Squeak People diary for Socinian

10 Jul 2004

Sat, 10 Jul 2004 00:50:05 -0700

Why does a 3D GUI and OS matter (a lot)?

To understand why 3D matters, one must understand that the purpose for using a computer is primarily "content creation," per Jef Raskin. Sometimes the content is created in the mind by learning and discovery through reading and viewing. 3D, if done right, adds one of the most common ways that we manipulate content in our lives. We most often must sit to create 2D content. When we move around, we are often manipulating/creating 3D content in a time framework.

Change Information and Feeling by simply Changing Perspective
- When a scene has been carefully and thoughtfully created, one can change the information perceived and/or its importance simply by changing the perspective of the view port. The mood of the scene can more easily be change by common lighting angle brightness, and color adjustments.
Explain by sketching and drawing
- One is more likely to take the time to explain by sketching and drawing if one knows one has a larger audience at that moment. 3D encourages more "whiteboard" type use when 3D is the default rather than hoping everyone has a 2D "whiteboard" available, open, and visible at the same time.
"Simulations and the Future of Learning"
- Clark Aldrich has a book by that title about simulations and their critical future role as learning methods and content become more complex, fast paced, larger/serious/lasting consequences, and human/emotional/aesthetic factors come into play.
- He has another book on the way:
"Learning by Doing: Simulations, Computer Games, and Pedagogy in E-Learning and other Educational Experiences" which explores this in more detail. He also considers in the new book the enormous success of flight simulations and military simulations for developing emotional/motor skills by repetitive practice in a realistic environment. (Unfortunately a keyboard and mouse are often not a realistic control or tool.)
Computers teach about and via "process"
- 3D lends itself to communicating "process". Janet Murray in her book "Hamlet on the Holodeck: the Future of Narrative in Cyberspace" points out how the strengths of different media affect the content that can best be taught by through that media. She says novels are great for describing character and character development. Movies teach through action. Computers teach by involving the viewer in the creation and manipulation of processes, time, cause and effect. This is easier done in 3D that 2D.
How does it differ from other media?
Why have movies when text works just as well?
Why have 2D GUI's when one can just read the Smalltalk code and field values and then just visualize what the interface should look like?
The answers are the same for a 3D GUI... usually, the reduced amount of time to convey a concept.
Narrative
- For millennia people have learned by narrative & metaphor. 3D supports more metaphors and entire environments/spaces as metaphors, and can quickly convey narrative as film does.
A better metaphor for many things
- Computers are all about symbols, codes, and metaphors.
3D gives a better metaphor for the things we see in their environments and for how things interact with each other over time.
3D Navigation is not the Only Factor
- It was once thought that 3D's extra dimensions would speed navigation and memory for collections of large amounts of content. This has been proven a wrong assumption due to the time it takes to move in space, the frequent/unexpected/unavoidable occurrences of occlusion, and the number of moment-by-moment decisions the viewer must make. However, since it was a first attempt at finding a use for 3D, most evaluators only know of that failed attempt when evaluating 3D environments. Navigation is best done by a large 2D grid of text or an image (map), or through explicit or implicit (via context) description of the viewer's desires of what to see/use.
Prosumer video editing
- Why should the consumer bother with videography when they could simply write down the experience more cheaply? Because of the time it takes to render it accurately and in detail with little skill. This is a similar answer to the "why 3D" question. A lot may be poorly done, but that is often better than nothing done because the bar is too high.
Playing Chess
- Why do we prefer 2D to represent relationships and 3D to represent strength and abilities? Japanese chess, Shogi, is all 2D. It uses 2D to represent relationship, strength, and ability and uses orientation to represent an additional relationship.
What is expected by the youth?
- 3D models of active and interactive systems are how today's youth expect content to be presented to them.
Manufacturing
- Much of the comforts or quality of our life are provided by manufacturing, a 3D process and activity.

