Mike Oren.com

First off, I just thought my readers might be interested in knowing that I found out yesterday that I was invited to do a 2nd phone interview with Google for the user experience internship, so I guess my first interview went alright. The second interview isn't until March 14th (during Iowa State's spring break), so I have plenty of time to stress out about it so hopefully by the time of the actual interview I'll have gotten that out of my system (it seemed to work alright for the first interview). Once again, I was able to borrow a room and a land line phone for the interview--although this time I'll have to remember to bring a glass of water since my throat became fairly scratchy toward the end of the first one. Not quite sure what to expect with this 2nd phone interview but hopefully it will all turn out well.

I now return you to your regular scheduled weekly update. The IRB application is just about finalized now so we should, hopefully, get to start conducting the usability testing of the audio game with visually impaired subjects sometime in March. I'm looking forward to doing that, since I'll finally get a chance to talk with the target user group regarding the program. We also made a new video of it, so hopefully I'll be replacing the old video that's currently on the project page (sorry about the lack of updates...) with the new video--the old video is from the version I did as a senior at DePauw and a lot of changes have been made since then.

This week, I also received the various e-mails from the CHI organizers so I now have all the details in terms of my participation through the student research competition. The poster session is on the Monday of the conference and then if I advance to the next round I'll be doing a ten minute presentation on Wednesday of the conference. The cost of the conference is going to run somewhere around $1,300 or so for me (registration, flight, hotel, and food), but I have a $500 travel grant from ACM, $240 from my department, my professor is covering conference registration ($375) through the funding, and then I'll hopefully be getting an additional $110 from the graduate student college. That should cover pretty much everything other than the food while I'm there, and I have no problem covering that myself (I also decided to buy a conference shirt for $20). I'm hoping to get most of the poster and presentation done during spring break.

I gave my first presentation about the project I'm doing for my independent in electronic music this week. I showed the other people doing the independent study how to use open sound control (OSC) to communicate between an application and the Reaktor synthesizer program. I also went over some of the limitations and unique rules in regards to Reaktor's implementation of OSC (it's in my plans to do a write up on this since there's not really a great resource anywhere online about this--and the Reaktor manual was almost entirely useless in this case). After that, I showed them my H3D project, which I had adapted to send OSC signals using python to control Reaktor oscillators for sound output. The class really seemed to enjoy playing around with my program, and it was a good experience for me as well as it gave me further indication as to areas that need improvement--they were fairly impressed with it since it was their first time using haptics so they didn't really complain about it, but I noticed some portions of it where they consistently struggled. I think if I could find the time to implement a gesture recognition system then that might help, since it will be a lot more natural with the haptic pen then trying to tap the buttons in 3D space (that's just a theory at the moment--I need to get a prototype built and some users to test it out before I make a decision).

I'm finally getting a chance to play around with developing something with the Wii controllers since my group for my computational perception class decided to build a program that uses the controllers to play music--where the movement of the controllers will control the various sound parameters and a camera will be used to locate the users and track them in space. Depending upon where the user is in space determines which instrument they are playing with the controller. That's the plan at least, and we think it will make a pretty cool demo for Iowa State's Emerging Technologies Conference. Including this demo, I'm going to have a total of three demos there (my audio game and the H3D project I'm doing make up the other two demos). That conference is right before I fly out to San Jose, CA for the CHI conference, so the end of April should prove to be incredibly hectic.

My last update is that my birthday is coming up--on Friday (March 2nd)--I'll be 23. No real plans for it (although next time I'm back home I'll probably end up going to Melting Pot, and I'm looking forward to that). I was hoping to have some web site redesigns ready to unveil on my birthday, but I think those redesigns will have to wait until I can find the time to do them (which probably won't be for awhile).

posted by Mike Oren  # 7:06 PM 0 comments links to this post

This will be another short update--it's not the weekend, so not the time for my usual update. However, I know people will ask how my phone interview with Google went--so rather than dealing with those as they come up, I figured I'd beat people to the punch and just post a short entry about it.

