I came across this mini community rant on Facebook the other day:

Wow!  This made me really happy.  I love that regular people are demanding usable products and getting angry that they have to put up with inferior experiences.  They’re railing against Endnote (bibiographies) and Lexus-Nexus (research tool).

You go!

Over the past month or so, Kiran Jagadeesh and I have been working on a design for this fall’s Mozilla University Design Challenge.  The object of the challenge was to address browsing history:

“Browsing History — How can we make sense of this rich source of data and how do we best present this data to the user?”

We came up with Firefox Foresight, a tool that recommends websites to users based on their past browsing patterns.

Brief description

We will use past user browsing behavior and patterns in order to predict which websites a user is likely to visit at a given time, and in a given place.  Our system will make suggestions to users via a sidebar notification and recommendation system.  Stills for Mozilla Design Lunch.

Video

We created a narrated storyboard (using stills we created in Pixton) to illustrate our concept.

For the full experience check out a larger version on YouTube and click the ‘HQ’ button for highest quality.

Long Description

Our design makes use of three main concepts:

1) Making use of contextual information to suggest the most relevant sites

Our system will collect data about the user and suggest only those websites which would suit the current set of contexts.  For example, a user may access certain websites when at work and other types of websites when at home or on a mobile device. Similarly a user accesses certain types of websites based on the time of the day (e.g., news sites right after lunch, stock quotes at the time of the opening bell of the stock market every day, hobby sites in the evening). Finally, the user’s revisitation pattern might be different for different types of websites; she may visit some sites on an hourly basis through the day, some every Thursday evening, and some every two months, for example.

By making use of this contextual browsing history information, we can better suggest to the user what websites she is likely to want right now.  We will do this by offering suggestions when a user opens a new browser window, and we will also embed an ambient alert system into the browser window so that users will know when it’s ‘time’ (based on their browsing history) to visit a certain website.

Our system does not need to know which context is which – it doesn’t care which IP address is work and which is home – it will just make recommendations based on past behavior at that location.

2) Ambient alert system

We can go much further than the ‘top sites’ function, which currently only displays in browsers when a user opens a new tab.  Our system will use an ambient notification system to alert the user that there are new site suggestions; the user can then open a listing of suggestions and proceed to the sites from there.  This functions as a colored line on the edge of the browser that appears when the browser has site suggestions for the user; the user can then open the suggestions in a sidebar.

3) Grouping of websites

A person’s browsing history can be grouped based on what websites they had open at the same time or which they opened in the same time period.  If someone is looking for shoes on the internet, then the chances are that their browsing windows open at that instant are all related to shoes or more generally related to shopping. If this context information is stored correctly, then intelligent patterns can be generated by this information such that when the user is looking for something specific on the Internet, then based on this history information, the browser can either automatically open relevant websites or at least suggest them to the user.  This will reduce the overall latent time in getting to a piece of information online.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

About us

We are HCI graduate students at the University of Michigan School of Information.  Kiran will be looking for internships during Summer 2010, and Katie will be looking for jobs when she graduates in May.

Last weekend I was fortunate to attend the Design Research Conference in Chicago (that city of sausage links and thick-necked men, sleek city people clad in black, tall, reflective buildings, and a giant 3D bean-shaped mirror.)

It was by far the most ‘designy’ conference I’ve attended.  It was held at the Spertus Institute, a modern and angular white and grey space in the middle of downtown.  The speakers and attendees were polished and stylish.  There were innovative eyeglasses frames.

Spertus, from the inside

The speakers were an impressive group of design and design research leaders.  As I listened to the talks (and tried to take sketchnotes, the results of which I might post at some point), I began to notice some key themes that crisscrossed the talks and my conversations with other conference-goers.  I’m going to briefly lay them out here, and then I have 2 anecdotes to share.

