<!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>[sorry these are so late, it took a while to get a hold of the right book]
Chapter 9 is the process of interactive design and it is basically comprised of four basic activities. These are: identifying needs and establishing requirements for the users experience, developing alternative designs that meet those requirements, building interactive versions of the designs so that they can be communicated and assessed, and evaluating what is being built throughout the process and the user experience it offers. The book goes into a lot of depth to describe these activities and their importance, and ends with the different types of development cycles that we went over in class.
The thing I found most interesting in the chapter was the “Dilemma, Copying for inspiration: is it legal?” It discussed what is legal and illegal to copy when design something. It doesn’t give any example except about word processors looking the same and having the same functions, however it says that’s not copyright infringement. And as I type this in open office I see many similarities between it and older versions of word. The article ends stating the dilemma is knowing when it is OK to use someone else’s work as a source of inspiration and when you have infringed copyright. It seems like a big gray area to me.
Chapter 10 is identifying needs and establishing requirements. This chapters is much like chapter 9 however it’s all about the first activities of interactive design. The chapter gives many examples of identifying who the user is and how to make requirements for them. The example that stuck with me was the story about the EU project that was trying to increase the presence of elderly people in their local community. I found it interesting that they came up with different designs for elderly in different countries, But what I like best is what it said last about the village in Italy, “What we learned about the elders is only half the story, however. The other half is what the elders learned from the probes. They provoked the groups to think about the roles they play and the pleasures they experience, hinting to them that our designs might suggest new roles and new experiences.” I think this is important because it shows that you can have an effect on a user just by having them participate in the design process. I believe it shows the importance of HCI overall.
June 4, 2008 at 10:41 am
The “Dilemma, Copying for inspiration: is it legal?” section was really interesting to me too. I think it’s hard to define what copying is. You may think of a really great design all on your own, and a very similar design already exists without your knowledge. It’s not really copying, but it’s still copyright infringement. It IS a big gray area, and it’s hard to know when it’s legal or not.
June 4, 2008 at 1:20 pm
I think that you two are commenting on an issue that we aren’t talking about in class. Well maybe it will come up briefly next week when we talk about ethics. There is definitely gray area. What is the difference between copying and using something as inspiration? I don’t have a great understanding of the law, but my understanding is that you can’t copyright an idea, only a specific instantiation of that idea. So you can’t copyright a design idea, but may have to pay licensing fees if you actually use a part of their design in your design.
Does anyone with a little more background in law have anything to add?