unit 7: people are social animals

CHAPTER SYNOPSIS
This chapter discusses the magic of human nature and how we are incredibly social animals. It shares a lot of interesting information about how people empathize, lie, interact, and laugh. It is important to understand how people interact to understand how to design for them.

While we are incredibly social animals, testing has been done to find out how our social groups work. Dunbar, an anthropologist, tested primates and found a correlation between brain size and average group size. His studies have come to suggest Dunbar's number which indicates that the maximum social group size (that is close and stable) per person is 150 people. Tying in to Dunbar's research, we are also told that the brain responds differently to the people that you know personally. We are programmed to pay special attention to friends and relatives. Understanding this is the first step to knowing that all social media is not created equally (facebook versus twitter versus linkedin).

The chapter also discusses that uses of imitation and empathy. People can be influence with use of imitation. Mirror neurons explain how someone might react as if they are doing one thing just by watching another person perform an action. The book suggests that using stories can help influence people and gain empathy.

It is also important to understand in this day and age that it is very important to follow social rules in online interactions. When designing think of a person to person interaction and design as close to that as you can. Usability guidelines tackle these issues.

Synchronization can help users understand what you're trying to explain. Using live video with audio can help create a social attachment. It's important to know not to rely on reading if you want people to understand information clearly.

Finally, the chapter discusses the power of laughter. Laughter is a bonding agent between any people. It is universal, a form of social communication, and as you might have experienced before, contagious. According to the book, women tend to laugh twice as much as men and the speaker telling a story typically laughs twice as much as the listener. Along with laughter, smiles are also important to creating a relationship with your customer. Real versus fake smiles make a difference in your believability.


DEFINITIONS
Dunbar's Number- the cognitive limit of people whom one can keep a stable social relationship with.
Mirror Neurons- a neuron that fires when one subject does or witnesses another subject perform an action. Neuron firing when the subject is only witnesses the action creates a mirrored response to the subject doing the action, thus mirror neurons.
Synchronous Activity- do an activity simultaneously with multiple subjects. Includes moving at the same rate, existing at the same time, having identical periods and having identical phases.
Duchenne Smile- a "real smile" that not only involves the muscles of the lips lifting upwards, but also includes the muscles of the eyes contracting.


CHAPTER ANALYSIS
This chapter was very informative and conveniently tied in nicely with my current Psychology class. It also reminded me of a book called Tipping Point. I appreciate the importance of a relationship between a user and their experience. Most graphic designers are designing digitally and it's important to not lose the personable experience in doing so.

I love Dunbar's number and the experiments that came from it. In the book Tipping Point, there is a chapter about a business who uses the idea of this number as a business model. Everyone is on the same level (there are no bosses) and the business successfully thrives. After the business reaches over 150 people they break up the people into sections. I think it is important to understand how our social networking blankets us and makes people feel like they have more relationships than they do. It is also really important to understand which networking sites are for what.

The other part of this chapter that I found to be very interesting was the bit on how people lie differently. People tend to lie the most over the phone and the least when writing with pen and paper. This comes in handy to know when trying to get feedback. Feedback tends to be most accurate when shared one on one. People tend to be more negative towards others when using email versus pen and paper.

project three: deliverables timeline

project three: project statement

unit 6: what motivates people

MARSHMALLOW EXPERIMENT
First, I should note that Scott your link is no longer correct. http://youtu.be/QX_oy9614HQ This link will take you to the video that I'm guessing you wanted us to see.

This was a really cute video that packed a powerful punch. The experiment shows different test subjects (children) that are placed in a room with a marshmallow. They are told that if they are patient and wait to eat the marshmallow until the leader comes back in the room they will get two marshmallows. Knowing children and their love of all sugary things, we come to expect that most will not be able to wait. We get to see them agonizing over whether they should wait or not.

*SPOILER ALERT*
It turns out that most of the children do, in fact, wait until the leader comes back in the room. The motivation of having another is definitely enough to wait to eat the marshmallow.

The fact that this experiment uses kids is interesting to me because we don't credit them with much critical thinking. If you were to test adults this same way I think you would have to use something much different than a marshmallow. Money, perhaps. Regardless, the results from this test show us that we are willing to go through more waiting if we are thoroughly motivated.

The show Community had an episode where they did a social experiment with waiting. I highly recommend you check it out.
Teaser:
http://youtu.be/5_2IR454jQg

Full episode (you have to pay for it but it's worth it):
http://youtu.be/uH0Iq_ZBpHQ


CHAPTER SYNOPSIS
Chapter six focuses on how people are motivated. As a designer, it's important to engage and motivate your users to create "repeat customers." It's surprising to learn in this chapter that the typical thought of using money as motivation is not always the best option.

As we discussed last week, people are motivated to complete a task the closer they are to the end of the goal. This is called the goal-gradient effect. People tend to focus on whats left than what is completed. However, once a customer has reached a reward they are at higher risk of becoming a lost customer, or at least taking a break from the service.

