Here are a few ideas we have so far for possible implementations.
Game
A game where you are a child who is abducted and recruited as a child soldier.
Interactive objects
Have objects like a teddy bear, ball, shoe, doll ect and when picked up they would tell the story of the child who owns that object.
Controlled Environment
A controlled environment such as a box you would go into where you would experience the smells, sounds, sights and feelings that a child soldier experiences every day.
Interactive capturer
An piece where you are a child and have to interact with your capturer, the capturer could start to train you ect.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Objectives
Objectives are statements describing what the project is trying to achieve. Objectives should not be vague. A well-worded objective should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable/Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound (SMART).
These are the potential objectives at the moment. Some will need to be developed further to achieve the above but the basic statements are there.
1: To target a large varied audience.
2: To use an original effective manner of inducing audiences empathy keeping in mind factors that influence empathy such as personal connection, disposition,demographic and guilt and not to distance the viewer.
3: Define and ensure we are competent in our chosen area of technology.
4: Use knowledge and research of background context effectively.
5: Create an end product that will have a visually aesthetic design.
6: To raise awareness and motivate pro - social behaviour such as donating money and volunteering in tackling the problem of child soldiers.
These are the potential objectives at the moment. Some will need to be developed further to achieve the above but the basic statements are there.
1: To target a large varied audience.
2: To use an original effective manner of inducing audiences empathy keeping in mind factors that influence empathy such as personal connection, disposition,demographic and guilt and not to distance the viewer.
3: Define and ensure we are competent in our chosen area of technology.
4: Use knowledge and research of background context effectively.
5: Create an end product that will have a visually aesthetic design.
6: To raise awareness and motivate pro - social behaviour such as donating money and volunteering in tackling the problem of child soldiers.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Aim
Our original aim perhaps is missing the end result we aim to achieve so we revised it and re worded it as the aim of a project sharpens the focus of your plan, and helps you to avoid wasting effort on irrelevant side issues. It needs to be clear and sharp in our minds.
In revising the aim we asked ourselves:
Original Aim:
Tackle the subject of mind manipulation of young vulnerable children trained to kill through the audiences empathy.
Revised new Aim:
To use empathy effectively to generate awareness and pro - social behaviour towards the problem of children being recruited into armed forces, "child soldiers".
In revising the aim we asked ourselves:
- What do we want the future to be?
- What benefit do we want to give to our audience/user?
- What returns do we seek?
- What standards are we aiming at?
- What values do we believe in?
- What problems are we addressing?
- What difference do we want to make?
- Which critical issues must we respond to?
- What should our priorities be?
Original Aim:
Tackle the subject of mind manipulation of young vulnerable children trained to kill through the audiences empathy.
Revised new Aim:
To use empathy effectively to generate awareness and pro - social behaviour towards the problem of children being recruited into armed forces, "child soldiers".
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Central Concept
Our central concept is empathy and child soldiers.
Why should this subject matter be addressed?
Worldwide, hundreds of thousands of children are recruited into armed
forces. Often they are abducted at school, on the streets or at home.
This means that girls and boys illegally and under force, participate in
combat where frequently they are injured or killed. Others are used
as spies, messengers, porters, servants or to lay or clear landmines
and are at risk of sexual abuse.
These children are robbed of their childhood and exposed to terrible
dangers and to psychological and physical suffering.
Through getting people to empathize with these children then we
can raise awareness of the situation and contribute to help stopping
it.
Why Empathy?
I read an article called Guilt and Giving: A Process Model of Empathy and Efficacy which is about the use of empathy and self-efficacy to generate guilt in charity work, "charity guilt advertising". I found this article useful as it explains empathy very well and how and why it is used in charity work. I took alot from it that is in relation to what we want to do and why we chose empathy to raise awareness of the existence of child soldiers and in turn get the user to do something about it.
Empathy involves viewing another person’s situation from the perspective of that person and understanding how the situation appears to that person and how that person is reacting cognitively and emotionally to the situation. As a result, empathy allows an individual to assess a situation as if it were affecting them rather than someone else. "putting yourself in someone else's shoes"
Charity appeals frequently use pictures/video footage of people in need of help, accompanied by the their sad stories. These appeals are an attempt to induce guilt and generate empathy on the part of viewers. The critical question is whether they successfully generate guilt and empathy or instead result in reactions that distance the viewer from the situation.
Empathy motivates and increases pro-social behaviour. Pro-social behaviors are those intended to help other people. Pro-social behavior is characterized by a concern about the rights, feelings and welfare of other people. Behaviors that can be described as pro-social include feeling empathy and concern for others and behaving in ways to help or benefit other people. Pro-social behavior in turn can also be motivated by a desire to reduce one’s sense of guilt.
