Re-Write The World... Labelling

Thinking about labelling....

What if all labelling and signs faded over time....

Would we become more organised? Would form become the ultimate indicator of an objects true nature?

Would the mens toilet door always be bigger than the womens? 

Would there be new rules: Womens toilets must always be on the left.

Examples of new and existing rules of organisation:

1. Salt must be kept on the left with Pepper on the right. However, there already is form implied labelling: salt often only has one hole in the top of its dispenser, whilst pepper has three. 
2. Fire stations have red doors. Nothing else can have a red door.
3. Hot taps are on the left and cold taps are on the left
4. What would happen with books? Would you have to look inside to know what was inside? Would organisation be far stricter? How would transient memory work? Would the labels only last long enough for us to get them home and into our own organisational system. Would we buy less books?  

Counter-Factuals: Writing (and reading)

The history of paper is an important one when it comes to keeping records as it allowed people to pass down information in written form. The permanence of paper meant that facts are less able to be skewed (although definately open to interpretation, take any religious text for example). When records are passed down through stories or song, they will inevitably change. The game 'Chinese whispers' is a good example of this. Records could be kept by making markings on stone or wood i.e. ancient cave carvings, but these were not portable and would eventually get 'left behind'.

With paper in its many forms i.e. from animal skin and bamboo, people were able to keep records of things. Reading and writing could be a rare skill i.e. in England as recently as a century ago, so the readers and writers could change facts on the other hand.

'Paper' has been around since at least 1600BC in the Shang Dynasty where it took the form of strips of bamboo or bone. These were cumbersome and took a long time to mark. On the upside, the mark could last for a longer period of time and take far more damage than todays paper and pencil. The oldest known actual paper in the West is from the 11th Century, 'the Missal of Silos'.

The versatility of modern day pen and paper is the ability for it to contain literally any form of information. From statistics to recipes and even music can be written down i.e. 'Sheet Music'. We have hundreds of languages, although the differences between very similar languages have made it difficult to define.

What if all paper was made from rice? The highly water soluble and easily breakable material? What if it was made from a material that was bio-degradeable in air and only survived for a few months, days, or hours? Would we value this information more? Would we take more care to 'absorb' the information rather than just projecting it into paper.

Take memorising a phone number for example. If i can write it down, i wont attempt to memorise it for any length of time. If i knew that that paper might dissappear eventually, i would make more effort to commit it to memory....

Ideation: 'I was here'

'What value will transience add to the idea of "I was here"?'

An idea of when a person was there or a feeling of connection to said person

How to manifest it?

Type 1: Writing - Possibly on a wall and fading away. How could this be done electronically or non electronically? Water, air or a simulation of both on a screen or with a projector. 

The non electronic waterfall design has been modelled in google sketchup.

 Expanding on the model in the electronic version there could be no actual writing functionality , users would just touch the wall to leave there mark-there could be an element of anonymity versus ownership of the markings. There is also the question of how long the marks should be left there...

Where could something like this be placed? Hyde park for example...

Next: thinking about space: The 'thing' could be portable, semi-portable, fixed or environmental.

It doesn't have to be light, it could also be sound. Sound could mean that a sound gets quieter the longer it is there, or beeps which get further apart as time goes by. It could also be smell... The release of a smell which naturally gets weaker as time goes by especially in open spaces.

Memories: 'I was here'

People can leave marks on the environment and other things as an indicator of their presence or to say 'I was here'

Botany Bay, England

Old City of Jerusalem. Prayer of request placed in the western wall. This is slightly different. It is leaving a piece of oneself behind for a religious reason. There is the idea of it being a massive 'collection' of prayers which are placed in cracks in the wall. As thy are written in paper they will eventually degrade or get blown away. It is powerful.

http://www.graphicdesignblog.org/graffiti-art/  banksy. Graffiti is interesting as it has enjoyed a change in reputation in the 21st century as being an art form rather than a nuisance and books have even been published about it. 

