
John N. A. BrownRobert Gordon University | RGU · School of Computing Engineering and Technology
John N. A. Brown
BA, BA Hons, BEd, MSc, two PhDs and a DottRic
Lecturer and research group leader. Mentoring PhD and MSc candidates. Former consulting UX researcher in Silicon Valley.
About
71
Publications
8,022
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
191
Citations
Introduction
Now a lecturer & research group leader at RGU in Aberdeen.
I am continuing my research from Portugal, Austria and Spain: challenging my theory of Anthropology-Based Computing (ABC) and demonstrating that calm, intuitive, peripheral interaction is possible with current technology.
Currently developing & testing pedagogic tools and methods, and mapping the self-awareness of AIs onto human patterns of cognitive development.
Published three books with Springer.
No longer working in Silicon Valley.
Additional affiliations
July 2019 - August 2021
Evolv AI
Position
- Researcher
Description
- Evolv wanted to automate the commercial UX optimization process. I organized 1,000 industry-wide UX heuristics into my periodic table that ranks and maps them to a practical UI taxonomy so that formal hypotheses can be generated, tested, and evaluated by humans and an optimization AI. During this process, I mentored a young design researcher and the established UX Design Lead and provided training and support to staff, clients, and overseas partners.
August 2018 - March 2019
Position
- Researcher
Description
- LinkedIn wanted to find out why so many were complaining about their Help and Support pages, even though the pages were getting a lot of use. I reviewed in-house data, conducted ethnographic interviews and cognitive walkthroughs, constructed personas, use cases and journey maps, and reported the surprising results formally and informally. The resultant designs were implemented across their products. I also mentored a young design researcher throughout the process.
Publications
Publications (71)
Videogames allow us to immerse ourselves in worlds that are reflective of cultural phenomena. At the same time, games are in the process of occupying and utilising the real world as a part of the game. The book provides a combination of theoretical and practical approaches to mixed reality through the lenses of game studies and pedagogy. These nove...
Cyber-physical systems operate in our real world, constantly interacting with the environment and collaborating with other systems. The increasing number of devices will make it infeasible to control each one individually. It will also be infeasible to prepare each of them for every imaginable rapidly unfolding situation. Therefore, we must increas...
To paraphrase Batman: “[humans] are a superstitious and cowardly lot”. We cling to our preconceptions against all evidence, literally unable to see the unexpected forest when we find that our field of view is crowded with an unanticipated number of trees. Our preconceptions and other cognitive biases weaken our individual ability to perceive the wo...
Video games are currently immensely popular and are now a major part of the entertainment industry having already outperformed movies in terms of revenue. The Star Trek universe on the other hand is iconic, has its place in popular culture and is often associated with people playing video games. But has Star Trek been successful in a video game con...
There is a long way to go before our current levels of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) reach the levels seen on Star Trek. At the same time, it is surprising just how many of those fictional futuristic features are currently technically possible. All that is missing is the ease of use and reliability that were conveyed in Star Trek. To get there,...
For 50 years, Star Trek has been an inspiration to its fans around the world, helping them to dream of a better future. This inspiration has entered our culture and helped to shape much of the technology of the early 21st Century.
The contributors to this volume are researchers and teachers in a wide variety of disciplines; from Astrophysics to Eth...
Human evolution is intertwined with technology evolution, from wooden tools to computers. In the 1990s Weiser announces ubiquitous computing, and called for an re-imagining of computerized systems, making them “calm”. This chapter addresses the historical developments of smart environments in general and smart homes in particular, referring to firs...
So-called natural interaction with smart homes has been limited by a misunderstanding of how humans naturally interact. Consider speech. Chatbots, developed to push the limits of voice-based interaction ignore the fact that natural human speech is actually multi-modal, supplemented both consciously and unconsciously by posture, gesture, facial expr...
This book has been about the theoretical and practical work that went into developing a truly intuitive interface for controlling networked and embedded devices in the smart homes within and in parallel to the Casa Vecchia project. Both branches of that work continue, inside and outside of the Casa Vecchia system. In this final chapter we provide a...
C.A.S.A. T.E.V.A. strives for the unification of a heterogeneous network with seamless switching between devices and intuitive interaction. Two mental models were put forward, each to enable intuitive multimodal interaction centered on either voice or gesture. The user could give voice commands to an invisible major domo, or could wave their smart...
What is the difference between how information is presented in nature and on computers? According to Professor Mark Weiser, the core difference is the ease with which the new information can move from the focus to the periphery of our attention. Technology designed with this in mind allows the user to easily move in and out of a state of flow, work...
