Diary study

INTERACTION DESIGN METHODS ASSIGNMENT 4-MUNDANE TECHNOLOGIES Diary Study: Three-day life of R

Who is R Info & implications from the interviews & diaries

Basic info about R ¡ From Nashville, TN ¡ Finished undergraduate study in Morehouse College in 2005 ¡ Engaged in a pre-medicine program in 2005 ¡ Went to Shenzhen, China for teaching English in 2006 (he considers this choice and experience just for finding a job and making money) ¡ Graduated with a Master degree in Second Language from IUB in 2012 ¡ Went back home again for a year after graduation ¡ Now a first year PHD student from IU School of Education

Other info ¡ Has a good habit of getting up early at 7 everyday although sometimes doesn’t have to. ¡ Cares so much about what’s happening on the world today, especially something related with politics, race, wars etc. ¡ Likes to know what his friends or other people (someone who owns a different mind) are thinking and doing and their attitudes towards some events. ¡ Got his first smart phone (iPhone 5) last year in Sep and instantly got used to the switching from flip phone to smart phone. ¡ Considers hi-tech such as iPhone kind of artifact making him connecting with others and no longer embarrassed. ¡ Thinks himself addicting into Facebook such kind of social network web and finds a way to avoid being distracting from his phone, e.g. puts it into the bag, turn the ¡ Owns a clear reason and motivation of when and why to use what kind of devices to mediate his life and work.

Implications about R ¡ R can be considered owning a critical mind. ¡ R has a regular life, including studying, work, most time relax through internet. ¡ He is eager for new hi-tech stuff. Especially for something awesome designed or related with design, he cares that much and willing to ‘learn’ and take advantages of them to have new experience. ¡ His experience is complex and he still decided to focus on second language study after long time exploring. ¡ He consider hi-tech applications or device as kind of representation of oneself and communication way nowadays in his living context. ¡ R can be a representative of the current students who have large social circles to manage and craves for rapidly changing info coming from all over the world nowadays.

What does R use Artifacts that Mr. R mentioned in the diary and how these stuff mediates his life

Mobile devices-iPhone and iPad

Other device-Personal computer, desktop and TV

¡ For mobile devices such as phone and tablets,R can keep in touch with his circles and the world’s latest news.

This is kind of crucial part of his daily life. And for himself, he considers it kind of habit that forces him to deal with these info and devices everyday to get connecting with the outside world.

¡ For personal computer, as R considers them not convenient and cannot be held in hands, he only uses them for work (which cannot be done/easily be done by mobile device). Or some other special situations, for instance, movies and music applications which can only be used on the computer.

What kind of mundane technologies

IPhone applications ¡ Facebook-once waking up, checks Facebook first on the bed to acquire news and connect with friends also check if there’s new comments. ¡ Facebook-types comments on others’ posts (but find it difficult to type long paragraph through phone) ¡ IPhone notifications-as soon as finishing shower, taps the home button to check notifications and weather and then gets dressed ¡ Facebook-spends the boring time, such as on bus (usually it’s quite on bus so that takes this time to study second language through mobile app, but soon find it boring and switch to Facebook again) ¡ Phone call-notices the icon, interface and appreciates so much

Personal computer ¡ Emails-checks emails & IU Gmail through computer during work ¡ Videos-Watch videos during spare time at workplace while using phone to reach out on Facebook trying to find someone get him food ¡ Music-Using laptop to download music(for free) and it will be charged on mobile (claims that he has different kind of applications for music on different device, desktop, laptop and mobile phone) ¡ Mendeley-using software for reading as well as editing and for annotations.(considers it bad to health for long time using but worries about wasting papers by using physical prints) ¡ Adobe creative suite-for work basically ¡ Creative work station-using laptop,iPhone and iMac to set up a working environment to keep himself busy

TV ¡ Watches news on TV while checking others’ viewpoints on Facebook as well as commenting on them ¡ Watches TV with roommates together but both communicate through Facebook although they are in the same house ¡ Watches TV while doing his work and putting his iPhone on his lap. He feels this pretty comfortable but hates it distracting his attention and making work not efficient.

Desktop ¥  Feels it comfortable to work on a bigger screen (comparing with his laptop) and also thinks different kind of personal computer has different advantage. For instance, his laptop although too small to view, it is light to carry.

How to maintain a sense of community Based on what R had written in his diaries, R has a relatively strict boundary of what should be done during work time and what can be done at home.

First, he obviously has different kind of interactions in these two contexts. If he works, he prefers using laptop/desktop(at workplace) for several advantages such as big display screens (for some graphic work especially), easy input etc. And also, during work, in order not to be distracted by his phone, he’d rather ‘hide’(for instance, cover the screen of his phone or even put it into his bag) his phone as this is a kind of entertainment device for him.

How does mundane technologies embedded into the context ¡ Why people can’t truly be aware of mundane technologies? The first reason is that, these technologies satisfy users’ demands which can’t be satisfied in old days and thus users will get used to the new tech and consider it kind of totally new part of life, but not changing of life. That’s the first way it embedded into the context. ¡ Secondly, considering about space and place such as R can take his mobile with him everyday to everywhere and all the applications which can achieve most of tasks in R’s life is portable also, In this case, it is easy to embedded into the different context, such as in the bathroom, on the bus,at work or at home.

How can we improve R’s life Design implications related with internet of things and

Identify users’ demands and make it multi-sensory ¡ The daily work is getting more and more complicated towards what we used to have.

That means, some times we need definitely uninterrupted context while sometimes we need some music to adjust ourselves or even a short funny movie. This makes the future technologies big challenges for identifying different demands under different situation. And it should be available to provide the users multi-sensory accessibility to get things done at the same time or just acquire a different experience when it’s getting boring.

Help people get in & out ¡ As nowadays so many hi-tech devices have already been widely used among all different ages of people especially youth, those who haven’t generated a good habit of how to use hi-tech. Thus it makes it easy for them to be addicted to video games and social network web etc. So, in the future, I think one effort/ design insight we should focus on is to get them out of the internet of things and help them take advantages of hi-tech and make right usage.

Merge functions into artifact under different situations ¥  It seems that today most people use their small pieces of time to either acquire info or connect with friends. It is clear that with mundane tech, we can better make full use of our time under this rapid pace world. However, another thought will be that device is not device anymore, but its functions have been merged into the artifact we used everyday in specific situation with special usage. Thus,it is more convenient for us to manage our time for different kind of level usage.