Since they don't tell you over the phone (or at least they didn't tell me over the phone--and I've never had anything but an on site interview where they tell me whether or not I've advanced to the next round) how the interview went, this is all just pure conjecture. My thought was that I did considerably better on it then other phone interviews I've had in the past--the lack of technical questions, in terms of programming, (I don't care about big O notation) and the fact that I was chained down to a corded phone (so I couldn't pace) probably helped a lot with that.

As for the interview itself, it started out about as I'd expect--finding out about my familiarity with Google and Google products, why I want to work there, the fairly routine questions (warm-ups). After that, the majority of the interview was about me discussing my audio game project and most of the questions regarding that were ones I was prepared for--mostly things regarding my methods for the user study, why the first phase was done with sighted subjects (and what I need to keep in mind in relation to doing the study the visually impaired and blind from birth groups--I consider these questions fairly routine, since we went over our decisions quite a bit before finalizing on a user study plan; plus it's a question that comes up from almost everybody when I discuss the project). One item did, admittedly, trip me up though--the interviewer kept asking me about my use of the "think aloud protocol" for the study; which to me meant that there was clearly a potential problem with it that I hadn't thought of. I knew there was a potential problem in using it while doing the mapping of the levels, as a pilot subject had mentioned it made it difficult for her to remember the level--but I stated that we took that into account and asked subjects not to use that method for the mapping levels. I also mentioned how it could potentially be a problem where the audio from the user talking might distract them from the game's audio; however, none of the pilot (nor primary) subjects mentioned that as a distraction. When it came up again, I finally figured out the problem that was being implied--the "think aloud" method distracts from the primary task and since I was also recording the completion time of the levels, I ran a risk of skewing the timing results (particularly those of the audio only subjects). However, we only used the traditional "think aloud" method (where the user talks about all objects they encounter--what they think they are, where they think they are, etc.) during the training phase, which wasn't timed, and then used a modified version of it (where the subject only talks when they get stuck--such as being at a wall that's too high for them to jump over)--plus, we also implemented a pause feature that not only stops the game, but also stops the timing. She mentioned that it might have been better to run two groups--one for qualitative data collection where we focus on "think aloud" and one where we focus on collecting the quantitative data of the timing. In an ideal situation, we would have liked to do that, however, since the number of people with visual impairments we have access to is limited (and this is more or less an unfunded project) I mentioned how we felt running the two groups would be impractical since it would shrink our number of subjects too much--especially the birth blind subjects (which we'll already be lucky if we get enough of those for the study). She seemed pretty satisfied with my answers, so hopefully my blunder in not grasping the potential problem was faster won't count against me too much.

So, in general, I think it went fairly well and I'm really hoping I get invited to the next round of interviews as I really would like the opportunity to work at Google for an internship (it's hard to find a company that does a lot of usability studies and even harder to find one that's as dedicated to user experience research as Google--other companies I've interviewed/have worked at have made doing proper user experience work a chore since you normally have to convince management that testing is in their best interest, and sometimes you have to convince the programmers/engineers...) Hopefully it will all work out. I'll let everybody know what happens when I either get invited for the next interview or get a polite rejection letter (hopefully I get the invite...)

posted by Mike Oren  # 3:20 PM 0 comments links to this post

I really don't have time to post right now as I have a deadline tomorrow for my electronic music independent study; however, I am extremely excited about this and I feel I need to share the news. Last night, I received an e-mail from Google inviting me to a phone interview for the user experience research internship! I'm really not very good at phone interviews (I have a tendency to get nervous/pace during them), but I'm relieved that I'm out of the black hole of their database and I'm finally going to get to speak with them and try to sell myself. This is an internship that I'm really excited to be interviewing for since Google definitely seems to have a grasp on the importance of user experience and make it a central cornerstone to their corporation. The exact time of the interview hasn't been set yet, but I'll be sure to post how it went sometime after it's over--I won't be posting any of the questions, just how I felt it went.

