Month: August 2022

The posts to all 6 of my links can be found on this page below. Overall it was super engaging reading through my classmates’ tasks and exploring their take on the tasks. I appreciate how each task gave us freedom to present our post how we like it. For example in the Mode-bending task it was so lovely to see the different forms of media my classmates used to revamp their original “what’s in my bag” task. When approaching this assignment I took the time to look through my classmates’ posts and participated in the activities where possible (e.g., playing a game, figuring out the emoji story, read through a digital book, going back to listen to the songs to see what songs my classmates chose). I took into consideration of the reflection questions situated in our linking assignment criteria and answered them where applicable, but I have also shared my thoughts on the posts; what stood out to me, how they are similar to my posts, and how they differ.

Linking to my classmate’s Marie’s post: Task 12 – Speculative Futures.

For our final task Marie has chosen to create a game to present her task. I love that her take on this task focuses more on the user than the author. In other posts we see our classmates share their ideas on what a utopian and dystopian educational society would look like in 30 years. In Marie’s game, she provides a question with 3 choices to answer from. Depending which question we decide to answer the game will tell us if we chose a utopian or dystopian society. The game allows users to pick the answer they think is the most correct and makes the most sense and the answer will tell us which society we chose (similar to a personality test).

Sharing my experience with the game, after a few questions I started to notice a pattern in which answer would signify a utopian and dystopian society. I found that answers related to technology surrounded a utopian society. Marie’s thoughts to what she portrays a utopian and dystopian society is very similar to how I perceived it. We all know that a utopian society involves a perfect, happy, and problem-less society. In the game, a utopian society would include the most advanced technological device, everyone is happy, and not a single problem would exist.

Our posts differ where my task is embedded into my final project while Marie’s post is on its own. I decided to go in depth of what the educational system would look like 30 years from now in a dystopian and utopian perspective through my final project. I have also explored the task in a first person point of view, reflecting on my ideas and opinions. This is also another aspect where Marie and my post differs, as her site has a privilege that involves user interaction which is her game. What I love about having mini games embedded in websites is that it encourages engagement and motivation for the user.

Linking to my classmate’s Joseph’s post: Task 10 – Attention Economy

I really appreciate the approach Joseph chose for his Task. While a few of our classmates (including myself) expressed our frustration with the User Inyerface game, Joseph took on a more “glass half full” approach and expressed his enjoyment with the game. He points out a really important aspect of human behaviour and how many of us consumers have been conditioned to follow certain patterns on the Internet. This also reminds me of the idea of the concept of usability from ETEC 511 when designing tools, especially learning tools. Woolgar’s (1990) article mentions the dangers “configuring the user” when designing a tool because the system will create a set of actions that predicts what the user will do.

I recall during one of my undergrad courses that my prof mentioned how many of us will overlook the terms and conditions and by default click “okay” without knowing what we have agreed to. When we don’t see these default features on an application, we start to question the accessibility and usability of the interface and this game provides an excellent example of it. Joseph brought up another valid example of the dangers when downloading programs. At times when we want to download a program and the system asks which version or type we want to install, if I’m not familiar with the program (which I am usually not) I will by default click the one that is recommended for us. However, this can be dangerous if we accidentally downloaded a virus or malware into our computer. A few years ago I installed Norton security onto my devices that passively scans for malware and if it detects a shady website or program, it will warn me ahead of time and asks me to confirm if I still want the program/website to be installed. It serves as an additional level of comfort but definitely not something I am immune to and should always be careful with what kind of websites and programs I’m installing.

References:

Woolgar, S. (1990). Configuring the user: The case of usability trials. The Sociological Review, 38, 58-99.