Starbucks, Starbucks, Starbucks... Tall Latte with skim milk please....

What can i say...? I like Starbucks, especially when I'm on the Lab at Craigs Street... I wonder why..!!!


I don't care... coffee coffee coffee... !!!


I even got a bear from Starbucks... he's so sweet.. he's my little desk friend!! I wish he could help me with my assignments!

Starbucks' bear standing on my desk

BED TIME!!!

... & Cheese with the Portuguese

Photo taken at my place, 28/09/2007

HCI people

We are all so beautiful... HCI HCI HCIIIII !!!!

The Cathedral of Learning is located in Oakland a Pittsburgh neighborhood, in the center of University of Pittsburgh's main campus. It's the second tallest educational building in the world.

"Begun by Chancellor John Bowman in 1926 and dedicated in 1937, the building was realized with the help of contributions from men, women, and children throughout the region and the world. During the peak of the Depression, when funding for the project became especially challenging, school children were encouraged to contribute a dime to 'buy a brick.'

In addition to the magnificent three-story 'Commons Room' at ground level, the Cathedral of Learning also contains classrooms (including the internationally renowned Nationality Classrooms), the University's administrative offices, libraries, a computer center, a restaurant, and offices and classrooms for many liberal arts departments."

in http://www.umc.pitt.edu/tour/tour-080.html

Here are some pictures i took when the MHCI 2008 class went to the Duquesne Incline.


"Providing safe, reliable, rapid public transportation, via funicular railway, since 1877 May 20, for the residents and businesses of the Duquesne Heights and Mount Washington sections of the City of Pittsburgh. Utilizing two original, 1877 cable cars, the Duquesne Incline is a working museum. The Upper Station, on Grandview Avenue, includes a new platform for the public to view the Incline's historic hoisting equipment, as well as displays regarding the history of the Incline and the City of Pittsburgh, and pictures of other cable and rail cars from around the world."

in http://incline.pghfree.net/

Squirrel = "A Rat in a fancy suit"

When we were looking for house in Squirrel Hill (Me, Filipa and Emanuel), we soon realized why the neighborhood was named "Squirrel Hill".... yes there are a lot of squirrels running around the neighborhood.
It was hard to take a picture, but the one on the photo was hungry, so he didn't really care about us and Filipa camera pointing at him. (don't really know if it's a male or female squirrel, but sounds better to me if it's a male one.)



Although they look very sweet and we were so happy to see squirrels on the street, people here don't feel very happy about what squirrels usually do to their gardens.
One lady told us that they were "Rats in fancy suits".

Designing For Service

At Designing for Service course me and my group, we are working on a project for the UPMC Hospital. Our main focus is COMFORT. We want to help improve patient experience at the UPMC hospital.

To start gather ideas we did an affinity diagramm, last weekend.. which helped us build the territory map, that shows what our work is going to be about.









Catarina and Steve Selzer





The group members are Alankrita(ID) , Jason(ID) , Steve(HCI), Zhen (ID) and me :D
We are a pretty good group, we have also worked together a project in which we had to foster flow at the airport security checking. It was hardworking but a lot of fun.

Jason, Catarina and Steve

Affinity Diagramms

Affinity Diagramms are used to present large amounts of data, like ideas, questions, problems and possible solutions and to organize these data into categories.

Sticky notes are normally used to do the brainstorming exercises, but if you don't have any sticky notes you can always pretend you have them, ehehehe...



After grouping the notes into categories, they are ranked and combined if possible to make a simpler overview.

This is a pratical way to narrow down your focus on a particular issue and work on the real and main problem, BUT of course standing in focus depends on you.