This hovercraft racer was created from scratch without the help of a game engine or platform that we could use other than OpenGL. This game was created as part of a computer graphics class as an undergrad. The project allowed the user to not only race around a terrain and collect coins within a certain time limit, but also included a terrain editor where players could create custom maps that they could race around. The racer could move around the screen following rules of physics such as gravity and friction and stopping when it runs into something.

I was responsible for creating the terrain editor. It used the same OpenGL graphics platform to allow users to input different heights for various places on a map. That map could then be imported into the game itself. Included is an image of the terrain editor--it was not as visually interesting as the game itself and also the instructions to play the game.

I worked on this project with Jim Jenista and Chris Picardo.

Instructions  

This project was developed through support from the Curriculum Enhancement Grant obtained from the IUPUI Center for Teaching and Learning. The grant supported several external media to be develop supporting student learning in I101 Introduction to Informatics at IUPUI. The media covered topics including areas of specialization in informatics, computer architecture, networks, digital and analog technology, databases, programming, and the relation of data/information/knowledge as well as understanding HTML, CSS, Javascript, and SQL. The media developed included an interactive scenario system where students helped other "students" choose an area of specialization for them; a "dialog of parts" in a computer where various computer parts talk about their roles and interaction during computer processing; a "network nightmare" in which students fling viruses at a computer network and learn how those viruses can spread; interviews with experts in databases from several fields, in digital processing, and in tools to manage and understand network connections; mini-games to understand terminology; and code snippit tutorials that describe what parts of HTML, CSS, Javascript, and SQL code do.

The project wanted to look at how this media both reinforced concepts from class so that students who needed to review more could learn from a different vantage the same concepts and provided students a jumping off point to learn more about these concepts and technologies on their own. The project wanted to look how this media, which would be external to the course, would be used on a student-initiated basis to further their own learning to reach course learning objectives.

The media will be uploaded as it is completed. Software packages of Raptivity and Respondus were used to create some of the media.

I am working on this project with Jennifer Stewart.

Area of Specialization App  |  SQL Code Snippit (Example) App  

My dissertation has focused on the way that users learn to use interactive artifacts. The dissertation focused on the topic of learning-in-use where learning was not conceptualized only as the accumulation of knowledge, but also as an ongoing relationship that either develops or declines. Learning-in-use, as I have conceptualized and supported it theoretically, emphasizes three aspects of use describing this relationship. First, it assumes that learning must be analyzed as it occurs over a lifetime of use of an artifact, which highlights the needs for longitudinal studies of use and learning. Second, it assumes that such relationships between artifacts will be personally meaningful for each individual. Finally, it assumes that such relationships become meaningful in situations of use where users must negotiate that use between what a computer can do and can understand of a user's interactions and whatever the user's goals are.

The significance of this work is to approach learning in HCI and interaction design in a new way demonstrating that there is still much to understand about how users learn to use interactive software and media. It also demonstrates that we cannot create something that is perfectly learnable because so many factors are out of the designers hands, but there are some aspects that designers do have control over from which designers can make an effective learning experience. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of the relationship developed at the heart of learning-in-use for influencing user's learning activities.

I am working on this project under the supervision of my dissertation committee members Dr. Martin Siegel, Dr. Erik Stolterman, Dr. David Hakken, Dr. Elizabeth Boling, and Dr. Yvonne Rogers.

The ecology of artifacts project analyzes the web of technology that people own and use to understand how that web impacts an individual's use of a particular technology within that web. So, this project studies how the whole perceptually affects the use of the parts. This web, or "ecology," of artifacts is made up of connections that can be physical (e.g., they look the same or maybe make semiotic reference to each other), informational (e.g., passing information), functional (e.g., they can do similar things), and interactive (e.g., you can interact with them in similar ways). We described these connections as a Model of Artifact Properties. We also had a Value Centered Ecology Model that looked at the practical (e.g., intended purposes or expected outcomes of using the artifact), emotional (e.g., user's attachment to artifacts), and rational (e.g., the effectiveness of the design) levels of particular artifacts as they related to the ecology as a whole.

In addition to being involved in the conceptual development, I directly contributed to the construction of a Flash movie that could collect ecological data from participants when distributed on the web. The metaphor was a corkboard for posting artifacts on and using pieces of yarn to show connections between them. It was published in CHI WIP in 2009. Below is a movie showing how the corkboard works, a sample corkboard where you can try out the design of the Digital Ecology Mapper (the name of the recording application I created), and a connection to the paper posted on ACM Press.

I am working on this project with Dr. Erik Stolterman, Dr. Martin Siegel, and Heekyoung Jung.

NordiCHI Paper  |  CHI WIP  |  Video   |  Video   |  
Flash Prototype (doesn't record data)

Twitterspace is a project to increase community awareness and engagement at our school. We leveraged the social medium of Twitter as it was just becoming popular at the time and was a way that community members could describe what they were currently doing. We skimmed this information (for those who wished to participate) from Twitter. Once we gathered this data for our community, we displayed it on 3 public displays at three separate buildings in our school. I had worked on the visual display for this project. We also ran quizes for community members (both participants and non-participants) and evaluated the device in several other ways. Below is a sample Twitterspace display, we also have a link to the ACM portal where a paper was presented at the PDC 2008 conference.

I am working on this project with Dr. William R. Hazlewood and Kevin Makice.

PDC Paper  |  Twitterspace

In this project, we aimed to study people's emotional response that people felt as a result of watching a video they would watch on something like YouTube. This project involved creating an application that could record emotional content before and after each user watches a video they select. The application, which could be completed autonomously by participants online, would take baseline emotional recordings, then play 6 movies, followed by three tasks recording emotional information in different ways. Finally, we'd present users with a survey debriefing users on the experience. Dr. Bardzell provided specifications for the application, while I designed and developed the Flash application.

