Recipes for an Orientation Device Cookbook

OK folks - here's the write-up for the last "orientation device" assignment. In today's class, we'll get a jump on this.

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ASSIGNMENT : ORIENTATION DEVICE : Part Four (Final)
Assignment description : Associate Professor Judith Doyle : jdoyle@faculty.ocad.ca

Recipes for an Orientation Device Cookbook

Now we will adapt our ‘orientation device’ ideas into recipes that “users” (amnesics) can prepare or customize for themselves, in collaboration with others (caregivers, computer programmers, artists & designers, family). Altogether, our “recipes” will form an online “cookbook” we will present to our friends at OCAD, the Baycrest Centre, U of T, and others. Your final assignment is to create the recipes and assemble illustrations, pictures, bios, and artists’ statements for this - a “collective memory” of all the project ideas we’ve completed.

Reviewing our past orientation device assignments ( 1 – 3 ) :

• You chose memory impairment problems to address, and tools to solve the problems with. You posted your ideas to the blog.
• You created a set of multimedia “emoticons” (reminders for feelings). You posted your files and wrote about your development for the blog.
• You created a memory map using multimedia signposts from OCAD to nearby destinations. You posted your maps and descriptions on the blog.

For this assignment you will convert your ideas into simple instructions. I will use Tara’s project as an example. She suggested using documentary video clips to trigger memories of friends and of emotions. Her “recipe” might sound like this :

Ingredients :
- a video camera (could be a feature of a cellphone, PDA, web cam or digital camera
- file storage (could be in a computer, online, in a PDA)

• using your camera, shoot short clips of footage of yourself with a friend during everyday activities.
• download files and label with your friend’s name, the place and date
• give the file an emotion’s name (fun, annoying, too noisy, happy)
• index these files so they can be searched by topic, name, date or emotion.

To do : 1) write up one or more of your ‘orientation device’ assignments in the form of a recipe, or “how to” set of instructions. These instructions should help “user-participants” create their own set of emoticons or map of signposts.
2) include a picture of yourself.
3) prepare files of your visuals, MP3s and any other text you’d like to include as an “artist’s statement”.
4) upload to blog. If necessary, bring large files to class on storage media (CD Rom).

Passionate Eye : Monday 10 PM CBC TV -- AMNESIA!

Tomorrow (Monday November 28) at 10 PM on CBC TV on "The Passionate Eye" a documentary is airing about amnesia. The story focuses on Clive, the musician and BBC producer who is experiencing an especially severe form of anterograde amnesia.

It gets great reviews. Watch if possible -- oh, and your work is looking very good.

Lydia's map from OCAD to St. Patrick Station

Hey! Sorry I couldn't make it to class today, I posted the assignment as soon as I got the chance. For this part of the assignment I made a map that incorporated images and text. The map is from OCAD to St. Patrick Station, a destination that I make almost everyday. I made the path blue and large to show the simple outline of the destination. I then used simple images of the locations, images that would be easily recognizable. These are images of the locations, or places that are known to be found in certain areas along the way. The yellow dots represent the path that is taken by the person and the arrows represent the direction that the person should be walking on. In case the person needs exra instructions to go with the visuals, I included easy to follow instructions that include some ryhmes. This way the destination would be easily remembered. This map is intended to be simple and easy to follow through its images, text and colour codes.

palmpilot

This is the class test for those who are not here. We were showing the class how to use the photoshop function for saving to the web.

A7's mapping project

Hi all,

My project consists of a photo work for the iPod. Since I can't quite use the blog to demonstrate what I mean, I have created a video that simulates what it might look like on the iPod. I will also bring the iPod to class for a demo if anyone is interested. Warning! The video is 36MB, so it may be slow loading on some connections. Here is the video: iPod simulation

The idea behind this concept was to use photos on a portable media in a way that simulates a high-tech visual compass. The new color and video iPods have the ability to store slideshows and photos that the user can navigate easily from the iPod. So I set out to create a photo map. My map goes from OCAD to my favorite pizza joint, Pizzaiolo, with a stop at the ATM for money. I took several pictures of the walk from OCAD to Pizzaiolo... about one every 20 feet. So someone could be holding the iPod in front of them to locate themselves (match up the photo to the real life view), and look at the next picture to see where to go next.

