!Hola from Mexico!

Nuevo Vallarta to be exact. Landed yesterday afternoon and the sand, sun, food and margueritas have been great. Spent today taking it easy and getting aclimatized. Nice to have to get used to daytime highs of ~85 degrees fahrenheit and bright sunshine, let me tell ya.

Along with this post, I've also had a chance to use the 'net cafe to check-in with classmates at OISE/UT. One of the posts I made had to do with my experience. In essence, the benefits of an interface that is entirely web-based, rather than requiring a client download, became obvious once again.

In essence, if I hadn't been able to connect via the web, I wouldn't have been "doing any school work" this week. Sure I brought my laptop (which has the client in question -- First Class -- installed) but phone rates from our hotel room of $3.50 USD/min mean I'll not be using dialup from the room. Another selling feature of web/HTML-based interfaces.

Picture posts will have to wait 'till we get home for the same reason.

It's been a busy week. Both work and school have been busy as I continue to explore how to apply the notion of "community" to both. As mentioned earlier in the week, I should "forget about on-line and focus on the social. Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of "forgetting" about on-line because that's where my grad school is and my work is going.

That said, I'm still having fun on-line. Today I had a NetMeeting with the gang at ADHS and attended a webcast from the KMDI at the University of Toronto. Both were a lot of fun and I managed to "attend" both at once. I listed to the talk by Steve Jones as I watched the shared desktop from Arnprior.

It was fun to be able to have the audio stream of the 'cast from Toronto in my headphones, while looking at the shared images from the desktop and chatting with James, Dan, Peter and Chris -- hope I've got everyone's name right and that I haven't missed anybody in Arnprior, as I sat at my desk in Calgary.

I'm exploring some of the things I learned about "task-centered system design" from last week's talk by Dr. Saul Greenberg at the UofC. Tasks form the basis for "getting the job done." I love working with participants in SMART Master's sessions for the SMART Board(TM) interactive whiteboard and discovering more about how our customers would like to use our products. We've been developing asynchronous problem- and task-based on-line activities for a while. We are now working on curricula for on-line delivery to customers.

It's already been proven that the Bridgit^TM format works (Damo -- good on ya mate!) and we look forward to leveraging our Australian friend's good work for the benefit of our customers. I see an introductory and follow-up role for the on-line sessions, in support of SMART Master's Event and On-site sessions.

We'll be able to introduce customers to system overviews and make sure we're all "speaking the same language" at the beginning of face-to-face (F2F) sessions. On-line "pre" sessions also mean we'll be able to dialog with "learners" about how they now use their SMART Board(TM) interactive whiteboard, assess their learning needs and suggest resources they might consider prior to the session. Follow-up sessions will allow us to make sure that any remaining questions and, I hope, go some way to growing a community for sharing and building knowledge about and with technology.

Regular readers of this page will know that I've long been a fan of Dr. David Wiley's "on-line self-organizing social systems" (OSOSS) and have been exploring the topic for a year or so. I've also wondered about the dynamic of having a group of individuals around an interactive whiteboard and they might be able to interact with other "remote" or "on-line" groups; so, I asked Dr. Greenberg what he thought and his response was something along the lines of "forget about the on-line part and focus on the 'social' part," or words to that effect.

How do groups of individuals share displays and input/output devices?

For instance imagine for a moment that you and three others are gathered around a letter-sized notebook with some "data" on the page, as the notebook lies on the desk in front of you. What issues are associated with the orientation of the page itself. How do you interact with the "data" when it is upside-down versus right-side-up? At 90 degrees left or right? What difference does it make?

What are the issues associated with horizontal versus upright displays. How do people interact with displays that are horizontal versus those that vertical? In my course at OISE/UT we've had some discussions about how different media (e.g., screen vs print) are interpreted by our brains, when it comes to output. I'm convinced that it makes a difference and am interested in learning more about both sides of the I/O equation.

Today I had the opportunity to attend a talk given by Saul Greenberg of the University of Calgary. The talk was hosted by my employer. Along with 20 or so other SMARTians I had the good fortune to spend the morning discussing Graphical User Interfaces: Design and Usability with a focus on task-centered system design.

It was a fascinating session. There were many salient points raised over the course of the morning and I could go on forever, here's a partial list:

• Observing "users" in their "natural environment" is key to understanding specific tasks and how you expect your system to be used. Consider "concrete examples with real people" throughout the design process.
  
  
• Design must consider all "human factors" from the beginning. By the time a hardware or software development process reaches the alpha or beta phase -- it is "too late," and extremely expensive to make significant changes in the system.
  
  
• "low-tech" or "office supply" methods -- sticky notes, paper, cardborad, glue-sticks and scissors -- can be less intimidating to "users" and more effective for making and testing prototypes
  
  
• conduct "walk-through evaluations" of your system on one of the scenarios you've developed -- "can you build a believable story that motivates the user's actions?" and "can you rely on user's expected knowledge and training about [your] system?" -- if not, "you've located a problem in the interface!"
  

Very fascinating and useful stuff -- I'd like to thank Dr. Saul Greenberg for the session and Shannon Goodman and SMART Technologies Inc. for the opportunity to attend. This was a fantastic re-introduction to human computer interfaces for me and I look forward to leveraging today's information in the consideration of HCI and the application of Dr. Greenberg's methods.

Had a great experience chatting with classmate James Mercer and students of his at Arnprior District High School (ADHS) today.

We managed to get video pictures of your faithful scribe -- the request of the gang at ADHS, I promise you -- across the 'net.

To begin we tried to open NetMeeting from within MSN Messenger, but firewall and proxy prevented this.

I then opened a conference on the Sametime server we have at SMART and we met there. Still couldn't get the video across. NeMeeting told me it was sending video and I was watching the feed, but it wasn't being received. "no truth in advertising" I typed in chat at the time.

Bridgit^TM to the rescue.

Once those in Arnprior, ON opened my e-mail invitation they were able to see the "live feed" from my shared desktop webcam in Calgary, AB. Worked like a charm.

NOTE: It is strongly suggested that chat or voice be part of any synchronous data conferencing you are planning. It's important to be able to communicate along the way when getting participants connected to your conference. "Voice" -- a telephone call -- is usually how this is handled, although we proved today that chat works too.

Here's a link to a SMART Ideas(R) project I started following today's chat. I'm looking forward to submissions from the crew in "the 'prior."¹

1. I grew up in Renfrew, ON which is the next Ottawa Valley town "up the line."
The two towns have been known as the "the 'prior" and "the 'frew" since lumberjacks roamed the area.