By Kati London (November 22, 2008) ()

Class Calendar:

» Skip to: next class, April 21

Jan 20: Intro, Overview, and Administrative

Introduction, Class Overview, Activities, Midterm, Final and Assignments.

Jan 27: Persuasive Technology, History, and Implementations. Conflicts with Technology of Transparency.

Assigned Readings #1 Due:

1. Chapters 1-3 in Persuasive Technology (BJ Fogg)
2. Jean Francois Lyotard: System Fantasies: pg 83-95 [link]
3. Steve Talbott : Invisible Tools, Emotionally Supportive Pals, Or…? [link]

Assignments Due: Sunday before class:

• Blog Post: Respond to the Weekly Reading with questions, thoughts, and relevance to your own work.
• Blog Post: Find an instance of yourself being persuaded by technology during this week. Who designed your persuasion? What techniques might have been used? How might you redesign the experience?

In-Class discussion led by: Petra Farinh
Presentation on Persuasive Technology and the Inauguration: Emily Ryan

Feb 3: Exposure, Designers Intent, Design Interventions, and Reverse Engineered Persuasive Technology.

Assigned Readings & Media #2 Due:

1. Exposure:
   • Bill Marston, Wonder Woman, and the origin of the Lie Detector. Read the part in red: “Please believe me when I say Im lying”, the newspaper spread, and text up to the end of page 17.
   • View the first short video in the top right with Paul Ekman and Kato Kaelin. Note: this is the researcher behind Lie to Me.
2. Design Intent:
   • Listen to the Design Intent presentation from Persuasive 2008 by Dan Lockton. Quickly view the posts on Getting Someone to Do Things in a Particular Order, parts [ part 1 – part 2 – part 3 – part 4 ]
   • Quickly review an older presentation of a typical design team and engineers perspective on Design Intent.
3. Design Intervention:
   • Read interview with Mark Hosler on DisPepsi
   • Read post on the redesign of Apple Employee Uniforms, and watch this video. The deep story behind the video is here, but not required.
   • Read NYtimes article on an apartment redesign without owners knowledge.
4. Reverse Engineering PT:
   • Read article on reverse engineering botnets to rebuild a fake botnet (may need to try reloading page a couple times).
   • Review the barbie liberation organization (RTMark) hack.
   • Read techniques for reverse engineering public crowd actions. (login required)

In-Class discussion led by: Sandra Davila

Assignments Due: Sunday before class:

• Blog Post: Short Response to the Weekly Readings and Media with questions, thoughts, and relevance to your own work.
• Blog Post: Questions. Identify an experience which exposed an attempt to persuade you. What technology and techniques were employed to expose the persuasion attempt? How did the persuasion attempt try to disguise its intention, or appeal to you? What is another use of the same techniques you can imagine, real or not?

Feb 10: Guest Speakers & Discussion, Persuasive Technology & Exposure. Projects.

Assigned Readings & Media #3 Due:

Read at least one selection that interests you, and is pertinent to topics we’ve discussed over the last few classes, on each of our guest speakers sites/blogs:

1. Steve Lambert [ Anti-Advertising Agency, Visit Steve ]
2. Mushon Zer-Aviv [Mushon, ShiftSpace, youarenothere]
3. Andrew Schneider [andrewjs, blog, Generative Social Networking]

In-Class discussion led by: David Golan

Assignments Due: Sunday before class:

Use the list of items on this page: technovelgy 1948-1970 for the following:

• Individual Assignments: Select three imaginary or real items from the list above on Technovelgy. Write your weekly blog post on why you chose them, and how they might relate to any of the topics we’ve covered in the last three classes and your work. How might they be implemented using persuasive techniques, and how might exposure affect the implementation?
• Group Assignment: With your group, come up with a new proposal for a new campaign or project to alter attitudes or change behaviors – but you must combine at least one component from each individual’s selections from the technolvelgy list. Present this coherent concept as:
• • a short co-written proposal (1 page or so)
  • a working title
  • one visual to help communicate your idea (photo, diagram, etc)
• Groups: Jill + Filippo , Pev + David Steele-Overholt , Anaid Gomez + Milena, John K + John D, Rodrigo + David Golan, Petra + Sandra + Derek

Feb 20: Ambient Intelligence, Sensor networks, Data POV, Human Communication Protocols, and Ambient Personality Design.

