Talk/Paper Principles

1. Talk/Paper Principles PrasunDewan FB150, Sitterson, 11-12:15 962 1823 dewan@unc.edu

2. Software vs. Communication • Correctness vs. Style • Style helps correctness • Style more often abused

3. Deriving Principles/Patterns • Start with axioms • Defend but not prove them • Often considered goals • Should be as few as possible • Every principle/pattern should not be an axiom! • Derive principles/patterns from them Reusability is good Cost of re-using software is lower than writing new software Encapsulate as client of object does not react to implementation changes Use MVC as view can be changed without changing model

4. Axioms/Goals of Research Talk/Paper • Understandability (Degree) • Better not communicate, than be unclear • Novelty (Comparison with related work) (Binary) • Not considered research otherwise • People need to be convinced to some extent work is novel • Cleverness (Degree) • Tedious work not considered research • Work amount (Degree) • Otherwise contribution not significant • Attention (Degree) • First few minutes crucial Other metrics?

5. Talk vs. Research • Novelty • In research • Shown in talk • Cleverness in • Research • Shown in talk • In composing talk • Work amount • In research • Shown In talk • In composing talk Work amount and cleverness in talk are secondary and important goals

6. Relationship • Many goals conflict with each other! • That is mainly why talks are hard even for experienced presenters • Some support each other

7. Understandability • Loss of attention when not understandable • Without clarity, novelty hard to determine • If not understandable, work amt and cleverness may also be hard to determine.    

8. Novelty (Comparing with Related work) • Bringing out the relationship with something reader knows may improve understanding • Effectively distinguishing related work may make contribution seem • more clever, if solution is simple only in retrospect. • less clever as people may feel diff is small, but this is dishonest. • People may pay more attention if they know others have worked on subject area       

9. Cleverness • Clever things are hard to explain • People realize that clever things take effort • Amount of effort depends on person • A smarter person might have larger expectations! • People like to listen to insightful talks        

10. Work Amt. • Adding anything to talk increases chance of something not being understandable (assuming same amount of time) • May go less deep and thus not show cleverness • Difficult to pay attention if numerous topics introduced           

11. Attention • If people are not paying attention, all is lost! • Assuming attention is on relevant material              

12. In remaining course • Techniques with specific examples and arguments based on axioms/goals • Will analyze • common rules of thumb (many are on the web) • identify our own

13. Identify Potential Applications? • E.g. Talk/paper patterns should improve talk quality • Improves attention as people like practical results • Reduces time for work amt. but is important if audience not familiar with applications • Not a goal as some research may not have applications • Don’t make talk too application-centric • Idea-centric  

14. Related Work? • Needed to prove novelty • Contribution obvious only in retrospective • Related work shows “wrong” way to do it • Supports mystery story and thus attention • After a way that does not work, people want to know a way that does   

15. Compare as sets of features? • IR Control Programs - PocketPC/Palm • Cooltown– HP (2003) • MOCA – IBM (1999) • Universal Plug and Play – Microsoft (2003) • Jini (Service UI)– Sun (2001) • Personal Universal Controller (PUC) – CMU (2004) • Hodes’ System – UC Berkeley (1998) • ICrafter– Stanford (2003) • List all systems • Say our system has new set of features

16. Say Something Intuitive • Hodes’ System– UC Berkeley (1998) • Our infrastructure looks at user centered whereas theirs is system-oriented

17. Show Holes in Design Space UI Deployment UI Generation Predefined (UI) Remote Factory Client Client Factory Remote Semi- Automatic Fully Automatic 3rd Party Factory Semi- Automatic Device Factory Fully Automatic Design space if often a contribution in its own right

18. Identify Evaluation Space UI Deployment UI Generation Predefined (UI) Remote Factory Client Client Factory Remote Semi- Automatic Fully Automatic 3rd Party Factory Semi- Automatic Device Factory Fully Automatic Design space if often a contribution in its own right

