MathOMatic Blocks: An Automated, Tactile, Interactive Method of Teaching Mathematics to Blind Students in the K-12 Environment

Learning mathematics has always been a daunting task for the visually impaired student. For the most part, a task that restricted their entry into careers based on the reading and writing of mathematical equations. There have been some notable exceptions, but for the most part education in the domains of math, physics, computer science and engineering have been beyond the grasp of blind students. In the current work, we discuss the basic poroblems associated with learning mathematcics and discuss possible solutions to the problem

Designing Playful Systems

Play is a common, yet elusive phenomenon. Many definitions of play and explanations for its existence have been brought forward in various disciplines such as psychology, anthropology, ethology and in the humanities. As an activity apparently serving no other purpose than itself, play can be simply considered a pleasant pastime. Yet its equation with fun has been challenged by artists and scholars alike. Being in a playful state does not warrant extrinsic motivation or being conscious of an external purpose. However, play creates meaning, and scientists are pursuing functional explanations for it. These conflicting observations are contributing to the ambiguity of play and they raise questions about the limits of complexity that present discourses are able to reflect. This thesis presents a comprehensive, transdisciplinary approach to describe and understand play, based on systems-theory, constructivism, cybernetics and practical exploration. Observing play in this way involves theoretical analysis, reflection and critique as well as the practice of design, development and artistic exposition. By constructing, re-contextualising and discussing eight of my own projects, I explore the distinction between theory and practice through which playful systems emerge. Central to my methodology is the concept of distinctions as a fundamental method of observation. It is introduced itself as a distinction and then applied throughout, in order to describe and discuss phenomena of play from a wide range of different perspectives. This includes paradoxical, first-person and conflicting accounts and it enables discourses that cross disciplinary boundaries. In summary, the three interrelated contributions to knowledge in my research project are: I contribute to the emerging field of game studies through a comprehensive systems-theoretical description on play. I also provide a methodology in which theory and practice inform each other through mutual observation, construction, reflection and critical evaluation. Finally, I present eight projects, including a playful system developed in a speculative approach that I call anthroponeutral design. These results represent a novel transdisciplinary perspective on play that offers new opportunities for further research

Software Usability

This volume delivers a collection of high-quality contributions to help broaden developers’ and non-developers’ minds alike when it comes to considering software usability. It presents novel research and experiences and disseminates new ideas accessible to people who might not be software makers but who are undoubtedly software users

Rulemaking as Play: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry about Virtual Worldmaking

In the age of computing, we rely on software to manage our days, from the moment we wake up until we go to sleep. Software predicts the future based on actualized data from the past. It produces procedures instead of experiences and solutions instead of care. Software systems tend to perpetuate a normalized state of equilibrium. Their application in social media, predictive policing, and social profiling is increasingly erasing diversity in culture and identity. Our immediate reality is narrowing towards cultural conventions shared among the powerful few, whose voices directly influence contemporary digital culture. On the other hand, computational collective intelligence can sometimes generate emergent forces to counter this tendency and force software systems to open up. Historically, artists from different artistic moments have adopted collaborative making to redefine the boundary of creative expression. Video Gaming, especially open-world simulation games, is rapidly being adopted as an emerging form of communication, expression, and self-organization. How can gaming conventions such as Narrative Emergence, Hacking, and Modding help us understand collective play as countering forces against the systematic tendency of normalization? How can people from diverse backgrounds come together to contemplate, make, and simulate rules and conditions for an alternative virtual world? What does it mean to design and virtually inhabit a world where rules are rewritten continuously by everyone, and no one is in control

Thinking about thinking aloud : an investigation of think-aloud methods in usability testing

