A Kierson – Page 5 – Process Blog

February 21, 2019February 21, 2019

App Studio: Entry 4

Adapt Phase

For the adapt phase, I needed to figure out what worked with my prototype and what didn’t work.

Tools

For the prototyping, I used AdobeXD, which I found very intuitive and useful for making prototypes. I was also able to use Google’s material design icons for my app which made the look of the prototype feel very consistent.

Originally, I had planned on using React Native so that my app would work on both platforms but after some investigation, I found that there was no way to inform users how they spent time on their phone and that even the workarounds to inform users when they used their phone were frowned upon. So I switched to Android Studio.

Android Studio is fairly robust but it is also very extensive and time consuming to research as each API changes things and so testing each step of creation is tedious. However, calendars are a a ubiquitous feature and I was able to find numerous tutorials about everything I needed to know.

For my user testing, I used the AdobeXD app which worked very well to demonstrate to users. I also took a small survey which I explain below.

User Feedback

After doing some user testing, user’s said that seeing how they had done was not as important to them as goal setting. My first older user’s – read: parents – said that they did goal setting and then incrementally worked backwards. So 20-year goals, 10, 5, 1, 6 months, 1 month, this week, and then today. Each goal was then adjusted every increment for smaller goals and more often for larger goals. For example, daily goals were set daily, as were weekly set weekly, monthly set monthly, and yearly set yearly.

This approach looked like a development of the younger user’s goal setting which was done mostly weekly or as needed. Younger users indicated that they only planned a few weeks in advance and were more focused on fitting everything into their calendar rather than having for reaching 5 or 10-year goals.

Additionally, all users said that they rarely used time tracking apps and that they were focused more on planning for the future rather than seeing how they used their time. I think that this is because they had no reason to see how they had used their time. I think if the app gave more reasons to track time usage people would use it more. For example, if the app suggested events such as eating lunch/breakfast/dinner etc. at common times that the user was free or suggested increasing/decreasing time spent on certain apps people would use it more.

Goal setting is not currently what the app is intended to do but it could be a future improvement. I may also pivot to incorporate grand goal planning into setting events, admonishing users, and controlling the grand view for how the app works. This would make it so that each action was attributed toward or against long term goals in areas such as financial, career, familial, and others. Each action could then be marked as a positive or negative on a given goal.

Lastly, users gave some feedback on making the prototype’s UI better but these were minor fixes such as increasing the number of days visible on the calendar view and have the graphs be more legible.

Going Forward

Going forward, I will continue to build out the app as a goal setting and tracking app as this angle was more requested by users. Simply having the data was not enough for users. Instead, applying that information to push toward larger goals will help my app help users.

February 18, 2019

Object: Entry 3

Analog I/O

Part 1

The first part of this lab was to create a simple analog input with varying output. For mine, I used a pressure sensor, a potentiometer, and NeoPixels to create a rudimentary strong man device. The number of lights corresponded to the pressure and the color was changed by rotating the potentiometer.

I adopted the WheelPosition function from the AdaFruit strandtest.ino in order to convert the scalar potentiometer readings to cyclic color values. The one issue with this code is that as it updates every half second some pixels were given colors and then not reassigned to blank after the pressure was removed causing the colors to appear off at times.

Potentiometer readings in serial monitor

Video demonstration

Part 2

In the second part, we used an analog input to control the tone of a speaker. I found the random buzzing that was created to be annoying so I changed it to notes.

The note values were taken from Wikipedia.

Part 2 testing

For this project, I made a box from plywood. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate my jigsaw and had to use a circular saw (which was too large for such a small project) and a dremel (which was too small). I made most of the pieces larger than needed and then sanded down to size.

