Developing Usable Experiences

Using switches for logic

September 26th, 2010 5:25 pm —  3 views

I recently went to Gaylord in northern Michigan to install operatory computers and a wireless network in a dental office to enable the use of a network based digital radiography scanner. Sounds cool and it was. It allows them to take an xray of your mouth and in minutes have the image presented on a screen next to the doctor.

The next day, after eating breakfast at Diana’s Delight in downtown Gaylord, we were walking back to our car and came upon this statue of Claude Shannon. My friend tells me this guy is known as the “father of information” because of his theories.

So here I am, a couple weeks from that weekend and I remember to look up who the guy was and what he did. I realize after reading about the man and his work, that his theories had a hand in empowering you to be reading this.

This guy showed that decisions could be made using combinations of simple switches. In other words, using off/on states to control the flow of electricity allows for the construction of basic AND and OR gates. Logical decision making and problem resolution involves a combination of AND and OR decisions.

The Wikipedia page for Claude Shannon describes the importance of what Claude Shannon did as, ”Exploiting this property of electrical switches to do logic is the basic concept that underlies all electronic digital computers.”

If Douglas Englebart is the father of human-computer interaction, then this guy might be the grandfather.

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It started with the cider mill

September 23rd, 2010 9:35 pm —  43 views

During a recent visit from W’s Aunt and Uncle, we went to our local cider mill for donuts, caramel apples, and cider. I could hear the apple grinding machine so went around the side where you could go into the lower part of the building and watch them catching and wrapping ground apples. Then the slow pressing (upwards) of the apples while apple juice gushed. It made me remember four years past when I was back there talking with the owner, taking pictures, pursuing a naive idea for my first paper submitted in graduate school.

Four years ago I visited the cider mill doing research for the first paper due in a class on social systems and collections. I found the actual paper, last edited on September 27, 2006. Seems like I got a pretty bad grade. I still have the actual paper handed in. It’s funny to think, but in 2006 I was handing in papers. By spring of 2010, every paper I submitted online as a PDF and received my grade the same way.

Over the last week I’ve been preparing my office area for a new piece of exercise equipment. My doctor says, if you want to live a happy and healthy life, to get more exercise. First it meant doing some preparatory cleaning and throwing away of All The Things.

Some of what went in the trash today were rolls of paper filled with hundreds of sticky notes. Our affinity diagram from a class project that first semester in fall 2006. A wall of paper with observations abstracted from interviews arranged by likeness for purposes of identifying areas of concentration. A great way to understand a situation before introducing suggestions for change. I have not done an affinity diagram since. I’ve wanted to but there is rarely time to do it even half right.

Some of what did not go in the trash today were my notes and notebooks from my degree at Central and notes and notebooks from the first two years at Michigan. They are now grouped with all the textbooks and study guides used throughout my schooling. And somewhere is a box filled with the hundreds of printed reading assignments. If only the iPad had been around.

Image: Taken with my iPhone using the Hipstamatic app. The cider mill smells of baked donuts and apples. The Huron river flows wide behind it.

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