Note: This Class will Meet on Friday, February 20th from 6:30pm to 9pm.

Assigned Readings & Media #4 Due:

note: you must scan all the links for this week, but the entries with a [*] are required.

1. Ambient Intelligence:
   • * Read pages 4-12 (the four scenarios and the executive summary) of an 8 year old EU study on the future of ambient intelligence. What seems dated today, and what seems right?
2. Sensor Networks:
   • Compare two implementers and views on the internet of things and sensor networks:
   • Read about the IPSO Alliance [ Overview ] and [ * FAQ ].
   • Read about Openspime: [ Spime Innovations ] – [ About OpenSpime ] – [ * Internet of Things (and associated tabs on left) ]
3. Data Point of View (POV):
   • * Blogject Manifesto (Julian Bleeker @ nearfuture laboratory)
   • Feral Robots
4. Human Communication Protocols:
   • note: We refer to these generally as technologically mediated human to human communication: talking on the phone vs. video chat, writing, texting, speech, touching, even scent.
   • * Read Norbert Weiner (father of cybernetics) on The mechanism and history of language, pages 74 to 80.
   • * Read Norbert Weiner on Language Confusion and Jam, pages 187-189
   • Robotic Geese
   • Slideshow of an assortment of AnnoyanceTech gadgets, mostly interfering with HCP’s.
5. Ambient Personality Design:
   • Scan abstract on entertainment robots
   • Social Network of Things
   • * SCIAM popsyche synopsis of robot charm school.
   • * Review the history and products of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.
   • Donald Norman on Human Consciousness, Emotion and Personality: read number 5 only
   • Machine voices – only read sections 4 – 5, and watch Blendie
   • Explore Norman Whites – * Helpless Robot. (technical details)
   • scan abstract of Automatic recognition of affective cues in the speech of car drivers to allow appropriate responses
   • Check out WowWee products and their developer labs, mostly mr. personality (review)
   • WoWWee hacked chip head turned actor theatre personality by Steve Lambert here.

In-Class discussion led by: Anaid Gomez + Petra Farinha

Assignments Due: Wednesday Night, 18th of February, before class:

• Blog Post: Respond to the Weekly Readings with questions, thoughts, and relevance to your own work.
• Blog Post: Questions. Find something non-human. If it had a sensor and datastream, what voice, personality, and intention might it have? What might it want to say to us? Would it use voice, text, or another human communication protocol? What would it want for itself? According to whom? If it tried to appeal to us emotionally, what emotion would it appeal to? How might it attempt to disguise itself as ‘human’?

Feb 24: Guest Speaker & Discussion, Ambient Intelligence, Personality, Data POV. Projects.

Guest Speakers:

• Brooke Singer – AIR (by Pre-emptive Media), amongst other work
• James Patten – look at Corporate Fallout Detector
• Josh Klein – Crow Project, you can also check out the short TED talk

In-Class discussion led by: Derek Chung

• * Blog Post: No writing assignments this week!
• * Review the speakers links above, and come prepared with questions!
• * Please also review the Midterm Requirements, and be prepared to discuss your progress, thoughts, and questions.

Mar 3: MIDTERM

• MIDTERM DUE: your midterm papers and presentations are due!
• * Create a 3 – 5 page concept document, and a short slideshow presentation, proposing your final project: you will be giving a 7-10 minute presentation of your proposal during our midterm class.
• * Please review the entire midterm requirements for details about how to format your documents and presentation.
• Josh Klein will be our guest critic.

Mar 7: Designing, Undesigning, and Redesigning Emotions.

*Note: This Class will meet Saturday, March 7th from 3:30pm – 6pm.

Assigned Readings #7 Due: You will all have different assigned readings for this class from the Emotion, by Kalat & Shiota textbook, based on which emotion you sign up for:

* 5 minute in class presentations on your assigned reading sections: (names will be added as your selections come in). Try to choose an area that has relevance for your midterm/final project!

