Project 3 refined

Project three idea is to create an inspirational 30 second to 1 minute spot for REI About pushing yourself through obstacles to find the better you. I got this idea in an informational interview where we were talking about how someone might get to a certain place in life. The man said that every one struggles and sometimes all you need is a foothold. It automatically got me thinking of a person rock climbing she is struggling to find a foothold and at one moment she is at a stand still. I would then show other scenes where people are struggling. It will show them failing and then succeeding and every time someone succeeds it will show the climber making her way to the top of her obstacle.


problem: will be getting across the message in as little as one minute. I want the viewers to see it as an inspirational add.


Solution: only shoe a few clips and emphasize the struggle points as well as the successes.

“Unit 7: People Are Social Animals”

People are Social Animals

Social interactions are important, people will find ways to use the environment around them to communicate that. We do most of our communications through technology, we make connection every where we go; and now with all the social media like Linkdin, Facebook, and  Twitter it is easier than ever. But how big is our actually network? On social media we follow people and they follow us, but then we have the people we are more in contact with on a daily basis like our classmates, colleagues, personal friends, and family members. Of all these people only 150 will be considered in your social group according to Robin Dunbar  an anthropologist that studied the evolution of study groups, this does not mean you can't know more people than the 150 number, it just refers to the amount of people you can maintain a stable relationship.

People are hardwired for imitation and empathy,  this goes back to the day you were born someone would make a face at you, and you would make one back, it's also more likely that if someone smiles at you, you smile back, or the biggest one for me is when I see someone yawn I will start to yawn. This is all directly related to the front area of our brains called the premotor cortex this is the action part of the brain that allows what you think to actually happen. The example they use in the book is when you see your ice cream melting you see it melting and think maybe you should wipe it off, but the action of you actually doing that is through the premotor cortex. The weird part about the premotor cortex is that it also works for if you see your friends ice cream dripping and you watch them catch it the same neurons are reacted in the same way they would have been if you had done it yourself. The lesson from this is never underestimate the power of watching someone else do something, if you want someone to know what to do or influence their behavior show someone else doing the same task. you can also get people to take action by telling them stories, or by showing pictures.  This is why youtube is so good, they show videos on their website, and people react to them.

Doing things together bonds people, if you play a game with someone and win its an accomplishment that you can both talk about. The book gives the example of a marching band, cheering fans, and a football game all of which have one thing in common, they are all  synchronized activities. Synchronized activities full fills our desires and pleasures. Activities such as Facebook are asynchronous which full fills other type of needs but nothing that you can actually physically experience. Designing for Synchronous activity is hard, a way you can incorporate it into your product however would be to use things like live video streaming, or live video or audio connection. Another thing that bonds us together is laughter. This is because laughter is something that everyone in every culture shares, it is unconscious, it is a social communication, and it's contagious.

People expect online interactions to follow social rules,  however every way we interact with a product  it becomes a social interaction. Taking this into account we need to designing a product by thinking about the interactions that the person may have with  the product/ design. This is why things like usability testing is so helpful in deciding how a person might interact with a product.

Another powerful form of interaction is through voice, speakers brains and listeners brains sync up during communication, listening to someone speak creates a way for the brain to help understand what is being said, so if you can hear it over a video or tape recorder it will be better than if someone was reading it. The reader might not fully understand the concept, or might miss a message that was shown/ heard on a video or tape recorder.

Unit 6: What Motivates People

What motivates people

Research has shown that motivation reveals that some of the tried-and-true methods for getting and keeping people motivated may have been tried, but they' re not quite true.

If people can see an end in sight they become more motivated because they are getting closer to full filling their goal.

An example of this would be a punch card for every coffee you buy you get closer to getting a free cup.

People love getting things for free, or if they feel like they are getting rewarded. Studies have shown that people who are part of a reward program, compared to customers that were not  were found to smile more, communicated frequently with others in the environment and were more likely to leave a tip.