Rewarding is really important and interesting as motivation. The chapter talks about the casino and how they use a variable reward schedule. Your reward must be desirable to the audience. You might be surprised to learn that people are more responsive to intrinsic rewards than extrinsic rewards. Intrinsic motivation is like playing a board game because its exciting, not because you win money at the end. Extrinsic motivation is like studying so that the reward will be a better grade. If you are using extrinsic rewards it is important to keep it unexpected.

This chapter talks about dopamine and how it aids in making people addicted to seeking information. It ties in the fact that small amounts of information keep people interested in searching to find more. People are also motivated by progress and mastery. There are a few more important take-aways: the ability to delay gratification starts young (see marshmallow experiment), people are inherently lazy, forming a habit takes a long time, people like to do things themselves, and people are motivated to compete when there are fewer competitors.

CHAPTER ANALYSIS
This chapter was very interesting and so far has felt like one of the most important chapters. I do believe that there are a few conflicting points. For example, the book talks about how people are motivated to compete when there are less competitors. I feel like this contradicts the statement that people do things for a challenge (when discussing intrinsic vs extrinsic rewards). Personally, I prefer to be challenged. I can honestly say that I have felt deterred from something before if there was a lot of entries, however, when it comes to trivia night, for example, I prefer to play where there are the most teams for a better challenge.

One thing that I found strangely humorous was the section about how people are motivated by progress. I was just having a conversation the other day where I described to Charles the strange psychological feelings of seeing a percentage of completeness on a social network profile. Facebook has recently adopted a bar that shows "how complete" your profile is. My immediate response is to feel somewhat incomplete if my profile is not at 100%. I feel like I need to fill in all of the information in my profile so that I will get a reader bar that shows 100% complete. However, I do not feel like it is necessary to have all of the information the website is asking me for (privacy purposes). It is an interesting idea to play on this idea that people want to be "complete."

Overall, I felt that this chapter had some great take aways for a designer to utilize. Rewarding can be helpful to bring repeat customers. Habit forming takes a long time and it's important for you as a designer to be patient when "training" your users.


RELATED LINKS

http://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc
RSA Animate video based on a Dan Pink's speech about how we are motivated.

http://youtu.be/wfcro5iM5vw
Dan Ariely Ted Talk discussing the essence of human motivation.

http://zenhabits.net/get-off-your-butt-16-ways-to-get-motivated-when-youre-in-a-slump/
How to get out of your slump and get motivated by Leo Babauta.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2013/07/19/how-to-stay-motivated-and-accomplish-anything/
How to be motivated and accomplish anything from Forbes magazine.

unit 5: how people focus their attention

CHAPTER SYNOPSIS
This chapter goes into detail of how people focus their attention. It's starting to become apparent that many of the processes in user experience are related. We are starting to see a lot of repeat in these chapters, which let's you know that really everything ties together.

People have selective attention (and hearing). Usually a viewer is going to focus on large photos and text/colors. There are certain things that your unconscious scans for such as your own name, food, sex, and danger. That being said, the items that can help in your design to garner the most attention are as follows: danger, sex, food, human faces (especially if they are looking at the user), stories, loud noises, and anything that moves (think flash ads on websites). When utilizing sound for attention vary noises according to intensity and attention level needed. For example, the sound of a foghorn typically is a high intensity noise that gets attention well whereas the sound of chimes is a low intensity noise that people typically don't pay attention to.

As we found in the last chapter, people like to organize things on their own if you do not provide organization for them. People in the same fashion filter information. It's important to use hierarchy to control what people focus on. Make important items stand out 10 times more that you think necessary. Salient cues are when people only pay attention to what you need for a given task. This is an interesting article that pertains to salient branding using examples of branding from Subway.

The two most important informational bits I found in this chapter were the Suzuki method information and the myth-busting of multitasking. First, the Suzuki method explains that constant repetition doesn't require constant attention. The book gives examples of learning music and how at some point you do not actively think about what you are doing, instead you just do. Secondly, multi-tasking isn't a real thing. The human brain isn't really capable of juggling multiple thought-conscious items at once. Designing where the user has to rely on multi-tasking leads to errors in what you're asking them to do. Sustained attention doesn't last more than 10 minutes, so it's important to keep demos and tutorials under 10 minutes and if you need more time than that to take a break in between.


CHAPTER ANALYSIS
What I found most difficult about this chapter is that fact that it didn't capture me as the others have so far. Is that because I am reading about how people don't really focus and it's then created a thought that I shouldn't focus on the reading? I'm not sure, but I did find it ironic.

I think the most useful information in this chapter is the 10 minute attention span detail. When I think about videos, tutorials, or steps I've had to take in any endeavor, I know that I avoid anything that looks too long. I may find a video that seems interesting, but when I see that it's 15 minutes I am quick to turn it off or lose interest. It's important to keep this in mind when designing so that your viewer doesn't miss any information or lose the point of your piece.