 Leaving notes on the fridge. Also an indicator of presence. Will eventually fade over time and get 'overwritten'. This impermanence is of value: it can be reused. The same way that people may use pencils rather than pens due to the fact that they can be removed.

Old cave carving.

Brainstorming presence: Perhaps the type of memory can influence the physical manifestation.

There can be illegal or legal types of people leaving their mark on the world. There can be marks in public or private places, and sometimes there can be religious 'marks' being left. Another example is the wishing well.

There is not often a forum for people to 'leave their mark' in places in a legal and meaningful way. Presence has been explored in this project before, but always part of a functional, one-to-one paired architecture.

Paul (a blogger) talks about 'how to leave your mark on the world'. An anonymous Yorkshire artist has been leaving his mark in the form of intricate wood carvings. Anonymity may increase notoriety i.e. Banksy. 

Art and fun is also a possible 'lens' to design for. 

False memory was also explored. It is constructed in the mind, but psychologist have various techniques to implant false memories. Problems with this are the need for a large amount of contact time with a subject and individual attention for these tested methods. Where people are recalling assumptions about things i.e. what was in a room they were just in, or what was in footage they had just seen, there are often carefully controlled environments and sometimes even actors. 

False memory could be incorporated into gaming i.e. a game where you have to identify an 'odd one out'. In 'Designing Interactions' by Bill Moggridge he discusses the difficulties in inventing games. 'Inventing a toy or a game is a rigorous process. Brendan has ten people in his team, dedicated to understanding play and focused on coming up with new ideas that have a chance of succeeding.' Prototyping and repetitive user testing is central to the process. False memories are used in the game sport the difference: noticing what is and isn't meant to be there.

Exploring Type of Memories

A brainstorm of different types of memories for experimentation with.

Presence in particular is a type of memory that many people engage with in many different ways... Their presence at places can be marked in a variety of ways. When people make a phone call they are often 'checking in... letting people know where they are, where they have been, where they are going to be i.e. their presence at different places.

Places can be captured visually or descriptively.... by means of photography, video, writing and storytelling. Susan Weinschenk, Pd.D writes in 100 things every designer should know about people on page 76 that 'People process information best in story form.... Stories are very powerful.They grab and hold attention. But they do more than that. They also help people process information and they imply causation.'

Things can be of any size, they are be carried around or left in a particular space. They can either have a utility, emotional value or be just for fun. It could be said that everything that doesn't fit into those categories is just junk. Things which are fun might also have an emotional value; being connectors to positive experiences. Things with utility are necessary to people. They could be carried around or left in a convenient place for easy usage. They can be captured in the same way as anything else. They can have 'scars' of usage or be personalised or customised. I wouldn't have thought that people would capture memories OF things especially of things that have emotional value, instead the things would be the physical manifestations of memories i.e. memento's. As explored earlier, 'things' can be links to memories of people, places or points in time.

Memories of people can take any form..... from the physical to non-physical. A keepsake, a photograph or even a smell.

Transient Memory... In a nutshell... And More

How can I sum up transient memory?

'It is just the concept  of having a memory fading over time. Light a light gradually getting duller and duller...'

I decided to then model this using arduino: whereby pressing a button lights up an LED which gradually fades.

Requirements:
A button, a light, some code.

Software development technique: RAPID (Rapid Application Development facilitates fast prototyping and minimal planning which makes it easy to change requirements if desired). This allows for easy project expansion.

I have decided on the requirements, and will work on it in a modular fashion and then put the pieces together.

Step 1: Wiring up a button and LED
Step 2: Getting a light to turn on when the button is pushed
Step 3: Lighting slowly fading off,
Step 4: Getting it to light and re-light whenever the button is pushed.

Steps 1 and 2 were simple. I looked up pulse width modulation to get the LED to slowly turn off. I incorporated some sample fading code from http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Fade and tweaked it to just turn off. An initial error was using a normal pin rather than a PWM pin which meant this it didnt slowly fade on and off; only turned on and off completely. This was noticed and rectified. The sample code faded on and off, but i wanted it to just fade off so i removed the looping code.