Problems needed to be addressed with a 3D environment:

Occlusion
Prioritizing what's important to be viewed and important to be viewed at the same time in the same field of view
How long to show something until it is understood
Movements that are too quick to be seen at all.
Too narrow a view frame (Research shows women orient themselves better with a wider field of view.)
Timing of the scene changes

_________________________________________________________

Some Personality Types of people that I believe will inhabit Croquet worlds:

Creators from primitives
Creators from assemblies others made from primitives
Assemblers
Destroyers
Explorers
Describers
Evaluators
Iconoclasts by assembling from others' content and assembling it out of context
Translators from one media to another
Communicators, chatters
Creating new perspectives
Creating new changing perspectives (paths/tour/amusement park ride)
Creating entire experience packages
Conquers
Min/Maxers
Illusionists
Lost & Bewildered
Groupie, tag-along
Time Reversers / Engineers
Archivists
Algorithm Generators
Artists
Advisors
Nurturers
3D Content Builders
3D World/City Builders

_________________________________________________________

Some of this list comes from Kurt Squire's research into how students use Civilization III:

http://www.watercoolergames.org/archives/000142.shtml
Kurt Squire - PANEL 2 FROM SIMULATION TO INTERACTION - Education Arcade, day 1 - May 10, 2004 - as blogged by Ian Bogost

" Kurt gave more or less the same presentation he gave at the Serious Games Summit this year at GDC (that's ok, it's a good presentation). Games are not just about building perfect representational systems. Games also function as interactive systems. They draw in identities, as Jim Gee argues, and they function as a hub of activity systems -- for discussion, argument, and thinking.

Squire described his research playing Civilization III with grade school students. The students took up the game for wildly different reasons."

(1) Transgressors -- opting out of history, "lies told by the man" took to the game quickly; history as a set of ideology as geographic/materialist history -- new
(2) Mini-maxers -- mathematicians, maximize game output by exploiting knowledge of games
(3) Explorers -- geography and exploration of resources
(4) Socializers -- talk about the games
(5) Nurturers -- build societies and make them happy
(6) Builders -- build a civilization

Other categories:
Bartle's Types
Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit Muds
(1) Achievers
(2) Explorers
(3) Socializers
(4) Killers

Nicholas Yee's
Facets: 5 Motivation Factors for Why People Play MMORPG's
(1) Relationship
(2) Immersion
(3) Grief
(4) Achievement
(5) Leadership

Personality Types:

Table of Equivalents for the 4 Personality Types
DiSC (pdf)
Academic research on the validity of DiSC (pdf)
PTypes-The Four Temperaments

3 Mar 2004

Wed, 03 Mar 2004 21:20:12 -0700

Gary McGovern asks:

Can anyone say what the highest level languages will end up like?

Based on my psychology training and Jef Raskin's "The Humane Interface" and Charles Simonyi's "Intentional Programming", I have some suggestions which might indicate which direction programming environments very well might go. I say environments because I don't believe a text language alone can store, transport, and convey all the concepts that bug-free, efficient, robust, and easily modifiable programming applications require. This path of discovery /will/ require some imagination on your part.

First, imagine you have lost the use of your figures. Therefore, you must input your programming by voice only.

Why? Those who have a handicap often must focus on what are their most important needs and the most efficient way to meet those needs in any given situation. Now list what problems you think you'll encounter and create some ideas how to get around them. Carefully note how you'll need the computer to respond and represent the programming logic and data. I have my own list that I will share later.

For the "real thing", I am not saying we will or should program by voice or even by natural language. This is just an exercise to illustrate how to focus on what is important and that there may be mechanisms in natural languages that we may not yet be taking advantage of in programming languages.

Imagine that you can still gesture with you hand (or hands, really) and the system will know exactly what you are pointing at.

For the "real thing", you might be using two mice at the same time

Now imagine you have a 72" monitor to display your programming environment and programming logic. It will probably need to curve around you in this imaginary work environment.

Why? Most of the standards and styles for navigation in the application user interfaces, the programming user interfaces, as well as the programming language syntax are a byproduct of having to reveal and re-hide, collapse, and symbolically represent information that cannot be seen. By making most data and functions visible and available all at the same time will eliminate most of the time consuming steps for navigation and the arbitrary symbols that consume so much time in explanation and education and which are so easily forgotten. For example, why do icons now have text below them or text pops up when you hover over them? A large display allows proximity and mapped location to convey additional meaning and provide additional visual clues and memory aids that are lost when everything is collapsed.

For the "real thing", I am not saying we will have such large, expensive, and natural resource consuming displays. Head mounted, "augmented reality" displays will adequately simulate such a display. Such a "personal" display will make the programmer more "mobile" and programming more of a "social" activity allowing the programmer to spend more time with other developers and end users. This technology will also allow end users to be more actively involved in the creative process of application development (per Simonyi). Nor am I saying nothing can be hidden or that no visual clues added to focus our attention, just that the more there is at our finger tips, the less time spent searching and learning.

