Sunfleet

Nike+iPod Sport Kit

The Nike+iPod Sport Kit was released last week and I'm officially addicted. This $30 gadget gets your iPod Nano to talk to a widget (aka an accelerometer) on your running shoe, and then the ipod talks to you, telling you how far you've gone. As you approach your workout goal (time or distance), it increases the frequency of updates, motivating you to pick up the pace. When you get home and plug your iPod into your computer, it syncs your workout with nikeplus.com's tracking program. It also syncs with nikerunning.com, the fully-featured training log web site that can track all sorts of workouts and fitness goals (so I definitely recommend using this site instead).

I discovered the best feature today when I finished my workout: a voice broke in said "Hi! This is Lance Armstrong and I want to congratulate you on breaking your personal record for the mile." Excellent!

For the music enthusiasts, the music integration is a little weak. The best it offers is that you can pick a "Power Song" and whenever you hold the center button down, it will play. It seems like a no brainer that it should figure out how long your power song is and start playing it that length of time before you are projected to finish your workout. This morning I tried to do this manually and, just as I was rounding the last bend of my run, I went from Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head" back to my significantly less motivating NPR's On The Media podcast. Oh well.

If you run and if you own a nano, I highly recommend picking up the sport kit! For more information and convincing reviews, check out the Engadget review roundup. The blogosphere has plenty of info on how to attach the widget to any pair of running shoes.

Posted by Joan Dimicco in "User Experience"  | 

Why is now the time for Web 2.0?

This question has been baffling me, ever since I figured out what Web 2.0 actually IS. Web 2.0 is basically anything interactive on the Internet. So technically Web 2.0 has been happening for at least 6 years, but the label "Web 2.0" is relatively new because corporations are only now becoming aware that the Internet is capable of being more than just a branding platform.

Here are some basic things I've figured out about Web 2.0 (ignore this post if you are already 2.0 savvy!):

Definition of a Web 2.0 application: a website that has "something to do with consumers, multimedia data types, social networking, RSS, AJAX drag and drop, some Flash, mashups, attitude and fuzzy business models." (source) Ok, that is pretty vague, with a heavy emphasis flashiness, but I've come to the conclusion that that is exactly the point of Web 2.0. Lots and lots of bloggers have done a great job of defining it, but this happens to be the definition that makes the most sense to me.

Examples of Web 2.0: it is almost easier to define what is through examples, many of which you are probably already aware. MySpace , YouTube, Podomatic, Flickr, Facebook, Google APIs, Yahoo 360, Imeem, Vox, Live, MSN Spaces, Dabble, Xanga, TagWorld , LinkedIn, Digg

The most interesting aspect of Web 2.0: I believe the most powerful and compelling aspect is what is being called the "architecture of participation." (Wikipedia not only is an example of this, but also has a definition of the phrase. :) When users provide the data that drives the applications, the applications become more intelligent, more compelling, and frankly, more exciting to use. One of the earliest examples of this type of collective intelligence is collaborative filtering. (That I was working with collaborative filtering researchers in 1999 is part of why I've been so confused about what the big deal is now.)

And finally, why NOW? I believe the reason the time is right for corporations to embrace this is that traditional software has failed to meet the needs of corporations. Companies doing work in this digital age need tools that are fast and flexible and do not force users to conform to pre-defined behaviors. Groupware became a dirty word in the collaboration software space because traditional groupware tools of the 80's and 90's limited and constrained the behavior of users. And in real life, groups (aka businesses) can't waste time accommodating to rigid software. Hence, Web 2.0 steps in with simple (in a lot of cases, VERY SIMPLE) tools like wikis and blogs, and workers everywhere embrace them because they can be appropriated to their needs, something the corporate-provided groupware tools cannot do.

HBS faculty member Andrew McAfee explains "why now" in more detail in his blog entry The Trends Underlying Enterprise 2.0. It boils down to 1) simple and free to use (thank you advertising business model!), 2) emergent structures (no pre-set taxonomies), and 3) the chaos of individual participators resulting in a new order (possible with the likes of tagging and RSS).

Posted by Joan Dimicco in "User Experience"  | 

Robot Hall of Fame 2006 Inductees

The Robot Hall of Fame just inducted their newest class of Robots. The RHF commemorates the contributions of fictional and real robots, and the induction ceremony is a great mix of sci-fi buffs and robotics researchers.

I attended the 2004 induction ceremony and got to shake hands with both C3-PO (Anthony Daniels) and ASIMO. Lots of fun! This year I'm most excited about Gort, because that is the name of my home computer. But AIBO is definitely another worthy inductee.

This article gives a full description of the robots and the ceremony: Robot Hall Of Fame Inducts Gort, Sony's AIBO.

You can nominate your favorite robot for induction here!