THEMES

1. Wanna be a researcher?  Be a talker. Robert Fabricant of Frog Design was the first speaker of the conference, and he said that there is no special training design researchers need; but they do need to be comfortable talking to people.  He said this: “go to a mall and start talking to strangers.  Do you like it?  Is it you?”  If not, you might be better suited to something else.
2. Innovation comes from the people.  Robert Fabricant and Stokes Jones (an ethnographer with Lodestar) both described various ways in which solutions come from the people; we need to uncover those sparks of innovation that develop organically and then build on them.  Stokes described this as ‘bottom-up’ or ‘embedded’ innovation that comes from the reuse of existing materials, drawing on or adding to the store of cultural knowledge.  Mark Rettig also noted that ‘change is social.’
3. We must create an extended conversation with users. Instead of researching discrete moments in a user’s life and then losing contact with them, it is important for organizations and researchers to build an ongoing relationship with users.  This will help us understand how the context of use changes over time, and it allows researchers to capture those moments of user innovation as they’re happening.
4. Human relationships and connectedness are essential. Mark Rettig of Fit Associates described a said we need to ‘build social fabric’ in order to ‘engender a positive, profound, lasting impact’ when we design.  We should foster connectedness and care between people and work on building and healing human relationships – which are woven of language and conversation.  Ryan Armbruster, of Mayo’s SPARC Lab, was also interested in ‘persons interacting with persons;’ he designs services for medical patients in which the human interactions largely are the design.

ANECDOTE 1: Midafternoon Megabus Tweet

On the bus on the way to the conference, I checked twitter using my sad old iPod touch and Megabus’s sad, weak wireless internet.  I searched for #drc09 tweets, and came across this one by idfarmer:

Waiting for the bus of mega-ness in Ann Arbor. Geeked about #DRC09 SCAD kids shout out when you get there!

So I wrote back:

@idfarmer we are 3 UMich school of Info grad students also headed to #DRC09 via megabus-say hi or @ me, @lrodrian, or @noleli

As I sent off this tweet, the guy in front of me turned around and said “are you guys going to the Design Research Conference?”  @idfarmer turned out to be Kyle Lawson, a supersmart and interesting industrial designer-by-training guy who loves design research.  We had lots of thought-provoking, fast-paced, cheesy-joke-making conversations over the next few days, and Twitter made it all possible.

ANECDOTE 2: Richard Saul Wurman is a cranky, offensive, glorious person

This is getting long, but Richard Saul Wurman (70-something-year-old who created the TED talks) spoke at the conference as well – and I loved his sassy, curmudgeonly attitude.  I had a hilarious picture of him wearing a giant scarf, but now I can’t find it.  Here’s my first tweet from his talk:

Richard Saul Wurman staggers out onto the stage, says “isn’t it fuckin’ cold in here?” ! #DRC09 #ilovethisguyalready

RSW had many wise things to say, and he somehow pissed off half the audience whilst imparting his knowledge.  This is no longer an anecdote – I’m just going to list some quotes I captured from him.

Quotes from RSW

“I don’t give a shit about working for anybody”

“My life is driven by my ignorance”

“Most people don’t know what the hell they’re talking about”

“I like getting in touch with my ignorance – embracing my fundamental ignorance”

“That is my advantage – being a very BLANK SLATE”

“My life is a passion of explaining things to myself.”

“This auditorium is stupid, people have to turn to look at me.  I can’t bear it.”

“Don’t take notes.  It’s telling your brain you don’t have to remember.  If you have a question, call me.  I take all my calls.”

“How do you have blindingly truthful and honest conversations that let you extract meaning?  Even with yourself?”

“Question things that don’t make sense!”  (like atlases organized alphabetically.  each page is a different scale.  stupid.)

THIS JUST IN: listen to a recording of RSW’s talk! Courtesy of @idfarmer, a.k.a Kyle Lawson.

My sister just returned recently from the Peace Corps, and my parents wanted to bring her back into our present technological age by getting her an iPhone.  Actually, my mom donated her old 3G so she could get the new 3GS.  But that’s beside the point.

The thing is, my sister has now had the phone for a month and she has not set up voice mail.  When I asked her why, she said she ‘hates taking the time to listen to voice mail,’ and she ‘wishes everyone would just text her.’

So voicemail is going out of vogue, as most people have already realized, but I wanted to pause and observe its hideous and protracted death in my own family microcosm.

I’ve recently noticed a new trend: wilderness-iPhone usage.  Even a few years ago it would have been unseemly to be caught fiddling with that type of advanced technology while simultaneously enjoying nature’s bounty; but I believe we are now more willing to pair diverse leisure activities like hiking + twittering.  (Tweeting)

Case study 1: iPod in the Tent

A few weeks ago I crossed the country via automobile with my significant other, and we found ourselves in a tent in the gorgeous Moonflower canyon campground in Moab, UT.  The canyon walls were a palette of browns and reds at sunset, the wind rustled lightly in the trees, and various canyon insects chirped intermittantly.  But we’ve slept with a fan in the room for the last 4 years…how would we ever fall asleep without the comforting fan whirring in the corner?  Luckily we had the White Noise iPhone app installed on my iPod, so we set it to the ‘Stream Water Flowing’ noise and turned the sound all the way up.  Ironic!  It’s like nature squared!