Our society holds the social norm of helping the less fortunate (Mead, 1985), so failing to do so can lead one to anticipate feeling guilty as a result.
Empathy and Personal Relevance
If a situation affects oneself then it is more personally relevant than a situation that affects another. If empathy is used to enhance personal relevance, then the perception of need is increased. The more personal it is the more effective. Both dispositional and demographic factors have also been shown to impact peoples response to charity appeals. Dispositional factors are a person's inherent qualities of mind and character, for example some individuals have a natural tendency toward feeling guilty or being empathetic. Demographic factors iclude age, race, gender ect.
This explains why empathy will play an important role in our project. Whatever we create it is crucial that the audience effectively empathize with it so we can achieve good results from them for example get them to donate.
Why should this subject matter be addressed?
Worldwide, hundreds of thousands of children are recruited into armed
forces. Often they are abducted at school, on the streets or at home.
This means that girls and boys illegally and under force, participate in
combat where frequently they are injured or killed. Others are used
as spies, messengers, porters, servants or to lay or clear landmines
and are at risk of sexual abuse.
These children are robbed of their childhood and exposed to terrible
dangers and to psychological and physical suffering.
Through getting people to empathize with these children then we
can raise awareness of the situation and contribute to help stopping
it.
Why Empathy?
I read an article called Guilt and Giving: A Process Model of Empathy and Efficacy which is about the use of empathy and self-efficacy to generate guilt in charity work, "charity guilt advertising". I found this article useful as it explains empathy very well and how and why it is used in charity work. I took alot from it that is in relation to what we want to do and why we chose empathy to raise awareness of the existence of child soldiers and in turn get the user to do something about it.
Empathy involves viewing another person’s situation from the perspective of that person and understanding how the situation appears to that person and how that person is reacting cognitively and emotionally to the situation. As a result, empathy allows an individual to assess a situation as if it were affecting them rather than someone else. "putting yourself in someone else's shoes"
Charity appeals frequently use pictures/video footage of people in need of help, accompanied by the their sad stories. These appeals are an attempt to induce guilt and generate empathy on the part of viewers. The critical question is whether they successfully generate guilt and empathy or instead result in reactions that distance the viewer from the situation.
Empathy motivates and increases pro-social behaviour. Pro-social behaviors are those intended to help other people. Pro-social behavior is characterized by a concern about the rights, feelings and welfare of other people. Behaviors that can be described as pro-social include feeling empathy and concern for others and behaving in ways to help or benefit other people. Pro-social behavior in turn can also be motivated by a desire to reduce one’s sense of guilt.
Our society holds the social norm of helping the less fortunate (Mead, 1985), so failing to do so can lead one to anticipate feeling guilty as a result.
Empathy and Personal Relevance
If a situation affects oneself then it is more personally relevant than a situation that affects another. If empathy is used to enhance personal relevance, then the perception of need is increased. The more personal it is the more effective. Both dispositional and demographic factors have also been shown to impact peoples response to charity appeals. Dispositional factors are a person's inherent qualities of mind and character, for example some individuals have a natural tendency toward feeling guilty or being empathetic. Demographic factors iclude age, race, gender ect.
This explains why empathy will play an important role in our project. Whatever we create it is crucial that the audience effectively empathize with it so we can achieve good results from them for example get them to donate.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Research - Child Soldiers
Websites:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcYykH-V_R8&feature=related
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qx9VVJqcns&feature=related
- http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/world/al-qaedas-deadly-child-soldiers/story-e6frev00-1111115495881
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIoJrrKixBM
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOsyEzHIV3c
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1352801.stm
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPU4UN03t7E
- http://www.hrw.org/news/2000/05/31/sierra-leone-rebels-forcefully-recruit-child-soldiers
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b2QhQQpHck
http://www.rickross.com/reference/brainwashing/brainwashing49.html
Friday, October 21, 2011
Empathy and Experience in HCI
I looked at an article called Empathy and Experience in HCI by Peter Wright and John McCarthy. I read through it and highlighted what I found interesting and relative and I then put that in a summary.
Abstract
HCI researchers and practitioners have been developing methods, practices and designs ‘for the full range of human experience’.
A variety of approaches to understanding users and user experience, based on narrative, biography, and role-play have been developed and deployed. These developments can be viewed in terms of one of the seminal commitments of HCI, ‘to know the user’. Empathy has been used as a defining characteristic of designer-user relationships when design is concerned with user experience. In this article, we use ‘empathy’ to help position some emerging design and
user-experience methodologies in terms of dynamically shifting relationships between designers, users, and artefacts.
KNOWING THE USER IN EXPERIENCE-CENTRED
DESIGN
“designing for the full range of human experience may well be the theme for the next generation of discourse about software design”
The aesthetics of interaction, affective computing, ludic engagement, enchantment with technology.