After the goal is reached however motivation and purchases plummet. Going back to the example of  the punch card when you get that free coffee your goal is reached and now you have to start all over and buy ten more before you get that free one again. The closer you are to a goal the more willing you are to spend money to get you there, if you feel far away it, it won't be as important to spend money.  This is the most at risk time to lose a customer. After you beat a video game are you really going to want to play it all over again right away, think about it. 

Variable rewards are powerful, but there are different variable rewards  that play into how powerful they can be. Interval schedules, and Ratio schedules are two of these things that can work in certain situations. Interval schedules provide a reward within a certain time after doing a task, while Ration Schedules give rewards based on the number of times that the task was done.   The Examples they use in the book was rats receiving food after they pressed a certain object in the maze, the same works for humans. For operating conditions to work you need to have a reward that, that particular audience wants. 

Reinforcement by rewarding someone causes pleasure and makes a person happy, this pleasure of excitement is called dopamine. Dopamine makes people addicted to seeking information. Dopamine makes you curious about ideas and makes you seek out more information willingly. There are two sensations related to dopamine the first is the wanting, which propels you to action and the other is liking which makes you feel satisfied. Drive only last so long however and if the individual can't find what they are searching for after a while they will give up: so the easier you make it for people to find the information the better (encourages searching).

Another thing that keeps people searching is unpredictability. Unpredictability is another thing related to dopamine. An example used in the book was when you get a text on your phone; you have no idea when it will arrive but when you hear that ding at that random moment and have no idea who it is from when stimulates you to reach out and check it, unless your in Scott Mansfield's class of course.

The next thing the author talks about is how people are lazy studies have shown that people will do the least amount of work to get the job done. Through evolution Humans have learned that they will survive longer and better if they conserve their energy.

Doing above and beyond rarely happens because people want to conserve their resources for the things that they desire any effort after they have reached those desires is considered a waste of energy and most peoples time.

Because people don't want to feel like they are wasting there time they try and spend as little amounts as possible to get answers and preform tasks, thus we should design websites for scanning not reading. less is more,  stick with the important things.

Other ways to make people feel like they are not wasting precious time is to design your layout with shortcuts. As long as they are easy enough to learn, find, and use, just don't assume that each individual will use them just provide them in case they want to.

Project 3 Proposal

I have two projects in mind for project three. The first one I am considering is to continue on from project one, keeping with the same client Trader Joes and create the second element to the app. The second addition is the scanner portion that will connect to my Crisp app and give information about each part of the project. After I am finished designing the scanner to uniquely match the brand style of the store I would like to make a video of a person using it from beginning to end.

The second idea is to create an inspirational 30 second to 1 minute spot for REI About pushing yourself through obstacles to find the better you. I got this idea in an informational interview where we were talking about how someone might get to a certain place in life. The man said that every one struggles and sometimes all you need is a foothold. it automatically got me thinking of a person rock climbing she is struggling to find a foothold and at one moment she is at a stand still. I would then show other scenes where people are struggling. It will show them failing and then succeeding and every time someone succeeds it will show the climber making her way to the top.

This proposal might change after I talk to you.


Project 3 Schedule

Week 6: Finish up project two
Week 7: preliminary critic project two / research project 3
Week 8: Final project two due/ write out the story
Week 9: make story board, and get film, choose music
Week 10: Start editing all parts together
Week 11: preliminary critic
Week 12: final critic / all re submissions due

Unit 5: How People Focus Their Attention

This section talks about how we focus, what catches our attention and makes us sit up and take notice, how we grab others attention, and what we choose to notice and pay attention to.

Basically our attention is selective, getting our attention depends on how engrossed or involved we are to the specific subject. An example they used in the book was if someone went to a website looking for a particular item then they are on a mission, they are concentrating on a particular task and are filtering through other distractions that they might have fallen victim to if they went to the site not knowing what they wanted to buy.

