Author: Lubnah Ansari

1) I wanted the LED to light up when the brightness was low and vice versa using the LDR. I had multiple ideas of how to build the circuit, but every-time I tried executing my idea I struggled with actually getting the plan to be successful. One thing I could do better next time is to actually sketch out my idea using diagrams. I looked at an Arduino tutorial to help clarify how I should set the circuit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fN1aJMH9mM. However, I wired it in a different manner that was more familiar to me.

2) I wanted to take one step further and work on fading the lights in and out instead of the lights abruptly changing every time it was dark and bright. I wanted the LED to vary in brightness depending on how dark the setting was. I implemented the code as seen below, however that only contributed to the dimming of the LED. I did not achieve the results I desired.

3) I learnt that the problem arose from the fact that the ledPin was at 7, which was not an analog output (PWM). Only when I switched it to a PWM would the LED fade. Adham helped me write my code more efficiently (ex. adding a map function instead of doing the analogRead under the loop function in the Example #2). However, even after writing the code efficiently and switching the ledPin two its proper location, the LED would brighten very subtly when it was dark. The change almost appeared non-existent. Only after switching around the values in the map function (by looking at the highest and lowest values from the serial monitor) was I able to see a difference in the fading of the light.

The way Norman discussed deficiencies in human-machine interaction was fascinating. I believed that the lack of understanding of principles necessary for effective human-machine interaction was the fault of the person on the other end who was using the machine. I always believed that the lack of understanding resulted from the lack of education on technological use. Norman explained how deficiency in human-machine interaction occurs because the design is done by engineers, who are experts in technology but limited in their understanding of people. This seemed so blindly obvious but I could not grasp why I hadn’t thought of this earlier. Engineers tend to think they understand people because they are people themselves, however those who have studied human behaviour understand how amazingly complex it is. It was intriguing to read that difficulties in effective human-machine interaction was caused the technology and not the people. It was also interesting to read the paradox of technology towards the end, the same technology that simplifies life also complicates life by making the device harder to learn and use. It made me realise that good design is not solely limited to the understanding of technology, it goes beyond that, to the understanding of psychology.

I felt that the title “Attractive things work better” was quite mismatched to the actual content of the text. Norman discussed how pleasurable designs are not necessarily usable. Subsequently, I find the title confusing as it contradicts what Norman said about the tensions that exist between attractive design and usability. Also, according to the title, I expected that the article would demonstrate how attractive design works better. Rather, he demonstrated how attractive design is more important in some situations than others (ex. high stress situation versus low stress situation). He didn’t explicitly explain how attractive design works better, or what he meant by attractive design. Is ‘attractive’ inclusive of beauty and usability? He simply kept repeating the idea that attractive things work better without offering a sound reasoning as to why that is the case. Although he made interesting claims about how negative and positive affects one’s mindset, and the relationship between design and neuroscience, I found his arguments to be underdeveloped. It was interesting information, but it wasn’t delivered coherently.

I absolutely loved this reading. When I joined this course I was extremely confused by the overall concept of electricity. We discussed so many terms such as voltage, current and power but I still didn’t have a holistic understanding of the terms beyond its textbook definitions. Electricity in general always confused me as well, it appeared like such an intangible subject that I didn’t know what to do with just having a textbook definition of it. Not only did the author make the subject extremely relatable and understandable, he went further to question the concept of the electron theory, or what really holds protons together in a nucleus. I appreciated his questioning and sort of rebellion towards the current scientific understanding of electricity. Also, as strange as his “dreams”, or creative stories were, it offered a brilliant, relatable point of view. I found his writing questionable initially and undermined the value of what he had to say, but after reading the “The Creative Use of Jargon” I could understand why he was writing in an un-scholarly way. I was also deviated by the length of the text, and perceived it as almost a burden. However, it’s one of the only science readings that I understood holistically and enjoyed. He did a fantastic job of making the material so tangible and approachable.

