Author: Antonio Peralta

Observation: @ JFK Airport JetBlue Airline

My observation took place during the night time at the John F. Kennedy International Airport. I was taking a best friend to his flight that was leaving at 11:45 AM. During the time at the airport we were trying to check-in as fast as possible because traffic has made us run late. When checking-in there weren’t that many staff attending customers on the JetBlue Airline. We believe that the staff was low because of the given late-night time. I remember there was a time that JetBlue had a lot of staff but that was during the morning and afternoons. Since my friend was leaving so late at night to go to his destination, he was having trouble in getting on board as fast as possible. He was running very late and too many people were causing delays that he couldn’t wait for a staff. He then decided that he wanted to use the self-service check-in with JetBlue kiosk. My best friend thought that it would be a faster to be able to check in through self-service system and won’t be able to wait on line for a long time.

The kiosk self-service machines were close by the where you check in with the staff. They were at a good spot where users can easily access it. If I’m not correct I believe there were about ten machines or more and most of them weren’t being used. The kiosk machines had a big touch screen for the users to use and be able to see the features and content that the check-in service provide. The kiosk machine also had a slot where you put in your passport so that it can scan it for ­its check-in purposes. My best friend started using the device but he wasn’t exactly sure how it worked. He decided to get help online through google. He had made his search on how to use the check-in self-service and had gotten a lot of information on videos and article on getting help. At the moment of his search he was able find something that helped him understand how to use the device at JetBlue airlines. The information he gathered only took him about 15 minutes of his time to be an able check-in with the machine successfully.

The kiosk machine was pretty much straight forward for him to use, but he was mostly having trouble in how to scan the passport the right way. I believe that the machine wasn’t telling the him how to properly enter the passport in the right way because the screen basically shows a 3 second video on how to do it. I believe that tip that device gives you to scan your passport is helpful but there should be a little more information added to the screen to help the user scan its passport. For example, if the kiosk machine was to show a set of steps of instructions while viewing the small clip that shows you how to scan your identification it will get the user to properly be able to do what is asking to do. I remember that my best friend was getting a little frustrated because he tried about three times and since he was running late to his flight, he wanted thing to get done fast. 

There are so many digital devices out there that even airports have self-service check-in for flight. All these devices are connected by a network and they all give a scalable feature to its users for simplicity and helpful use. Just like the website of google that helped my friend get the help he needs for to this digital device, it had provided him with so much information about the kiosk. These many information helps with the leading of new development. As Gary Marchionini writes in his paper of Human-information interaction research and development,

“Digital technology has created a plethora of new kinds of information objects, including multimedia combinations that exhibit behavior, acquire history over time, and lead to new emergent properties. When these objects are Web-based, they acquire a scalability feature that leads to new kinds of emergence: interactions among millions of people and trillions of machines cycles create new kinds of information objects defined by instantaneous states of the network.” 

Observing and experiencing what my best friend went through to check-in with the kiosk device at the airport gave me knowledge. The specific understanding, I had gotten from my observation was that it thought me how the information that my friend gathered was helpful in the way that he was able to understand and use the newly self-service device from JetBlue. Just by searching up a question.

Reference

Gary, M. (2008). Human-information interaction research and development. Library & Information Science Research, vol.30, 165-174. doi: 10.1016

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Event: Data Through Design

I attended an event at the NEWLAB called Data Through Design, which was split in three separate sections, an exhibit viewing, artists discussion, and panel discussion. This event was an independently organized exhibition for data and cartography where they introduced a few artists who have used data in their projects and a panel discussion based on proxies was discussed. I’ve participated in the entire event and gained a lot of knowledge from the events discussion based on what the artists and panelists said throughout the event. This event was a high interest to me because I wanted to gain much more understanding in data collection from online data websites and how it can be used for a design project. I have taken a data visualization course in programming on my undergraduate years and have knowledge in collecting data but I wanted to learn more. Back when I took my data visualization course, I was very amazed in how data sets can be used in a program to determine a solution and get information. Even though I have knowledge in data collection this event caught most of my attention because of its panelist discussion in everything is a proxy. The panel was a discussion about proxies in data models where they are used in the complexity of getting a specific data set that works best for your project or needs. Proxies is everything is their theme in the discussion and this is because proxies are the information of things around us that can be brought together in order to be used in special work for the society. In my understanding the event is teaching the audience to grasp knowledge on data and how data is useful to the people and their works.

At the event I saw an exhibition viewing. In the exhibition there were a couple of projects created by the artists who were in speaking at the event. There was piece of works called temporal views of a bike lane, collision course, cards against hate, and a few more. All of these exhibits have data collection in them that was used to be created. For example, one of the exhibits called cards against hate showed cards that had different information about none hate crime in the week based on religion, race, and other subjects. The artists who created these cards used a data collection to get the information they needed to showcase their work. The artists who created this piece of work spoke to the audience and said that the data sets they used helped them get what they wanted and they agreed that the data collection of information would change the society in many ways.

The event talked about how useful data is helpful to the people and the design projects that are being developed by artists. Data is a big informational source that never ends. You can use data for anything you want. But mostly people use it to find solutions, make life simple for its users, and create a better living for the society. The information within data is very big and you can find about anything on the topic you choose to explore on. I believe that the information within data is useful in many ways and will help the people or users interact with products that use data in a much effective way. There is still a lot more information to be added to data. It is a growing branch that has no limits. Data is big and is growing more and more every day.

Proxies or data collection is a good tool because it helps users connect with information in a faster and smarter way. As Jim Martin and Raik Zaghloul say,

Collection management is profoundly affected by rapid changes in the library profession. While this provides librarians with opportunities to connect users with information, it also demands the ongoing development of new skills (Martin & Zaghloul, p. 313).

Even though I have knowledge in data collection, I have learned a lot by going to this event. This event should go on more throughout the years as technology is developing every day. The event has given me the understanding of how data or proxies is a big solution to the society. I believe that the event changed the way I see data in the way that data not only has been used at libraries, programs, but also on design works like cards against hate. Many of the words spoken about data at the event gave me the expertise on how data collection is used in about almost everything that we can think of.

Reference

Jim, M. and Raik, Z. (2011). Planning for the acquisition of information recourses management core competencies. New Library World, 112(7/8), 313-320. Retrieved from URL https:// doi.org/10.1108/03074801111150440

Link to event: http://2019.datathroughdesign.com/

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