1st Practical PhD Project… thoughts

On my project blog PhD Project 01 I am still documenting research upon the cognitive psychology of users' mental models which will take me into April as I need to source a couple of key texts I couldn't get from ECA's or University of Edinburgh's libraries. That said one key text yesterday, firmly situated within cognitive science literature, has suggested a structure for my practical research project. I will expand upon this again over the coming months in more detail.

The idea so far in its embryonic state is this…

Phase

1. Qualitative Experiment on up to 36 subjects to undergo an initial online survey to identify a capacity to describe and communicate a cognitive model (subject to be defined). The subjects who can clearly communicate their 'mental model' will be graded into study groups for the next phase.
   
2. This study group will then be asked to explain how they understand how they perform an interactive task.
   
3. These 'mental models' will be visually documented.
   
4. From this documentation visual interactive prototypes will be produced as iterative tests of a 'designer's model'.
   

I do realise that this is very woolly right now and lacks definition. It's root is in an experiment performed by Dedre Gentner and Donald R. Gentner disseminated in their 1983 paper "Flowing Waters or Teeming Crowds: Mental Models of Electricity". My outcome will be demonstrably different to theirs, but their method is certainly a foundation to develop on. I will continue to work on this planning over April.

To summarize though what my intended outcome will focus upon: it will be creating a range of interaction prototypes that are define and designed using 'designer models' interpreting users' 'mental models' of the interaction. The outcome will be focused on visually communicating the experimentations of matching an interface design to how a user thinks it works rather than how it works.

I know I can communicate this better, so please bear with me as I begin to form my methodology and outcomes. Any comments would be greatly received, but please add them to this post by clicking 'Comments' rather than emailing them. Once I have the project more defined I will utilise the Interaction Design community www.ixda.org to inform me of any similar experiments, to ensure I am doing and experiment that will open new ground.

The final thing I need to emphasize is that this project will focus on the visual communication of the interactive process.

Reference:

Gentner, D. & Gentner D.R. (1983) Flowing Waters or Teeming Crowds: Mental Models of Electricity. In D. GENTNER, and A.L. STEVENS, eds. Mental Models. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc. pp99-129

Honesty Room

Who said digital media is easy?

I started this post over a week ago and it has been delayed due to the keyboard on my brand new laptop and trackpad breaking on me just when I have a lot of work to prepare. On top of that my webspace server has deemed itself "full" and wont let me upload any assets despite the fact I know it isn't "full". So I am completing this post typing on a usb keyboard plugged into my laptop which is now acting as a desktop machine instead of being wireless and mobile, whilst preparing two presentations on digital media. Mmmm… I'm really biting my tongue tonight.

Those of you who are astute will realise I have been reading Bill Moggridge's excellent book Designing Interactions, nearly 800 pages of great information on designing interactions. As Helen Walter of Business Week describes the book it's "part history lesson, part computer science thesis, part design education, part personal design philosophy". More than that I found it really inspirational and the best £25 I've professionally spent. I have thoroughly enjoyed each contributors' stories tracing a variety of differing interactions from inspiration to final outcome, and each chapter is full of my highlighted paragraphs and annotations.





This book is one of many I have recently read as part of my continual professional development and in a way this blog is partly to help me to formulate my own understanding of my own specialism that I teach. So some of my posts will be just that, online summations of existing theory and practice, observations, synthesis and a forum to test one's own hypotheses. I'll write more after next week as I have two presentations to make and a lesson on graphical interface design to give to a group of students from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, alongside getting my laptop repaired. It's only 3 months old… I couldn't have overworked it THAT quickly, honest!