design for signaling

The poker paper directly addresses the issue of how changing the interface changes the relationship between signal and quality. Write a paragraph or two discussing these issues: In this domain (playing poker), what are the qualities that the players want to know about each other? What do they want to reveal? To hide? What are the cues and signals (in face to face poker, avatar online poker, our online poker) that indicate these qualities? Are they reliable? Why?

in poker, the game relies heavily on players' strategies to maximize changes of winning the round's earnings with minimizing any possible loss. a player's external moves, such as confident betting or a neutral face, may be carefully calculated to bluff a weak hand or to intimidate others to fold. this naturally leads to skillful readings of the opponents' actions and expressions to make the best move within context.

delving into the deep art of poker psychology, some qualities that each player wishes to know about the others are how (truly) good or bad their dealt hand is; if a player's expression is truthful (which reveals the quality of the hand) or bluffing (which serves as a deception mechanism); and the long-term reputation of poker-playing style. if a player could gain knowledge on how relatively bad or good the other hands were, they could fold within a window of minimum loss or bet with greater confidence: increased knowledge reduces the palpable risk of play. an experienced player might be able to tell when an opponent leaks an imperceptible emotion from a poker face with gaze, breath, or a number of other nuanced clues. therefore, a trained poker face becomes essential for effective bluffing. information on player reputation can be invaluable, especially if one can anticipate or predict another's behavior and strategize accordingly.

therefore, poker players want to reveal whatever they feel is the most strategic signal to send. mostly likely they wish to bluff their hand and keep betting to intimidate opponents. confidence or neutrality might be the ideal, so that nothing telltale can escape their person calling attention to their bluff. as for hiding, they want to keep the quality of their hand top-secret so that the opponents cannot truly tell what they are competing against. for either any dealt hand, concealment of one's handheld fate is paramount.

in face-to-face poker, the subtlety and richness of human interaction are present. several barely imperceptible signals of variable reliability intermingle as players all face each other around the game table. as repeatedly stressed, the poker face becomes the ideal as no one wants to reveal anything that might shed light on their plight. therefore, the skillful poker face, if worn consistently, carries no quality (except that the player is either experienced or has great control over his expression, which is probably altogether advantageous) and conceals all. however, if a player isn't completely successful in his poker face, or allows micro-expressions of varying emotions to appear, the signal may be more reliable. if for a split-second, someone's eyes fell depressingly, that might be a reliable signal that he has a less-than-ideal hand. however, i don't know exactly the gameplan of skilled poker players, but calculating an intentional 'micro-expression' that's meant to throw opponents off may be a possible strategy. in that case, flickers of expression from beneath a poker face may indeed be faked, and therefore unreliable. conversation among players can also serve as a signal; quavers in a voice might point toward confidence or bluffing, or speed, tone, and dialogue might also be utilized in aggressive or mystifying ways. depending on the interpretation of one's speech, the signals can either be involuntary (highly reliable) or schemed (unreliable). in play, the most tangible signal is the betting amount. a higher ante signals a valuable hand which, depending on the player's reputation (conservative versus aggressive), may vary in its reliability. for example, a high bet from a player known to be conservative remains a more reliable signal of his winning hand.

avatar and text-only online poker share most traits, so i'll discuss the common features together. since live, breathing humans aren't readily sensed through the online medium, typed chat dialogue among the players serve as a major signalling source during play. what, how much, and how often a player types can signify one's experience as a player, concentration on the game, and intent on appeasing or misleading the opponents. if one chats with high frequency, he can be viewed as distracting or attentive; if one chats with low frequency, he can be viewed as aloof or concentrating. a silent player might be interpreted as an online-style poker face, or someone who's a poor sportsman. online, players' handles or usernames can be very useful if used consistently + continuously throughout gameplay and linked to player histories. hence, a username becomes tied to one's reputation as a poker player, and this profile may be used by opponents for proper strategizing. however, the utility and reliability of player reputations depend on the game system's rewarding long-term play accounts and recording accurate, informative histories. and lastly, public bet amounts through each round are signals indicating how much money each player would be willing to risk. since the online realm conceals many of the subtle and valuable signals that face-to-face interaction provides, a higher bet can be a signal of higher reliability that someone has a strong hand: the player risks more despite reading fewer bits of crucial knowledge. however, one might argue that higher bets online do not necessarily translate into an intelligently calculated risk because transactions of virtual, invisible money can be perceived to be less 'real' than a pile of tangible poker chips. additionally, with the knowledge that a higher bet can be seen as a more reliable signal of a good hand online, a player can bluff more aggressively.