  // reverse the direction of the fading at the ends of the fade:
  if (brightness == 0 || brightness == 255) {
    fadeAmount = -fadeAmount ;
  }  

I then had to incorporate counter code which would exit the loop after one fade.

int counter = 0; was added at the top

added an 'if' comparison around the existing code which will allow me increase the counter by one at the end of the loop and therefore make the if statement false until reset. This will mean it only fades once.


if (counter < 52) {
  analogWrite(ledPin, brightness);  

  // change the brightness for next time through the loop:
  brightness = brightness - fadeAmount;

  // wait for 30 milliseconds to see the dimming effect  
  delay(30);  
counter++;
  }

I then had to incorporate a trigger button into this code. I added a button input and wired it up. I tested it with some basic serial.write() code.

Note: I comment my own code to make it easier for me to understand. This is shown as '//' in the arduino language.

The next step was getting it to fade whenever the button was pushed. Now, the problem is that i'll need state change detection which was easily to find an example of, but with a momentary switch like the one that I have, it quickly turns off. So, the fade code would only have a split second to run and wouldn't work as desired.

To combat this i'd have to get the button to manipulate another variable, which is named 'counterNew'. I originally tested this using blink code rather than fade code as it was simpler. It was successful and i could easily manipulate it blink on and off as many times as i liked.

Underneath the state change detection code i added '    counterNew = 1;'. This will set the variable to 1 whenever the button is pressed fully (up and down). If i did not use this code, i would have to hold the button down to notice the fading. I then added this code at the bottom of the page outside of the state change loop.


  if (counterNew < 52) { // fades by 52 to turn light off completely
    digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
    delay(50);
        digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
        delay(50); // will be reset as a global variable
        counterNew ++;
    }

This blinks the led on and off 51 times.

The next step is to add fading code in its place. This was a little difficult, but it was eventually incoporated.

The final system turns a light off slowly. It could be incorporated into the paired distance sensing system but with multiple inputs. It could also be used by a single person i.e. a night light which slowly turns itself off. There does not necessarily have to be 'presence indicating' element to the system and it can take many forms. I feel that this prototype could be expanded upon it itself and sums up transient memory in itself.

This is a photograph of the prototype:

Expanding it to xBee systems.....

This is very similar to previous xBee models that i've made. All i need to do is send a letter to serial when the button is pushed on one xBee Arduino, which will then execute on the other xBee arduino.

Arduino A code:

  if (buttonState != lastButtonState) {
Serial.print('k');

and remove the LED executing code on this arduino

Arduino B code;
if(Serial.read() = 'k');
//then
    counterNew = 1;
//execute rest of code

Modelling this in the real world....

In the tutorial last week the concept of this been less functional and more just for fun was proposed... Also was the idea of the idea of false memories. How could this be used in this system?

Source code.


int brightness;    // how bright the LED is
int fadeAmount = 5;    // how many points to fade the LED by
const int ledPin = 9;
int counter = 0;
const int buttonPin = 6;     // the number of the pushbutton pin

int buttonPushCounter = 0;   // counter for the number of button presses
int buttonState = 0;         // current state of the button
int lastButtonState = 0;     // previous state of the button

int counterNew;
int delayamount = 20; //the fade speed

void setup()  {
  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT); //led
    pinMode(buttonPin, INPUT);  //pushbutton  
      Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop()  {
    buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);
  // counter loop which fades

  if (buttonState != lastButtonState) {
    // if the state has changed, increment the counter
 
    counterNew = 1;
   brightness = 255;    // how bright the LED is
 
    if (buttonState == LOW) {
      // if the current state is HIGH then the button
      // wend from off to on:
      buttonPushCounter++;
      Serial.println("on");
      Serial.print("number of button pushes:  ");
      Serial.println(buttonPushCounter, DEC);
    }
    else {
      // if the current state is LOW then the button
      // wend from on to off:
      Serial.println("off");
   