I didn’t realise how overused and misunderstood the term interactivity was until I read this text. At one point I did wonder whether the author was maybe over-complicating the definition of interactivity and making it more complex and unavailable than it has been for an element of exclusivity. Nonetheless, he stated excellent points and revealed distinctions that I would not have thought of. One of my favourite points was on the subjectivity of interactivity. He gave an example that when the refrigerator door opens, a light turns on. Though some people will not be entertained by this game, small children find the refrigerator light more entertaining and interactive. Subsequently, as beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, does interactivity exist in the eye of the interactor? I also liked how instead of referring to interactivity as a black or white subject (ex. there is either interactivity or no interactivity), he explained it as a subject with relative measures (ex. high interactivity or low interactivity). My favourite part was when he made distinctions between interactivity, intense reaction, and participation, as I always saw blurred lines within those definitions. I also appreciated the author’s humbleness in terms of admitting that the idea of interactivity is too complex to fit some reduced, limited defition, and therefore the definition may not be appropriate. At one point I started to question as to why it feels like we are aiming for interactivity, what is so special about it? Why is it better than intense reaction or participation? The author did not say explicitly it was any better, but he did imply it was. For instance, when he stated that smaller class sizes increase interactivity between student and teacher, and the student-to-teacher ratio is one of the best simple indicators of the quality of a school, he implied an increase in quality can be achieved through interaction. Nonetheless, it was a fascinating text to read.

I found the examples that Deutsch used in the text to be fascinating, as I had never perceived, for instance, language and the numeric system in such a way. The explanation for some examples were difficult to comprehend. For instance, when discussing language he claimed “a rule works by exploiting regularities in the language, it implicitly encodes those regularities, and so contains more knowledge than the list.” What did he mean by “exploiting regularities” and “implicitly encoding”? Some ideas were hard to comprehend because he communicated in such abstract terms, not always with further explanation. I found the general, overall message to be extremely interesting. How small changes in a system to meet a narrow purpose happened to contribute to the universality of something, without intentionally meaning to contribute to universality. I always thought universality was intentional. Instead, I learnt we didn’t achieve universality by trying to deliberately make something universal. It was interesting how he offered a very limited explanation for why communities didn’t attempt to reach universality earlier, why they were avoiding universality on purpose. The one explanation that stood out to me from the few was the fact that the communities’ livelihood would be threatened by a system that was too easy to learn. Perhaps the increase in trust, or the colonisation and globalisation of the world, makes it less threatening to aspire for universality.

1. I first started off with plugging jumper wires into the ground and 5V input on the RedBoard to the power and ground column on the breadboard. Vittoria taught me a neat trick, twirling wires together in order to keep the board neat and clean.

2) I tried to test if the LED pin would light up if I put the two jumper wires against a conductive material (in this case, I made the jumper wires touch one another), and it did successfully.

3) I decided to go on with my idea, which was that whenever I opened or closed a book, the light would switch on or off. I decided to tape the jumper wires to small conductive sheets, and then tape them on the pages, as demonstrated below. When the book is closed, the lights would turn on, and when the book is open, the lights would turn off.

However, I found my idea to be slightly useless. Firstly, the conductive sheets were only on the first two pages. What if the reader opened another page? Nothing would happen with the LED light. Also, a LED indicator of when the book is open or closed essentially has no purpose as my hands can also indicate when the book is open or closed. After talking to Professor Aaron about my idea, he suggested that I create a reading lamp that turns on when the book is open, and turns off when the book is closed.

4) In order to execute this plan, I decided to create two bookmarks covered in conductive material. One is called a bookmark, while the other is called a lamp switch bookmark. The bookmark is placed on whichever page the reader is on, and the lamp switch bookmark is placed on the original bookmark when an individual is reading. When an individual is not reading, the lamp switch bookmark must be set on a different page so the conductive material does not touch and the LED doesn’t light up.

a) b)

c)

(Bookmark and lamp switch bookmark making contact with one another so the LED lights up)

What was problematic with this plan was that it did not meet the hands-free requirement that was asked for this assignment. I needed another way of making the LED light up when the book was open.

5) Before I explain what I did in order to make the LED light up when the book was open, it would be helpful to take a look at the images:

a)

b)

c)

I changed the position of the bookmarks into a landscape position and put them on top of the novel, near the spine of the book. Subsequently, when the book is closed the conductive material does not touch. When the book is open, the conductive material makes contact and the LED lights up. A possible issue with this design may be the storage of the book. The bookmarks add extra length to the novel, therefore it may have trouble sitting on a shelf. Also, the jumper wires were quite short and therefore it was challenging to actually test whether the concept worked or not. Unfortunately the image couldn’t capture the LED light on while the novel was open, but it does work.