The relationship between designer and user, and in particular what it might mean in the context of experience-centred design to ‘know the user’.
A significant challenge that starts with the need to develop an understanding of user experience and the epistemologies, methodologies and research practices it entails. HCI has made significant methodological and conceptual progress in response to this challenge. Methodologically, HCI has appropriated and developed a number of qualitative methods for eliciting or evoking experiences and developing descriptions of them that can be used in the design process. These include narrative and biography-based approaches such as scenarios, personae, and technology biographies, simulation and role-playing approaches, and interpreting user experience in HCI.
There are three broad approaches to applying and interpreting user experience in HCI. They include: the measuring approach, empathic approach and pragmatist approach.
PRAGMATIST KNOWING AND EMPATHY IN HCI
The possibility of an empathic relationship between designer and user has been explored in design and HCI.
Defined empathy as the human capability to be able to identify oneself with the feelings and ideas of another person.
Design empathy is needed when going from designing for practical functions to designing for personal experiences and private contexts. They see design empathy as a personal connection between designer and user that facilitates seeing and understanding users from their own position and perspective and as people with feelings rather than test subjects. We have tried to expand a little on what exercising this empathic skill might mean and our particular approach is informed by Bakhtin’s dialogical notion of ‘aesthetic seeing'
It involves a felt, valuational response from one’s own particular, unique value position to the other (the user) who is also seen as a separate and unique centre of value
It can sometimes involve strong feelings between self and other and is certainly always more than instrumental contemplation.
Central to the dialogical approach to empathy is the importance of each person engaging from their own perspectives and appreciating the other’s perspective as other.
The ‘designer’ does not have to ‘become the user’, rather the designer responds to what they see as the user’s world from their own perspective as designer.
Empathy training involves developing self- and other awareness and practical communication skills such as careful listening and responding. Try to understand what it must be like to be that person in their particular situation.
Communicating and relating allows the empathic person to respond in a meaningful way to the
demands of the particular situation confronting them.
Empathy evolves in the context of ongoing relationships wherein one person learns about the needs of the other by responding empathically, sometimes getting it right sometimes not, and then attuning future empathic responses. Without this communicative, relational framing
of empathy, each person has only their own emotional responses upon which to base their emotional response.
characteristics of empathic methods:
• The designer’s orientation to the other person, and whether they are motivated to understand and help.
• Their attention to the affective and emotional in relationships as the empathic response is specifically attuned to the perceived emotions and needs of the other.
• The kind and quality of relationship between designer and user that they propose, most particularly whether it is likely to provide opportunities to attune to the needs and emotional responses of the user.
EMPATHY THROUGH DIALOGUE
Understanding the other in everyday life and in user research often involves dialogue with them.
Ethnography and ethnography-inspired field work.
Participant-observation can be seen as an attempt to build up the kind of relationship, both participant and observer, both close and separate, that allows people to understand what it is like to be the other. “ethnography is concerned with the member’s perspective and the member’s experience"
Cultural probes
Like ethnography, Cultural Probes is interested in understanding what it feels like to be the other. Unlike ethnography, the aim is generally not to participate in or observe directly the practices of the other and the analysis is geared toward design rather than conceptualizing members’ worlds. The power of defamiliarisation as means of understanding. The aim is not to become the other but to make sense of the other through oneself.
Empathy through narrative
Dialogue, sympathy, identification and empathy involved in writing and reading. Experiential richness to these complex dialogues in which readers engage with the emotions of characters.
Narrative vignettes are short pen pictures of people in a setting have been used to capture the felt experience of working in a particular place or setting. includes vignettes in the style of short stories describing the day-to-day activities of workers going about the business of fixing machines. These rich descriptions the practical, intellectual, emotional world of the Xerox workers, perhaps by showing them as fully rounded people and perhaps also by making them particular unique individuals rather than abstract representations. As such they aim to draw out of the reader an empathic response, giving a sense of what it feels like to be one of those
repairers.
Scenario-based design also tries to capture users and their activities in stories with which designers and users can envision possible design innovations. Good scenarios describe a setting, the agents or actors, their goals and purposes, and the things they do. This is not
enough for empathic understanding and dialogue. A richer polyvocal world that has emotion as well as agency, character as well as plot, has to be created for readers to engage empathically with characters and author.
Character-driven scenarios.While typical scenario descriptions provide a rich account of what happens and what ‘the user’ is trying to do, they tend not to describe users’ motivations, personality traits, values, and attitudes."The character includes both personal (inner) and interpersonal (social, public, professional) elements. design based on ‘personae’ rather than ‘users’. unique characters with individual histories, thoughts and feelings. While character and
persona-based design pushes towards empathic relations, the characters and personae generated can be somewhat two-dimensional and lacking in depth. To understand what it is like to be that person in the scenario, the narrative has to provide the resources that allow readers
to identify with and maybe even for moments in our imaginations become that person.