The reason I chose this concept was because I enjoy the transient nature of the landscape. What may be a good photo map today, may not be useful next week, as our environment is in continuous change. Nothing is permanent.

A7

Flowchart to Second Cup

Hola people. For the mapping, i did a flowchart kind of map with icons. It starts from our campus to Second cup on dundas and mccaul. I was working on ASP database programming and were constantly refering to the flowchart i had created. Then suddenly i thought why not use the same standard to reach a place. to make it more fun, i thought to integrate some sort of icons to represent the box. That could come into affect if the flowchart was used de second time. Ah! I can sell it to those genius computer programmers from South Asia. :)

Mazhar Mohad

the heart monitor face

hello, its teresa
this is the next stage of my 'heart monitor' idea. for this emoticon assignment i am designing the whole look of the program along with the face emoticons and the small images that make up the over all 'look' of the program. i am becoming increasing more interested in a sort of 'hyper design'. design that creates is own iconic look. the first two emoticons are up and more will follow. i am not so great with illustrator. but this gives an idea.

assignment #3: my idea is to make a 'best restaurants of the west side' kind of mapping system. staying with the idea of memory loss i was thinking that a restaurant guide would be something that i would appreciate. just because you cant remember what places have great Mexican -lets say- doesn't mean you wont enjoy it when you get there. i have a list of places but i still have to gather the visuals.

Orientation Assignment 3 - Due Nov. 22

Hi Folks - Here's the write-up on the assignment we discussed in class yesterday. You may work in groups of 2 or 3 if you prefer on this :

FYI - the mark breakdown - during the "orientation device" segment (Judith's part) of the course, there are 4 small assignments, each worth 10% of your final mark. There is no big or final project! Instead, we will gather all of the small assignments together into a web site that we will present publicly at the end of the semester.

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ASSIGNMENT : ORIENTATION DEVICE : Part Three
Assignment description : Associate Professor Judith Doyle : jdoyle@faculty.ocad.ca


Assignment 3 - “Just a Walk” signposts

In a series of short stories called “Just a Walk”, Ojibway teacher Ron Geyshick used a traditional form of storytelling that combined exciting spiritual encounters and events with descriptions of landmarks along his walking route. Thus, his story could be remembered and used as a memory map to find your way around the forest.

Maps can take many forms, and many experiences and concepts can be mapped. For this assignment, you will create a series of “signpost” drawings, photos, words, audio or video clips from OCAD to a nearby destination of your choice. Alternately, you can create a “Just a Walk” story of your own, or based on the experiences of a friend, collaborator or imaginary Avatar. Like clues in a treasure hunt, your “signposts” will be used to help someone reach a real world destination – a doctor’s office, subway station, coffee shop, homeless shelter, or even a hard-to-find office inside OCAD are possible destinations.

Upload your files to the web, and provide a link on the class BLOG. Write a brief report on your development process.

Due Date : Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Lydia's Orientation Device: Part 2

For this part of the assignment, I decided to use stick figures to represent various emotions. So I drew various figures with different body languages. I thought the use of stick figures can easily represent a person’s emotion. Whether they be happy, relaxed, playful, angry and so on. I believe that emotion is best represented through body language, because sometimes words cannot fully express one's emotion. So the stick figures would represent these body languages and yet they are simple enough to create for a device like the palm. I thought that in terms of the colour that would be up to the users. For example, when they feel very angry, perhaps they would pick the figure that best represents that and add a vibrant red, or whatever colour they feel like using at the time.

Mazhar's Pay reminder

The most issue i find myself is paying my bills on time. I keep forgeting the due dates and i have paid late fees quite often for missing due dates. Then i started using the pre-authorized payment methods. But then i kind of never bothered how much i was paying.