Video Demonstration

February 15, 2019

Capstone: Entry 5

50 + 50 Ideas

Ideas from Class:

RSS Feed of Deaths
Map showing estimated deaths in real time
Interactive art piece showing an individual’s impact of consumer usage with pics of dead children
Measuring app using dead children as a measurement for products
Narrative of phone creation
Surrealist look at consumer usage – substituting people with cats or something
AR for statues, war memorialsgiving wiki pages and kill counts
Generative art showing trade routes of products
Generative art showing the digital impact
Music device with triggers on social media impact – likes, retweets etc.
Music triggers for war tolls
More accurate war memorials
AR showing massacre locations
Crime feed in social media look
App alerting users to places where crimes took place
AR HUD
AR HUD making us all look like sims
AR HUD showing social media data of people
Brain mapping cognitive biases
Art project showing company slogans and public images with enviromental impact attached
Recreation of ads showing death toll
AR showing everyone’s indirect kill count
Social media posts whenever someone contributes to killing the enviroment
Social media posts whenever someone contributes to slavery
AR showing products that are indirectly supporting slavery
Masks made of corporate items
Chains made from nestle procuts to show their support of slavery
AR surrealism app mimicing LSD
phamtom rings on phones to gaslight user
Non-art installation of a room/the installation room
AR showing people’s clothing impact
HUD with clothing prices with Amazon tie in
Chrome extension to show products kill count on Amazon etc.
Generative terrian game
RPG fighting corporate villians
Get companies to support a non-existent video project – with a video project at the end showing the company’s enviromental impact.
Impossible monopoly-esque game about corporate take over the app
Phone ad blocker
Generative hat maker
Generative Clothing maker
Generative art in the style of HR Giger
Platforming where the terrian is based on tweets – the player has to tweet enough and get enugh replies to continue getting land to run to
Platformer where the in game currency is created by social media clout
Likelihood someone could commit a crime and get away with it based on social media clout
Death Metal bluetooth hi jacking somehow replace localized notification sounds with death metal
Gernerative tweets based on someone’s social media that people might tweet after their death
Obituary creator from people’s social media
Calculator for meauring someone’s authenticity
calculator for the originality of ideas
Rap generator

Ideas from 2nd round

I found the task interesting and that most of my ideas became centered around a few central themes. Most of my ideas were then variants on these themes. I wanted to work with social media and people’s digital footprints, I wanted to have some sort of generative process either with machine learning or algorithmic, and I wanted to shame people for being consumers. I found that since most of my ideas were variations on similar themes, it was hard to create 100 distinct ideas.

I thought most of the feed back I was got was good. People seemed to like the HR Giger headphones more than I anticipated. I was also surprised that some of the feedback on the two subversive ideas were positive and that the person might actually use it. It surprised me as the rest of the feedback on it was positive that it would be good commentary and an nice art piece or that it was terrible.

February 14, 2019

App Studio: Entry 3

Explore phase

Unfortunately, I was more ambitious than I should have been. While React Native is a great library and fairly easy to use even with all the modules, there were almost no libraries for accessing data usage as it is an exclusively Android functionality. Even then, data collection on such a scale is frowned upon even if it is just displayed to the user.

Since that is the case, I have switched to using the native Android Studio. In React Native, I would have to write all the code in Java and then wrap it in React in order to access all the phone data I would need. I did complete the prototype and had some user testing though few people seemed to be as anal about tracking their habits as I was.

The final product is mostly a proof of concept that I can integrate all the pieces together. The polishing will come later.

The calendar was requested from the phone calendar. This should be changed in a production version of the app to a login with server storage of all user data to allow for cross platform tracking.

Lastly, the main point of the app to track user’s data had to be shelved for now while the groundwork of a calendar and event interfacing was laid.

Link to Prototype: https://xd.adobe.com/view/66c86bdc-7dcf-45b8-4537-d6541264266a-10f9/

Link to Github: https://github.com/akierson/manageTimeBetter

February 12, 2019

Capstone: Entry 4

50 + 50 Ideas

We brainstormed for an hour to produce 05 ideas. Afterwards we brinstormed again for 50 more ideas. MOst of of my ideas had similar themes, including, the usage of personal data, subversion, and our dark Lord Satan.

5 Ideas

These are my five best ideas:

HR Giger Headphones

I have always liked HR Giger and while I have mae a few pieces based on his owrk I have not created any technical creations. I think headphones would be a great way to display this style because of Giger’s frequent use of mechanical elements.

