Specific Contributions, etc

So, we turned in the paper today.

Here are my personal contributions to the assignment, as requested for last week's weekly blog posting. I would have posted this then, but we weren't actually done with the project yet, so it would be like nailing Jell-o to a wall.

In the final paper, my section on maps didn't appear because of space issues and it was hard to relate back to the main thesis. I'm glad of this. The paper is better and more focused because it's not there.

In addition to taking notes during the interviews and observational portions of the study and taking part in group editing sections, I found the photos in the essay that weren't taken by Ryan. I also made significant edits to the introduction.

I only got to see the very final version shortly before it was turned in. Wes had done some pretty awesome formatting the night before. I'll see if I can get him to send it to me so I can post it here.

Assignment Progress

We met as a group on Sunday and made significant progress on the essay. I'm working on a section on possible revisions to the paper handouts that show bus routes. This is somewhat perpendicular to the main topic of our paper, as it stands, so it could be that it's not included at all. My group is meeting again tonight to put our sections together and get everything finalized for tomorrow.

I found some nifty Creative Commons photos on Flickr of status displays in at bus stops in other countries. One of the common features seems to be that they're high up, which could dissuade vandalism.


Photo by Pete-Barr-Watson

(His Flickr username is "pete." That's awesome.)

Collecting Data

So, we went out and interviewed people today. We got some good responses from people waiting for the bus, and one good interview from one of the bus drivers.

Turns out not a lot of people were displeased with the systems currently in place for figuring out what bus to take. They planned their routes online in advance, so it's doubtful bus stop redesigns would help them in that area.

However, we did get complaints about buses being late or early, or being full and passing them by. So, some kind of alert system could be more useful. Meeting again with my group this weekend.

Bus Stops

So, I had my first real meeting with my group today. I've been feeling somewhat sick, so I unfortunately missed Tuesday's class. (I hope it's not Strep.)

Presently, it looks like we're going to be observing how people figure out what bus to take, when they get to a bus station. It'll be a combination of observation and interview. We'll then propose better ways of designing bus stations. Exciting stuff!

I set up a wiki for us to keep notes, etc.

Visuwords

Visuwords:

Visuwords™ online graphical dictionary — Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate.

Enter words into the search box to look them up or double-click a node to expand the tree. Click and drag the background to pan around and use the mouse wheel to zoom. Hover over nodes to see the definition and click and drag individual nodes to move them around to help clarify connections.

Visuwords™ uses Princeton University’s WordNet, an opensource database built by University students and language researchers. Combined with a visualization tool and user interface built from a combination of modern web technologies, Visuwords™ is available as a free resource to all patrons of the web.

Looks really cool. It presents connections between words and ideas in a somewhat straightforward way. It'd be cool to see a network for the same meanings for two different languages, to visualize the differences in the topology.

Daylight Savings Time

My phone automatically updated its clock for daylight savings time. A fantastic feature, and one that I expect in all my timepieces. I haven't set a clock in my life.

However, it also updated my alarm clock settings, making an 8 AM alarm wake me up at 7.

This seems to be a feature designed only to make me angry.

Assignment 2

For this project, I've joined a team of four others. We met briefly on Thursday and it seems that we're going to be observing the use of the buses. Presently we're considering using city buses, as it would show a wider spectrum of activities. This will be fun. I'm looking forward to getting started.