Case study 2: iPhone hiking

Last weekend I hiked with my roommate at Mount Diablo, and he couldn’t stop pulling out his iPhone.  He’d get a text from some friend and feel compelled to read it, chuckle to himself, and respond while walking and falling behind.  I couldn’t decide if it was rude or not…what exactly is the etiquette for simulatenous hiking and wikipedia reading?  For hiking + yelping?  For hiking + facebook?  My intuition is that it’s not only rude, but extremely maladaptive; placing so much of your attention on such a device leaves you vulnerable to calamities like bear maulings, wildcat attacks, tripping over roots or rocks, and getting clotheslined by a well-placed branch.  I’m just saying.

I was able to participate in Mozilla’s ‘Spring Design Challenge‘ along with my regular schoolwork this past semester, and it was definitely worth the effort.  The challenge consisted of addressing the following question: “What would a browser look like if the Web was all there was? No windows, no unnecessary trappings. Just the Web.”

Participants submitted mock-ups of their ideas, attended 11 tutoring sessions over a 3-week period, and then submitted interactive prototypes to be judged.  My prototype didn’t make it through the final judging round, but I finished the experience with a working prototype/portfolio piece, direct and detailed feedback from the fellas at Mozilla, a summer internship, and a warm and fuzzy feeling.  

Here are five reasons you should take part in the next design challenge Mozilla offers.

1. Visual communication and prototyping practice.  While taking classes it’s difficult to find the time to create visual artifacts and work on prototyping skills; but this challenge provided both a compelling  purpose (create the browser of the future!) and strict deadlines (always a plus).  The process of creating the mock-up and prototype helped me think about how to visually communicate my idea (who wants to read a bunch of text?). It also gave my portfolio a visual component that was previously lacking.  I love practicing solving problems visually, so this project was also really satisfying and fun.
   

   A piece of the mock-up

   

   The prototype

2. Tutoring sessions. As part of the design challenge, participants were able to virtually attend 11 tutoring sessions on prototyping, design, creating extensions, and more.  I was able to make about five sessions live, and I watched most of the others on video (you can find links to the vimeo vids at the bottom of the spring design challenge page.) These sessions were all excellent!  I encourage anyone to check them out.  My favorites were Open Source Design by John Slater, Mozilla’s Creative Director, and Designing for Mobile byMadhava Enros.  By the way, I like to remind myself that these are all free.  Free!  Free advice from awesome experts.  
3. Feedback y sombreros.  There were two main opportunities to receive feedback on our ideas during this contest; first we were able to call in to Mozilla Labs Night and discuss our idea with a few of the Labs people.  I called in with my friend Maureen Hanratty from school, and we went over our ideas with the Labs guys – one of which was apparently wearing a sombrero.  Then, just today I received detailed and helpful feedback on my prototype from four panelists who judged the final prototypes.  I really appreciated this; they had a lot of questions about things I didn’t really have the time to work through in my prototype (such as “what happens to tabs and the URL bar under this interface?” or “the “exploding” gesture is cool, but how would you do this if you’re not on a touch screen?”).  I’d love to work through these questions…maybe if someone gives me a deadline I’ll get around to it.
4. Pascal.  Pascal Finette is the superhuman who helped coordinate the challenge, coach and encourage participants, patiently answer questions, and generally curate the entire process.  He seemed to be always online, responding to participant queries almost immediately even though he’s across the pond in London and 5 time zones away (from me, anyway).  Pascal helped create a supportive and open environment and should take a lot of credit for this challenge’s success!
5. Helped me land my summer internship.  No lie!  While I was interviewing for summer internships in Interaction Design, interviewers repeatedly asked me to talk about and show them design work that I’d produced – me, not with a team of people.  Since nearly all my school projects have been group-produced, I showed my Design Challenge mock-up; at least two interviewers said they were happy I had chosen to show them this example, and one  said the mock-up addressed the types of design and context problems that he deals with frequently.  Being able to show off the mock-up gave me some street-cred, and it helped initiate some interesting design discussions during my interviews.  Ultimately I got an Interaction Design internship at VMware in San Fran, so I’ll probably crash one of the Mozilla Labs nights while I’m out there (clad in a sombrero and/or cavewoman outfit, undoubtedly).

