The Statistical Graph of stock prices located on pg. 15 is a great example of information over kill to the point of illegibility.  The way the graph is set up from left to bottom is correct.  The info on the right how ever creates confusion in determining which place and data the graph is personifying.  The place and radiation is already personified by the lines on the chart but what becomes confusing is the numbers on the right, then the places written on the side as the identifier.  What should have been written on the side by the numbers was radiation levels as an identifier.

Absolutely design wise McDonald’s golden arches always stuck out in my mind.  When i was a kid, when ever I saw those arches with red and gold, a sensation of hunger filled my very being.  If there were ever a disclaimer like there is today (fast food will make you fat, or the forced implementation of calorie count to be displayed) as a child it would have been ignored but as an adult and parent I’m forced to take into consideration the effects of fast food due to the law suits of recent times.

How can we shrink time when a user interacts with an interface? We can shrink the time a user interacts with an interface by making the entire experience seamless. That means cutting out loading and organizing everything so the user can find things they want easily

What do you think about letting a machine make choices for you? What is one way you’ve figured out how to save time? I personally don’t like machines making choice for me because I don’t want them to figure out how to kill me. All jokes aside I have a big problem with google search putting you in a information bubble. To save time I usually anticipate things in advance and do them ahead of time.

These are our sketches of what we would want our app to look like

How can we shrink time when a user interacts with an interface?

We can shrink the time by improving the navigation time used to get to the specific content the user wants. one example is the iPod. You can access your favorite songs with the touch of one button. There is no need to scroll through anything.

What do you think about letting a machine make choices for you?

I have no problem with a machine making choices for me if it only made small choices, or those that I consider to be everyday choices. I would not be able to let a machine make a choice that would affect me on a larger scale, like a life or death decision.

What is one way you’ve figured out how to save time?

One way I feel I save time is by doing something while traveling from one place to another. I feel I get stuff done when I do reading for school while riding the train to and from school.

Back in the bad old days when computers took a long time to load and you had to be a computer programer to understand what was happening, waiting on things was a norm. In fact programs were written to use less memory. Today we don’t really care as much about how much memory programs take simply because we have more processing power. Its funny that even thought we have more processing power we started messing up with how users would use the device. The user interface is something that is reality simple to make, compared to all the back end stuff but its also the simplest to mess up simple because people interact with things differently. The easiest way to shrink the time a user interacts with an interface would to have less options while still get the user from point A to point B. Having a machine make choices for a user would help the process go by faster only if the user knew what the computer was gonna do otherwise it will just result in frustration of the user. When I use to listen to music on my old phone, I would have to unlock it in order to switch songs. On my new phone I just have to turn on the screen and i am able to switch the song without unlocking my phone.

Interestingly enough the authors analogy of waiting for a web page to load, is comparable to road rage. Which leads me in my own frustration with use of the internet. So much so I’m coining the phrase Cyber-Rage. Pretty much its occurrence from slow uploading/downloading speeds leads me to want to verbally and physically attack this inanimate/inorganic machine, of which half of my day is spent on.  I agree that in today’s world time is definitely more precious than money.  This need for efficiency has a great influence on how we create technology.  For example last night I downloaded an new app for my android phone called Dolphin Companion.  This app in short saves battery life on mobile phones and or tablets.  The major complaints today for cell phones is battery life (time used).  It turns out the app was a file management application that took control of my settings and preference and catered them around my usage as to increase my efficiency and power by 30%.  As much as I’m grateful for this app app there are other app that do more than whats required.  for example when you download an app by accepting the terms your agreeing to expose location, caller info personal data etc.  Especially file management apps send your data back to corporations.  This is unacceptable and dangerous for as time is expensive, so is information.  Identity theft is not only on a rise but is happening to large corporations gathering your info from these apps and company security being breached.  Our impatience and laziness as a society cost us more when our identities are stolen. In my own experience in the corporate arena I found that the best way in dealing with waiting examples of internet usage was simply time management by means of multitasking my assignments.  Instead of allowing idle time to pass while waiting for uploads/downloads I revert my energy to another task ergo alleviating my frustration.  Or I would pass the buck to someone else as it has been pass to me.  I call this the circle of laziness.  The article stated for manufacturing technology to shrink time by saving time or staying in line with the flow of time which ever cost less to implement wins.

John Maeda “TIME”

After reading the article by John Maeda, I must agree with him, that we spend a lot of time waiting. I think a way of saving time would applied to school. As we all know many students go to school to get a degree in what they hope to have a career in the future. Yet the school system seems to be wasting our time and our money with certain classes that have nothing to do with it. For example, if a student is majoring in graphic design, why would he or she need to take astronomy class as a requirement before they can graduate? I think it would save students a lot of time in school if they can just take classes majoring in their field and actually have them work on projects that are current in the real world. I think hands on experience is better than just having student read from a book and take test.

We got pages laid out, and pieced together a logo. We also drafted a couple of graphics for the interface. Not visible in the diagrams: There will be a bar at the bottom with Back and Forward buttons. The logo will be at the top of the page as a transparent/faded background.

Here’s everything!

How can we shrink time when a user interacts with an interface?

I am not sure this is good example or not but this reminds me of easter egg of new version of youtube player. When we are waiting for loading video, there is a spinning white dot icon. While its spinning, user can play worm game by pressing arrow keys (white dot becomes a worm). Sometimes loading is very long. Then, this cute game can shrink user’s time efficiently.

What do you think about letting a machine make choices for you?

It was mentioned the iPod shuffle in this reading as an example of machine make choice for users. I personally am getting familiar with letting machine make choice for me in everyday life. For instance, I usually set my playlist randomly, so that my mp3 player can select random song for me. But that is not completely random because there is option such as, ‘random in recently added songs’ or ‘random in favorite songs’ so I can make a range of random songs. I think this is similar to the example of ‘Amazon.com’s recommendation search’ in the reading. I am much more comfortable with these computer’s choice things nowadays as computer’s getting smarter.

What is one way you’ve figured out how to save time?

I know this sounds silly but I used to set my clock 10 minutes earlier than actual time so that I could do all things 10 minutes earlier. This worked a few days =) Also I always try to make a list that I finished already / have done so far / what I have to do things like that so that I can see whole picture of procedure. I think it is helpful to save time.