Usability! Usability! Usability!

{This Wordle or word cloud was created from the text at Usability 101 by Jakob Nielsen }

The word cloud above serves to remind that usability of any innovation is paramount: words that occur frequently in a text, and imply importance, are seen clearly!  Interestingly, the word design jumps out at you with words connected to the user bearing down! 

Significant I think! 

It affirms the words by Robert Wright that Vicente includes in the opening pages of, The Human Factor:

"Your brain may give birth to any technology, but other brains will decide whether the technology thrives. The number of possible technologies is infinite, and only a few pass this test of affinity with human nature."

Line Up by Logan Brumm

 I was reminded of this concept recently on a visit to the Chinook Movie Theaters, here in Calgary. My family rarely go out to see movies these days due to in-home convenience, but this was a special occasion and we looked forward to dining out and seeing a new release!

And then we experienced the automatic ticket vending machines which are placed almost immediately at the top of the escalators. I'm sure on a non-new-release-night this necessary process and technology runs very smoothly. 

However, this wasn't one of those nights!

There seemed to be hundreds of bodies milling around, trying to attach themselves to a ticket queue, but more people kept plopping  from the top of the escalator and immediately affixing themselves to the ever growing lineup, which was gradually working its clumsy way DOWN the escalator! I think the egg in this picture expresses our dilemma very well!. We were all in jeopardy! Needless to say, the ticket machines also seemed to think this and several immediately protested at the hustle, bustle, and non-to-pleasant comments...they too became overloaded and quit! The machines kindly suggested we line up to use a different machine! Hardly conducive to a pleasant and worry free experience!

Essentially, the designers and creators of this environment and its technological gadgetry had not, it seems, fully considered the human factor. For example, much observation of people in the natural setting may have led to  possible experiences of varying traffic pattern fluctuations. This knowledge could then have been applied, say, to the placement of items. As well, product mock-ups that could demonstrate what happens when more people than expected try to use the technology would have allowed for iterative design of the ticket machine technology.

What did we do?
We went home and played board games...much more accessible!

Usability? Usability? Usability?You bet!

Under Digital Pressure

{Click on the link to go to this map at MindMeister.

 Choose an item to explore on the web.  

 Add your own digital ideas too!} 

Visualization of Participatory Digital World

After all of the reflection on my teaching practise and experience, I sum up my current predicament as experiencing digital pressure: my previous ideas had hardly identified a focus on using instructional design to incorporate technological ideas, objects or processes. Thankfully, I was drawn to, and accepted into, a collaborative group that immediately identified various technological innovations that we could design and use to prepare children, situated on the autistic disorder spectrum, to better cope with stressful social and emotional situations. An inspiring and positive outlook! This actually closely resembled my poorly articulated first thoughts around demystifying certain situations for English Language Learners. 

However, having found a somewhat like-minded group does not in itself alleviate the digital pressure: I and we are inundated with new and evolving technologies - daily it seems! The never ending quest to catch up, be current, be hip, close the digital divide, multi-task, multi-think, and become multi-competent in multi-digital contexts, is exhausting and exhilarating at the same time! The image above is an attempt to visualize and realize the participatory digital world that Dr. Jacobsen describes in, Teaching in a Participatory Digital World. Please visit the map and add your own digital connections! 

Dr. Jacobsen rightly states that, 

"Teachers... are now expected to embrace online participatory learning technologies in support of active, passion-based learning by students who live and work in a digital world." 

"Expected" is a well chosen word: for teachers, this implies a huge investment of extra time, resources, and often personal expense, and yet there is an assumption that by saying it will be...it will be! I agree that teachers, myself included, need more effective, timely, and realistic support in order to affect practice: indeed, my very presence in this graduate program is an attempt to improve my understanding, skills, and approach to this collaborative and digital teaching and learning landscape. Given that many  of these contexts remain ill equipped with hardware and/or access to adequate technologies, I am encouraged that the learning design and process remains paramount as, "active participation in knowledge construction allows for deeper conceptual understanding of disciplinary concepts and increased motivation for learning." (Dr.Jacobsen)

I liken the emphasis on peer collaboration, inquiry, problem solving, designing of meaningful and great tasks, and individual and peer evaluation, to the current reality in the world of work. My husband is experiencing a shift in how project planning is carried out in the software development environment: "Agile" planning requires attending to emergent needs, a focus on timely, specific tasks, constant review, revision, and continual contact with the user. In fact, I was surprised to find this development process explained in the text, Interaction Design, by Sharp, Rogers, and Preece. I had never heard of it before my husband's recent involvement with it. 

And so, to rise from under digital pressure, my newly formed team will be "Agile" and meet in a "Scrum" to review what we have already done, define what we will do today, and uncover any blockers to our "Sprint" project goals. 

By the way... I just added to our group wiki! 

I'm scrambling my way out from under, "Digital Pressure!"