A final shout out to all of the other participants in the challenge.  They ranged in age from high school to probably 30s and 40s, and they represented countries from all over the world.  I was impressed with their high level of engagement in and excitement about the challenge; the community really solidified during the challenge.  

Overall, it was a great experience and I’m glad I had the time and effort to participate!  Merci, Mozilla!

And a great logo!

I had the distinct pleasure and honor of taking the Information Visualization class this semester at the University of Michigan’s School of Information (where I’m completing a Masters of Info, specializing in HCI).  For the class each project team created a visualization to help aid user comprehension of a large data set.  The very talented students in the class showcased their impressive final projects last week…and here they are (in the order they were presented), projects so extraordinary they’ll make you cry for mercy.
*****

Where The Money Goes
wherethemoneygoes.org

Where the Money Goes

 This political visualization, according to its website, “makes it easier to visualize the contributions that political action committees (PACs) make to your members of Congress, and to each other. With this application you can explore contributions made from PACs-to-Congress and PAC-to-PAC at the same time. You can also view contributions received by a Congress member and the Congress member’s PAC together, making it clear exactly how much they received. It allows you to find interesting insights, such as how the Freedom Fund PAC receives donations from hundreds of diverse PACs and also donates to only Republican candidates.”  
Team: Noah Liebman, Mike Harmala, Mark Goetz, Debra Lauterbach
*****
 

Tacoma Crime Visualization
tacomacrime.org
Project blog

Tacoma Crime Visualization

To visualize crime in the city of Tacoma, WA the Tacoma Crime team used a map-based interface and represented crime levels in different police districts using color saturation. Users can drag a time slider to see the crime levels change, and they can click in districts for more information. The team has presented its working prototype to the city planning office, who will show it at the 2009 Tacoma ‘Safe and Clean’ summit.  This was actually my project, and I have to say our team was so great to work with, it’s criminal.
Team: Jeremy Canfield, Taeho Ko, Sang Koh, and Katie McCurdy
*****
 

ARMuseum
leannagingras.com/ARMuseum/

ARMuseum

ARMuseum stands for augmented reality museum – this iphone application allows visitors to place a virtual sticky note on museum exhibit items. Visitors can make comments, ask and answer questions using these notes. This app also tracks users’ paths through the museum.  Watch their rotating dinosaur head demo!
Team: Leanna Gingras, Andrea McVittie, and Amy Kuo
*****
 

Tabvis
tabviz.org

An early tabvis prototype

The tabvis team created an innovative new way for users to visualize their tab hierarchy and history; tabs are radially displayed in the bottom left side of the browser, and ‘child’ tabs radiate out from ‘parent’ tabs. The team has turned their idea into a firefox extension which they plan to release once it’s ready for public consumption.
Team: Jakob Hilden, Liz Blankenship, and Kerry Kao
*****

VIEWconomy
VIEWconomy project website

the VIEWconomy interface

 VIEWconomy offers a means of visualizing plant shutdowns in Michigan, and it helps users understand how automotive plant closures affect communities. The visualization prototype allows users to obtain information by hovering and clicking into map areas like states and counties. Unemployment rates are represented using a yellow to red color scale (red being high unemployment), and counties can be exploded and regrouped into bubbles that represent counties with various levels of closures.
Team: Mohammad Hadhrawi and Urmula Kashyap
*****
 

GreenBox
GreenBox project website

GreenBox's interactive carbon usage panel

By utilizing interactive multi-touch screen to visualize information about global warming, team GreenBox aims to encourage group experience and acknowledgment in a public setting, specifically in the airports. Check out Eunice and Yesook’s great mock-ups!
Team: Eunice Shin and Yesook Im
*****
 

GiantBomb (CVGA Project)
GiantBomb Project Website

GiantBomb mockup

 This team’s goal is to “goal is to provide a visual path of engagement within the physical space of the Computer Video Game Archive. If successful, patrons should be motivated to explore and learn about the evolution of concepts employed in video games over time and across genres.” The team created many interesting visualization modes, including a fan and spiral view, and they also incorporated lots of interesting sorting options (like by game genre, history, gaming platform, etc).
Team: Anna Jonsson, Ke Sun, Matt Rubinstein, Michael Nagara
*****

 
CCEL
CCEL Project Website

The beautiful CCEL display

Team CCEL (Jim) created an interesting visualization of the collection of the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL). Biblical books are represented across the bottom timeline, and texts are represented as higher or lower in the visualization according to the number of scripture references. He also created an author timeline to visualize author lifespans mapped to the biblical timeline, and also to dynamically view writings by author. Check out his neat prototype!