one signal that avatar systems can provide (over merely text-based ones) are the choices a player makes to sculpt his or her personal avatar. as mentioned in the paper, visual stereotypes abound. despite the intellectual logic that an avatar is merely a representation and not an actual person, people draw multiple conscious and unconscious associations with a particular image. if players can establish their own avatar appearance while creating an account (a la the SIMS), their handle and avatar representation are intrinsically linked and may be useful references while in repeated interactions with opponents. however, this visual reference can only be reliable if an avatar's appearance remains consistently stable throughout an account's history. as far as reliability goes, an avatar can only signal what the actual player intends for the competition's eyes; everything is controlled, calculated.

Evaluate the other technologies (chat circles, comic chat, fuzzmail, comTouch, and two of your own choosing). Think about them in comparison to face to face communication. What can be seen/heard/felt of the sender - i.e. what are the sensory constraints on signaling? How does this affect the reliability of the message? Is there a particular type of message that the medium is especially well (or badly) suited for sending? How ambiguous are the signals - do you expect the sender and receiver to mean the same thing? Are there particular costs associated with the medium? Are they simply added costs or do they contribute to reliability? What modifications would you want to make to these interfaces to make them more or less reliable?

chat circles transform the purely textual environment of chat into a more spatial and visual environment. when a user types, their identifying circle (of an individually chosen color) swells with activity and those in hearing-range proximity see the text appear on the screen. content of conversation only appears within a window of spatial distance; to 'listen' in to dialogue, one must drag one's circle near an appropriate cluster of chatters. however, circles swell across the map are universally shown as swelling with activity and ebbing with idleness. upon a visual glance, only the signals of activity are apparent; the next level of movement and proximity offers more substantial content. this is similar to the situation of walking into a crowded room and spotting certain clumps of people, gravitating toward a fascinatingly animated conversation or moving to a peacefully secluded corner. heard conversation depends on speech within earshot.

chat circles improves upon normal IM in the sense that a speaker has a better idea of who's within listening distance and who's actually listening (in terms of activity). in a regular chat room, one's input is broadcast over the entire space and the reception of the text remains ambiguous before any direct reaction or reply. with a visual display of 'who's listening,' a user in chat circles can tailor messages to a specific set of listeners. in face-to-face analogy, it's like speaking candidly and intimately in a small group rather than everyone in the same room having a megaphone at all times.

i envision chat circles can be particularly good for spaces in which the users are familiar with each other,; therefore, observing a particular cluster of known characters can spark intrigue with the relative heterogeneity or homogeneity of the mix. if i enter a room in which i'm unfamiliar with most of the users, i may not know how to prioritize or judge which conversation to approach; i'd be wasting time moving my circle from cluster to cluster in search for something to pique my interest. chat circles may be bad for those who submit long narratives (since the interface only supports short snippets), a very dense room, or a forum in which everyone's words are significant. in a crowded room, it might be difficult to move about or isolate a particular hearing range, causing information overload or immobility. in a forum, you would like to have everyone have a microphone at their disposal to broadcast what they have to say.

the largest cost in chat circles for me is the proactive controlling of movement of one's circle across the map. it may be socially awkward for me to leave a cluster, since it's visibly clear that i want to get away to join another group. also, moving about to test out each cluster's conversation becomes tedious when many clusters exist but are out of hearing range. it would be useful to have a phrase or two leak into hearing range from external conversations that would catch my attention or draw me to the conversation. these teasers would be an additional signal to swelling circles and number of speakers. the cost of not being able to say something that's heard by everybody in the space increases the reliability of signals with an identifiable clustered audience. the inability to transfer relatively personal information in a dense, noisy space levies a cost, but this enables a private conversation to move to a more appropriate venue: another less dense room or through individual chat windows.

