Bsc Digital Arts and Technology

My last deadline for this term has come and gone yay!  It was the second part of the HCI essay which I have to say was very hard to write! A lot harder to write than the first part of the essay. I suppose it’s because with this essay it was more theory based on methodologies rather than the actual system.  As Ollie pointed out to me last night the first essay you could be a bit more creative and think about the design of the system you were using, whereas this one is slightly bit boring as it’s theory and just writing about the process the designer would go through. A lot of it was covered in the HCI lectures which is helpful but still a bit tedious to have to go through all of them to find the right information and then interpret that to fit in with the idea for the system I was writing about. I eventually finished at 3.15 this morning, and surprisingly I was able to get over 2000 words, considering I was stuck around 1500 I was shocked lol.  Although it wasn’t until I printed it out did I realise there was a little bit I could have included which I hadn’t :S but no need to worry I handed it in and that’s the main thing to think about.  I know I could have added it in and printed out that page but the printer was running out of black ink and it used a lot as it included a picture…but this is a flaw on my part because I was too tired and come to think about it I should have really included it…just hope I don’t loose too many marks because of it.  Now I can sit back and relax for a day or two over the holiday and fit in doing my online portfolio. 

So the deadline for the second part of the HCI essay is due in early Friday morning so it’s about time I start writing it.

 It’s proving a lot more difficult to do than I first thought, and harder to write than the first part of the essay…which sucks for me because I’ve only got one day to write it. But then I suppose it serves me right for being too preoccupied with other assignments and work.

 Gonna be another couple of late nights for me.

After much hard work over the past few days the essay is finally complete!
I had finished writing it on Sunday at around 10pm but I was up until 3 in the morning sorting it all out! The reason it took so long was because I was working out the Appendixes.
These included the questionnaire I used to get knowledge of what the customers and the employees think about Self-Scan, and the editing of the photo’s taken on my phone on Saturday after work of the self-scan unit/remote access.
I also had to amend them to show what they went to if there was a problem, as well as adding notes to point to which area and what it does.
By the time I had finished I had 20 pages, and was 3,779 words a bit over the limit…I just hope I haven’t gone into the second part of the essay, and I also hope that I’ll find more things to put in the second essay

As I seem to be having trouble writing the introduction to my essay I thought making a note of the key points in bullet form will enable me to start it with a bit more ease.
 Having come to a conclusion of my main points I need to start the essay although I am still finding it hard to write the introduction.
 I know that once I have got past the inital starting point I’ll be able to carry on the essay and writing 2000 words quite easily (as this has always been the case for me before) it’s just getting to that point that I’m struggling on.

 I have even added a bit more depth to my key points by writing down my aim, the evaluation and the research I have done and what conclusion I came too, and I know that they all need to be included in the essay they need to be expanded to essay form and not note form, so I can meet the requirements of the 2000 words.

I pitched my Self Scan idea to John Forde this morning, he seemed to like it which is the main thing.

 He also said I could probably look into it a bit more and see if there are other ways that I could make these tills more efficient.
 But orginally I’m just going to be looking into the user friendly aspect of it, and what the stakeholders would like from this piece of equipment.

 Time to start the research.

I have shamefully been neglecting this assignment which is a bit dangerous considering it needs to be in a week on Friday and has to be at least 2000 words.

 I do have an idea which is a starting point, and I have kinda put it to John Forde well mentioning it in passing more like he said it seemed like something that I could use.
 I was thinking about doing the self scan checkouts at the major supermarkets, as I work in a supermarket and supervise these tills I can see first had how others interact with them etc.
 

 There are also two kinds of users with these tills the supermarket employee’s who supervise the checkouts and are trained to assist the customers and the customers who use the checkouts.
 By being both the operator and the customer I can get different opinions on these tills and can do some research on what people feel would make these better to use etc.

 I do have to look do some research using the Internet and look at the company who make these tills (which I think are IBM but I need to check on that), I’ll also look a bit more deeply of the interface and if that could be changed or not.

 I’m not too sure if this has potential because it’s a bit of a bored subject and anything like the self scan checkouts will also come up against opposition, and users will always have something to complain about with computers (especially if they don’t like them under normal circumstances) but I’m sure with a few modifications it could appear to be better.

 I just have to look into it and find out more.

Today in ISAD we went into memory again for half of the lecture, the long term memory, short term memory and the working memory and how we can use these when making our system.
 We then went on to looking at focused and divided attention…how to get people’s attention and stuff like that.

The practicles this week have been moved around and because of the time they’ve been re-schechued for I am unable to attend…but I will continue to work on my essay.

 The system that I want to look into is the Self Scan checkouts are the supermarkets Asda and Tesco’s, as I work at Asda and normally supervise these tills every Saturday and Monday evening I can see them being used by different people of various ages and computer ability.
 I am also right there to take note of how people interact with them, think of them, how easy they think it is to use etc, given me a bit of an advantge on the research I need to do for this essay.

 However I haven’t yet passed this idea driectly to John Forde, I mentioned it a bit at the end of the last practical but haven’t discussed it in depth.
  I also have to re-read the brief and see if doing the Self Scan checkouts will be approriate to meet the critea to pass.