Creator: Jim Laing
*****

Movie Signature – a.k.a. ‘Buckets of Rain’
Project Website

"Buckets of Rain"

Mouly created a tranquil ‘field of grass’ visualization to represent a user’s Netflix movie ratings. Stalks represent movies, the length of the stalk (or ’stem’) represents the user’s rating (tallest=highest rating), and if you mouse over them they sway slightly. If the user rated a movie lower than the average rating, the stalk leans to the left; if the user rated it better than average, the stalk leans to the right.  Check out the prototype - mouse over the stalks and they sway in the breeze.
Creator: Mouly Kumaraswamy
*****
 

Web Visibility
Project Website

Web Visibility prototype

Li and Jasper worked with local Ann Arbor company Pure Visibility to create a visualization to help create SEO ‘visibility’ in various search engines. In their visualization, different sized bubbles represent keywords – click them to get a breakdown of keyword options. The goal is to find a keyword with low competition and high traffic. Safe keywords to a sidebar list as ‘aggressive’ or ’safe’. Check out the hi-fi prototype.
Team: Li Li and Jasper Liu
*****

For my Online Communities class we read an interesting article by Joanne Wood about social comparisons.  Wood discusses and expands upon the original social comparison theory by Festinger (1954), part of which predicts that “individuals prefer to compare themselves with similar others” (231).  Those comparisons can be upward (comparing yourself to those who are better or better off than you) or downward (worse/worse off), and they can be made on a single focal dimension (who is better at math) or multiple peripheral dimensions (who is better at math, who went to a the best school, and who is the best-looking).  

This article struck me because I have been noticing a fair amount of social comparison happening around me at school …it’s inevitable.  Below is a deconstruction of my experience of social comparison at the U of Michigan School of Information, as posted on the course’s internal discussion forum.

**************************************************************************

I’m going to bring it right home and talk about comparisons with our SI peers. This might be a touchy-feely Breakfast Club moment, be warned.

This is my first year in grad school, and so throughout the year I’ve been subconsciously trying to figure out how I stack up compared to the other students around me.  What am I good at?  Do I do things the ‘right’ way?  Am I trying hard enough?  This response is natural, according to Festinger’s social comparison theory: “humans have a drive to evaluate their opinions and abilities…they need to know their own capacities and limitations and they must be accurate in their opinions of…other people” (Wood, 231).

So how do I figure out which ’similar others’ (231) to compare myself to?  I look to my specialization first, and see a group of very talented, technically-oriented high-achievers.  Which makes me wonder – should I be more techy?  Do I need to learn more software tools or programming languages?  It’s a continuous internal dialogue of self-doubt that can be difficult to suppress.  And then there are the awards, scholarships, contests, internships and jobs – all of those benchmarks by which we compare ourselves to others.  Who got the hot internship this summer?  Who won start-up funding? Who’s going to make huge bank at their pimped-out job?  

I subscribe to the similarity hypothesis – I have found myself quite happy for those whose achievements are either out of my realm of interest or way beyond my own ability level…but truth be told, I’ve been slightly envious of those who, given a background and ability similar to my own, have achieved more than me.  The reason I feel this way is because it makes me think that I have not put in enough time or effort…I should just try harder. The trick is to take this sense of inadequacy and turn it into motivation.  Wood says, “one risk of upward comparisons as a vehicle for self-improvement is that they may be demoralizing, because one is forced to face one’s own inferiority” (239).  If you are highly motivated, says Wood, you might be spared these feelings because you feel that you are similar to the successful person, and you might one day achieve similar success.  Therefore you can turn inferiority into inspiration.

What is the effect of social comparison on our community?  I believe it can cause an aura of secrecy and silence around people’s major accomplishments.   I’ve observed that when people are interviewing with a well-known company, they keep it quiet.  That’s understandable I guess – in case you don’t get the job, you don’t want to widely publicize your unsuccessful attempt.  But even when people get the big name job, they seem hesitant to talk about it.  I believe this is a result of others’ comparisons and insecurities.  