The solution i figured out was having symbols display on the calender. There are different ways one can proceed. On applications (pda/phone/ical), symbols will show up on respective dates. Clicking on the icon will display further information. I have used 3 examples in the image.
On the desktop screen (or similar for any pda or cell phone) or the background screen - these icons can display on the TO DO items as well.

Mazhar Mohad

A7's blogicons - memory assignment #2

Hi,

The first thing that came to mind when thinking of the initial memory assignment was a blog. It seems fairly logical to me that an amnesic would benefit greatly by using a blog. It's essentially the same thing as using a calendar, a contact list, and a personal journal of events, all rolled into one. But since I've done the "blog thing" enough already, I wanted to explore a different path for the main project. Lucky for me though, the blog idea fits nicely with the "emoticon" type of project.

While designing a visual icon based category feature for another blog, it occured to me that the same concept (posting in categories) can be applied to emotions. I thought it could be an interesting concept to be able to "post by mood" in a blog. So, when you are creating your post, you select an emotion that is associated with the post you are typing. For example, if I am talking about how I really loved having friends over for dinner, I would select the "love" or "happy" emotion during the post creation. Then, once the post is created, I can easily have an emoticon display of the emotion I chose, right at the head of the post. This makes the blog more interesting to read (more visual) and even allows me to sort posts by emotion. For example, if I feel like reading only posts in which I was very happy, I simply select that category from the list, and all those posts come up, in essence hiding all the other emotions.

I implemented this into my own blog, to see how well it would work. It certainly adds a nice visual touch, and I find myself recalling the memory more vividly when I see the emotion I attached.

You can view the blog in person here: http://www.bya7.com

The way I implemented it in my blog was simply to use pre-built sets of icons that are freely available on the internet. That way people can choose emoticon that they feel best represent their feelings. Here are some other examples of icon sets that could be used:

Assignment Due this Tuesday (and some from last week)

I've commented on your memory problem ideas. Great work! Please read each others' posts to the blog - we'll discuss these this week. Here's your assignment due Tuesday November 15 --

"Emoticons" - creatively explore how to represent feelings.

The assignment is designed to address the problem amnesics experience in remembering emotion. Not only are important events forgotten, but the feelings surrounding these events are lost.

Using the creative tools you selected in the previous written statement, select a group of images or sounds to represent various emotions, for example “scary”, “annoying”, “sweet”, “passionate”, “cool”, “sad”, “guilty” or “desirable”. Your selection could include, for example, musical clips, lines of poetry, drawings, icons, video clips, or photographs, each of which represents a different feeling. Feel free to create complicated feelings if you prefer.

Select how many feelings you want to represent. It's up to you.

The purpose of this assignment is to use your skills as artists and designers to conceive and create sets of emotional identifiers. Keep images as simple as possible, keeping in mind that they may be adapted for Palm-type devices.



--->> Upload your files to the web, and provide a link on the class blog. Write a brief report on how you developed your images or sounds.

Lydia Fahim's Memory Project

A problem that I would like to work with for this assignment is the misplacement of objects, such as glasses, keys and what not. This problem struck out to me the most because not only can I relate to it, but I think everyone in my household can as well. We are always struggling at home, trying to find this person’s keys, their glasses, their cell phone and so on. Everyone at home lacks some memory here and there, some worse than others. Personally, when I forget something, I just try to trace back to where I was possibly with it. But sometimes that is hard, because it turns up in places where you would least expect it, for example, I once forgot the car keys in the car, and looking for it the next day was such a mission, because I had no idea where I left it, and I would never have thought that I would actually forget them in the car, and it was unlike me to do. So looking in the car was not an option for me when I misplaced them, but as I searched everywhere, I suddenly remembered that I did not remember taking them out from the car. I think misplacing objects is so common, and I would love to find a solution that works to resolve this.