    }
  }
  // save the current state as the last state,
  //for next time through the loop
  lastButtonState = buttonState;
//modulus
  if (buttonPushCounter % 4 == 0) {
  //  digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
  } else {
 //  digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
  }


   if (counterNew < 53) {
     analogWrite(ledPin, brightness);  
  // change the brightness for next time through the loop:
  brightness = brightness - fadeAmount;
  // wait for 30 milliseconds to see the dimming effect  
  delay(delayamount);
        counterNew ++;
    }

  /*
  if (counter < 52) {
  analogWrite(ledPin, brightness);  
  // change the brightness for next time through the loop:
  brightness = brightness - fadeAmount;
  // wait for 30 milliseconds to see the dimming effect  
  delay(30);  
counter++;
  }
  */


  Serial.print(counter);
}

It's a good thing that people forget...

Reading '100 things every designer needs to know about people'. A book about human psychology and how this should affect design choice. Human psychology in particular cognitive psychology (the way the mind works) lead this project and

Chapter 25 on p58: It's a good thing that people forget.

'It's actually not a flaw. Think about all the sensory inputs and experiences you have every minute, every day, and throughout your lifetime. If you remembered every thing you'd have to forget some things. Your brain is constantly deciding what to remember and what to forget. It doesn't always make decisions that you find helpful, but in general, the decisions it makes (primarily unconscious) are keeping you alive!'.

So forgetting is important. We are constantly developing new ways to preserve the past or capture things, but a contrast to these various systems is they system of 'transient memory', as proposed in this project.

Can it be fun? Can it be functional?

In 1886 Hermann Ebbinghaus developed a formula to show the degradation of memories called the 'forgetting curve'

Taken from http://www.deucescracked.com/blogs/theboymustdie/68901-The-Forgetting-Curve

Transient Memory as a Counter Factual & Mediating Lens

Transient memory is almost a counter-factual in itself. In a world with rapidly developing technology, we have increased power to store memory. Examples of this are CCTV and the new generation of social media where we can view our entire history with those website i.e. for those that are highly active on facebook they have a record of a lot of their history in images and interactions with other members.

It is a subversion of hoarding, of keeping diaries, of storytelling. Can we view Transient Memory' as a 'mediating' lens for which to design new things from. What new value can current things have if transient memory is applied to some element of them?

What if books were transient? What if the words faded from the pages and would be lost forever unless they were read.

False memories might become more common: if there was no solid record of something i.e. a photo or a note in a notebook, we'd have to rely on our memories which are notoriously susceptible to degradation and interference. We might have more false memories. We might have to have increasingly good working memories to compensate for not being able to write things down. We might have to develop new and better ways to remember things i.e. aborignal song maps http://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/article/living-songs-music-law-and-culture-in-aboriginal-australia as mentioned earlier on in this project.

Week 23 Log: Tutorial

Week beginning 12/03/2012

Goals achieved: prototype completed, advert (YouTube video) and prep for contacting design companies.

Tutorial feedback

Prototype development of this iteration, a disconnect is evident between parent and child. How does the child know that it is the parent who is sparking the memories so the child it would almost be like ‘magic’!  To an adult they would understand the idea of a ‘key’ and the idea of a person activating it remotely, but a child may not. What is the significance of the parent playing the story remotely. Would it seem to the child as if it were happening by magic or as if they were doing it themselves? What distinguishes the child operating it themselves from the parent operating it?

A parallel was drawn with morse code; with the flashing you can feel that a human is there on the other end. This in itself is transient memory as if you miss a flash you cannot recapture it! It could change the meaning of an entire message. Is there a way to apply this to prototypes?

It can be useful to reinstate a working title when discussing it with users, just to give them something to work from. The New Scientist held a conference on ‘Writing for public’ at the royal college of art. There is an online resource with some ideas and inspiration for writing for the public here: http://www.sciencesitescom.com/CASC/writing.html. It states the differences between writing for the public versus writing for academia-the viewers was to be entertained and it is critical to draw them in in some way as well as giving them something accessible, with a low entry level of understanding. It is important to know how to communicate concepts. One structure that could be used is title, breakdown introduction and then a detailed description. Images could also be useful.  One challenge that I want to set myself is conveying the idea of ‘transient memory’ in a single page with no additional information in as few words as possible. With this the idea will become more accessible.