Evolution of the smart home has, to a large extent, been driven by technological developments, frequently neglecting actual human needs and habits. To realize the vision of the Wise Home, a shift to a more human-centered approach is needed. In order to move to a more natural interaction, we must first accept that current interaction paradigms are u...
Our multimodal interaction is based on a smartphone app that combines GUI, text, gestures and voice commands as a step towards intuitive human communication with a smart home. Shown how to perform two tasks, 32 participants were asked to intuit how to perform seven other tasks using networked and embedded devices through intuitive multimodal intera...
As with all other experimentation, the formal testing of our S.N.A.R.K circuit was not conducted by flawless supermen who worked without error or setback. One of the joys of science is the sharing of our experimental limitations and the procedures that allowed us to cope with them. In this chapter, we share examples of the events that surprised us...
The C.A.S.A. T.E.V.A. system was not designed solely to perform tasks with measurable success. The core intent was to design a new experimental means of interaction with a complex network of embedded devices that would not feel new, experimental, or complex. In this chapter we present the qualitative methods used to capture the feelings and opinion...
Humans perceive the world not as it is, but as we imagine it. Specifically, we do not process what we perceive in real time. Instead we make irregular updates to a mental model of the world around us, and it is that mental model with which we interact. In order to interact successfully with any environment, we need to have a functional mental model...
In order to test the C.A.S.A. T.E.V.A. concept in the Casa Vecchia setting without disrupting the lives of the families living in our smart homes, we brought 38 international participants into a functional smart home lab based on the campus of the Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt, in southern Austria. They were introduced to the system and asked...
This book describes an innovative approach to the interaction between humans and a smart environment; an attempt to get a smart home to understand intuitive, multi-modal, human-centred communication. State of the art smart homes, like other “smart” technology, tend to demand that the human user must adapt herself to the needs of the system. The hun...
Peripheral interaction, the reflexive and reactive pre-attentive use of tools and techniques on the periphery of conscious attention, has always been a fundamental part of how humans interact with the world. In fact, it is very likely that our ancestors have been interacting peripherally since well before they were human. In the midst of searching...
This chapter presents two ideas for your consideration. The first is that perceiving the world through a device is different to perceiving it directly and, the second is that interacting with the world through a device is different to interacting with it directly.
These ideas may seem straightforward, but I am presenting them here in order to estab...
For some reason, we spend our lives in s state of perpetually renewed surprise, startled by the world around us and by how our bodies have responded to it. It’s the reflex arc, working on different levels, firing off responses long before the mind has a moment to think. This is fine for jumping out of the path of a moving car, but sometimes the con...
Wearing earbuds or headphones has only recently become something that a person might choose to do for more than an hour or so. The truth is that we really shouldn’t do that. Please, don’t have a quick and emotional reaction to what I’m saying. We already know that the little protoprosimian that lives in your head is not happy with any challenges to...
According to Bardzell and Bardzell (Pers Ubiquit Comput 2:1–16, 2013), Weiser’s ideas of ubiquitous computing and calm technology have generated two very different responses. “Calm” was intended to become a fundamental factor in the design and creation of hardware and software. Instead, engineers and technology-oriented scientists have continued to...
In this chapter I will discuss the natural way that humans interact with their environment, and the theory that this natural interaction has developed over millions of years of evolution. Our proto-prosimian ancestors developed the ability to simultaneously perceive, process, and respond to multiple streams of information, filtering out the vital f...
Despite the fact that parents and schoolteachers have been demanding it for generations, the human body is not very good at staying still. Now, you may be thinking that, even if this is true, the exception is that famous “ergonomic” posture in which a person sits close to a desk with their ankles, knees, hips, and elbows all at about 90 degrees. Yo...
In this chapter we will examine the evolution of tool use. There are three specific ideas that I hope to introduce here. The first is that our tools evolve in parallel to ourselves, each adapting to changes in the other and to social and environmental pressures. Tools are invented and improved by these pressures, and the same pressures move some to...
It’s hard for us to admit it, but we’re really not very good at being consciously in control of ourselves or of the things around us.
“Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”
This chapter is going to start with something you already know: that computers are everywhere around us, involved in our lives in many seen and unseen ways. One word for that is at is “ubiquitous”. It’s a very popular word these days among those who discuss the interaction between humans and computers. Once you know the word, you see it everywhere....
When a phone rings, what is it supposed to do? Well, the original idea was that it should get the attention of the intended person, so that they can decide whether or not to postpone or stop what they’re doing and answer it. We’ve all seen how a crowd reacts when they hear a popular or default ringtone in a crowded room: everyone checks their phone...
You’ve heard the story of the frog in boiling water, right? This is the common fable of how a frog dropped into boiling water will immediately leap out again, but a frog placed in water that warms gradually to a boil will stay complacent until it is too late. I don’t know how frogs actually respond to such stimuli, but I do know that humans ignore...