Imaginative identification and point of view and first person perspective
Pastiche Scenarios
In this approach, existing well-known characters drawn from novels, movies and plays, are used as the protagonists in scenarios
Like the novel, film is also well understood to be capable of drawing out an empathic response from its viewers. Documentaries that aim to bring the everyday lives of people to designers through artistically made film documentaries.
Empathy through the imagined other
Role-play and experience prototypes have been employed as ways of engaging with imaginary users or imaginary user. In role-play designers act out how it might feel to be someone with specific characteristics, for example, what it might feel like to be disabled using props such as wheelchairs or suits designed to restrict movement. Experience prototypes are methods and techniques of simulating experience with a product, space or system in order to understand what it might feel like to engage with it.
Abstract
HCI researchers and practitioners have been developing methods, practices and designs ‘for the full range of human experience’.
A variety of approaches to understanding users and user experience, based on narrative, biography, and role-play have been developed and deployed. These developments can be viewed in terms of one of the seminal commitments of HCI, ‘to know the user’. Empathy has been used as a defining characteristic of designer-user relationships when design is concerned with user experience. In this article, we use ‘empathy’ to help position some emerging design and
user-experience methodologies in terms of dynamically shifting relationships between designers, users, and artefacts.
KNOWING THE USER IN EXPERIENCE-CENTRED
DESIGN
“designing for the full range of human experience may well be the theme for the next generation of discourse about software design”
The aesthetics of interaction, affective computing, ludic engagement, enchantment with technology.
The relationship between designer and user, and in particular what it might mean in the context of experience-centred design to ‘know the user’.
A significant challenge that starts with the need to develop an understanding of user experience and the epistemologies, methodologies and research practices it entails. HCI has made significant methodological and conceptual progress in response to this challenge. Methodologically, HCI has appropriated and developed a number of qualitative methods for eliciting or evoking experiences and developing descriptions of them that can be used in the design process. These include narrative and biography-based approaches such as scenarios, personae, and technology biographies, simulation and role-playing approaches, and interpreting user experience in HCI.
There are three broad approaches to applying and interpreting user experience in HCI. They include: the measuring approach, empathic approach and pragmatist approach.
PRAGMATIST KNOWING AND EMPATHY IN HCI
The possibility of an empathic relationship between designer and user has been explored in design and HCI.
Defined empathy as the human capability to be able to identify oneself with the feelings and ideas of another person.
Design empathy is needed when going from designing for practical functions to designing for personal experiences and private contexts. They see design empathy as a personal connection between designer and user that facilitates seeing and understanding users from their own position and perspective and as people with feelings rather than test subjects. We have tried to expand a little on what exercising this empathic skill might mean and our particular approach is informed by Bakhtin’s dialogical notion of ‘aesthetic seeing'
It involves a felt, valuational response from one’s own particular, unique value position to the other (the user) who is also seen as a separate and unique centre of value
It can sometimes involve strong feelings between self and other and is certainly always more than instrumental contemplation.
Central to the dialogical approach to empathy is the importance of each person engaging from their own perspectives and appreciating the other’s perspective as other.
The ‘designer’ does not have to ‘become the user’, rather the designer responds to what they see as the user’s world from their own perspective as designer.
Empathy training involves developing self- and other awareness and practical communication skills such as careful listening and responding. Try to understand what it must be like to be that person in their particular situation.
Communicating and relating allows the empathic person to respond in a meaningful way to the
demands of the particular situation confronting them.
Empathy evolves in the context of ongoing relationships wherein one person learns about the needs of the other by responding empathically, sometimes getting it right sometimes not, and then attuning future empathic responses. Without this communicative, relational framing
of empathy, each person has only their own emotional responses upon which to base their emotional response.
characteristics of empathic methods:
• The designer’s orientation to the other person, and whether they are motivated to understand and help.
• Their attention to the affective and emotional in relationships as the empathic response is specifically attuned to the perceived emotions and needs of the other.
• The kind and quality of relationship between designer and user that they propose, most particularly whether it is likely to provide opportunities to attune to the needs and emotional responses of the user.
EMPATHY THROUGH DIALOGUE
Understanding the other in everyday life and in user research often involves dialogue with them.
Ethnography and ethnography-inspired field work.
