Attention, Contributor, Flow, Interaction Design, Long Term Memory

Re “Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits”

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Carey, B. (2010). “Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits.” New York Times Online. Retrieved on 26 October, 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html The main topic of this article is to dispel a few beliefs about effective study habits. According to this article, research has clearly demonstrated that we don’t have credible evidence for the utility of popular learning-style approaches that we follow. The article also outlines a few simple techniques that can reliably improve how much we learn from studying. Personally, I wish I read this article when I was a full time student as it might have helped me to be a better learner. Conceptual Design: With each of us having specific learning styles, a designer for a learning product can build a system that adopts to our learning styles. For example a system can test its users and determine their learning style and focus on a approach that might make the user learn faster and better. If the learning is tough, learners (Students) might lose interest and motivation. So effective approaches of learning such as variability in setting and materials must be used to improve learnability and retention.  Such design approaches would make learning easy and engage the users…

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Cognitive Blindness, Conceptual Design, Contributor, Interaction Design, Interface Design, Mental Model Traps, Perception

Re “Wine Study Shows Price Influences Perception”

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Svitil, K., (2008). “Wine Study Shows Price Influences Perception.” California Institute of Technology. Visited on October 4, 2010: http://media.caltech.edu/press_releases/13091 This article is a research study about how the region of the brain called the medial orbitofrontal cortex showed higher activity when participants drank wines at a higher price. A wine tasting study was conducted at the California Institute of Technology and Stanford University. Twenty volunteers tasted five wine samples at different retail prices: $5, $10, $35, $45 and $90 per bottle. The volunteers tasted and evaluated which wines that they found more pleasurable. Two out of five of the wines were the same but one was priced at $10 and one at $90. In the experiment the subjects rated and preferred the $90 priced wine more than the $10, although they did not know that they tasted the same wine. Cognitive Design What does the product do? In this study the cognitive design was a wine tasting experiment. The concept of the research was to experiment on the perception of price on different wines.  The setting was controlled in that the subjects did not know that they tasted the same wine but told that the price was different. While tasting…

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Cognitive Blindness, Conceptual Design, Group Decision Errors, Interface Design, Mirroring Errors, Pipsqueak Articles, Product Design Strategy, Scaffolding

Working with Clients

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We once had a client who made his secretary drive to our studio with a piece of a carpet from his office to be used as a color swatch for his company’s new logo. And while the final logo looked okay (very logo-like), it did little to represent the company’s brand. The company is no longer around today. Having a client who opines on the color of the background, choice of typeface, thickness of line, or layout mars the design process. It’s easy to get lost in details and personal preferences—who is to say that green is better than orange? A good designer has to be able to manage the client, keep the conversation focused on business goals and user needs. But before we can delve into the design process, we have establish trust. Clients need to feel like they’ve been listened to, they have to know and understand that design is hard work, and they have to buy into our expertise. The First Date The initial group meeting between the design firm and their client tends to feel like a first date: this is a chance for everyone to declare their expertise and expectations of each other. And like a…

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Conceptual Design, Contributor, Errors, Interaction Design, Interface Design

On “Keeping Kids Safe From the Wrong Dangers” by Belkin

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Belkin, L. (2010). “Keeping Kids Safe From the Wrong Dangers” New York Times Online. Retrieved on October 6, 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/weekinreview/19belkin.html?_r=1 Summary: Belkin puts the spotlight on the somewhat irrational behaviors of parents when it comes to protecting their children. With the best of intentions, they worry about kidnapping, school snipers, terrorist, dangerous strangers and drugs, while the most likely things to cause children harm are car accidents, homicide (usually at the hands of someone they know), child abuse, suicide and drowning. So why are parents constantly overestimating rare dangers while underestimating common ones? The author makes the point that evolution may have something to do with it in that our brains are not designed to process abstract or long-term risk, but rather to react to an immediate dangers for instance represented by a sound and make a determination of whether not it presents a danger. In today’s fast-paced world where we are bombarded with all kinds of worst case scenarios and sensationalism, our sense of proportions gets distorted. So, we end up driving our kids to play-dates, when a walk on their own may have been better both health and safety wise. User Groups: So how can parents make more…

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Conceptual Design, Contributor, Interaction Design, Interface Design, Perception

Re “Why Good Dancers are Attractive.”

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BBC Staff, (2005). “Why good dancers are attractive.” BBC News. Retrieved on 11 October, 2010: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4550000.stm Summary: A song accompanied by an incredible dance can be an exhilarating experience. We have always loved our dancers who rhythmically move their bodies to music. According to this article we not only love them, but find them attractive too. Our mind is biased to seek partners who have symmetry, and good dancers tend to be symmetrical. So by transitivity and motion-capture cameras researchers from the Rutgers university have established that good dancers are attractive. Charles Darwin suggested that dance was part of courtship ritual in various species. Yet another research by Dr William Brown suggests that women tend to be more selective when choosing a mate as they bear the majority of childcare burden. So they might seeks partners who exhibit better symmetry as it projects a partner who can be confident and assertive. As researchers have established that symmetry is a trait we might passively observe, designers can exploit this trait of ours. Conceptual Design: Given that we find symmetrical people attractive, we can extend this objects to as well. Symmetry is one such quality where we dont want it explicitly, but…

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Conceptual Design, Contributor, Interaction Design, Interface Design, Product Design Strategy

Why companies watch your every Facebook, YouTube, Twitter move

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Weber, T. (2010). “Why Companies Watch Your Every Facebook, YouTube, Twitter Move.” BBC News. Visited on October 4, 2010: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11450923 This article focuses on how effective everyday social networking can impact their product name, reputation and sales. By using social networking consumers get a chance to voice their opinions and experience by using social media tools such as Facebook, Tweeter, and YouTube. Conceptual Design What does the product do? In this article the product is the social media tools such as Facebook, Tweeter and YouTube. A couple of scenarios were examples that identified how people use social networking to convey a message on a brand or product. A Canadian singer, Dave Carroll complained about his bad experience with United Airlines baggage handlers for damaging his guitar. He then made a music video complaining about his experience and posted it on YouTube. The conceptual design was that he used a social media tool to post his video in order to have his voice heard about United Airlines. The interaction design part was that Dave used a powerful media tool that the general public had access to viewing and commenting on. People started viewing the video, interacting and commented about his frustration.…

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Background Knowledge, Conceptual Design, Contributor, Cultural Bias, Cultural Differences, Flow, Interaction Design, Interface Design, Product Design Strategy

Using Computers to Teach Children Without Teachers

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Johnathan, F . (2010). “Using computers to teach children with no teachers” BBC News. Retrieved on 21 July, 2010: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10663353?print=true Summary of the article: The article summarizes studies conducted by Prof Mitra on the learning curve of children using computers for education with teachers. Results of the study prove that the teaching methods employed have been quite successful based on the fact that: Children who are not exposed to computers are highly motivated to teach themselves skills they want to learn Children have had a steep learning curve in picking up complex tasks with minimum supervision Learning by discussion and in groups ensures that content is retained and not skimmed through by children. Motivation levels of students are kept high with a grandmother figure in the picture. The best results of the study have been combined to create Self Learning Environments where children in groups of 4 share a computer to assimilate information. Virtually present volunteer grandmothers keep the student motivated and support the learning process. On Environment: The need for self-organized learning essentially arises in developing nations and the ones who do not have access to education. Children living in such conditions have a natural survival instinct, which keeps…

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