I worked on this project with Dr. Shaowen Bardzell.

Wireframe

This project was for the student competition at CHI 2005. The stated problem was to design an artificial companion for senior citizens to promote their social well-being. Our group interpreted that problem very liberally and attempted to define a community gathering center whether it is an actual community center, place of worship, or other organized location with a special focus on senior citizens as the artificial companion. Included below are the paper that was accepted at the competition, an early version of the poster that gives an idea of the system layout, and a very early prototype of the main display that would be placed in the community center. Each member of the group contributed equally to this project and most of the areas of the project were done together as a group, including writing the paper, designing the paper, and designing the system.

The concept was to expose the fringe of communities to activities at a community center by sharing pictures from a repository of photos taken by others who are more active in the community. By seeing these pictures, it is hoped then that these fringe members would be more enticed to stay active and get more involved in the community. This develops around a centralized location in the center where seniors could share the pictures they have taken with each other and see what others in the community have been up to.

I worked on this project with Kynthia Brunette, Erik Pukinskis, and Matthew Eisenstadt.

CHI Paper  |  Poster  |  Power Point Prototype

This art piece was meant to explore the boundary between user and tool. There is a strong connection to cybernetic organisms here, where the user must work within the constraints provided by the digital counterpart. The artwork becomes jointly created between both user and computer. The exhibit was shown in the IU DART show as well as online Flash gallery 33 Collective. Chris Matusek created much of the artwork for the piece, while I focused on the interactivity.

I worked on this project with Chris Matusek.

Interact Artwork   

This was a massive project started about 3 months before I joined—I worked on it for about 2 years. Massive is a bit of an understatement. Though we had a core of about 15 people handling most of the main artwork, programming and audio, the entire team of contributors was probably closer to around 60 people, many of whom were spread out at other universities across and outside the country. I was in the core part of the team and handled a great deal of the interface programming. My responsibilities included pretty much all of the actual game interface, with the exception of the cards and their construction. I designed and implemented all of the GUI components that appeared in the game. I was also responsible for some more minor details on all of the other interfaces in the game. I also created the installer for the game using the NSIS scripting language. This was easily the largest project I ever worked on and working with as many different people as I have was a valuable experience. The game is no longer active, but the game website is posted. We were finalists in several competitions including IDEAsfest 2005, FuturePlay 2005, and Slamdance 2006.

I worked on this project with Steven Cornette and about 20 other contributors.

Game Description and Images (Download does not work)

This was a group project for a class. I want to use it to demonstrate both my work on a "real world design problem," as well as another HCI/d example of work. The problem was to iteratively design a prototype that could help train those who manage parks and other recreational services on issues of accessibility. We designed a two part strategy. The first was a quiz portion that tested the user on various regulations and standards related to accessibility. The second portion dealt with actual campsites. The trainee had to manage a space for themselves using the interface provided. The space they created would then be evaluated by one of their peers (at another computer). They too would have an opportunity to evaluate the work of their peer as well. Everyone on the team was involved in designing and evaluating (through usability) the prototypes created. While I did not implement the first part of the prototype, I did create the second prototype.

I worked on this project with something Tony Moore and Kristy Streefkirk.

Quiz System   |  Park Simulator

This was a web application/web site I was working on for my high school. I was privately asked to work on it by the principal. It turned out reasonably well, but unfortunately was never used. That same summer I worked on it, the school established the position of president, which managed the school’s information technology among other things. He hired someone to handle the website shortly thereafter. At that point, I shared my work with him but much of it he didn't use. Anyways it is now on my website collecting digital dust. The interesting part about the site is that everything is created dynamically for which, if I would have been allowed to finish the project, a page management system could easily have been added.

Website (to be posted)  

I did the design, layout, and most of the content for this site. I divided the menu in two sets based on how important I thought the content was. The left side is for main band content areas and the top and bottom menu is for lesser important sections of the site. The site was the product of several redesigns. It tried to incorporate several themes of bagpiping including the tartan, the instrument, and some of the excitement the band was trying to exude as it grew. Subsequently, it stopped being used, because it became too difficult for band members to update. The site was a location to find information on the band, events, and music played as well as how to purchase the band shirt and give donations to the band.

This is the third version of the student government website by Dome Designs, a student-run, low-cost web technology company for student and faculty groups on campus. I was responsible mostly for the design, but also for the poll that they have on the side and the site administration. The poll was done using ASP and Microsoft Access.

I was responsible for making the design of this site. I basically used Photoshop and Dreamweaver to create the design and layout of the site. It was a major conference held at Notre Dame about Asian Media. It has now been taken down but this is a copy I worked on.

This website was started on the eve of the dot.com burst, but it was meant to provide resources and a place for professionals to congregate and learn various techniques online. Many tutorials on technologies such as Photoshop, Flash, DHTML, PHP, and so forth were scattered all over the internet. This website was meant to connect users to all of these resources in one central location, rate the tutorials, and share all this information with other users. I was responsible for most of the functionality of the site except for the News feature and the Message Board. What I did do was a template system for easily changing the layout and still keeping that consistency throughout the site. I also created the part of the site called TutorialEngine.com, which was a part that had an index of various tutorials on the web and could be searched in various ways. I was also responsible for creating a rating system to keep track of tutorial statistics. Finally, I created a basic administration component. I also contributed some of the graphical elements to the site, but that was mostly handled by the site's owners. Note: Much of the site has been modified since I stopped working on it 7 years ago. It has subsequently been absorbed into http://www.mindsay.com, which has now gone in a totally.

Looking back at the history of social networks, this wasn't the first social network (and it was obviously unsuccessful), but it predates many of the major social network sites that have since taken hold including LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Twitter.

Deviant Art News Posting