Here is a brief summary of other important points required for future programming environments that I will detail more on my Squeak People diary:

Multiple views of the code, all dynamic and interactive
The importance of lists
Syntax as a grid (rather than a tile)
Explicitly representing all concepts
Powerful, context sensitive searching, filtering/collapsing, and
"Auto-complete" for data entry
Human memory as a limited, but powerful natural resource
Programming environments and applications environments will both be equally powerful environments for creativity and perhaps even be the same environment (better than Squeak & Morphic)
Reference rather than copy/paste

More time will be spent describing the domain and the range of the problem and why it is important than time spent on describing /how/ to solve the problem. It is the description/representation of the problem domain and the description/representation of desired effects) which are most reusable and should be separated from the "how" logic. This is required for just the same reasons that the display logic should be separated from the application logic and both of those separated from the persistence logic and the transport protocol logic.

10 Jan 2004

Sat, 10 Jan 2004 01:45:36 -0700

Some nice summaries of the importance of "massive collaboration" by Michael Helfrich:

Too Easy to Collaborate?

http://helfrich.typepad.com/michael_helfrichs_weblog/2004/01/tier_zero_at_th.html

9 Jan 2004

Fri, 09 Jan 2004 00:22:21 -0700

My recommendation for the Croquet developers:

In the same vein as "continuous quality improvement", I'd recommend that Croquet has a built-in, commonly shared over the Internet, 2D Croquet portal where testers can leave their bug-reports, suggestions, and/or impressions. Nothing complex.

The list of "how do I do..." type comments will render many insights into others' cognitive workings including how peoples' reasonings differ from each other. The resulting record will provide good raw material for analysis to put into research papers as well as Croquet improvements. Just make sure the portal also invites and encourages the user to also explain at minimum:

why they want to do it,

why someone else might want to do the same thing (forcing more thoughtful questions to reduce useless or thoughtless questions),

what they tried before, and

how do they imagine it could be done more simply and/or more easily explained/shown to another person.

From a user's perspective, I believe some rules of thumb for the interface that the user manipulates to create user-content for the education of others or the education of oneself:

"Simplicity and understandability" will yield more reusability than "inheritance".

Next in importance is "representing to the user how the content's relevance to her or him".

After that in importance is "providing the tools so the user can create labels as handles for easily manipulating what they care about".

Next is "reliability and reproducibility".

Then it's more complex "flexibility, extensibility, or abstraction of structure".

Perhaps last, a representation of what is expected of the user/student & their content by others.

Don't forget to make Croquet "viral" by making it as easy as possible for all users to share the resulting "product of their excitement" with their friends/associates.

I also imagine that the avatar should be able to carry that tester's_results_portal around for spur_of_the_moment notes or even a diary. (Should one call it an "avatar pocket PDA"?) This also might encourage others to help Croquet be more self documenting by lowering the "documentation author" bar.

Some time later, maybe, allow for the attachment of camera-bookmarks, screenshots, dynamic-linked class name, or a sample collection of whatever is suspect so that effects of a problem are preserved for further analysis in the submissions to the "tester's results" portal.

11 Dec 2003

Thu, 11 Dec 2003 19:05:28 -0700

Squeak Portal - SqP, SmallWiki, Static pages, Global Search

I like Cees de Groot's vision. His goal is to create a content management framework that improves how "newbies get the information they want, experienced Squeakers can quickly navigate around, and which makes the impression of a serious, active, thriving community on the outside world"

Imagine if every e-mail submitted to the discussion list and every Swiki page had a form they everyone loved to fill out as they submit their discoveries and comments. The for would contain fields for answering the same questions a newspaper reporter must: "Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why?, and How?" Very rarely is the question why asked or answered in most of our communication.

I'd encourage Cees de Groot to create the interface to the framework that encourages all Squeak Portal participants to answer these questions with each content submission or new questions so the content can be more readily indexed, searched, structured into hierarchies, help gather those with common interests together, and keep the obscure from disrupting the attention of the mainstream.

Memes, whether Swiki pages, web pages, or e-mails should track frequency of views/changes and allow the ranking of the usefulness of the content to the task Squeak users have. This statistical data should be allowed to be part of the parameters of the search along with the "who, what, where, when, why, how" parameters.

Perhaps the Squeak Portal interface could encourage that content be less frequently submitted as narrative and more frequently as bullet points for easier commenting and structuring cross-references (using spreadsheet like lists rather than bullet point tags).

Squeak Portal goals:

newbies get the information they want

experienced Squeakers can quickly navigate around

makes an impression on the outside world

(Why are these important? We should clearly articulate the answer.)