19. Classify related Systems

20. Identify Evaluation Metrics • User-Interface Flexibility (Qualitative) • range of user-interfaces an approach can support • Programming Costs(Qualitative and Quantitative) • amount of code required to deploy a user-interface • Maintenance Costs (Qualitative) • programming time and resources required to support and update user-interface code • Efficiency (Qualitative and Quantitative) • time and storage space costs of an approach • Device Binding Time (Qualitative) • time a client must learn about (or bind to) a device in order to deploy a user-interface for it. • Deployment Reliability (Qualitative) • the level of guarantee an approach offers in deploying a user-interface Often contribution is some new set of metrics

21. Compare With Related Work • Be Sure to Point Out Advantages and Disadvantages • Can give results without proof in conference talk • But don’t shy away from complexity in longer talks

22. New Result Research? • Must have some new “idea” • Retarget user-interface for device of one kind to user-interface for another kind of device so common parts are not re-created • Ideally should compare with related ideas in even different domains • Caching

23. New IdeaResearch? • Must show there is complexity • Various Ways • Equations, Architecture, Abstraction, Algorithm • Do not need to give all details • But do not shy from complexity in job and thesis talks • Should describe at least one component in some depth

24. Practice Makes Perfect • Can show more content • TV news, ads convey so much information per unit of time • Both work amt and novelty • Uh, ah, “you know”, pauses, groping for words, lack of confidence reduces attention • Many good speakers talk as fast as they can without mumbling! • Lampson units of speed. • Can improve ways to make material understandable and look clever • Assuming iteration • Nature, cons, factors on which it depends?     

25. Nature of Practice • Rehearse in your mind (until the last moment) • Speak it out in front of the mirror and record audio • Next option is perhaps a better alternative • Use recording software to record slides & audio • Rehearse in front of one person (e.g. advisor/co-author) • May not feel as much energy as with an actual audience • Can use it in addition or in place of next option. • Rehearse in front of a practice audience • Most important if you can get such an audience (record it!)

26. Memorize the speech? • Can look too rehearsed • Realty TV better than someone delivering an obviously memorized script? • But movies, plays are rehearsed, learn to be an actor! • Amazing similarity in same talk given at diff. times by great speakers • Need to put appropriate pauses • Rehearsed drama delivered more or less naturally better than realty TV

27. Memorization Technique • Problem can occur if you start with script before talk • Create script/memorize of what worked after each iteration!

28. Nature of Script • Must keep conversational style • Point to screen rather than describe • At least in computer science • In softer fields often writing/oratorial skills demonstrated in talks and speeches are often read • Often in a very verbose way • Talks by non-native speakers typically have more content!

29. Example: Conversational Style? • The design pattern does not define if the model and editor, which, recall, performs input and output, are centralized or replicated. So let us consider these architectural issues. • You might as well be reading paper.

30. Example: Conversational Style • The design pattern does not define if the model and editor are • Centralized • Replicated • So let us consider these architectural issues. • Graphics and animation improves conversational style • Words explain graphics on screen • Like slide show Centralized Replicated

31. Cons of SlideShow Approach? • PowerPoint takes center stage • Many think of PPT as a bad thing • In business not research • Graphics for abstract ideas a la abstract art • Much harder as not reading text • Can animate text points in case cant remember • Must use grammatically correct(and ideally elegant) English to expand points • Otherwise better to read text slides • Need script and practice to really make it work (next slide is example)

32. Problem • Brooks ‘74: Diminishing returns as people are added to project • Many reasons • … • Conflicts Product Way back, Brooks found that t(click) adding people to a project does not result in proportional increase in team productivity. Over the years, people have found many reasons for this problem. One of these is conflicts, not among people, as in the talk before, but between the code they write in parallel software development activities.

33. How much to practice? • Con: takes time and is tedious! • Inversely prop. to time available for talk • I did not have time to write a shorter letter • Cannot afford pauses • Inversely prop. to how articulate/experienced • Directly proportional to importance Time available Importance Amount of Practice Experience/articulate

34. Practice in Different Kinds of Talks C • Defense • Consequence can be failure • Committee knows work • Job talk precedes • Conference talk • Shortest possible time • Potential interview • Job talk • Decides future! • Conference talk precedes • Class lecture • Cannot afford overhead • Audience asks clarification • Job talk precedes Time available J J D C D Importance L Amount of Practice Experience/articulate C J L D L

