An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities

The crustal dynamics intelligent user interface anthology

The National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) has initiated an Intelligent Data Management (IDM) research effort which has, as one of its components, the development of an Intelligent User Interface (IUI). The intent of the IUI is to develop a friendly and intelligent user interface service based on expert systems and natural language processing technologies. The purpose of such a service is to support the large number of potential scientific and engineering users that have need of space and land-related research and technical data, but have little or no experience in query languages or understanding of the information content or architecture of the databases of interest. This document presents the design concepts, development approach and evaluation of the performance of a prototype IUI system for the Crustal Dynamics Project Database, which was developed using a microcomputer-based expert system tool (M. 1), the natural language query processor THEMIS, and the graphics software system GSS. The IUI design is based on a multiple view representation of a database from both the user and database perspective, with intelligent processes to translate between the views

LLM-Powered Conversational Voice Assistants: Interaction Patterns, Opportunities, Challenges, and Design Guidelines

Conventional Voice Assistants (VAs) rely on traditional language models to discern user intent and respond to their queries, leading to interactions that often lack a broader contextual understanding, an area in which Large Language Models (LLMs) excel. However, current LLMs are largely designed for text-based interactions, thus making it unclear how user interactions will evolve if their modality is changed to voice. In this work, we investigate whether LLMs can enrich VA interactions via an exploratory study with participants (N=20) using a ChatGPT-powered VA for three scenarios (medical self-diagnosis, creative planning, and debate) with varied constraints, stakes, and objectivity. We observe that LLM-powered VA elicits richer interaction patterns that vary across tasks, showing its versatility. Notably, LLMs absorb the majority of VA intent recognition failures. We additionally discuss the potential of harnessing LLMs for more resilient and fluid user-VA interactions and provide design guidelines for tailoring LLMs for voice assistance

Safety-driven system engineering process

Thesis (S. M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2008.MIT Barker Library copy: leaves 82 to 106 bound upside-down.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-59).As the demand for high-performing complex systems has increased, the ability of engineers to meet that demand has not kept pace. The creators of the traditional system engineering processes did not anticipate modern complex systems, and the application of traditional processes to complex systems such as spacecraft has repeatedly led to disastrous results. Too often, system safety is considered late in the design process, after much of the design is set. This thesis presents an iterative safety-driven system engineering process to address this problem. The process integrates safety into the design process, ensuring that safety is designed into the system, rather than added on. The techniques used in this process are: I) Intent Specifications, a framework for organizing system development and operational information in a hierarchical structure; 2) the System-Theoretic Accident Modeling and Processes (STAMP) model of accident causation, a framework upon which to base powerful safety engineering techniques; 3) STAMP-based Hazard Analysis (STPA) a novel hazard analysis technique; and 4) SpecTRM-Requirements Language (SpecTRM-RL), a formal modeling language. Intent Specification is used to document the design with complete traceability from system goals, requirements, and constraints to the operational design and software code. The STAMP framework is used to apply concepts from control theory to system engineering. STPA is used to identify hazards and eliminate them or mitigate their effects to ensure a safe system design. Finally, SpecTRM-RL is used to create the blackbox behavior models. An example of this process applied to an outer moon exploration mission is presented (in the form of an intent specification) and discussed. The specification focuses on the design of the control system and functionality of the scientific instruments, while also including a high-level design of the entire spacecraft. The application of the process described in this thesis demonstrates that design decisions are safety-driven, and that the results of the hazard analysis are integrated into all aspects of the design.by Margaret Virginia Stringfellow.S.M