Misplacing a cell phone is always the easiest, because you just call it and listen to wear the sound is coming from. With keys, glasses, and papers it is a different story. So I am not quite sure what tools I would want to work with. Usually when I write things down, I tend to remember, even if I don’t go back to the note that I made. So, tools that I would perhaps like to work with for this assignment is basic memo pads, perhaps audio and photographs as well. I would want to have a pad act as a daily activity log, and I was thinking of maybe having audio and photographs going hand and hand. I would have pictures of the objects that are essential in the household, and the audio going along with it, explaining where the objects should be, or possibilities to where they can turn up according to the person’s misplacement habits. I think this would make it easier to trace back to where that object was misplaced.

Localhost website, a private secretary

Considering a busy life today... i think everybody suffers a certain amount of amnesia. Talking to various people, everybody needs a reminder. We have lots of sources now that act as reminder. We all forget a lot of things to be done on time. I am also a victim of this loss.

I think for this project, i shall develop a website on localhost (on my mac - not on internet) where by i can post things to be done and that would remind me on time. This could include various tasks, payments, meetings and scheduling other weekly and monthly things to be done. On other hand, this could also be posted on internet with a password protect where by i can access away from internet. An alternative option would be my phone and sync it with the mac and ipod using iSync - ical, todo, reminders with alarm function.

Mazhar Mohad

Teresa Matheson's idea: "The Heart Monitor" memory project

Hello!
This is my idea so far. I am not a computer programmer so I cannot yet directly build my program, but I know my artist skills can come into play here somewhere along the line.

What most interested me after reading all the material, were the difficulties that amnesiacs have in remembering emotions of events, people or their day in general. I am interested in designing the concept of a program that could function within a PDA deceive or memory aid. The program will have the pilot name “Heart Monitor” and would be a reactionary program to the information that is entered into the device.
So for example, if one were to add an entry for the profile of a new friend, after the information was entered, the program would prompt you to add your own personal emotional impressions of this person. This data would be stored with in the profile as well and would be available when ever the profile was opened*. In a similar case, if an event were added to the system, the program would prompt for ‘heart’ details-emotional perceptions and feelings. So people like Ben in the article “Marooned in the Moment”, who speaks of Hadassah Bazaar, would have all his own personal impressions of the event logged for future viewing.
This program could be set to open at a specific time, maybe daily like a journal
-how do I feel at breakfast every morning?-or in the evening when one is likely to be spending time with ones family or friends. The program too would give the option to rate these events. Dinner with the in-laws-1* or first time meeting Marty-4*****--I have a great impression of Marty.
I am not sure I how useful a program like this would be to someone suffering from memory loss until I deal with the details more, however its goal is to help an amnesiac have more control over ones emotions in relation to others and events. It must be terrifying to not know if one is among enemies or friends, a place that is safe in which one can relax or the opposite. There may be some control gained in having a digital memory of emotional perceptions. If the program is prompted by key words in entries, the need to remember to add such data is not left to the user.
Because I am a drawing and painting student and am influenced by the digital and graphic arts, I am also very interested in the visual design of the programs interface.

*Each time the information was modified or added to, it would be date stamped

A7's Memory Concept

This is Andy Morris, and here is my Orientation Device concept. I have a LOT of different ideas for this project so it's hard to pick just one I want to work on. So... this may change over time. But here's my top pick for now.

How often have you been on the internet searching for something, and suddenly realized you have gone so far off topic that you have forgotten what you were originally searching for? Well that happens to me a lot. Maybe I have memory problems, maybe not, but I'm sure it happens to a lot of people. As early as 10 years ago, it was a different story. The internet was not quite the same. Sites were optimized for slower modems, so less graphics were involved. There were no commercial sites that were promoted based on keyword searches in Google. In short, there was a whole lot less clutter, so finding what you wanted was easier.

