Exploring Design

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Unit 10: How people decide

90: People make a lot of their decisions unconsciously, even if they tell you their reasons, they may not be true. However the decisions people state for their actions should not be thrown out the window, they should be taken into account.

91: People can unconsciously pick up on danger long before the decided that it is dangerous.

92: People are greedy, they always want more than they can ever use and this includes options and information. Just because there are more options doesn't mean that all of them will ever be used. it is a fine balance between offering many different options and too few options. People only remember about 3-4 things at a time so only offer 3-4 options at a time. If there are more than 4 options break them up into smaller groups.

93: By having a choice people believe they have control. Give people more than 1 way to do things, it gives people the illusion of control. Never take away the choice of options, it pisses people off.

94: They say time is money, most people do not actually believe it. They will freely give their time but not their money. Mentioning money will actually cause people to spend less money and be less interested in spending money. Unless of course your target audience is concerned about money.

95: A person's mood will influence their decision. If they make a decision based on their mood the item will have a higher estimated value to them. A person's style also has a bearing on their choice and their estimated value of the object.

96: Group decisions can be flawed. If one person in the group is not as good as everyone else, they will make poorer decisions because they do not ignore the advice of the unqualified person. People should be allowed to come up with their own conclusions to given information before they are put in a group to decide them and ask them how confident they are in their decision, before group discussions.

97: People are lead by dominate people. The so called Alpha dogs always speak first, as such it issues their dominance. The dominate person may not always be the smartest, so try not to put too much into the first idea presented.

98: People who have low self esteem or are uncertain, allow others to make decisions for them. It is called social validation. Reviews on a webpage about products are a form of this. Larger the review and the more information that is provided will allow the review to be more effective.

99: People like to think they are not easily influenced, when the opposite is true. They also believe other people are influenced much more easily then them. Because people are influenced but do not believe they are, these influences are actually unconscious and they are unaware of.

100: When it comes to products people to be able to physically touch the product and play with it. It is one thing a retail space has over internet sales. If the product is on hand people will be more willing to buy it, it may be because people have been conditioned to do so.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Thesis Proposal

Responsive design, design for platform and mobile first.

I want to do my thesis on a subject that I know very little about. I have decided to look at web design. I want to compare and look at how web design used to be done. Where it is going, and comparing responsive web design, mobile first and app specific device (platform) design. I believe that the future of the web will be mobile and how we as designers must change and do it.

What is responsive design?

What is it?
Examples
Technology behind it.
Content stems.

What is platform design?

What is it?
Examples
Technology behind it.

What is mobile first?

What is it?
Examples
Technology behind it.

How webpages were designed. A look at past design technology.

HTML
HTML and CSS
JavaScript
jquery
Grid systems

960gs

Content Mangement Systems

wordpress
joomla and others
How content management systems work with responsive, mobile first and platform based systems.

The future of web design.
Which should you choose?

Unit 9: People Make Mistakes

85: People make mistakes and there is no way to stop it form happening. Sort of like Murphy's Law which states If something can go wrong it will. If something does wrong an error message helps the user, and it should state what they did, explain the problem, instructions on how to correct it, written in an active voice not a passive voice, and shows an example. Try to plan for mistakes and accidents.

86: When people are stressed out they will make mistakes and they do not think or act clearly. They can perform repetitive tasks, even if they do not work. A little stress or what they call arousal is helpful cause it heightens awareness. Arousal can be designed for using distracting elements such as color, sounds or movement. Avoid using arousal design on difficult tasks.

87: User testing will help determine if there are any mistakes or accident that can be made while using a product. Sometimes there can be happy little accidents or mistakes that created when a user uses a product. It often means that something good has happened but the product was not designed to do so.

88: There are 2 kinds of errors, performance and motor control. There are 3 kinds of performance mistakes made. Commission errors in which a user does more than necessary, Omission errors where the user forgets a step, or wrong action errors where the user does the wrong thing during a task. Motor control errors are those associated mistakes of controls.

89: Sometimes people make mistakes on purpose especially if they are learning to use something new. They can systematically try every option available to get the results they want, or they can randomly try out everything they can to see what it does. Occasionally some people are so set in their ways they keep repeating the same mistake action over and over again. Sometimes older populations just take longer to do something than younger people especially when it comes to technology. Experts vs. novices is also something to take into account.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Unit One: How People See

1) The human brain fills in information that we see. What is seen is not what is necessary being told. The human brain may misinterpret what is being presented. People tend to bring their own personal experiences into how they interpret things. Designers have the ability to change how things are interpreted.