Participant-observation can be seen as an attempt to build up the kind of relationship, both participant and observer, both close and separate, that allows people to understand what it is like to be the other. “ethnography is concerned with the member’s perspective and the member’s experience"
Cultural probes
Like ethnography, Cultural Probes is interested in understanding what it feels like to be the other. Unlike ethnography, the aim is generally not to participate in or observe directly the practices of the other and the analysis is geared toward design rather than conceptualizing members’ worlds. The power of defamiliarisation as means of understanding. The aim is not to become the other but to make sense of the other through oneself.
Empathy through narrative
Dialogue, sympathy, identification and empathy involved in writing and reading. Experiential richness to these complex dialogues in which readers engage with the emotions of characters.
Narrative vignettes are short pen pictures of people in a setting have been used to capture the felt experience of working in a particular place or setting. includes vignettes in the style of short stories describing the day-to-day activities of workers going about the business of fixing machines. These rich descriptions the practical, intellectual, emotional world of the Xerox workers, perhaps by showing them as fully rounded people and perhaps also by making them particular unique individuals rather than abstract representations. As such they aim to draw out of the reader an empathic response, giving a sense of what it feels like to be one of those
repairers.
Scenario-based design also tries to capture users and their activities in stories with which designers and users can envision possible design innovations. Good scenarios describe a setting, the agents or actors, their goals and purposes, and the things they do. This is not
enough for empathic understanding and dialogue. A richer polyvocal world that has emotion as well as agency, character as well as plot, has to be created for readers to engage empathically with characters and author.
Character-driven scenarios.While typical scenario descriptions provide a rich account of what happens and what ‘the user’ is trying to do, they tend not to describe users’ motivations, personality traits, values, and attitudes."The character includes both personal (inner) and interpersonal (social, public, professional) elements. design based on ‘personae’ rather than ‘users’. unique characters with individual histories, thoughts and feelings. While character and
persona-based design pushes towards empathic relations, the characters and personae generated can be somewhat two-dimensional and lacking in depth. To understand what it is like to be that person in the scenario, the narrative has to provide the resources that allow readers
to identify with and maybe even for moments in our imaginations become that person.
Imaginative identification and point of view and first person perspective
Pastiche Scenarios
In this approach, existing well-known characters drawn from novels, movies and plays, are used as the protagonists in scenarios
Like the novel, film is also well understood to be capable of drawing out an empathic response from its viewers. Documentaries that aim to bring the everyday lives of people to designers through artistically made film documentaries.
Empathy through the imagined other
Role-play and experience prototypes have been employed as ways of engaging with imaginary users or imaginary user. In role-play designers act out how it might feel to be someone with specific characteristics, for example, what it might feel like to be disabled using props such as wheelchairs or suits designed to restrict movement. Experience prototypes are methods and techniques of simulating experience with a product, space or system in order to understand what it might feel like to engage with it.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
26th October - Concept Presentation
Time: 11.00 - 1.00
Location: C120
Students formally presenting a central problem they have identified to address as part of their project. Students should bring any work created to date e.g. workbooks, sketckbooks and preliminary drawings that help to clarify the concepts, issues and challenges to be addressed by the project.
Any media, digital or analogue, can be used to support the concept students intend to address as part of the project. This presentation should ultimately outline the central aim of the project and be accompanied by potential objectives indicating how it will function. Feedback will be given to students during and/or subsequent to this presentation.
Some notes on student blogs:
- Organise your blog around what you need to deliver as part of the module. Blog categories should reflect the scope of the project activities such as
- central concept
- cultural context
- practical experimentation
- other practitioners - individuals or industry
- roles and responsibilities
- Work towards producing one 'considered' entry per week. You can generate as many entries a week as you like by pointing to the content that is relevant or of interest to your project but you should reflect in some detail about the developement of your ideas and activities at least once a week.
- Use the blog as a way of declaring your roles and responsibilities openly with your group. Any changes to these responsibilities can be negotiated along the way and be transparent to your team and lectures.
- By the end of the module you should be able to point to your blog as a reference resource. You may also be able to generate your proposal more effectively since much of your research information will be in one place.
Roles for this week
We divided up the empathy research from monday 17th until now,
I will read and summarise an Article on Empathy and Experience in HCI by Peter Wright and John McCarthy
Lauren will do the same with empathetic design method in HCI
For next monday 24th,
we need to research into other projects out there that have a similar theme of empathy,
we need to come up with possible aims for our project.
