Wyatt's Week 6 Commentary

We don't have time. That is really what it comes down to. There is so much that we can look into while observing how people study. This Becomes more evident with every single new model or every set of Affinity Notes. It's not discouraging, but it is frustrating to know that we only have a few more weeks to make this data into something that can be useful to our fellow students.
This week was a little unorganized for me.
I didn't interview anybody personally. Any time working on the project this week has been spent in group meetings. We are finishing our interpretation sessions and trying to get a handle on the Consolidation process. Just like creating a model for the first time, consolidation is not something we as a group can understand from a simple test description. We are going to need to take the time to get our hands dirty and feel the process out. I see now why Professor Hollan was saying that design is not an algorithm that CAN or even SHOULD be done step by step. The Bulk of our Project so far has been more concentrated on making sense of the analysis process and less on the purpose of our study. I was sure of this in our meeting earlier today when one of the interview produced a very shallow Flow and Culture model. Also we always spend a lot of time discussing the proper way to go through a procedure. I don't mean for my observations to sound negative. I feel like this is what we should be doing. If I can walk away from this class with a proper understanding of the procedure that the book is explaining then i think I will have accomplished something important.
Regardless I want our study to mean something if I can. The reason that I became interested in design was to improve these sort of systems. Ubiquitous Presenter still has a lot of potential, and I can help but get rapped up in the idea of using other systems to improve how lectures are done. The use of things like Digital Pens and Read-Wear could really make an Online study data base a useful tool.
I'm going to spend as much time as i can this week going over the student to instructor relationship to try and find the most appropriate and usable areas of this communication. As We discussed today we cannot assume that Instructors or students will use our system unless it appeals to both of them. This is for the most part going to determine if our designs will effect system use.