Week 7 is officially done! Tonight in class we wrapped up the book, "A whole new mind" by Daniel Pink I believe. Each of the groups briefly discussed each chapter we're assigned to read and presented our findings in class. All teams did a great job on presenting their material and I have to confess that I did not finish the book; however, after tonight I have a peak interest in finishing the book, maybe not this semester, but I will try and finish it in the near future.
Final project will be assign soon and this semester has been going somewhat quick, which I like very much. Okay, don't want to make this blog too long, gotta write some more later.
Here is an example of an object that I thought has some flaws to it. This is a Yamaha electronic 88-keys keyboard.
From a visibility point of view, it has buttons that look like a button you can press, knobs that look like a knob you can turn, so in that perspective, it was fine.
The affordances was fine too given there are piano keys that I can afford to press with leisure.
Mappings were fine with the same reasons from visibility and affordances.
This keyboard looks like it can do a lot of things beside playing the keyboard like pressing the keys and make music. It looks like the keyboard was designed to do multitude of things; however, the only thing I know how to do is turn on the keyboard and play a song. I wanted to do more with it but it just have way too many buttons and functions that I don't have the time to learn it. As Dan Norman's book have mentioned, as functionality increases in an object, it also increases complexities and frustration.
In addition to that, there is a graphical interface in the center to tell me what instrument I am currently playing and etc, but the problem is that there is lack of feedback from the object. For example, when I press something that I cannot do, the interface does not tell me I am doing something wrong, it just doesn't do anything. I'm not sure that's a good thing in my case because I would like some sort of feedback.
The instructions on the panel tells me what types of instrument refers to what number; however, it does not tell me how I can select them.
In conclusion, I think this keyboard is finely built; however, I think they can improve upon their design just a little bit more. I have always been a Yamaha fans when it comes to piano and keyboards and still am.
Wow, I can't believe it, but week 6 is done, and 10 more weeks to go.
I can really feel the pressure now with 6 classes and working 40 hours. But I think it's all worth it if I can get my credential by the end of next semester.
So far, this class has been most interesting and the selection of text are easy read such as the text we are reading, "A Whole New Mind", which talks about how left-brained people are no longer enough, we need people to start using and appreciating the right-brain to suffice our life and work style.
Tonight, we discussed about the concept of storytelling where people tend to be more interested in stories than just raw facts. And also that most stories comes from the "Hero's Journey" template, where the hero goes through an initiation, challenge, and then the return of the hero.
Then we discussed about "Symphony", where we need people that can facilitate things such as the boundary crosser, the inventor, and the metaphor maker.
I don't want to make this blog too long, so for the time being, I will end this here.