Authenticity App

Have you ever wanted to appear like a unique authentic individual without having to actually put in the work to have discerning tastes? Introducing the Authencity App which will give suggestions based on your location and social demographic. This app will suggest clothing, songs, and photos that are becoming popular but not in your location so you can appear cutting edge and like a cool kid.

This app is more of a subversive idea based on two of my good friends, one who gives all the appearance of having discerning and unique tastes while actually just knowing a guy in a large metropolitan area who keeps him in the know. The other likes to give the appearance of having really unique tastes, abhoring anything commercial and, despite mostly shopping at H&M, won’t be caught dead in a foreign country with one of their bags. I think it would be an interesting look into how being an authentic and unique person has become a pursuit in and of itself instead of the interesting things and events being the pursuit.

Music Remixer

I have always wanted to be able to play an instrument and be good at making music but I have no rhythm. Music, however, can be made using fairly set rules. In this project, I would create an application that could take in a sounds clip, song, or YouTube video and spit out a song in the style of remix music such as dubstep, techno, and house music.

While the music may not sound good at first, with some discerning humans judging it, I think with several iterations the machine could learn to produce modernly okay YouTube poops.

App for Crime Awareness

this project was inspired by a project that someone had done in my design foundations course. The idea is to use the police feed in a given area to put markers where crimes have happened. Whne user’s are then inthe vicinity of where the crime happened, it would alert the user.

This would be part activism, part informative as it could be generalized to all crimes or specifically, hate crimes, sexual crimes, etc.

Post Optimizer

Back in my formative years, my friends and I ran bots on Instagram and Twitter to gain followers from people who would #f4f. This project would take the gamification of social media to a new level by giving optimizations to comments, posts, and hashtag usage.

I liked this one because it’s awful and I hate it, but the challenge of it could make it worth it.

February 7, 2019August 11, 2022

Capstone: Entry 3

Why?

Being a cynic, I found it hard to watch Simon Sinek’s talk and take the selling seriously. I have a hard time believing that people actually make products with deeper intent. Between my father having me read business books that extolled the virtues and “bending the truth” to customers and the increasing shift toward corporate virtue signaling, I have become jaded from this selling of ideas and identities instead of people making informed decisions about the actual reality of products.

Please just stick to posting about how your snack cakes have more chocolate in them now or whatever pic.twitter.com/To74I9hEdl
— Brands Saying Bae (@BrandsSayingBae) February 4, 2019

Corporations, am I right?

What is my why? Why do I get out of bed in the morning? Why do I go to my classes? Why am I even in college? Why do I make things?

My “why” is a draw to pull things apart and look at them in a Sartrean light that shows them for what they are outside of some contrived context. Sometimes this comes across as callous, sacrilegious, or perverse, but that’s all subjective.

February 5, 2019

Capstone: Entry 2

Updated Research Questions

While my previous research questions were great, their scope was a bit too large and not focused enough. My research questions should have tangible outcomes.

I was thinking of creating a machine that triggers every time an obituary is posted. This is not a research question so much as the answer to one. The research question should be more like: How can interactive art help people come to terms with their own mortality?

The other questions about consumerism could be more focused to be: How can apps and personal technology be used to better inform us about our consumer choices?

Lastly, the bit on being edgy should be left out. It was a dig at the wholesomeness entrenched in Boulder. However, the idea behind creating perversions of common concepts, technologies, and cultural landmarks still does appeal to me. A question about this could be, generally: How can interactive art be used to how the Sartrean absurdism in life? Though too general this question could be refined to point out some facet of the world I live in. One where people will ask for donations to Greenpeace while wearing clothes made in sweat shops, showing some strange idea that the animals in those far off countries are worth more than the people there.

Research Questions

How can apps and personal technology be used to better inform us about our consumer choices?
Could interactive art help people understand their own internal cognitive dissonance and biases?
How can interactive art help people come to terms with their own mortality?