These days, it's almost impossible to find what you want. Imagine this scenario: What if every street sign in Canada had a billboard attached to it? How hard would it be to find your way to McCaul Street if the word McCaul was 5 inches long in the middle of a 10 foot billboard? But that's precisely what the internet has become. Pop-ups, ads, commercial sites, fancy graphics and flash animations designed to distract us at every turn.

So how great would it be if we had some technology that "just knew" what we were looking for? Wouldn't it be fantastic if you could just press a button and be put back on the right path? Well that's what I will attemt to create; The "Lost and Found" button missing from our browsers.

When you think about it, our memory is quite simple. We are conditioned to follow things in sequence. Movies are designed with a certain narrative and structure, because the filmmaker doesn't want to confuse the viewer. When surfing the net, we follow a path, links, of common ideas based on keywords. Once we branch off into another direction, our memory automatically adjust itself to create the "new" narrative and path we are following. So our original path is lost, gone deep into our minds, only to be recovered at some point a few days later when another event triggers this path in our mind, or in the case of amnesics, perhaps that path is never to be found again.

The technology in principal is simple: As you search the internet and view pages, a database keeps track of the content you are viewing. As you continue to surf and follow links, it watches for multiple occurances of keywords, and stores them by importance. Then, when you get "lost", you simply click a button, and it shows you the main words on the pages you have been viewing, and offers suggestions on what you may have been looking for.

However, the technology in practice is much more complex than it sounds. There has to be a way for the tool to "read" the content off the pages, sort all the words, ignore common words (the, and, etc), store the words in a database, then later retrieve them and display those helpful suggestions. It has to link into the browser in an unobtrusive way. It has to know what is relevant to store, and what is not relevant. In fact, I believe it's too complex for me to actually create. But that hasn't stopped me before. :)

Oh... and of course there's one more feature we cannot forget: The OFF button, to appease the privacy advocates.

A7

Assignment Due this Tuesday!

Hi folks. Tuesday's class will include a presentation by Mike Wu from the Toronto Memory Group. To prepare, your assignment is to upload one or two paragraphs to the blog.

First, read Mike's list of memory impairment problems (below), then select a problem that interests you. What kind of media would you like to work with to help with the problem you select? For example, audio, music, illustration, wearables, site-specific signs, computer programming, graphics, photography, storytelling, performance or video.

Write one or two paragraphs about your choice for the blog, with your full name. This project is intended to develop skills in concept development as you imagine applying your skills as artists and designers to problems that amnesics experience.

ASSIGNMENT : ORIENTATION DEVICE : Part One

Assignment description : Associate Professor Judith Doyle :
jdoyle@faculty.ocad.ca

MIKE WU, PH. D CANDIDATE , UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO COMPUTER SCIENCE /
RESEARCH OBSERVATIONS

In the home, a lack of memory can lead to:

>> - the misplacement of objects like glasses, papers, keys, telephone messages
>> - the inability to complete day-to-day chores (being distracted and forgetting to return to a task that has been interrupted)
>> - going into a room but then forgetting why upon arrival
>> - not knowing what is coming up next
>> - not varying the choices of food eaten each day (which can be the same for many meals)
>> - the inability to recall plot from a novel while reading it.

Memory impairment can severely affect the following tasks that are often done outside of the home:

>> - the recall of simple facts that result in repetitive tasks such as walking the dog several times a day
>> - forgetting where one is going, who they are with, or why they are there
>> - misplacement of objects like identification or keys
>> - the inability to go somewhere independently
>> - the inability to relate back to what was talked about before at social outings
>> - forgetting major events and details (such as family weddings or parties), and
>> - the inability to maintain a job, though we note that a handful of amnesic individuals we interviewed volunteer at schools or community centres.

Read this list and select a problem you would like to work on. For tuesday Nov. 8, upload to the blog a 1 - 2 paragraph description of the problem you are interested in researching and addressing, and the creative tools you prefer to work with.

DUE : November 8 2005

REQUIRED : • 1 - 2 paragraphs uploaded to blog with your FULL NAME.