What to do from here on?

This needs testing. Test it with people, probably not children due to ethical issues. Some adults do have teddy bears so it could be tried with these people. The teddy bear is essentially a ‘prop’.

It could be useful to tweak a system for a type of memory i.e. form specific to the type of memory. These could be, for example, people, places, enviroments or events.

What are the memories of? Perhaps it shouldn’t be abstract, perhaps the system is for a specific type of memory. As file types are in a computer. This could lead the project rather than the other way round (abstract memories being lead by the type of object). Trawl types of memories then find a ‘what’. Ensure it is not simply a ‘memory box’.

Space

NEW: Fiction & false memory. This was researched earlier on in the project and was part of the general understanding of human memory. This could be a source of a lot of fun i.e. being playful rather than functional. It doesn’t have to be situational functionality. It might not be so much about the repository, but instead the type of content and the reason for it. Don’t just look for places that are memorable/hokey/strange.

Oyster cards, Written memoirs-books. Chairs have an aspect of inheritance. Old notes left in books-a space for things to happen?

This tutorial aided the work from the last week: the need to revisit the concept. One possibility has been successfully developed as part of the paired presence system, but other iterations need to be examined and worked through. A solid tech background has been established and it has been a steep learning curve, but at this stage I will be able to make small changes to create entirely different systems and prototype rapidly.

To do: single page description of transient memory, exploration of different types of memories and then apply transient memory to them. Try to do as much sketching as possible and mock up ideas using paper or the arduino. Google SketchUp could also be utilised as a prototyping tool.

Below is an image of some visual ideation work. It shows an objects location in the word-mobile, semi mobile, fixed and imaginary. It also shows a paired architecture. 

The transient memory website

Now live at http://www.siobhanmckenzie.com/transientmemory.php

It includes a short explanatory youtube video. It is at its beginning stages with only a single page. However, additional content will be created and built up together.

This is the starting point for a discussion of transient memory between myself and users and designers.

The ideation for this website was completed in my sketchook.

These are a photographs of the ideation work behind the website in my sketchbook. I used netBeans to code the PHP and CSS manually. There is one banksy image which has been credited in the youtube video.

Contacting design companies & Software Development

I plan to pitch my work to design companies in its rawest form: the underlying concept of ‘transient memory’. This would require me to explain the concept and its potential outcomes. 

The paired architecture of this project isn’t the only outcome; it could be anything from one-to-to to many-to-many. It could also be an architecture between a person and themselves. Re-evaluating my project direction is important to ensure that I have worked through all emerging themes and tested the validity of each. A thesis has been created, but not tested, and it could be useful to test the thesis again various potential outcomes.

 I believe that a short YouTube video explaining the concept could be of use.  Within the video will be an explanation of the concept. This will be hosted on my portfolio website and will be also used to introduce potential users to the concept. This could facilitate a wider range of thinking. From this platform online survey research could be conducted. The YouTube video will be ‘advert-style’ and will pitch the idea as a real concept, like the design fiction videos blogged earlier this week.

A short list of design companies has been drawn up from those suggested by my personal tutor; the rumpus room, tangerine uk and four communications. These were selected for the nature of their projects and specialism. Contacting design companies will allow me to formalise my work.

Prototyping at the moment has enabled me to understand more about the supporting technology and to create an early proof of concept. It has not been as much about user testing, requirements testing or software development.

Software Development System

It is also at this point that I want to declare the software development process that I am using: ‘the iterative model’.  There are five main stages to software design: Requirements capture, , Analysis, Design, Implementation and Testing. The iterative model iterates multiple times through each of the stages. I also want to take a user-centred approach and now that early prototypes have been made and a concept developed, they can be involved. The project may form an open-source architecture for other designers to design from, and users may simply suggest a few examples. To do so, an online resource or book could be created with guidelines for designers to work from. There is so much range that 'transient memory' allows that this could facilitate the invention of things that a single designer would not have thought of alone.