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1. what did you find (articulate the answers in your own words) 1.1. interesting about the article? I liked the example of kitchen design in Section 3. The concepts of "generic", "specific", and "interpretive" critics were overly abstract in their explanation, however the example described in this section was very useful. After understanding the example, the names for the three types of critics became very intuitive. 1.2. not interesting about the article? The overviews of the three types of critics (prior to the example given in Section 3) were a little too abstract, thus confusing to me. The example went a long way in helping me to distinguish the three critics and see the need for having three categories. 2. what do you consider the main message of the article? To explore the usefulness of embedded critiquing systems in designing environments and their broad applicability to a wide range of domains. This article also goes further in discussing problems faced in designing complex systems and how embedded critics could address these issues. Critics are seperated into 3 categories (generic, specific, and interpretive). The importance of having 3 distinct types is discussed and each is type is detailed. 3. are themes discussed in the article which you would like to know more about? I would like to know more about how the interpretive critic would be implemented. This is a fascinating topic because it seems very practical and useful on many levels, though at the same time it would be the most difficult critic to implement. How would you account for a situation with a lot of different perspectives? For example, let's apply the kitchen design example to a restaurant. The "resale" perspective would need to be broken into several distinct perspectives (different restaurant chains would require different floorplan layouts, firecode policies, etc.). Where would you get info for all these perspectives? At what point does giving pros and cons become a nuisance? The more perspectives, the more pros/cons; how does the embedded critiquing system determine which pros/cons to display without overwhelming the user? 4. do you know of other papers, ideas, and systems which are closely related to 4.1. DODEs I can't think of any particular paper or article, but a topic related to DODEs is currently a highly-discussed issue in the tech field considering all the information on the Internet and the competition amongst search engines on the market. The public would like to have search engines that give more domain-oriented results rather than pure word-matches. Leading search engines Google and Yahoo have made huge upgrades in this area compared to the search engines popular just a few years ago. 4.2. Critiquing? Many online stores have "recommendation" features that lead customers to other products they may want to buy. Recommendations are based on the situation, in this case, what other customers have purchased (similar genre, style, etc.). This is similar to how the specific and interpretive critics work. They give "recommendations" based on the situation. Also, another example similar to critiquing occurs when purchasing desktop packages online. Many vendors offer pro/con-like features, allowing users to choose a "situation". You choose your preference (features vs. cost), customizing your package to your own price range and expected quality. 4.3. analyze “spelling correctors” as a critiquing system Spelling correctors are a useful critiquing system. They "action" when a suspected error in spelling occurs. They are good generic critics (using the common dictionary as their primary source). The downside for them: they are not specific or interpretive critics. For example, if you're writing a history report for a class, often the names of people or places will be announced as errors when obviously they are correct. If spelling correctors were specific or interpretive, they would know you were writing a paper about WWII and that the names of the generals and cities should be left unannounced. 5. what does the article say about 5.1. design Design of a embedded critiquing system should be iterative and should incorporate end-users from the beginning. Here, the concept of planting a "seed" or base and then building on that is crucial. 5.2. learning Embedded critiquing systems are very useful for learning, particularly by increasing shared context and the designer's understanding of design situations. 5.3. collaboration As stated in 5.1, collaboration among system designers and end-users is very important in this situation. Designers also need to collaborate with people deeply connected to the domain (i.e. for HYDRA, the designers needed to work closely with professional kitchen designers in order to implement appropriate critics). 5.4. innovative media support for these activities? Active "reflection space" areas such as pros/cons response screens gives users pertinent feedback at the right time rather than just giving too much information (most of which are not specific to the situation) or none at all. 6. do you have any ideas how this research could / should be extended based on your own knowledge and experience? As stated in Question 3, research should be extended in implementation of interpretive critics. This critic is much broader than its generic and specific counterparts and is probably the most useful. Obviously the generic and specific critics are necessary, but I can see users truly making use out of the "perspective" features. This could be applied even to non-embedded critiquing systems. If there was a reliable, efficient way to capture characteristics of specific "perspectives" and be able to give pros/cons for each, problem-solving for all situations could become more effective.
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