In website design and engineering, the term “usability” describes how easy a website or interface is to use. As the Internet continues to grow exponentially, with millions of websites vying for users’ attention, usability has become a critical factor determining whether a website will survive or fail. If websites are not sufficiently usable, users will simply abandon them in favour of alternatives that better cater to their needs. It is therefore crucial that designers employ effective evaluation methods in order to assess usability and improve user interface design. One of the most widely used methods of evaluating the usability of websites is the Thinking Aloud protocol, wherein users are encouraged to verbalise their experiences, thoughts, actions, and feelings whilst interacting with the design. This provides direct insight into the cognitive processes employed by users—knowledge which can then inform strategies to improve usability. However, despite the common usage of Thinking Aloud protocol in the field, the specific think-aloud procedures employed vary widely among usability professionals. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the utility and validity of the different variations of think-aloud usability testing methods. To this end, three empirical studies were conducted, using library websites, to compare the practical benefits of the various methods. The studies measured five points of comparison: overall task performance, the experiences of the test participants, the quantity and quality of usability problems discovered, the costs of employing the method in question, and the relationship between sample size and the number of problems detected. Study One examined three classic think-aloud methods: concurrent think-aloud, retrospective think-aloud, and a hybrid method. The results revealed that the concurrent method outperformed both the retrospective method and the hybrid method in facilitating successful usability testing. It detected higher numbers of usability problems than the retrospective method, and produced output comparable to that of the hybrid method. The method received average to positive ratings from its users, and no reactivity (a potential issue wherein the act of verbalising the cognitive process alters that process) was observed. In addition, this method required much less time on the evaluator’s part than did the other two methods, which involved double the testing and analysis time. Lastly, in terms of the relationship between the sample size and the number of problems discovered, the concurrent and the hybrid methods showed similar patterns, and both outperformed the retrospective method in this regard. Study Two compared the performance of the classic concurrent think-aloud method with two variations on this method in which the evaluator plays a more active role—namely, the active intervention method and the speech-communication method. The results showed that these three methods enabled the identification of a similar number of usability problems and types, and showed similar patterns with regard to the relationship between the sample size and the number of problems discovered. However, the active intervention method was found to cause some reactivity, modifying participants’ interactions with the interface, and negatively affecting their feelings towards the evaluator. The active intervention method also required much greater investment than did the other two methods, both in terms of evaluators' time, and, it was estimated, in financial terms. Study Three compared the classic concurrent think-aloud method with the co-participation method, wherein a pair of participants work together to perform their tasks, and verbalise their processes as they interact with the interface and with one another. This study found no difference between the methods in terms of task performance. However, the co-participation method was evaluated more positively by users in comparison with the classic method. It led to the detection of more minor usability problems, and performed better in terms of the relationship between the sample size and the number of problems detected. The co-participation method was, however, found to require a greater investment of time on the part of the evaluato

Making Inaudible Forces Audible: Thinking Through Deleuze's Expressionism Towards an Ethics of Imperceptibility as Exemplified in C21st Sonic Art

This thesis is about encounters with the experimental sonic arts—be that with ‘experimental’ styles of music or non-musical forms of sound art—and how those disorienting, ungrounding experiences expose the shortcomings of the ideas we habitually hold about ourselves. Intersecting with conceptually diverse claims in cultural geography that dispel the image of the human individual as something altogether separable from the wider processes of the social, material world, my intervention, following Gilles Deleuze and Baruch Spinoza, is to argue that how we as humans generally perceive the world proves an inadequate frame of reference for understanding it. The thesis proposes an expressionistic style of thought that operates beyond humanist frames of apprehension and that therefore inevitably unsettles the self-evidence of what we know of ourselves. The thesis proceeds in relays between encounters with the sonic arts and theoretical abstraction in an attempt to think expressionistically about human experience in three registers: desire, temporality, and incorporeality. Working through these registers, the thesis extends outwards from a core problem of ‘inadequate ideas’ that I take from Deleuze and Spinoza, finding resources in the work of Henri Bergson and Félix Guattari that allow me to extract different ideas about what it is to be human today from encounters with performances, recordings and installations. In bringing to expression imperceptible forces that animate our thoughts and actions—whether that be our passional impressionability, the unthought memory circuits that entrain us, or the immaterial universes of reference that orient us in the world—the thesis advocates for a style of thinking that is unapologetic in its challenge to the humanist conceits of social scientific research. Moreover, in aiming beyond the foreclosures of thought effectuated by inadequate ideas, the thesis makes the claim that thinking differently is an ethical task revolving around careful attention to the life force of ideas: how thinking differently about the beings we are produces different ways of going on in the world