We also have unconscious selective attention where we are constantly scanning the environment for certain things its are defense mechanism that we are pre programmed with. But for the most part everything is filtered. So we can't expect people to pay attention to information that the designer provides. If you think that the viewer will filter information use things like size, color, animation, video, and sound to draw them to the important things. The most important information if it is critical and needs to be seen make that information stand out ten times more than you think it should be.The things that stand out and get the most attention are danger, food, sex, movement, faces, and stories.This might not be practical or appropriate to use things like food or sex on a website, but you need to be aware of the most common things that pull attention to certain things and use aspect that work in the same way. Use images of close up faces and stories and much as you can when appropriate to also draw attention.


Well practiced skills don't require conscious attention, if you practice something like the piano long enough you begin to memorize the notes and play them without thinking about it, this is that same as when you drive your car home every day, it takes little thought and requires no conscious attention, which can sometimes lead to mistakes.

Expectations of frequency affect attention. The example they used in the book was a man getting a gun onto a plane and it wasn't caught, he wasn't caught because of the irregularity of people that bring guns on the plane. Attention to focus isn't placed on them (looking for a gun) instead they are looking for items they see frequently like lotion bottles that are the wrong size. So its safe to say that people will build unconscious mental models of how often an event will occur.

Sustained attention can only last about ten minutes and thats only if you are interest in the topic being presented and it is being presented by a good presented. Because of this you should keep online tutorials under seven minutes in length, and break up lectures every ten minutes.

People can't actually multitask. We can switch back and forth on a task quickly which makes it seem like we are multi tasking, but it is physically impossible to think about two things at once. The only exception to this is something that we do so much that it is second nature an example would be walking and talking. If you are trying to multi tasks you can't give your full attention to one thing so that leaves room for making mistakes.

For people to pay attention to something, they must first perceive it this can happen by sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.

Question for Scott?

I went to the laser printing class last week, should I write about it on here for credit? I took pictures and wrote down my thoughts as well.

Thesis Ideas

1. People from different geographical regions and cultures respond differently to photos and design depending on there background and cultures. I think it would be interesting to further push the issue on how that works with design and how big of a role that actual plays in the overall scheme of most designers.

2. Another concept I was thinking about was doing something that incorporated adds, I think for my senior project I want to make a short video or ad  campaign. I have made a few in the past and I realized that visual is very important but to make it a good piece you need to have a lot of other senses. Its hard to explain but to have an impact its so much stronger when you have the sound with it. Look at Hitchcocks films for example they wouldn't even be scary if you put it on mute. I think it would be interesting to write a thesis on how you need all aspects sight sound, and an emotional pull in order to make a campaign work.

3. My third idea is dealing with fear and how it relates to design. Human beings are hard wired to be optimists, so things like fear can fog your mind, I think it would be interesting to write about whether fear stops the creative bubble from forming or helps to push us forward and create great pieces of work.


4. Another Idea could be designing bad design on purpose to attract certain audience in the same way you make great design to target a different type of audience.

Unit 4 " How People Think"

This chapter is on how people think. The author opens up the conversation in this chapter be talking about how we can only process information in bite-size chunks.

We have all heard in life that everyday we live we are surrounded by millions of adds, designs, and information, (the estimated amount is 40 billion pieces every second) of this amount we only a fraction actually make it into our conscious brain. (40 of the 40 billion to be exact). So if this is the case keeping your design is better if its simple because people wont remember all of it anyway. 

Find a way to express your message in less words; this would mean that you are applying Progressive Disclosure which is providing only information people need in that moment. An example of this would be an info graphic it shows statistics that are important and separate it with pictures to represent a large amount of data instead of text that the reader might become overwhelmed with. People want to get the information and get out, if they want to read more you can include links for additional information. This is a great method but it only works if you do your homework, if you put up the wrong information your design is useless so make sure you know what people are looking for.

Some types of mental processing are more challenging than others in this chapter they talk about all three. The first is cognitive, the second is visual, and the third is motor. All three of these processes use different amounts of mental resources cognitive uses the most followed by visual, and then motor. You don't want to make something that is hard to use or people wont use it. Saying that; you should try and stay away from designing products that call for people to remember things, or that don't have any type of logical flow; this just gets the user confused. A good way to help with this problem is by looking for trade offs that can reduce a cognitive load by increasing a motor or visual one.