February 4, 2019

Object: Entry 2

Lab 2: Digital I/O

Part 1: Soldered Breakout Board

For this excercise, we created single parts of a circuits. For mine, I made 2 LEDs in parallel. This was harder as there were several wires that needed to be soldered together.

After calculating the resistance I set up the switch, resistors, and LEDs. Luckily both green and yellow LEDs have the same forward voltage so there was no need for extra calculations.

As you can see below, the soldering for the breakout board was more difficult than expected. The 100% tin solder also did not ease the process.

Demo of breakout board

Part 2: Digital I/O

The next part incorporated the Arduino. For this we needed two inputs in the form of switches and an LED strip.

This schematic was particular annoying because, while I understood how it worked, I was not sure how to flatten it onto paper.

The schematic is conveniently simple with both switches and the LED strip being powered from the Arduino. Unfortunately, when I was making it I misplaced my resistors so the inputs would sometimes misfire.

For the logic I added four states made the LED light up in sequence with a correseponding color: white for both, red for one and green for the other. There was no output when neither switch was pressed.

Video of both inputs.

Video of one input.

January 30, 2019

App Studio: Entry 2

Speculate phase

Prioritized feature list

Time tracking via data access
- A functional view of the user’s data usage
Allow user to create events
- Check-ins after events to see if user accomplished the event
Track Data
- Store data

Tools needed

Illustrator
AdobeXD
React Native

Things needed to implement features

Request app permissions
Set default apps
Store data
Load data

I have decided to use AdobeXD for the prototyping and Adobe Illustrator for any necessary graphics. I think this should only take a few hours at most.

For the actual programming, I am planning on using React Native. This may present some problems with accessing and writing data, as well as data tracking but this should possible given Facebook’s usage of React Native and it’s wide sweeping tracking. I have some previous experience with JavaScript so hopefully, React is not too hard to learn. Additionally, this will require learning Expo, which should not take as long.

The individual features for the minimally viable product should not take as long as there will be minimal data processing.

Data Tracking

Data tracking and getting running apps looks fairly easy from this StackOverflow post. However, I would have to either run the app at all times in the background or extract all the data from one of Google’s apps that track it which may be easier.

Event creating and puching to Google calendars

As I have an Android, I will be using Google calendar for this first iteration and may add more calendars as necessary. The Google Calendar API is fairly easy to use but most phone’s also have an internal calendar, though it appears to be written similarly to Google Calendar API.

Data Storage

This may not be as necessary on the first iteration as there will not be as much data processing when displaying the user’s data usage and how accurately they stuck to their calendar. It will be more important when the data is then used to improve the user’s habits as processing the data on each start up may be more than the phone can handle.

January 28, 2019

Object: Entry 1

Lab 1: Basic Electronics

For this lab, we created a few basic electronic circuits from breadboards, jumper wires, LEDs, resistors, voltage regulators, and a power supply. The objective was to create two circuits: one of LEDs in series and one of LEDs in parallel.

LEDs in Series

For my LEDs in series, I choose blue LEDs which have a draw of 3.4V and .03A. Two of these in series would require more power than a voltage regulator woulod proveide at 5V so I wen without it.

Schematic of LEDs in paralell with calculations of resistors

I used a 100Ω resistor which was slightly more than necessary but the piece worked charmingly.

LEDs in Parallel

For the LEDs in parallel, I was able to use the voltage regulator with two 47Ω resistors which were slightly more than what was needed. Again, I used the blue LEDs.

Custom Switch

For the custom switch, I used three pieces of foam. The top and bottom had copper pieces attached to them with the wires on top of that. The middle one had a hole in the center so when the switch was pressed the two copper sheets touched and completed the circuit.

Originally, I had added the wires under the copper so the switch would have a definite off position but the glue on the copper tape prevented a current.

Creative Enclosure

For the creative enclosure, I laser cut a box and then added holes for the LEDs, switch wires, and power supply using a drill press. I then soldered the LEDs together to a wire. I also added wires to the power side of the LEDs so they could reach the board when it is fully assembled.