2) Peripheral vision is more important than originally thought, when used while looking at a computer screen people make the decision about the page's subject. While the center of the page is the most important, the sides of the page can not be ignored. Bright and blinking/flashing ads set on the peripheral vision will still get someone to look at them but they may not actually pay attention to the ads. If there is important information do not place attention grabbing ads near it.

3) The human brain recognizes patterns and as such we look for patterns. The more simple the object/icon the more it resembles a known shape and as such it is recognized more easily. 2-D objects are recognized faster then 3-D objects.

4) People recognize faces faster than anything else. Face recognition is stored in different part of the brain to make this possible. Eyes are the most important part of the face, thus then a face is looking right at the viewer they form a bond with the viewer. When face looks at something, the viewer also looks at the item. However it does not mean we actually paid attention to the item, we just recognize that the item is there and it exists.

5) People remember objects from a canonical view. Items presented this way allow the brain to recognize them faster.

6) People have been trained how to look at web pages. They typically ignore the very top and the sides but still focus with in the first upper 1/3 of the page. People look at web pages the same way they do as if they were reading , basically from the top to the bottom and left to right.

7) Give people clues on how to use an object, by doing so they are more likely to use it. Buttons should have a feeling of being pushed like an actual button, it mimics how a button actually works. People are trained to recognize blue underlined words as links. Try to avoid hovering actions, especially with mobile devices.

8) People do not always see what is there. Case in point, the video on the author's blog. The first time I saw the video, I lost count of the ball so I happened to noticed the guy in the costume dancing through the people. The second time I watched it, I didn't lose track of the ball and never saw the man in the costume.

9) The human brain naturally groups items that are near each other as items that belong together. Line and color can help separate items but so can more white space.

10) Certain colors do not go together. Red and blue, along with red and green, and green and blue.

11) Most forms of color blindness are selective, meaning people can not see certain colors. Red-green is the most popular followed by blue-yellow. About 9% of men are color blind and 1.5% of women are color blind. try to use colors that work for everyone such as brown and yellows. Use color blindness web pages that will check images to see how they look to someone that is color blind.

12) Colors have meaning. Choose colors based on the audience.

Terms:
Geon - There are 24 basic shapes that the human brain recognizes and the form the shape of all the objects that we see.
FFA - Short for Fusiform Face Area is a section of the brain that stores faces we recoganize so it can bypass the visual cortex, allowing us to recoganize people faster.
Canonical Perspective - The perspective where objects are drawn slightly from the top looking down and offset a littel from the right or left.
Affordance - The cues that an object give the user on how to use the object.

Unit 8: How People Feel

72: Joy, sadness, contempt, fear, disgust, surprise and anger are the 7 basic emotions which are universal to human beings and are represented by facial and physical gestures. People are able to tell between real and fake emotions when looking at photographs.

73: The emotions used in a design can be associated with the product/service being sold. Avoiding negative emotions in a design will avoid a negative association with a service/product. Since people tend to mimic other people's emotions using positive emotions will influence the audience in a positive way.

74: If people have an emotion associated with memory or information they tend to remember it better. Using actual video testimony will provide a better association with the viewer. Since people remember information in story form better, using anecdotes will help people remember it better.

75: People associate memories and smells very closely. Associating a smell with information will cause a person to recall the information when they smell it.

76: People like the unexpected, being surprised and look forward to it. That means that new things are exciting to people and capture their attention. Not all surprises are exciting or good.

77: People like to be doing something, they do not like to be doing nothing. However whatever people are doing it has to be worth their time.

78: People emote with pastoral scenes, it makes them happy.

79: Design can not always determine if something is trustworthy. Websites that are owned by respected and well known companies are trusted more. No amount of good design can change and option of a untrustworthy site. People do however look at design first.

80: People like music a lot and the pleasure and their brains release dopamine. Music however is very specific to a person's taste. Allowing for a person to personalize music on a website can cause them to want to use it more.