Not sure you can run your own experiments? Sure you can! Remember, the scientific method is counter-intuitive. No one should expect you to be able to use it correctly the first time you try… or even the second. This book isn’t trying to replace real training, it’s just trying to introduce you to the idea of thinking and adapting your technology acc...
I developed my first model of interaction based on the triune brain while working on smart homes in Austria. In this chapter I’ll talk a bit about how I based my minor contributions to the Casa Vecchia project on a century-old British nonsense poem, and I’ll also tell you a bit about our findings regarding intuitive multimodal interaction. We’ll cl...
As we discussed in the last chapter, your phone is designed to get your attention. Just because it is designed to do that, and just because people have been using it to do that for a long time, that doesn’t mean that it does the job well… …or even in a way that won’t kill you.
Have you heard the old joke about the fellow who finds another chap searching for his lost car key under a single street lamp on a dark night? He offers to help and gets down on his hands and knees on one edge of the circle of light, but after a half an hour feels like he’s not having any luck. “Are you sure you dropped it here?” he asks and the ot...
If you use a computer for writing, you probably use a keyboard for text entry. Now, I know that not everyone does use a keyboard, whether that is by choice or by circumstance, but I have only known two people who didn’t use them at least a little. Yes, my experience is only a small sample of the sum experience of the human race, but I’ve worked wit...
Imagine that you’re a proto-prosimian about 65 million years ago. You’re about the size of a dormouse and live in the trees. You have a long tail and a pointy nose, but underneath your furry little frame, you have the same basic physical and neurological characteristics of a modern human. What’s more, the tiny, furry version of you uses the same ki...
Having examined the evolution of humans and tools in general, in this chapter we will look at the “evolution” of the computer. The reader is asked to remember that, while human evolution has happened on a scale of tens of millions of years, and tool evolution has happened on a timeline that is only one tenth as long, modern computers have only exis...
This is the chapter that you get to write.KeywordsPlastic BottleProfessional ScientistVariety StoreLimbic BrainTechnical StandpointThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
We have always built tools to improve our productivity and help us lead better lives; however we find ourselves constantly battling against our new computerized tools, making us less productive and putting our health and our lives at risk. This book looks at Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) from a truly human-centred perspective; focusing on human...
So, as we saw in Chap. 2, Mark Weiser foresaw the change in our relationship with computers; a change that would come with the increased miniaturization, faster processing speeds, and wireless interconnectedness that was just starting to happen. Way back in 1991, in his first paper on Ubiquitous Computing Weiser cites a number of philosophers, a No...
The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design provides a comprehensive guide to design, with entries on key topics in the history and theory of design, addressing a range of design forms including graphic, textile, furniture, metal, ceramic, fashion, stage and film, vehicle and product design.
The Encyclopedia provides up-to-date peer reviewed coverage of...
The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design provides a comprehensive guide to design, with entries on key topics in the history and theory of design, addressing a range of design forms including graphic, textile, furniture, metal, ceramic, fashion, stage and film, vehicle and product design.
The Encyclopedia provides up-to-date peer reviewed coverage of...
The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design provides a comprehensive guide to design, with entries on key topics in the history and theory of design, addressing a range of design forms including graphic, textile, furniture, metal, ceramic, fashion, stage and film, vehicle and product design.
The Encyclopedia provides up-to-date peer reviewed coverage of...
The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design provides a comprehensive guide to design, with entries on key topics in the history and theory of design, addressing a range of design forms including graphic, textile, furniture, metal, ceramic, fashion, stage and film, vehicle and product design.
The Encyclopedia provides up-to-date peer reviewed coverage of...
The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design provides a comprehensive guide to design, with entries on key topics in the history and theory of design, addressing a range of design forms including graphic, textile, furniture, metal, ceramic, fashion, stage and film, vehicle and product design.
The Encyclopedia provides up-to-date peer reviewed coverage of...
The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design provides a comprehensive guide to design, with entries on key topics in the history and theory of design, addressing a range of design forms including graphic, textile, furniture, metal, ceramic, fashion, stage and film, vehicle and product design.
The Encyclopedia provides up-to-date peer reviewed coverage of...
The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design provides a comprehensive guide to design, with entries on key topics in the history and theory of design, addressing a range of design forms including graphic, textile, furniture, metal, ceramic, fashion, stage and film, vehicle and product design.
The Encyclopedia provides up-to-date peer reviewed coverage of...
The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design provides a comprehensive guide to design, with entries on key topics in the history and theory of design, addressing a range of design forms including graphic, textile, furniture, metal, ceramic, fashion, stage and film, vehicle and product design.
