Leslie's discussion and design flaw presentations

Week 4 brought us an interesting mix of discussion topics, from the delicate state of wireless politics, to the growing future of mobile technology, as presented from the point of view of Leslie Rule. Leslie lobbied the class to get active in the pursuit of free wireless internet throughout the city of San Francisco, and informed us that many of the voting officials are still not on board with the issue, and could use our persuading. I know if I lived in the city, I would have made a few phone calls to the appropriate people on my way home from class. Quite honestly, however, I find I unlikely that many people are motivated enough to find the right numbers themselves, and probably won’t be making any calls unless they have the right peoples numbers in front of them already.

The discussion regarding free wireless service throughout the city segued into a discussion about mobile learning and locative media. Since class that day, I’ve run into a number of situations where I think such technology would be very useful and enriching, and I believe in it’s merits. In terms of its practical application to a wide audience, I still think it’s far outside the radar of what people are thinking about in terms of the development of instructional media.

Class then transitioned into individual presentations on found design flaws in everyday objects. I found there to be a pretty good diversity of objects selected, and all who presented made a number of valid points in terms of poor design. The primary flaw in design among the group seemed to be in terms of visibility, and how the object lacked the visual clues to determine certain functions or traits of the objects.