I will read and summarise an Article on Empathy and Experience in HCI by Peter Wright and John McCarthy
Lauren will do the same with empathetic design method in HCI
For next monday 24th,
we need to research into other projects out there that have a similar theme of empathy,
we need to come up with possible aims for our project.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Trevors meeting oct 17
We had a meeting today with Trevor and we talked about our research into empathy and the technical research also. He told us to get a broader understanding of empathy and what is the true nature of empathy. We need to have at least one aim for the concept presentation. For next Tuesday we are each researching more into empathy, looking at other projects that are on the same topic and coming up with possible aims.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Empathy Research 15/10/11
Strings tuned into the same frequency
- tuning fork -> http://www.onlinetuningfork.com/
- brain waves
- technology e.g walkie talkies
- instruments such as guitar, violin and piano
- heart, pull on the strings of your heart
- puppets
- sound waves
Standing in someone else's shoes
- shoe's fitted with sensors
- putting yourself in others position
- being on the same level
- being on same wave length
Looking through someone else's eyes
- trying on a pair of someones glasses to see what they see without them
- seeing what others see, understand
- technology - looking through the lens of camera, telescope etc
- the past what your once were journey from childhood to adulthood
- looking into history, films, books, museums
- nature
Looking through someone else's eyes
Cinemagraph Technical Research
I researched into how to make a cinemagraph. I found tutorials on you tube and on websites here are the links.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj7-npcf4J0
Photography in motion
So I did these tutorials and I made my own cinemagraph. I wanted to do this because I am interested in photography and the group also liked the cinemagraph style. At least now we know how to make them and that it is possible if we need it for our project.
here is my cinemagraph:
It took a long time to do but it does create a nice effect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj7-npcf4J0
Photography in motion
So I did these tutorials and I made my own cinemagraph. I wanted to do this because I am interested in photography and the group also liked the cinemagraph style. At least now we know how to make them and that it is possible if we need it for our project.
here is my cinemagraph:
It took a long time to do but it does create a nice effect.
Empathy Research 15/10/11
Below is a number of videos from the website: http://cultureofempathy.com/References/Metaphors.htm
and one youtube video (Barrack Obama - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgVAygC-ap0)
In the videos people are asked to describe empathy and to come up with a metaphor as to how to describe it. There was some really interesting findings:
Empathy is like - standing in someone else's shoes
- looking through someone else's eyes
- strings tuned into the same frequency
Marshell Rosenburg - "_ _ _ in empathy, you don't speak at all. You speak with your eyes. _ _ _ Empathy is when the other person feels the connection to with whats alive inside you."
"It is the social glue that bind us together" - Edwin Rutsh (documentary maker)
Barrack Obama - " _ _ _ We have the opportunity to make a habit of empathy, to recognise ourselves in each other _ _ _"
http://cultureofempathy.com/References/Metaphors.htm
What is Empathy??? Here are some examples:
- It is living with others with a certain mindfulness: observing, listening and understanding
- It's like a sixth sense in that it presents us with emotional information
- It is like jazz. Jazz requires listening to the experience rather than just hearing the instruments
- Empathy is like a Magic Mirror - internal mirror
- Empathy is like Hearts in Hands
- People being heard to their satisfaction
- Experiencing others experiences, musical chairs
- like the reflection of a lake - mirror can be altered, calm, stormy etc tranquil/peaceful
Barack Obama Promotes Empathy with Oprah Winfrey: "My mother taught me e...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgVAygC-ap0
Empathy Documentary - Ike Lasater - Empathy is like a Reflecting Mountai...
http://cultureofempathy.com/References/Metaphors.htm
Empathy Documentary: David Belden - Empathy Boats in the Pit of Chaos (2...
http://cultureofempathy.com/References/Metaphors.htm
Empathy Documentary Project: Alexa Hauser - Empathy is like Hearts in Hands
http://cultureofempathy.com/References/Metaphors.htm
http://cultureofempathy.com/References/Metaphors.htm
Empathy Documentary: Chip Baggett - Empathy is like Jazz Players (1 of 4)
http://cultureofempathy.com/References/Metaphors.htm
Empathy Documentary: Larry Rosen - Empathy is like a Magic Mirror (3 of 4)
http://cultureofempathy.com/References/Metaphors.htm
Research on Empathy
For this week I will be researching Empathy and the different metaphors for it, to help us to generate ideas for our main concept.
Technical Research
For this week ill be researching into how to implement the idea of "putting yourself in someone elses shoes" and how to make cinemagraph's, a type of photography we were interested in.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Meeting with Paul 13th of October
Summary notes discussion with Paul
- Pair of shoes people would step into that would generate a point of view thats not theres, maybe pulls back a twitter tweet.
- Use of heat or pressure sensors - Arduino
- exploring the idea of empathy through media technology
NB - work from bottom up as oppose from the top down
meeting with Paul 13-10-11
Discussion
We had a meeting with Paul and discussed the topic of empathy and the concept of "putting yourself in someone Else's shoes". Paul suggested an idea of having a pair of shoes that you would stand into and a sensor would trigger something to happen such as display tweets from the shoe owners twitter page. We also said you could have many pairs of shoes to choose from that would belong to people from different walks of life such as wellingtons, army boots, sandals etc. Paul suggested to look into how this would be developed/implemented for example with arduino's and heat or pressure sensors. We must research into other metaphors for empathy and more on the topic of empathy.
