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In this report we describe our experience conducting a class activity where students learned and practiced observation skills. In the activity, students in small groups observed and were observed making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The groups then used their observations to sketch designs for a peanut butter and jelly maker that they presented to the class. We found that the activity helped students learn about the difficulties involved in observing and being observed. It also taught them about the value of observing users, even if they are performing tasks familiar to the observer. Having international students in the class brought an additional perspective to the activity which benefited everyone. These students discussed the difficulty of observing experts conduct tasks that are unfamiliar to the observer. In spite of the overall positive outcome, we discuss ways of improving the activity given our experience.

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Perceptual, cognitive and motor deficits cause many older adults to have difficulty conducting pointing tasks on computers. Many strategies have been discussed in the HCI community to aid older adults and others in pointing tasks. We present a different approach in PointAssist, software that aids in pointing tasks by analyzing the characteristics of submovements, detecting when users have difficulty pointing, and triggering a precision mode that slows the speed of the cursor in those cases. PointAssist is designed to help maintain pointing skills, runs as a background process working with existing software, is not vulnerable to clusters of targets or targets in the way, and does not modify the visual appearance or the feel of user interfaces. There is evidence from a prior study that PointAssist helps young children conduct pointing tasks. In this paper, we present a study evaluating PointAssist with twenty older adults (ages 66-88). The study participants benefited from greater accuracy when using PointAssist, when compared to using the "enhance pointer precision" option in Windows XP. In addition, we provide evidence of correlations between neuropsychological measures, pointing performance, and PointAssist detecting pointing difficulty.

When authoring in visual storytelling environments, children are often limited to use characters and props available in libraries or have to create their own using software. We present a novel alternative in the early design and implementation of Vuelta, a tool for creating animated characters and props using real-world objects. Vuelta authors can create animations for realworld characters and props by capturing animation frames using a high-definition camera. Each frame is captured from many directions enabling the characters and props to be positioned in any direction. We use an image difference algorithm to extract the characters and props from the frames. Our setup is designed to support creativity by enabling authors to use objects of their choice that they may create with their own hands and by not putting limits on the types of animations that may be created. Vuelta is also designed to support collaboration by enabling more than one author to participate in the process. The next steps in our development of Vuelta include working with children to design a tool to edit the animations, as well as integrating Vuelta with a storytelling environment we are developing.