• Fear and Anxiety, pgs 100 – 123 : Petra & Rodrigo
• Anger, pgs 124 – 147 : Derek
• Sadness, pgs 148 – 163 : Jill & David G
  
• Happiness/Joy/Hope/Amusement, pgs 164 – 186 : David SO
• Love, pgs 187 – 211 : John D. & Peter
• Disgust and Contempt, pgs 212 – 225 : Anaid & John K
• Embarrassment/Shame/Guilt/Pride, 226 – 239 : Sandra & Filippo

* Blog Post: Select an emotion. Observe and describe what triggered the emotion for you. Reverse Engineer the trigger for a different emotional outcome.

* In-Class presentation by: Milena Selkirk: The Nature of Emotion (pgs 2-28)

*Interact Application: Select “Basic Functions” on the second drop down, select Actor Emotions and Identity and Object Emotions and Identity, then click “compute solution” for probability of behaviors.

*Are Your Feelings Predictable Questionnaire

Mar 17: BREAK

Enjoy!

Mar 24: Socially Persuasive Technology: Network Effects, Social and Physical MIPS

In-Class discussion led by: John Kuiphoff

Assigned Readings Due: Sunday before class: MIPs Reading

* Blog Post: What is a massively interpersonal network or game you’ve used outside of Facebook? How does your experience relate to the reading?

Mar 31: Guest Speaker & Discussion, Redesigning Emotion. Projects.

Assigned Readings #9 Due
In-Class discussion led by: Filippo Vanucci
Assignments Due: Sunday before class:

* Blog Post: Respond to the Weekly Reading with questions, thoughts, and relevance to your own work.

Apr 7: Guest Speaker & Discussion, Social Persuasion and Games. Projects.

Assigned Readings #10 Due
In-Class discussion led by: Pev
Assignments Due: Sunday before class: check out any games or apps that Peter or Kati suggests. Post some social games that you want to recommend that we check out.

Be prepared to talk about the progress of your project and have questions. You should be testing your design assumptions so you have time to refactor your designs

Apr 14: In the Real World: Implementing and Producing PT Alternatives.

Assigned Readings #11 Due
In-Class discussion led by: Jon Dimatos
Assignments Due: Sunday before class:

* Blog Post: Respond to the Weekly Reading with questions, thoughts, and relevance to your own work.
* Blog Post: What is a public, real-world event you either participated in or avoided participating in that implemented either Persuasive techniques or a Reverse Engineered Persuasive technique? What made it successful or unsuccessful?

Apr 21: The Human vs. The Designed Human, Failures of Technology

Assigned Readings #12 Due
In-Class discussion led by: Jill and Rodrigo
Assignments Due: Sunday before class:

Three short readings, and no blog posts. Just be prepared to discuss the readings in class.

Reading #1: Poem, by Bil Paul, from The Tri-X Chronicles:

do you wonder?

do you really wonder why?

people are as they are?

its because they went through it,

and went through it again and again,

until going through it became their way of life

Reading #2: short excerpt from Friedrich Georg Juenger, 1939: Invasion of Life by the Automaton [excerpt here]

Reading #3: Read short news article on the new breed of Robot Scientists.

* Some questions to focus your thinking about the readings: How are you not a machine or machinelike? How are you designed, or not designed? What is an example of someone assuming you are machinelike? What is an example of something non-human assuming you are human?

Apr 28: Final Presentations & Guest Critics

We will have 10 minutes total for each person that includes presentation and feedback from our guest critics. We will use the class Mac to show all of the presentations – so use Keynote, have something online or have a pdf. You will need to load your presentation file onto the machine before we begin (presenters 1-6 should be here by 9:15am to load on presentations, presenters 7 -13 need to load their presentations onto the machine at the break). Below are guidelines for your presentation

Final Projects Due

1. John K

2. David G

3. Derek C

4. David S-O

5. John SD

6. Anaid

BREAK

7. Petra

8. Milena

9. Jill H

10. Rodrigo

11. Sandra

12. Filippo

13. Peter

Presentations:

Elevator Pitch – A clear sentence that simply answers what you’re doing and why.

Background: Why are you doing this – what’s the problem? Who are you talking to & about?

How are you using persuasion?

Show your project: documentation or demo – think of this as a run through of the show – what do you want people to get?

Wrap Up: Situate the project in a larger context. What happens when you extend this idea? Push it further? Is there a larger desire? A bigger conversation that you’re hoping to start with this initial project?