Squeak Portal content structure:

SqP

SmallWiki

Static pages

Global Search

My Suggestions:

Improve the portal interface by encouraging adding "who, what, where, when, why, how" parameters to all submissions.

Especially answer "why".

Use arrowing through cell in a list rather than tags.

Create and use statistical data and rankings in searches.

Allow feedback on every page.

These parameters should merge into the Squeak development environment's version of these and emphasis placed on using/enhancing those facilities in the development environment with objects and methods as "memes" that need answers to the 5 W's.

Why? Because doing this will help maintain content by simplifying:

indexing

searching

structuring into hierarchies

gathering those with common interests together

keeping the obscure from disrupting the attention of the mainstream.

Who?

This message to thoses interested in how best a Squeak Portal could be designed and used.

Using volunteers

What?

Squeak Portal

Squeak documentation

Squeak use facilitation

Squeak marketing

Where?

Online

When?

At the leisure of the developers.

Starting now and proceding forward.

Until better collaborative software concepts are discovered.

How?

Using Squeak tools and object libraries now available.

Volunteer effort

14 Nov 2003

Fri, 14 Nov 2003 00:59:02 -0700

Perhaps the "certification" page might put the description of Master/Journeyer/Apprentice/Observer in bullet points to make it more legible. Maybe add a description of what new functions they can perform when they progress.

The HTML link <http://people.squeakfoundation.org/html.html> on the Diary page doesn't work.

Master

A Master is the principal author or hard-working co-author of an "important" Squeak project,

i.e. one that many people depend on, or one that stands out in quality.

A Master has command of the tools and is an excellent programmer.

Generally, a Master works equivalent to full time (or more) on Squeak.

Ideally, a Master writes clearly about the work and its broader context,

and serves as a mentor to others in the Squeak community.

Journeyer

Journeyers are the people who make Squeak happen.

A journeyer contributes significantly to an important Squeak project, or is the author of a useful or technically innovative project.

A Journeyer is generally a competent programmer,
____ but significant contributions of documentation,
____ artwork,
____ or other non-code goodies counts too.

Ideally, a Journeyer works with others in the community to polish and refine Squeak.

While not necessarily the equivalent of full time, a Journeyer spends a significant amount of time on Squeak.

Apprentice

An apprentice is someone who has contributed in some way to a Squeak project, but is still striving to acquire the skills and standing in the community to make more significant contributions.

Ideally, the Apprentice is in touch with either an individual mentor or a community that helps to gain these skills.

An Apprentice spends a significant amount of time learning the craft of Squeak development, whether by
____ hands-on practice,
____ academic study,
____ or careful observation.

14 Nov 2003

Fri, 14 Nov 2003 00:52:13 -0700

I'm interested in Squeak's role in facilitating day-to-day education both in and out of the classroom.

I'm a computer programmer by profession and have psychology & computer science skills by training. Due to this cross-discipline training, I have a unique perspective on how programming and applications can work as a new medium for the general communication of valued, diverse media formatted information and instilling that information as knowledge in the mind. I currently use these skills in a manufacturing company by designing and implementing application interfaces, data workflows, empirical tests for process improvement, and in-depth interview processes to get to the root of the application user's needs beyond what was first expressed.

I care about the techniques and cognitive efficiencies of learning (per Piaget), critical thinking, the responsible expression of the rational behind a student's faith, and the student's welfare beyond just receiving knowledge. The computer is both a medium for communication and a tool for the construction of both knowledge and of physical objects.

I've helped mentor the Chatsworth High School Robotics team in 2002, and accompanied them to the national championship competition. The First Robotics competition exemplifies how project based learning can motivate a team of students to crave learning across disciplines, assembled from several grade levels, genders, and ethnic groups, utilizing professional software, machining tools, and corporate etiquette to create something they care about and to create in themselves a value for a future for themselves as well.

To quote one New York Times article by Steve Lohr

``... enterprise technology is moving into a new phase.

Bigger, faster, and more feature-laden are no longer selling points in the same way.

Smarter, simpler, more efficient, and more flexible are the new criteria.''

I believe this to be true for software productivity applications and software educational applications too.

I value the extreme flexibility provided by the Squeak/Morphic/eToy/Smalltalk/Croquet combination. I foresee ``smarter'', ``simpler'', and ``more efficient'' for the user as Squeak's next logical step. It is progressing toward becoming a meta-language to describe ``process'' for all, young and old, as ``process'' becomes more essential in our vocabulary in our information age.