For example, let’s say I was just hired at Google (I wasn’t, but let’s just say I was). What will happen if I tell my peers?  According to the similarity hypothesis, some of my peers will be very excited for me, but some others – those to whom I am most similar – will have a hard time controlling their feelings of jealousy.  I have suddenly, by announcing my new position, imposed a comparison on them (as mentioned in the article, ‘environment imposes comparisons on people’) How will they react?  Will they respond with a snide comment?  Will people start treating me differently?  Perhaps I’m silenced by experience with similar situations in the past, or perhaps I’m just unsure of how my peers will react in this context.  The result is that I keep mum about the new job, only letting the news leak to people who I believe will be supportive.  So this is a great example of the way “individuals’ reactions to comparisons are a critical component of comparison processes” (Wood 233)…the community members’ reactions to social comparisons begin to inform the comparison process itself.  

Just a note…I’ve described social comparison here as having a somewhat negative effect on community openness and sharing, but I don’t think comparisons and competition are necessarily bad. Healthy competition raises the bar for everyone, so that the entire community begins to produce higher quality output.  

Wood, Joanne V (1989).  Theory and Research Concerning Social Comparisons of Personal Attributes.  Psychological Bulletin Vol. 106, No. 2.

Last night I attended a ‘prom’ party that my school put on.  They rented out a bar, and everyone was in costumes for the 80’s & Space theme; there was a Richard Simmons, a Robert Palmer dancing lady, lots of giant prom dresses with hideous bows and lace, and even a pair of moon boots.  When you’re dressed up like the 80’s version of a future space traveler at the prom, the inhibitions are out the door.  

I took some interesting and somewhat damning pictures thoughout the night, and at least three people approached me to ask me not to put certain incriminating, embarassing, or unbecoming pictures of them on Facebook.  This seems like a trend.  But it’s just not reasonable at events like these to go around to everyone who took pictures and ask them not to put embarassing pictures of you up on Facebook.  There’s got to be another way!  

So here’s the solution that I worked out this morning (with the help of Nick Perez).  Facebook will someday develop the capability to be able to recognize the faces of all of your friends.  It will know who is who and tag them automatically.  Now if you had a wild party night, you can instruct Facebook to wait before posting the pictures that include you  - you can screen the pictures and approve or deny them.  Denied pictures wouldn’t be posted at all.  

I’m wondering if this process would have any negative social repercussions.  If someone denied your picture, could you just blur out their face and trick the face recognition feature?  Would denying others’ pictures create hostility?

Walk like an Egypt-SHUNNN

miles in the middle!

it's all about the music

I just finished reading Thomas Malone’s 1982 paper “Heuristics for Designing Enjoyable User Interfaces: Lessons from Computer Games.” At just 6 pages, it’s a mere rowboat floating on the sea of my semester’s reading; but I found it exceedingly interesting and helpful. I’ll summarize just a few of his main points, and then include an outline of his interface heuristics.

Malone’s paper explains how we might create enjoyable, engaging ‘tool’ interfaces using principles from game interface design.  Tools, according to Malone, are systems that are used as a means to achieve an external goal; while ‘toys’ (or games) are used for their own sake.  One of Malone’s big points is that toy-like features can help motivate people to do boring tasks.

An important distinction between games and tools lies in difficulty level and mastery levels.  While games should be easy to learn and difficult to master, tools should be easy to learn and master (p.66).  Because the outcome of the external goal is already uncertain (for example “will this letter be well-written enough to land me an interview?”), tools should be as easy to use as possible; they should not get in the way.

So, here are the heuristics; I really recommend the paper in its entirety as well, if you have the time.

Heuristics for Designing Enjoyable User Interfaces

I. Challenge

A. Goal. Is there a clear goal in the activity? Does the interface provide performance feedback about how close the user is to achieving the goal?

B. Uncertain outcome. Is the outcome of reaching the goal uncertain?
1. Does the activity have a variable difficulty level? For example, does the interface have successive layers of complexity?
2. Does the activity have multiple level goals? For example, does the interface include scorekeeping?

II. Fantasy

A. Does the interface embody emotionally appealling fantasies?
B. Does the interface embody metaphors with physical or other systems that the user already understands?

III. Curiosity

A. Does the activity provide an optimal level of informational complexity?
1. Does the interface use audio and visual effects: (a) as decoration, (b) to enhance fantasy, and (c) as a representation system?
2. Does the interface use randomness in a way that adds variety without making tools unreliable?
3. Does the interface use humor appropriately?

B. Does the interface capitalize on the users’ desire to have “well-formed” knowledge structures? Does it introduce new information when users see that their existing knowledge is: (1) incomplete, (2) inconsistent, or (3) unparsimonious?