* * *

comic chat provides a visual, comicbook-styled transcription of a chat conversation. gestures, expressions, and layout are automatically designed through a variety of constraints and triggers. the text content itself doesnt seem to be altered, except for formatting changes in line breaks, comic font, and translation into all capital letters. it wasnt clear how or why particular drawn characters were assigned to certain users, and the significance of background scene, but each user assumes a consistent character throughout the chat and it should be clear through normal comicbook rules what follows during sequence of dialogue.

there may be some elements of unreliability, as in the program could place a certain expression to match a certain phrase, yet because of reasons of ambiguity, sarcasm, or differing context, the system could design a mixmatch. however, the paper iterates that the user can override any system settings and can even customize the view options on their client. the drawn characters serve as avatars, in which they represent, but do not necessarily resemble, the typists behind them. the visual cues, as well as the scenic settings and the pan/camera views, vary in reliability depending on the accuracy of the comic strip design system, matching them with the inputted text. there are other difficulties with the program, with a maximum number of characters within one frame, and the visual appearance and disappearance of characters depending on speaking frequency. if we don't see frank for several frames, does that mean he's quiet, unattentive, exited and re-entered, or merely next in the long queue of simultaneous remarks?

comic chat seems to be best suited for chats with few people, probably two to four, to avoid the musical-chair-like rotation of characters in view, to avoid confusion of character identities, and to minimize disruption of visual flow. casual, familiar dialogues would be appropriate for the imaginative, line-art graphic style. something like a work-related or task-specific chat might not be terribly good for comic chat, or forums with lots of people to distinguish and display. any sort of avatar will cull others' assumptions and reactions, and length, jumbled, multi-character comic narratives would be difficult to read and to interpret.

perhaps after regular usage, comic chat may be an acceptable visualization of the dialogue, but there might be occurrences in which the character's pose does not accurately reflect the user's meaning and can cast an unintentional signal. the costs to better the situation are for a user to review, edit, and monitor the actions of his or her own character and control them accordingly to their own means. this takes time and effort, and may hamper the rapid pace of text-only messaging. instead of avatars, the characters might be identified by mediated faces or actual photographs; however, anonymity of users can be preserved and users can be more creative with their imaginative virtual image.

the reliability could be improved by ensuring that every user wears a distinct, consistent character throughout the chatspace over time (intrinsically linked to an established handle). this way, a visual cue + the username can form a single online identity. it might be interesting if users could write or buy their own 'expression plug-ins' or custom character gestures to augment their character to act uniquely; i.e. sam can twist her tongue while jill can roll her eyes.

* * *

i thoroughly enjoyed fuzzmail; interminably so, even. simple, yet poetic.

it merely introduces the dimensions of actions through time of the sender, which are completely absent from most received email. a normal email represents only the last flash-frozen moment of an extended composition process, a process in which fuzzmail attempts to encapsulate for the recipient's consumption. through fuzzmail, the receiver is able to recreate the experience of the sender's typing + thought process + restructuring + 1st (2nd, 3rd...) drafts + typographical artistry + pace and pauses. it's like a recorder, capturing everything from the moment the sender places her cursor into the blank text box to the final click on the send button. the entire signal is visual.

to be sure, with regular usage, fuzzmail could be utilized as a poetic, choreographed medium. the sender can plot the timing and type changes and do some practice runs before sending off the real thing. but there are some elements of higher reliability, such as identifying copy + paste inputs (which would suspiciously plaster a large amount of text instanteously) or typing speed (which is adjustable for the viewer, but there must be a calibrated 'real-time' speed setting on there). i can see increased reliability for the recipient to ascertain the identity of the sender if the sender had a distinguishable 'secret type' or hidden message. for example, i could establish an insider signal with my best friend, in which he'd type 'plethora' (his favorite word), backspace over it, and then continue with the message. you could also identify through familiar habits of written composition, e.g. writing a message from the bottom up, or abbreviating a lot and filling them in later. fuzzmail could capture this internal secret identification move; static email could not. you could hide a lot within the boundaries between beginning and end; you could stash an illicit love letter within an innocuous business message (secretive function), or encode something through the ratio of words written to words erased (secretive form).

fuzzmail is great for humanizing the message. elements such as typos, varied speed, and revisions reveal a lot of personality (or the brilliant choreography) of the sender. i imagine it'd be ideal for intimate, familiar relationships, both offline and online. it's very much a ghostly presence, simulating the effect of an invisible person pecking away on a keyboard. however, the more knowledge you have about the person, the richer and more meaningful the little quirks become. if you receive a fuzzmail from an unknown sender, the dance of letters and deletions may be entertaining but read on a more superficial level. fuzzmail would be terrible for formal messages (who wants to know that you type slowly or can't spell without an electronic dictionary?) or long, dry, typewriter-like missives. it's definitely more suited to casual, familiar correspondance.

