Tobias Toft

The second part of our GUI class was about interactive data visualisation. Again, we had an outstanding external teacher: Shawn Allen from Stamen Design in San Francisco. Along with Shawn we also had our own CIID genious David Mellis to help us with the ActionScript3 programming. We started using FlexBuilder, but quickly realised that it would be easier for the beginners to start using Flash as the environment instead. I already knew a bit of AS3 and Flash, so for me the two weeks were about upgrading my skills in this field, staying in the context of data visualisation.

We started using XML data from UN Data, which is an enormous source of information on almost anything. I started digging into data about alcohol consumption per capita for a wide range of countries, and came up with a small application that will let you filter, sort and highlight countries based on either country name or consumption. The app is just a quick one, so it’s probably buggy and hard to use, but at least I got around handling XML data in Flash. Click the screenshot below, to try the application.

Screenshot of the data visualisation of alcohol consumption per capita

 The second week, I started exploring other data formats than XML. I went with a set of datafiles in CSV-format from the Danish Statistics Bank. Here the main task was to parse and combine different files into one dataset, so that I could use it for a visualisation. The data i worked with, was about the number of fatal bike accidents in Denmark for the last ten years. Actually I was surprised to see how relatively low the numbers were, compared to the amount of cyclists here in the country. Again, usability was not my main focus, and I know there could be done a lot in this field, so please bear with me. Here my main focus lied in using layout organizers, which is why you will find three buttons, each representing a different layout.

Screenshot from the data visualisation of bike accidents. Beware of the bugs!

Click the part of Denmark you want to see the statistics for, and you will get a graphical representation of the fatal accidents. Red bikes are women, black are men. Mouse over a bike to see limited details on the accident.

Btw: For some reason the swf runs fine in the external Flash player, but acts a bit strange in the embedded browser player. Do you know why?

After having spent time with the elderly, we started thinking in concepts that could improve the life of the elderly. We had the honour of having Niels Clausen-Stuck as guest teacher for the first two weeks of our GUI design module, where he, along with Alex from CIID, helped us through the whole design process. A process looking a lot like the good old ISO13407 which I am quite familiar with after having studied product development at DTU for 5 years. Well, this post is not going to be about design processes (though it’s a topic that I’m very interested in).

After having visited the elderly, we found out that they are no longer interested in creating and sharing new memories, they are more interested in re-living old memories, with people that can help them filling in the gaps and completing their stories from the past. But it’s not always easy to find people at your own age that you can actually do this with, as almost 85% of the residents on the old folks homes have dementia to some degree. And as the course was about graphical user interfaces, we also had to create some kind of device. After lots of thinking and another visit to Plejehjemmet Aftensol, we decided to develop a “time machine”. Well, not a time machine in the traditional sense, but at least something that would help you think back in time.

We decided to build a radio, that could go back in time. Instead of having a frequency scale, this radio has a time scale. Turn the knob back to the year you would like to get refreshed, and the radio will start playing content from that period. If you only want to listen to specific types of content, there is a knob for selecting that, e.g. news, radio-theater or classical music. I won’t go into the details of the UI, but we put a lot of thought into arranging the buttons and the graphical layout of the screen, to be as intuitive as possible. As this mock-up was developed in the second iteration, it is still very early – unfortunately we didn’t have time to take it to the elderly to evaluate it.

Technically speaking the radio is just a device with a wifi connection, and access to digitalised radio archives, e.g. from Danmarks Radio or BBC. The interface is kept “old-fashioned” on purpose, to keep a higher level of familiarity to the user. Our philosophy was, that this concept is a radio and therefore it should look and feel like a radio. Not a computer or streaming mp3-player.

Electronics-wise the mock-up (or hardware sketch) was built using Flash, Arduino (+ potmeters), a hacked Nokia speaker and an Asus Eee 901, all put into a cabinet covered with sheets of paper with a wood texture printed on them. The picture below is showing the radio when it’s not covered by the fake table.

In general the GUI class resulted in some really nice models, considering we had very short time for the projects. Take a look at some of the other mock-ups in my Flickr photostream. If you don’t want to go to Flickr, the photos from the exhibition (and some from the process) can also be found here.

I’ve been quite busy for the last month or so, meaning that I have neglected my blog. Again. But hey, now it’s christmas and I’ve got loads of spare time for updating this blog. I guess I should get started then, but first – a little song.

This time it’s “Really wanna be in LA” by Eagles of Death Metal, one of my favourite bands (just listen to that Josh Homme-ish guitar!). There are two versions of the video for this song, a “normal” one with some fancy graphics, and then this one with the pins. Being a geeky engineering-student I picked the pins-version

This summer I visited the Citromuseum in Castellane in France, because I had heard that it had one of the most complete collections of old Citroëns in the world. It was a fantastic experience, that I can strongly recommend anybody with a passion for beautiful french cars. These are some of the pics I took there. If you decide to go, you should know that there is very low light in the exhibition space. I took these photos with the cheap, but surprisingly well-performing 50 mm f/1.8 Canon EF lens and no flash. Feel free to use them as you like.

Why don’t we have tv like this in Denmark? Warning: The song will stick in your mind.

No mom and dad, I’m not referring to you. I’m talking about last week’s CIID course, which was about user research. We spent two half days visiting nursing homes in Copenhagen, which was both a very interesting and scary experience. Not that the nursing homes are bad (at least not as bad as the rumors say) what really scared me was to see how sick and tired everybody is at such a home. Especially the people suffering from dementia. I had never experienced people with dementia before, and I must say that it is an illness that is much worse than I thought. Especially for the relatives to the sick person.

Our group (Sara, Nunzia, Sid, Mimi and me) at the nursing home Aftensol, interviewing the manager. Unfortunately Mimi is hidden behind Sid.

After having visited the homes, we spent the rest of the time analysing and interpreting the data we collected. My group came to an interesting conclusion (among others); that the meaning of friendship changes over time. By that we mean, that when people are young(er) we get friends to socialise with and among other things create and share new experiences with. When you get old enough to move into a nursing home, you know that your life is probably soon to end. You stop looking for new friends in the “traditional” sense and instead you start reflecting over your life and the experiences you had. Instead of having friends to create new experiences and memories with, you need friends to re-live the past with. The carers and families can come listen to the stories from the past while you re-tell them, but it is not the same as talking to someone that actually remembers the past and can help you completing your stories and memories. Fill out the gaps, so to speak.

This was a very quick and superficial description, but essentially the point all my jabbering is that elderly people need empathy instead of only sympathy. They also need sympathy from family and carers, but empathy is even more important. But how do we facilitate that, when up to 85% of the residents in the nursing homes are suffering from dementia? That’s what the next couple of weeks will bring.

I didn’t take any pictures last week, so I’ve posted one that our supervisor Oren Horev from ReD Associates took of our group instead.

It’s been a long time. I know. To make it up to you, I promise to write two posts today. One about the progress at CIID, and then this one. So what will this post contain? Lots of awesomeness! Not in the sense of great writing or the recipe for the world’s best cookies, no. That’s too boring. Instead I will post a YouTube video by The Hives, it’s the song “Won’t be long” and it is just one of many many extremely cool songs by The Hives. Enjoy! I will.