81: People like to be challenged, and when they complete the challenge it leaves them feeling of accomplishment. This also includes exclusivity.

82: People are not good at estimating future events nor their reactions to them. They tend to over estimate.

83: When using a website, people will feel more positive before or after they are using a webpage than during. It is best to get a reaction to a webpage after time has passed instead of right after.

84: People look for comfort or something familiar when they are sad, hurt or scared. Positive experiences with a brand are associated with safety, and thus are a comfort.

Unit 7: People are social animals

63: People live in communities, and they tend to limit those communities to about 150 people that they are close with or have strong ties with. Social media is unique because it allows us to expand the number of people we have in our community, even if we are not that close with those people and have weak ties with them. With social media it allows us to interact with those people that we do not have strong ties. Marketing with social media does not require us to have close ties with everyone.

64: People's brains will mimic someone else actions when a person sees the action as if they were actually performing the action. This means if an action is to be repeated it is best to show that action being done so the viewer watching the action will perform it using either video or pictures.

65: People tend to gain bonds when they do activities together. Online provides a problem to that as people can not do those activities together in a physical location. Using steaming video conferencing, live video or sound helps people to gain these bonds. Online video games where multiple play together in a space and can interact with each other also create this bond.

66: If a webpage asks a person for their personal information before you give them information, you turn the viewer away and cause them not to trust the website.

67: People lie to varying degrees depending on what media they are using to communicate. People lie the most by phone, followed by e-mail and pen and paper. People are also meaner or negative when using e-mail, or online survey. Surveys done in person are the most accurate.

68: When a person speaks the listener's brain will sync with the speaker. It means that if information is meant to be retained using a audio/video is the best choice.

69: People pay attention to people they know. The closer they are such as good friends and family you pay more attention to.

70: Everyone laughs regardless of where they are from and laughter forms bonds with people. jokes and humor are not necessary to make someone laugh, normal conversations will cause laughter. Laugher is contagious and if one person laughs other people will follow suit.

71: Smiles form bonds with people and causes them to trust them. Fake smiles cause people not to trust them. People can tell fake smiles in videos much better then photos.

TERMS:
Dunbar’s number: Is the number of people within someone's social group. It is based upon brain size and the number of stable relationships.
Mirror neurons: Are the neurons in the brain that fire when an action is performed mimicking the action of the performer.
Synchronous activity: Activities that people perform together that bond them.
Duchenne smile: Real true smiles that raise the cheeks crinkle the eyes.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Unit 6: What Motivates People

50: When people are close to finishing a task or completing a goal they become more motivated to finish it. People like being part of a reward program for a business. They tend to be nicer, happier and in turn spend more money. Once a reward is reached people's motivation goes down, multi tiered reward programs fail because once a person reaches the 1st tier their motivation disappears. Customers may stop using a service once a reward is reached.

51: Rewards need to be something that people really want.

52: People like to learn and are motivated to do so.

53: Associating sounds with information can motivated people to seek out information, much like Pavlov's Dog. Baiting a person with a little bit of information will cause people to seek out more info. People respond to the unpredictability of receiving information , it give them a dopamine high.

54: Tangible rewards are not the only thing that motivates people. More intangible rewards such as feeling good will motivate people.

55: Having something that people enjoy and interact with other than just money related will cause people to revisit a website more often. Showing a users their process for a task will motivate them to complete the task more. People are motivated my mastering a task/skill. It give them a feeling of accomplishment however true mastery can never truly be accomplished.

56: People who delay gratification are able to resist temptation more. People who are good at delaying gratification learned to do so at a young age.

57: People tend to work smart not hard, meaning they will do the least amount of work possible to accomplish their goal. Often times that means the work is good enough rather than the best possible job being done. Websites need to be made so they can be scanned instead of read. People will tend to scan webpages to get what they want instead of reading everything to get what they want.

58: People only use shortcuts if they are easy to use. If there are default make sure they are easy to chance and fix other wise it will make more work for the user and turn them away.

59: People tend to base what happens on a person's personality instead of the situation however when people explain what happens they always explain it was the situation instead of their personality.

60: Complex tasks are hard to do, make them simple. Simple tasks can become habits.

61: People are more motivated to succeed when they are competing against fewer people. The same holds true for not enough competition.

62: People like to do things by themselves with very little outside help and do them their way.