The Encyclopedia provides up-to-date peer reviewed coverage of...
The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design provides a comprehensive guide to design, with entries on key topics in the history and theory of design, addressing a range of design forms including graphic, textile, furniture, metal, ceramic, fashion, stage and film, vehicle and product design.
The Encyclopedia provides up-to-date peer reviewed coverage of...
Processing Big Data for security is not a twenty first–century problem. By the time our early ancestors had reached the size of cats some 40 million years ago, they had already developed the tools they needed to process the vast amounts of security-related data that fell on them in a steady stream of sounds, smells, tastes, sights, and feelings. Th...
Anthropology-Based Computing (ABC) suggests that sociocultural, neurological, and physiological parameters of normal human interaction with the world can be applied to current technology in order to improve Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) [1]. To challenge this theory, we hypothesized smartphone ringtones that could be targeted to specific people...
The use of haptics as a complement to verbal and visual communication across digital media is becoming well understood. Good arguments have also been made for the adoption of this modality for the communication of emotive, affective information. This article proposes an additional purpose for the consideration of the haptic community: the possibili...
We propose the prototype of a quantitative metric for evaluating whether or not a piece of technology is "Calm". Our approach is based on Weiser's vision of Calm Technology (CT) and on the principles of Anthropology-Based Computing (ABC) and Peripheral Interaction (PI). Our hope is to derive feedback from this workshop that will allow us to further...
We propose a model of human-computer interaction (HCI) that incorporates the Peripheral Interaction (PI) that is a requisite part of what Weiser and Brown called the most important aspect of Ubiquitous Computing: "Calm". Standing �firmly on the shoulders of earlier models of interaction, the Brown-Hitz model provides a simpli�fied, three-tiered inp...
Rather than adapt human behaviour to suit a life surrounded by computerized systems, is it possible to adapt the systems to suit humans? Mark Weiser called for this fundamental change to the design and engineering of computer systems nearly twenty years ago. We believe it is possible and offer a series of related theoretical developments and practi...
Das Smart Home mit all seinen Möglichkeiten und Funktionen hat sich im privaten Wohnumfeld bisher nicht durchgesetzt. Die Gründe dafür sind vielschichtig, Aspekte der Human Computer Interaction (HCI) spielen dabei aber eine entscheidende Rolle. Anhand des aktuellen Leitkonzepts der HCI, User Experience, analysiert der Beitrag Bedieneigenschaften un...
Das Smart Home mit all seinen Möglichkeiten und Funktionen hat sich im privaten Wohnumfeld bisher nicht durchgesetzt. Die Gründe dafür sind vielschichtig, Aspekte der Human Computer Interaction (HCI) spielen dabei aber eine entscheidende Rolle. Anhand des aktuellen Leitkonzepts der HCI, User Experience, analysiert der Beitrag Bedieneigenschaften un...
Now that we are in the era of Ubiquitous Computing, our input devices must evolve beyond the mainframe and PC paradigms of the last century. Previous studies have suggested establishing automatic speech recognition and other means of audio interaction for the control of embedded systems and mobile devices. One of the major challenges for this appro...
Weiser and Brown made it clear when they predicted the advent of ubiquitous computing: the most important and challenging aspect of developing the all-encompassing technology of the early 21st Century is the need for computers that can accept and produce information in a manner based on the natural human ways of communicating. In our first steps to...
The evolution and adaptation of humans is intractably intertwined with the evolution and adaptation of our technology. This was true when we added wooden handles to stone adzes, and it is true today. Weiser and Brown warned that ubiquitous computing would require the development of Calm Technology, a total change to the way in which we interact wit...
Previous user studies have suggested the occurrence of symptoms of motion or simulator sickness among active spectators of handheld projector interaction. Using the well-established Simulator Sickness Questionnaire proposed by Kennedy et al. in 1993, we asked twenty-six participants if they had any indication of such symptoms after they watched a d...
Weiser and Brown predicted the era of Ubiquitous Computing but what they called the most profound change has been almost completely abandoned, overlooked or misrepresented. Designing calm technology requires a deeper understanding of how we multi-task, but it has the potential to becalm human computer interaction; decreasing stress, and mitigating...
This study was conducted to simultaneously compare the postural demands and performance of a new human-centred computer input device to three devices currently on the market. It was hypothesized that the new device would perform as well as the commercial devices while requiring less postural strain. A total of 24 experienced computer users performe...
A comparative study of 4 computer input devices has been conducted, simultaneously measuring postural demands and performance. Twenty-four heavy computer users (averaging at least 4 hrs/day of computer use, at least 5 days per week) performed a series of modified Steering and Fitts' Law Tests while their postural behaviour was captured by a VICON™...