of course, many of the quirks that may be innocuous to the sender might be miscontrued by the receiver. first thoughts that didn't escape under the safety of the backspace key in time might have been better off not in visual form at all. the composition process over time might confuse, offend, or even bore the receiver. the expended reading time for the receiver might be extended or excessive, depending on the verbosity or indeciveness of the sender. a perfectionist sender might need to write several drafts and perfect the typing so that the words flow and pace as intended; one fatal mistake would cause it to go back to square one. however, the costs are well worth it. although a fuzzmail may disclose a person's penchant for misspelling or wishywashy construction, it gives a more human and honest view of the sender and clearly traces out the thought process through time. and even though it might take more time to read a fuzzmail than a normal email, the organic qualities of the message enrich the experience. although it may be interesting to incorporate real-time sounds or images, i wouldn't want to spoil the simplicity. the raw straightwardness of fuzzmail leads to its success.

one improvement in reliability would be to verify the sender's email address. as the current interface stands, any address may be typed as the sender, and easily faked or accidentally misspelled. that would take an extra step or two, a couple more mailbox checks and clicks, but would help prevent false sender identities.

* * *

i'm more familiar with comTouch, and admire the addition of touch-to-vibration tactility to cellphone conversations. when constructed atop the phone foundation, the normal voice transfer of a telephone is augmented by user-controlled vibrations along the fingers. therefore, either party can sense both sound and haptic touch from the other person. if comTouch exists alone, or with minimal parallel audio stream (such as the spies-are-listening scenario), then a wordless language of vibration serves as communication. familiarity of a voice can be a reliable signal of user identification, and callerID is an everyday tool for this task. since comTouch is designed to be completely user-controlled (a vibration is felt only if the other party presses the button), there is a direct correlation between the actions. however, the button could be accidentally pressed, the phone could be dropped, someone could have a trigger finger, the mechanism could be broken, if the vibration frequency seemed excessive or rare, or someone's fingers are too weak to press. any of these could slip up an ideal, clear signalling set up. someone may send a succession of signals because they're excited, but the receiver may misconstrue the series of vibrations to be aggression, anxiety, or distress.

a multi-user party line of more than two people would be a terribly confusion venue for comTouch. it's sort of the inverse of playing clue with more than one other player... with a multitude of people in a conversation, since a received vibration carries no other sort of identifier, you can't tell who sent the vibration. on the sender's site, you can't easily specify who you want to send a vibration to. comTouch might also be non-ideal for non-acquaintence parties who have differing vibrational styles. the signals could be seen as too pushbuttony or too reticent, depending on the people. there isn't a direct mapping to comTouch in the real world, whereas with speech most people learn to communicate via speech with socially accepted volume, tone, and grammar, and arrange spatially to allow optimal personal and public space. however, comTouch seems great for familiar or intimate conversation partners (since the vibrations can stress hidden inferences or narrative tone in the same way that italics do) and who may need that extra element of physical tangibility within the communication. also, if parties are familiar with a wordless language through the vibrations (like morse code), you could carry on a silent, synchronous conversation without external knowledge.

the costs of comTouch include perceived too much / too little vibrations received on either end, unintentional signals (oops, didnt mean to press it), or missed signals (someone put down the phone and missed an incoming, urgent vibration). since there is no history or visual memory of the synchronous communication, attention to tangibility and to voice is required at a high level throughout the conversation. the cost of paying attention to four things--talking, listening, pushing, and feeling--increases the reliability since you're more confident that the other party will be able to interpret signals with integrity and without interruption.

something to try on comTouch would be to vary the vibrations, not only in intensity but temperature, speed, amplitude, noise, texture, density, and quantity of surface area. a larger 'vocabulary' of vibrations could enrich the tangible stream and reduce ambiguous or conflicting signals. right now most cellphones have vibrating modes (for 'silent' rings and so forth), but you can't enable the other person's phone to vibrate on demand. it would be interesting to see if subtle changes in whole phone vibration could signal environmental changes (a slow numb could indicate someone dipped below ground and therefore the signal weakens), extreme emotions ('i'm so mad at you!' could be accompanied with a fierce mechanical roar), or comfort (a tangible purr). for those with handsfree headsets, an earpiece version of comTouch might be an amusing and worthwhile exploration.

