Due to CHI + internship travel, and then some family care yesterday, today was the first opportunity I had to see any capstone projects. On the docket were five HCI-ers, including Adam Knoll whose capstone was a year delayed. Projects ranged from chat in WoW to sports schedule visualizations.
MyColts looking for Beta users
Just into beta as of May 9, the MyColts.net project is trying to capture the power of social networking sites for the specific niche of Indianapolis Colts fans. Pat Coyle’s blog has chronicled the few other sports franchises and leagues attempting similar releases, but this is trailblazing stuff for the NFL. Pat is currently seeking beta testers for the new site.
Bad Mommy, Frozen Watermelon and Privacy
Carter wants his watermelon back in the freezer. Kevin wants to tell me about his project. I want to get through these tasks without injury. Seems easy, doesn’t it?
Me: (Open freezer. Stick out arm to catch bottle of frozen cranberry juice falling on my head.) I’ll get it Carter, just give me a minute.
Carter: (Standing [...]
MyBlogLog
I joined MyBlogLog back in February, probably as part of my exploration of Dandelife and similar social networking applications. I didn’t do anything more than register and upload an avatar, but my projects with Kosmix have led me back to this community. My main interest now is in how blog neighborhoods are presented, and how associations with other communities might be strengthened through a bridging tool like MyBlogLog. We’ll revisit this at the end of the summer, after the widgets have been planted. For now, there’s some configuration to be done.
On Aging
Carter’s watching Night at the Museum, a mother’s day gift I opened this morning, and notices Dick Van Dyke.
Carter: Wow. Archie, this is Dick Van Dyke. He’s wearing a very clever disguise. If you close your eyes, you can tell it’s the same Dick Van Dyke that invented Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
It’s amazing how a [...]
LineBuzz
Thanks to a recent snipperoo post, I discovered LineBuzz, an inline commenting widget. With some help, LineBuzz is now integrated with BlogSchmog. The strengths of this concept of contextual commenting include making discussion relevant, posts more potent, and as a means of content discovery.
Comicboarding
One of my favorite CHI 2007 papers was one on comicboarding, a participatory design technique that uses panels of comic book stories as a way to engage children in brainstorming. The presentation by Jason Li and Neeman Moraveji (Microsoft Research) was a creative mashup of several HCI activities. This is a great adaptation of design inquiry techniques that aims at being more inclusive in the process of participatory design.