RELATED LINKS

http://www.wikihow.com/Focus
This article discusses ways in which you can focus. Who couldn't use a bit of help in that arena?

http://unbounce.com/landing-pages/designing-for-conversion-8-visual-design-techniques-to-focus-attention-on-your-landing-pages/
Visual cues to use in design to drive focus and attention.

http://blog.usabilla.com/getting-your-design-priorities-right-with-focus-on-the-user/
How to create a design focusing on the user's needs. Includes hierarchy tools.

unit 4: how people think

CHAPTER SYNOPSIS
The importance of understanding how people think is huge when you realize that you are designing for said people. If you cannot understand how they think and read you cannot design in a way that gets your message across. This chapter covers many mental processes that can be utilized to effectively create a design piece.

As we have previously learned, people tend to process small bits of information at a time rather than large bits of info. Mental processing can be seen in loads that have varying amounts of cognitive (memory), motor (action), and visual (seeing) skills. Fitts Law discusses that there is a relationship between speed, accuracy and distance. As a designer, it is important to evaluate loads of processing and take into consideration that sometimes more "clicks" is better because it requires less cognitive and more motor skill (which is easier for the user). It's also important to keep in mind that people have wandering minds so it's important to give hyperlinks to make your way around a page. It's also good to get people's attention with the use of storytelling because it makes the information understandable, interesting, and memorable.

Cognitive Dissonance Denial focuses on the fact that as a being we are somewhat stuck in our opinions. The less we know about something, the less likely we will pay attention to someone convincing us of it's ability to be better at something. The book uses the example of an avid iPhone user being shown a new Android yet not really paying attention because they already like their phone and don't care if the person says the Android is better (I definitely have personal experience with this one).

Mental models and conceptual models are very important to understand as a designer. They relate to usability and UX. Mental models are a thought process and opinion of how someone might expect something to work, while the conceptual model is how the interface actually works. It's also important to keep in mind that people understand and learn best from examples such as photos and videos of a process (imagine downloading a new app and the first time you use it you see a tutorial of what each section is with fake examples).

There were definitely a lot more take-aways in this chapter than we have seen thus far. I think it's important to remember that people tend to create organization for themselves if you haven't presented it, that people are affected and see things differently depending on their culture, time is relative and it's always helpful to show process indicators and to break up steps to create ease and functionality.

DEFINITIONS
Goal-gradient Effect- states that you are more motivated to complete a goal as you near the end. A behavioral trait that was studied using rats in a maze. Research found that the rats would run faster the closer to the end (food) goal.
Operant Conditioning- a type of behavioral modification where a specific behavior is increased or decreased through the use of positive or negative feedback. When training a dog you are told to praise good behavior, thus increasing the likelihood that the dog will preform the behavior again to receive your positive feedback.
Dopamine- an organic chemical found in the brain and outside the nervous system. Dopamine functions as a neurotransmitter in the brain to send signals to other cells. In the brain, it helps function with reward, motivation, cognition, etc.


CHAPTER ANALYSIS
This chapter has been the most informative in my opinion thus far. I definitely felt that there was a lot of repeat, and that could come from the fact that it shares many points with the "Don't Make Me Think" book.

I agreed with many points that the chapter made. I found the storytelling bit to be interesting and eye-opening. I can think of many different examples where I've seen or read storytelling and thus become engrossed in something. I also felt that storytelling tied into the part about the flow state in the chapter. It is an interesting concept to attempt to create a flow state for a user. I try to imagine a time where I am "in the zone" and I'm engrossed and focusing my attention. The book suggests to give people control over their actions, break difficult stages into chunks so that the user feels like the goal is challenging yet achievable, give consistent feedback, and minimize distractions. I think that when trying to create a flow state it is immensely important to keep in mind the wandering mind points.

My favorite part of this chapter was the part that talked about ways of being creative. While I felt like it was slightly out of place (because I struggle to imagine a situation where you need to design to induce creativity) I really found the types of creativity interesting. Deliberate and cognitive creativity requires previous knowledge of a subject. It is basically the act of putting together existing information in a new way. Deliberate and emotional creativity requires quiet time. These are described as "A-ha!" moments that deal with feelings and emotions. Spontaneous and cognitive creativity require the user to stop and walk away from the problem. I feel like this is most prominent in school (I can hear Sigrid or Scott saying to take time away from a project and revisit it later with a fresh mind). Basically the conscious brain stops working on a problem and the unconscious brain has time to solve the problem. I remember when I was coding my website I came up with this strange problem that a certain piece wasn't showing. I searched my code and wracked my brain for hours but couldn't figure out why. I left to go to a meeting at work. On the drive back home I suddenly realized my problem since I had given myself time away. I simply forgot to close a tag. Finally, there is spontaneous and emotional creativity which cannot be designed for. It's an artistic moment of epiphany or like a religious experience.

I really appreciated the section about the importance of time. It immediately made me think of an online shopping cart and how the sections are broken up. First you enter your log in. Next, if you do not have one you create one. It typically starts with name and email. Then you move on to mailing information. Finally purchase info. These sections are broken up in a way that takes about the same amount of time per page, and allows the user to feel a break and an accomplishment before moving on. If you simply have all of these steps on one page a user might not feel they have time to complete everything.



(side note: Scott, I could use a lot more dopamine for motivation for these blog posts)