35. Don’t Hide Information in Slide • Belief strongly held by many • Covering ports of transparency considered bad and distracting • Understandability • Audience member can go ahead of speaker and more context • Graphics hard to understand all at once • Animation in slide • Cannot hide answer to question • Belief strongly held by many • Covering ports of transparency considered bad and distracting • Audience member can go ahead of speaker and get more context • Like animation in slide • Figures hard to understand all at once (Satyajeet example) • Can indeed provide mystery • Cannot hide answer to question

36. Animation • Helps incremental understanding • Keep attention as reader may go ahead • Useful in Socratic (question and answer) explanation • Too much animation can prevent understanding as less context available at any time • Animation takes time • Future work may not be animated • Consider two alternatives shown in next two slides    

37. MODELING MULTI-USER INTERACTION Application Coupling Active Display Active Display Conflict Management Editing Commands Editing Commands Undo/Redo User 1 User 2

38. MODELING MULTI-USER INTERACTION Application Coupling Active Display Active Display Conflict Management Editing Commands Editing Commands Undo/Redo User 1 User 2

39. What should be animated? • Parts that need to be grasped incrementally • An answer to a question • ….

40. Types of Questions IQ EA EQ • E.g: • Should (parts of) a talk be structured as a series of questions and answers? • Explicit • Audience given chance to answer • Expected to provide simplified answer • Rhetorical • Answered by presenter • Implicit • Raised in audience mind as side-effect of some information given by presenter • answered in subsequent slides RQ RA IA

41. Question and Answers? • All • Audience pays attention • They try to answer question • Connection is made to audience, so they will more friendly, and thus more guilty about going to laptop • Favors understandability if audience tries to answer • Favors cleverness if audience is thinking of wrong answer • Specially if in retrospect, answer is simple, as good solutions should be   

42. Question and Answers? • Explicit • Unsettling if audience does not attempt answer • Survey questions are safest • How many of you use the model-editor design pattern • Explicit questions can be used to adapt talk? • Do I need to explain model-editor version • People will not say yes lest that will end up boring others • People know less than you think! • Takes time, works in lectures • Explicit and rhetorical • Conflicts with cleverness if audience easily thinks of correct answer     

43. Question and Answers? • Implicit • Implies audience paying attention • None of the above disadvantages • Makes talk like a mystery story   

44. Make Talk a Story? • Creating flow – connecting each information item to (ideally immediately) preceding item. • Favors attention • Even TV/radio news writers try to create a flow! 

45. Make Talk a Story? • Favors cleverness • talk looks like proof with subsequent steps following from previous ones • work looks like one big contribution than collection of unrelated small details • thought that went into talk appreciated  

46. Make Talk a Story? • Favors novelty if previous work part of story • Favors understandability as people see the a coherent picture    

47. Is Creating a Flow Hard? • E.g. -1 slide  this slide: “ls creating a flow hard?” • E.g. -2 slide  “this is a special case of the more general rule that a talk should be a story” • First example relatively easy • Second example required special ordering • Explicit and rhetorical • Audience pays attention • Conflicts with cleverness if audience easily thinks of correct answer • Implicit • None of the above disadvantages • Makes talk like a mystery story Ordering used for –2 slide

48. Is Creating a Flow Hard? • E.g. -1 slide  this slide: “ls creating a flow hard?” • E.g. -2 slide  “this is a special case of the more general rule that a talk should be a story” • First example relatively easy • But must remember transition • Second example required special ordering • Implicit • None of the above disadvantages • Makes talk like a mystery story • Explicit and rhetorical • Audience pays attention • Conflicts with cleverness if audience easily thinks of correct answer Alternative equally good ordering for intra -2 slide flow, but not inter-slide flow

49. Indicators of bad flow • Simply stating the slide title • Even paraphrasing is not enough • “ I will next talk about …” • “Another component of the approach is …”

50. Indicators of good flow • Connection to previous slide • “The concept leaves several questions …” • “This idea has the problem/advantage …” • “A related issue is …” • Connection to far away slide • “The story so far is …” “One issue I have not addressed is” • “I will connect this to … later” “I had mentioned that I would find a connection to … This slide does so.