* * *

i enjoy handwritten correspondance for quite a number of reasons, because the richness of the medium carries and delivers multiple reliable and meaningful signals. i'll use as an example a personal letter on stationery paper, wrapped in an envelope, and delivered via postal mail. the letter transfers both visual and tangible mediums to the recipient, from the written text, drawn pictures, decoration of the stationery, and texture of the paper. often, the letter carries an olfactory signal (of the sender's personal scent, perfume, smoke, or pets) and occasional scars of the environmental like drink spills, accidental tears, or smudged ink. sometimes small objects are enclosed, like stickers, photographs, or clipped articles, and the letter itself can be adorned with cut and pasted images or a lipstick trace. the reading of actual pen-on-paper handwriting can be as rich an experience as the more dynamic fuzzmail, since the evocative flow of ink and spatial organization on the stationery reveal telltale qualities of the writer through their realtime recording of an individual's thoughts.

the more unique and handcrafted the letter is (doodles in the margins or an impulsive enclosure), the higher the reliability becomes. however, most would agree that a simple, personalized handwritten note (such as a thank-you or a get-well card) contains relatively high reliability purely because of the identifiable nature of handwriting + signature, plus the direct address. even though it may be easier or more efficient to automate thank-you cards to guests for wedding presents, short handwritten notes convey the high cost of sincerity and graciousness. since the handwritten medium encapsulates a high level of personality and time, efforts abound in simulating the effect within a low-cost framework. i.e. corporate form letters with a scanned 'signature' of the CEO at the bottom, or documents printed with calligraphy or script fonts. however, one can easily tell if something is genuinely and sincerely hand- written and delivered. handwritten correspondance may not be the best for someone who has terribly illegible penmanship, someone who is not physically able to write, and for efficient and nonpersonal messages (e.g. hey, anyone know the schedule of the 337 train for today? thanks.)

the recipient of a static letter may not be privy to the rich, storied, compiled history of said letter (like the fuzzmail's dynamics), but variations in the letter (different ink colors, styles, or spacings) add a separate dimension to the already highly personal medium. handwritten correspondance is incredibly costly because of the time and effort spent in the longhand composition as well as the time and effort in transit and delivery. however, the costs are well-worth the tangible evidence of human thought and craft. reliability can stem from the handwriting, the postmark, and personally intimate details. as for modifying a particularly longstanding and fundamental communication interface for reliability, you could bring back wax seals or stamps with ornate, unique, unreproducable designs, or authenticate yourself through personalized stamps (like http://photo.stamps.com/).

* * *

txt msg on cellphones are a quick, relatively unobtrusive, context-rich form of communication. short comments or inquiries are tapped furiously on numeric keypads, instantly sent, and viewed on a the phone's screen. the sender receives a message which is constrained by size (usually 100 to 200 characters), formatting (default size and font and color), character space, and from a sender who knows the exact phone number. the received signal reflects the actual message, a sent timestamp, and an ID displaying the sender's phone number or email address. the clumsy input interface and constrained size can impose garbled or ambiguous shorthand, and the message is at the mercy of the cellphone providers' service, but reliability is high for sender identification (thanks to callerID) and actual content.

txt msg is indispensible for instant silent communication; i can tap a message during a lecture or exchange comments without disrupting the room. seeing someone tapping buttons in a social situation doesnt seem to have the same knee-jerk reaction of repulsion as to someone yapping on their cellphone. for typographical and poetic reasons, txt msgs seem more appropriate than calling in times of sending a pick-me-up, a reminder, or something that's easier to send in visual rather than audio form. however, the shorthand nature of it can be disastrous for serious communication, where miscontrued signals can be fatal, or for long, detailed, media-rich missives.

abbreviations may be the most ambiguous signal; a receiver who gets a vry shrtnd msg or one with 'creative' spellings (due to the mistake-prone 1-2-3 tap input) might know this is just the familiar style of the sender, or may indicate a longer message that needed to squeeze in more letters, a person in a hurry, a person who is lazy and doesn't correct mistakes, or someone who is taking the situation way too casually. others who are used to it might never blink an eye. (amusing story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/world/newsid_2813000/2813955.stm, where a girl wrote an essay for school in txt spk). however, if both parties can understand and decipher the message, the signal should increase in reliability levels. txt msg develops its own particular language and cultural style.

the costs in txt msg include time and effort with input, reading and responding to messages with timely appropriateness, and maximizing efficiency without losing clarity in content. however, the easy identification of sender through callerID, the universal understanding of the txt msg size and input constraints, and simple crossover to richer mediums (with the phone which is already there) downplay the costs of ambiguous signals. you could make txt msg more reliable by integrating more formatting options (such like plaintext to html formatting), but that would counteract the spontenaeity and speed of delivery. an additional vibrational or tactile signal (similar to comTouch) accompanying the msg might be a helpful addition, since physical input can be rather intuitive, and it can set the tone of the message interpretation accordingly.