We are in a fast moving economy where we want things now and then we are on to the next thing, we are not used to waiting and in that way we have all become a little ADHD. Which goes on to the next topic, minds wander 30 percent of the time (we are always thinking about 100 different things). An example would be reading the same sentence over and over again and still not remembering what you read because your mind went somewhere else. A wandering mind can be both good and bad. It is good because you can multitask, but its bad because sometimes you don't realize your doing it, which means you can miss important information.

The next thing the author talks about is peoples uncertainty . The more uncertain people are the more they defend their ideas. when forced people change their minds, when not forced people dig in (they don't look for other possibilities), and if uncertain, people will argue. So keeping all of that in mind don't spend time trying to change peoples ingrained beliefs, instead get them to commit to something small and let them  change on their own. 

A lot of what people believe above is because of the mental models they create in their head, that they have learned through past experiences. Because everyone experiences things differently means that not everyone has the same mental model. Two people might look at a tomato and get two different experiences from it this is a small example in a grand scheme of things but that is why we do research to understand the mental models for our target audience.

People process information best in story form. When I was studying Art history I would sometimes make up stories about specific words I had a hard time remembering and it would  help me to remember them later. Stories are the natural way people process information, it dates back to the beginning of time when people made stories with hieroglyphs, or the indians that told stories to help their children remember their history. Use a story if you want people to make a casual leap. Storytelling no matter how dumb it is will help to make it understandable, interesting, and it will help people remember.

This goes into the next segment that talks about people learning through examples, like stories examples   can work in the same way. When you are explaining something you might reference an experience that is like a story. It is a way to show someone how to do something by talking to or leading them through the process. Don't tell people what to do show them. Screen shots are good in doing this but even that takes time now things like videos and you tube can do the trick.

People are driven to create catagories if you saw a grocery list of random things chances are you will want to group them into categories, in most cases you are already sorting them into categories when writing the list and not even thinking about it.  If you go to a site and information is everywhere (most e-commerce sights) people will feel overwhelmed and try and organize the information on their own this is bad because it detracts from the overall message because they are to busy trying to fix your un-catagorized problem.

Earlier we talked about how everyone is always in a rush the author goes back into talking about how time is relative, people never seem to have enough of it. Time is categorized into low hurry, intermediate hurry, and high hurry (all of which pretty much mean that they are still in a hurry).  People don't want to spend a lot of time on things, if they think it will take a lot of time then they will more than likely leave the site. So a good method for monitoring time is by providing process indicators, make the time it takes to do the tasks about the same so the individual can adjust their expectations, and last break the process into steps.

Another way to let people forget about the time they are spending on a site is by giving them control over their actions during the activity. You can also break up the difficulty into stages if you work on five hard problems it will feel like time is going so sow but if you mix it up and throw some easy ones in there they will tend to forget about the longer ones (let the user feel like the test is achievable).  Give constant feedback and minimize distractions, encouragement makes people continue even if things are taking a little longer, and minimizing distractions help the individual focus and not feel like they might be missing out on something somewhere else.

Culture also plays a big role on how people think the example of the tomato plays into this. The example the book gave was of two cows with two different backgrounds; they asked what people noticed. Depending on where you came from you noticed different things. People from the east noticed the relationships where people in the west recognized individualistic patterns.People in different regions and cultures respond differently to photos and web site designs. In east Asian people noticed the background and context more than the people in the west do. So if you are designing your site for multiple cultures and geographical regions, then you should research those multiple locations.

definitions 

goal-gradient effect-  says that you will accelerate your behavior as you progress closer to your goals

 operant conditioning- is a reinforcement method, it only works if you posses something that the audience wants.

 dopamine- created in various parts of the brain and is curtail in all sorts of brain functions, including thinking, moving, sleeping, mood, attention, motivation,seeking, and reward. Its a pleasure chemical.