Tasks
We decided to divide up some tasks for the week. I will be doing the technical research and Lauren will be doing research into the Empathy topic.
We had a meeting with Paul and discussed the topic of empathy and the concept of "putting yourself in someone Else's shoes". Paul suggested an idea of having a pair of shoes that you would stand into and a sensor would trigger something to happen such as display tweets from the shoe owners twitter page. We also said you could have many pairs of shoes to choose from that would belong to people from different walks of life such as wellingtons, army boots, sandals etc. Paul suggested to look into how this would be developed/implemented for example with arduino's and heat or pressure sensors. We must research into other metaphors for empathy and more on the topic of empathy.
Tasks
We decided to divide up some tasks for the week. I will be doing the technical research and Lauren will be doing research into the Empathy topic.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Research Tools
I have been routing through the internet and its hard to find good sites and keep track of what you do find. I have been using Evernote to store website urls and pages i liked. you can clip the web page you are on to Evernote so its handy for looking back over things. Also I have been using stuble upon to find interesting websites based on topics you choose and you can also save urls of pages you like so you can go back and find them again.
Cinemagraphs
While researching I came across a website called coolhunting. I found an article about cinemagraphs where instead of just a photograph they make animated gifs to capture a moment. Its done very subtly so that only one or some parts of the image change. In this way you would look at it first thinking it was a photograph until something starts moving. They really capture the essence of a moment and I think normal photographic technology cant do it as well.
Here is the blog of the creators/artists http://fromme-toyou.tumblr.com/tagged/gif
Here is the blog of the creators/artists http://fromme-toyou.tumblr.com/tagged/gif
I set up a facebook group for us to keep in touch, organise meetings, have discussions ect.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Our group main common Interests
- Ethics - putting yourself in others shoes human/nature/animals
- Drawing
- Dreams/Adventure
- Socialising
- Nature
- Music
- Morals
Are people only animals? do animals care/have morals???
- south Africa shark attack, seal was pushing man to safety and distraction the shark as it came near.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
First draft of coming uo with concept - Lauren & Linda
Torch - Shining it on a wall will reveal the inside/otherside of the wall e.g. into someones house, hut in africa, shanti town etc (or see your insides) or buildings shine the torch see a garden.
Technology
trendhunter.com
Chris O' Shea
NB - Write down concept in one sentence
- Market Research
Concept Ideas
- human emotion - reaction to whats going on
- putting yourself in others shoes - stepping outside your self
- sensitivity/interactive
- make computer seem more human like - us empathising with computers/disability
- showing making human more computer like - making computer more human
- Senses - see -> webcam, touch -> interactive, taste -> charging/ food - "hmmm chocolate", hear -> sound -> speakers, smell -> senseors
- Processing Application
- Motion Dectection - blobs/colours mixing when cross border
- Cinemagraphs
Motion detection technology
The video below is a example of what i'd like to create and work with to engage the user and allow them to interact with technology
Researching Empathy
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/screening-out-the-empathy-20100902-14roe.html
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/screening-out-the-empathy-20100902-14roe.html#ixzz1a0565SGO
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/screening-out-the-empathy-20100902-14roe.html#ixzz1a04lkq1s
Just a few short snips from a website relating to empathy and computers.
"THE impact of screen culture on the human brain merits the same public debate and funding for research as climate change, says one of the world's most eminent neuroscientists.
As the online world continues to expand, Oxford University's Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield has warned excessive screen culture may be changing the way our brains are wired.
The effect of screen culture on the brain is not dissimilar to symptoms associated with attention deficit disorder, such as a shorter attention span and decline in empathy."
Professor Greenfield points to her native England where the number of prescriptions for ADHD has trebled in the past decade.
It is unclear what has driven the rise - it could be that doctors are being more liberal with prescriptions or increased awareness of the condition, or its higher prevalence. Whether there is a link between time spent with screens and the condition is also unclear. But, she argues, this is evidence enough of the need for more research.
''There should be more money for research into why games are addictive, what mental processes are being tapped into … There should be development with neuroscientists and software writers on how to deliver experiences and the kind of talents that we think might be in jeopardy.''
While we are born with pretty much all the neurons we will ever have, the growth of the human brain revolves around the way connections are made between brain cells.
In Australia to deliver the annual Florey lecture, at the University of Adelaide this evening, Professor Greenfield argues the ''yuck and wow'' scenario of the internet - ''where you live in the short-term world where you have immediate reactions to things that flash up in your face and bombard your ears'' - might drive brain connections and brain cell circuitry in a way that shortens the attention span.