In other news, I ended up winning ANOTHER iPod Shuffle from DealsPl.us, this time because Danielle won and I invited her so that meant I got the same prize that she received. I also won $10 worth of Fandango tickets from them on Saturday. Needless to say, I'm a pretty big fan of them, and encourage everybody to join (free registration) and checkout all the great deals and giveaways.

Also, there probably won't be an update this weekend since I'm going home for my grandma's 85th birthday and while I now finally have it set up so I can easily do updates remotely from any computer (thanks Blogger for finally allowing me to shut off the navigation bar), I more than likely will be occupied with spending some time with my family and getting some work done--since I lost about 8 hours in the round trip drive. On a final note, my on campus interview with Garmin is on Friday.

posted by Mike Oren  # 7:12 PM 0 comments links to this post

Before I post my update for the week, I just want to let everybody know that I am in the process of tweaking the site. Some of you may have noticed that I've added an About Me section to the site. I've had this domain for over a year and a half but never really had a biography section, so I figured it was about time to add one. If there's anything anybody thinks I should add to it then let me know. Also, now that Blogger lets me turn off that annoying Blogger navigation bar, I am now publishing to the main page directly from Blogger, so the edit date on the bottom of the page will now reflect edits to the template rather than new posts. My header image will also be changing to include the final logo design when that's finished. The last change will take the longest to implement as it requires some more planning: I want to reorganize the site to push traffic to some of the other pages (the main page gets 100-200 unique visitors per month, but the other pages get 20 or less). This will include having some of the other pages updated through Blogger (with an attached RSS feed) and perhaps the reorganization/deletion/addition of links. So that's something to look for in the next few months.

My interview with IBM was on Wednesday. I think it went well, but you really never know how an interview goes until you hear back from the company or not. Still, it was considerably different than a lot of interviews I've had in the past. I'm used to being asked a lot of questions about my background (classes, work history, all that stuff) and then having a few minutes at the end to ask the interviewer questions about the company, their work, etc. However, in this interview I was asked the "standard" questions (legal to work in the country, little bit about work history, that sort of stuff) and then I was pretty free to tell the interviewer anything that I felt they should know about me, the work I've done, my research, etc. So that was interesting, and I enjoyed the interview (although I'll admit that the style of the interview did kind of catch me off guard--it was early in the morning and I had prepared for a more formal interview). I also enjoyed the fact that the interviewer started out at IBM doing web design and usability testing, so I was talking to somebody who knew the HCI field and understood that I wouldn't be happy in a position where I'm just a "code monkey" and that I need to do work where I can be more creative/work with people. So even if it ends up that I don't get the internship this summer, I definitely had a good experience with the interview and that's always good in itself, and I'd definitely be interested in working and/or interning for them in the future. I'll keep everybody posted if I find out anything more about doing an internship with IBM.

Some of you maybe wondering about CHI '07 and whether or not I made it into the student research competition. Well to end the suspense, I received e-mail notification this morning (at 3 AM when I woke up in the middle of the night and checked my e-mail) that my abstract was accepted into the CHI '07 student research competition. This is fantastic news and should make a terrific networking experience (not to mention the fun of seeing what other people in the field are working on).

In other news, I was contacted by a member of the SenseGraphics employees the other day through FaceBook about providing them with a description of the H3D project I'm working on. H3D is the API that SenseGraphics makes that combines the graphics and haptics elements into one easy to use scene graph. It's really made my research considerably easier so I'm more than happy to provide them with information about the project I'm using it for (plus, the free publicity is nice). I'll probably also make a video of the project to go on the research project homepage so that it can supplement the data already on there (especialy since it's a little barren at the moment). I'm pretty excited about that though. Oh, and speaking of the haptic research project and publicity, it was featured in the Fall issue of VRTech that Iowa State University [PDF] publishes. I also received some publicity from VirtualRealityCentre.ca when they republished my post on user experience research budgets for my class blog. So that makes my last two posts for the class both having external links, which is pretty cool especially since nobody else has externally linked posts at the moment.