Posted by Joan Dimicco in "Off Topic!"  | 

Visualizing Risk

The New York Times published an article today on the difficulties patients have in making appropriate decisions about their medical care: In Medicine, Acceptable Risk Is in the Eye of the Beholder. It is very hard for people to understand the risks associated with medical treatments, because as humans we are particularly averse to risk when it comes to potential losses to our personal situation. What can be more personal than one's health? And as the article discusses, patients frequently make sub-optimal decisions for themselves because of this aversion.

To read more about this "irrational" behavior, start by looking into prospect theory, a seminal idea from the field of behavioral economics, developed by Kahneman & Tversky.

This article stands out for me though because it explains how visualizations of the risks can dramatically help patients understand the issues more completely. I am very interested in this integration of visualization & decision-making and would like to see more systematic analysis of why different visualizations lead to different conclusions.

From the NYTimes:

In a paper published in the June issue of PLoS Medicine, Dr. Jerome R. Hoffman says using illustrations is helpful. Pie charts, dartboards and, best of all, roulette wheels, he suggests, communicate the complex information about the probability of a good outcome more understandably.

My question is why are roulette wheels the best visualizations? Is it because, on average, patients are most familiar with the concept of risk from gambling with roulette wheels? Does that mean you should get a visualization tailored to your personal life experiences? Nerds get pie charts, barflies get dartboards, and gamblers get roulette wheels? Or is there something inherent in our visual analysis that is universal for all types of people, making roulette wheel visualizations easier to analyze than the other representations?

Posted by Joan Dimicco in "Visualization"  |  Comments[2]

Poll: What applications cause you the most pain?

What software and web applications do you use on a regular basis? To get your work done, to do simple tasks, to live your life, to keep up with things. And of those applications, which are the worst? Which are the ones that drive you crazy? We want to know!

In a lot of cases, you can figure out the exact sequence of pointing-and-clicking that can get your daily tasks done in the fastest way possible, but it shouldn't have to be so hard or so painful.

This is your invitation to complain away in the comments!

Posted by Joan Dimicco in "User Experience"  |  Comments[3]

Sunfleet Press

Last week, Sun Labs held its annual Research Open House. It was a two-day event in Menlo Park: the first day was for Sun employees and the second day was for press & analysts.

This was Sunfleet's debut onto the Open House scene and we had a great time, giving a group talk entitled "Design and Engineering: An Emerging Culture of Collaboration" and presenting demos of the Media Affinity Browser and our Hole in Space and Constellation projects

One of the tangible outcomes was some positive press on our projects! Very exciting, given our size and short history at Sun. And, as reflected in the headlines, Sun needs some positive energy out there in the media world.

Here are the highlights:

RED HERRING: Sun's Idea Factory soldiers on:

Sun also is developing media interfaces that go beyond “list-based” menus. The Media Affinity Browser uses bubble charts and boxes to find movies or programs, while Search Inside The Music uses sound analysis—such as the timbre of instruments—to help an aficionado find new artists. Both could one day be licensed to software makers or content providers.

CNET: Sun Labs pushes forward despite l*yoffs:

Researchers showed off a concept for a media browser, a search application that would let home users find movie titles, for example, based on factors that they control. "We want to avoid list-based interfaces. Lists do not scale," said Scott Nazarian, a company researcher. The basic idea is to let couch potatoes surf across a grid of movies sorted by genre and labeled with visual cues, and then let people select a particular movie based on how it matches up with preset criteria.

The company is also working on a combination social-networking/video-conferencing application that would let colleagues interact over high-resolution video screens like they were meeting in the hallway, said Joan DiMicco, a Sun researcher. The project is still being fleshed out, but two people on opposite ends of a video-conferencing application could access a social-networking map that plays "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" with fellow employees. For example, the application showed how Sun researchers were connected to each other by where they sit, what projects they've worked on, or patents they have filed.

Posted by Joan Dimicco in "Sunfleet News"  | 

Sun Labs Dog cleans up Sun.com's Website

The dog of Sun Labs researcher Nicole Yankelovich is responsible for cleaning up Sun.com's website. Pretty funny!

Stale Web Content Sniffed Out by Pet Dog

I think this alone justifies the existence of a corporate research lab!
(joke, joke)

Posted by Joan Dimicco in "Off Topic!"  | 

Starbucking McDonald's

McDonald's is getting a new look! The article on the re-design is pretty amusing. Apparently they want to look like Starbucks. "A level has been set by Starbucks, which offers the experience of relaxed chairs and a clean environment." Hmm... I didn't realize Starbucks was responsible for introducing us to relaxed and clean eating environments, but hey, it sounds like a good direction for McD's to go.

I couldn't help but laugh out loud at this comment though:

What will the new McDonald's look like? "Think iPod: clean lines, simplicity," says Miologos [McD's VP of worldwide architecture, design, and construction].