''It's wonderful that we might have high IQs, not be risk-averse, have good short-term memories … but in a sense we're turning ourselves into efficient computers,'' the professor of pharmacology said.
''But what we do that computers don't do is be very creative and have insights. I would be very sad if the next generation wasn't given the opportunity to do those things.'
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/screening-out-the-empathy-20100902-14roe.html#ixzz1a0565SGO
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/screening-out-the-empathy-20100902-14roe.html#ixzz1a04lkq1s
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Research into Processing software
After Paul's talk at the workshop I downloaded Processing. I looked through examples on the web and in the software itself I found some very interesting ones that may come in useful for a project. They could be tweeked, joined with other code ect to create something useful for a project. I thought it was a good idea to practice using it now, because if something came up that it could be used for then i would have an idea if it could be done or not.
Here are some screenshots of examples of what it can do..
This one adjusts the brightness where the mouse is and lights up that part of an image
Here you can use the scroll bar to move the image
position
I thought this was a cool way of displaying text
This was in the drawing category, it would draw circles depending on where the mouse is and its speed
I loved this one, you move the cursor to the word tickle and it jitters and moves away from you.
I think processing would be useful for doing a project with human interactivity, it seems simple to use and there are a lot of existing libraries and examples to work from.
Here are some screenshots of examples of what it can do..
This one adjusts the brightness where the mouse is and lights up that part of an image
Here you can use the scroll bar to move the image
position
I thought this was a cool way of displaying text
This was in the drawing category, it would draw circles depending on where the mouse is and its speed
I loved this one, you move the cursor to the word tickle and it jitters and moves away from you.I think processing would be useful for doing a project with human interactivity, it seems simple to use and there are a lot of existing libraries and examples to work from.
Research into audio
I am interested in audio and especially in audio visualisation. So I looked through you tube videos, tutorials and also looked into how to create visualization effects in flash, processing and after effects.
Here are some screenshots and links of ones I liked on you tube
http://youtu.be/Yd3hzYAJzOo
I made an equalizer effect in flash using actionscript
I also looked into using the processing software to visualize audio and i found some interesting existing libraries and examples.
http://code.compartmental.net/tools/minim/
http://code.compartmental.net/category/sound-bytes/
Here are some screenshots and links of ones I liked on you tube
http://youtu.be/Yd3hzYAJzOo
I made an equalizer effect in flash using actionscript
I also looked into using the processing software to visualize audio and i found some interesting existing libraries and examples.
http://code.compartmental.net/tools/minim/
http://code.compartmental.net/category/sound-bytes/
Monday, October 3, 2011
Work shop week 26 - 30 september
The week of the workshop is finished and although there were useful things i learned from it, it did prevent me from doing work i had intended doing on media project. Anyhow here are some things I found interesting from the first talk on Monday:
The Highline In New york. This was cool because it was an unused railway track and they turned it into a kind of garden, its beautiful in contrast with its surroundings. It was a great way to make use of the space.
The Hand From Above.
Interactive Architecture.
I also learned more about Arduino that may come in handy for media project, what you need for it and resources. I found these mentioned projects interesting, the hanging garden project and high speed photography. I love the hanging garden project I suppose it appealed to me because i have a huge interest in nature. The hanging garden project is a way of using sensors to let you know when to water your plants by turning on little lights, it also just looks lovely.
I learned about Processing, a software which is completely new to me. I saw how it can be used for motion sensing and other cool things so I downloaded it myself and I would also consider looking into this technology for media project. Another thing I learned about was QR codes which I think have a lot of potential for use in media project. Below is a the image I created at the workshop which is the logo of our project idea and an example of a QR code in it which would be used to inform about and promote the project.
Working with teams and people from different disiplines was good experience also, and I made some new friends.
The Highline In New york. This was cool because it was an unused railway track and they turned it into a kind of garden, its beautiful in contrast with its surroundings. It was a great way to make use of the space.
The Hand From Above.Interactive Architecture.
I also learned more about Arduino that may come in handy for media project, what you need for it and resources. I found these mentioned projects interesting, the hanging garden project and high speed photography. I love the hanging garden project I suppose it appealed to me because i have a huge interest in nature. The hanging garden project is a way of using sensors to let you know when to water your plants by turning on little lights, it also just looks lovely.
I learned about Processing, a software which is completely new to me. I saw how it can be used for motion sensing and other cool things so I downloaded it myself and I would also consider looking into this technology for media project. Another thing I learned about was QR codes which I think have a lot of potential for use in media project. Below is a the image I created at the workshop which is the logo of our project idea and an example of a QR code in it which would be used to inform about and promote the project.
Working with teams and people from different disiplines was good experience also, and I made some new friends.
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