On a final note, the iPod Shuffle that I won from DealsPl.us came in on Wednesday (I wont it last Saturday). I hadn't seen the new shuffle up close before, so I was kind of amazed at just how thin they made it. I also like how it recharges and transfers data through the headphone jack and will automatically transfer the iTunes songs to the shuffle (choosing random songs). I have the two Samsung MP3 players I won last year and those have better sound quality, but this shuffle is much better in terms of "everyday" use since I like the randomization of songs just turning it on and pushing play--plus the sound quality isn't that apparent with just the cheap headphones. I use my 2 GB Samsung for driving (it has a larger capacity any way, and there the sound quality is apparent since it has a decent sound system--with the MP3 player hooked up through the auxiliary audio input). I definitely recommend picking up the shuffle though if you like just having the music without the hassle of picking it out and manipulating the interface--and want something that's great for walking/running around with. Also, DealsPl.us is starting an Hour-a-Day Daily Giveaway for prizes, so I encourage you to join and participate in the contests/find some great deals.

posted by Mike Oren  # 8:11 PM 0 comments links to this post

I managed to land interviews with IBM for an HCI Engineer internship and Garmin for a software engineer internship after heading over to Iowa State's career fair this past week. When I approached Garmin at the career fair and asked them about positions they had in usability, user experience, etc. they seemed interested but were unaware of any positions at that time so I had assumed nothing would come of it. However, the next day I received an e-mail from the interviewer asking me to sign up for an interview, so I'm hoping they found a position that involves some user experience work.

Actually my experience with the IBM recruiter was somewhat similar. When I was speaking to the recruiter about HCI/user experience positions she didn't really know of any but invited me to apply to IBM research, which has a different recruitment process. However, since I'm not presently pursuing a PhD I assumed that my chances of getting an internship with the research division were slim. Thus, I chose to pursue the matter further, especially since a few days earlier I had applied for a user experience internship with the main arm of IBM so I knew the position existed. After informing the recruiter of this she spoke with another recruiter and I had my interview. Goes to show that prior research into positions at a company and a little persistence pays off. I did go to the IBM research site later though and looked up their internship opportunities and it turned out that they had nothing listed for user experience. Returning to the standard IBM site though, I found two additional HCI positions that I had either missed or had been posted since my last visit and a position doing accessibility work.

So I'm excited about the interviews and have been working on preparing for them so I can make the best possible impression, especially since an internship I do now may lead to a job offer after I graduate with my Masters (assuming I don't decide to go on for a PhD). I've also recently had the good fortune of having one of my blog posts linked to by InformationDesign.org. That gets my name out there more, which I always like. My latest entry to that blog is on user experience research budgets, so feel free to check it out.

On Friday I'll be finding out if CHI '07 accepted my abstract. I'm hoping they did since I really want to get out there and find out what research others are doing, but without the funding I get from having something to present there I won't be able to make it.

On a final note: go Bears!

Update: Some good news happened yesterday that I didn't feel justified a full new post (since I had just written a post yesterday--Saturday): I won an iPod Shuffle from DealsPl.us! This makes the 3rd MP3 player I've won in roughly a years time (the first 2 were the ones I won from Samsung's Hope For Education Contest in 2005 (although I didn't get the prize until 2006). DealsPl.us has been a great source of freebies for me in the past few months I've been checking it out--through it I found out about the free Senseo program, free copy of Office 2007 Pro (which just came in yesterday), and many other freebies. I also used it to find out about when Target was getting a shipment of Wiis (since somebody posted about it) and managed to get my Wii by following that lead. So I highly recommend joining and entering some of the future contests they'll have--and DEFINITELY check out the freebies section. This, of course, also follows my casino winnings in December (turned $20 into $126 when we were at the casino for my sister's 21st birthday--I forgot to mention that in earlier updates). So I appear to be on a lucky streak. Hopefully that luck will carry over to getting into CHI '07 and getting a nice internship.

Also, please give me feedback on this new logo I'm trying out:

posted by Mike Oren  # 8:02 AM 2 comments links to this post