Because we all know that iPods are a lot like fastfood restaurants. Maybe iPods are the new 3D to the design world. ;)

Posted by Joan Dimicco in "In The Press"  |  Comments[3]

Google (Social) Trends

Have you checked out Google Trends yet?

As I see it, it can be used to track anything that changes over time that is reflected in what people write about and read about on the internet. So what about social relationships? Celebrity relationships certainly change over time and we definitely love talking about them. Are you on Team Jolie or Team Aniston? Check out how (in the graph above and here) Aniston used to track Pitt and now Pitt appears to track Jolie. Ha!

And then there's the TomKat trend that came out of nowhere on approximately May 22, 2005.

Ok, now that there's a quantiative tool that can be applied to celebrity gossip, we need to find a practical use for the data.

[update: some more fun ones:
Steelers v. Seahawks
John Kerry & John Edwards v. George Bush
Romeo & Juliet (looks like they're still going strong) ]

Posted by Joan Dimicco in "Social Tools"  | 

Large-scale dataset visualization

For inspiration on how to present lots of data in a playful and informative way, check out this applet We Feel Fine. (found on information aesthetics, as usual.) It visualizes blog entries that refer to feelings, organized by time. The content is interesting enough, but I most enjoyed the non-traditional ways of presenting statistics and large amounts of data.

Here are some screenshots to get you interested in checking it out:

Selecting a random point in a large sea of data:

Ordered list of term frequencies:

Histogram with many datapoints missing:

Histogram with organic, animated blobs:

Posted by Joan Dimicco in "Visualization"  | 

Because you look at your umbrella more than you look out the window?

I'm not so sure about the usefulness of this digital umbrella handle. Sure, embedding context-sensitive, digital information into physical objects is cool, but how is looking at your umbrella handle easier than looking outside? I usually keep my umbrella hidden away and only bring it out when I've seen or heard the rain. Even when I'm in a windowless office, I still check the online weather more than my umbrella. I guess I would just have to change my habits and look at the device, not at the information sources. And consider an umbrella to be something to have on public display at all times. I suppose then it could be useful when it is not raining but is predicted to...

More information: a design project by Materious

Posted by Joan Dimicco in "User Experience"  |  Comments[1]

More Circles

Due to the insights of our commentors, I've changed my mind about circular treemaps. They have a distinct disadvantage compared to rectangular treemaps in that the parts (sub-circles) do not add up to the whole (the surrounding circle). But circular, colorful data representations still appeal to me.

Ciros circular graphs (shown above) are quite appealing. They represent a method for visualizing genome relations, but could be applied to any complex relational dataset. It is also an free GPL project, so you can try it out for yourself. For inspiration, checkout these lovely screenshots.

Posted by Joan Dimicco in "Visualization"  | 

Skype & Massively Multiparty Online Conference Calls (MMOCC)

From Ars Technica:

The other new feature from Skype is currently being tested by a handful of Skype partners. Skypecasts are massively multicaller conference calls supporting up to 100 people from anywhere in the world. Each call is moderated by a host who can control who gets to speak via "mute" and "eject" buttons. Skype is positioning Skypecasts as an online community-building tool and a way for people to "discuss shared interests." Plans are for the current testing to be followed by a wider public beta.

A conference call with 100's of people involved is an interesting "large group" problem. With the ability to have an integrated visual interface (AKA Skype's interface), it seems to me that Skype has a big opportunity to create cool visualizations of the group interactions. You don't want to hear the fidgeting and mumbling of 100's of people, but what if you could SEE it in the interface?

Posted by Joan Dimicco in "Social Tools"  |  Comments[0]

Back from CHI, Back to the Blogosphere (maybe?)

I just returned from attending CHI 2006 in Montreal. I've been to the conference many times before but I think this year was the most enjoyable. First of all, I'm no longer an anxiety-ridden PhD student! That makes every aspect of a conference more enjoyable. Second, the quality of the paper presenations was high and I enjoyed a lot of what I saw. I also presented a poster and attended a really fun workshop. Since the last time I attended (2002), there was a lot of new stuff. I'll post more about that once I've gotten my notes organized.

I ran into a "fan" of this blog (hi Tony!) and now that I'm aware we have one reader, I don't want to disappoint, so figured I should try to revive Sunfleet. We shall see...

Posted by Joan Dimicco in "User Experience"  |  Comments[3]

Circles v. Squares

For those of you who are big fans of circles (me! me!), there's a new treemap visualization on the street: "Circular" Treemaps. They look more organic than Ben Shneiderman's original Treemap visualizations.

Circles:

v. Squares:

found via information aesthetics

Posted by Joan Dimicco in "Visualization"  |  Comments[4]