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I personally have been on a never ending war with one particular service/product. Although I do see how it being contacless can be a lot more hygienic (specially during trying covid times), it just never seems to function when I want to. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: A complaint on sensored toilet flushes.

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Week 6 – Eye-hand coordination and Time Requirements Ch: 13, 14

1. New things I discovered this week and that I had never realized: Chapter 14’s “The many time constants of the human brain was an interesting read about the duration of a few perceptual and cognitive brain functions, and also time deadlines for human-computer interaction. It was interesting to compared these.

2. This is what I learned about this week: I learned about Fitt’s Law which states that the larger the target and the nearer it is to the starting point, the faster you can point to it. Also, the more the distance decreases or the more the target grows, the less the decrease in pointing time. With Fitts’ Law, designers are able to do follow a few guidelines such as making the button big enough in a way that users can hit it easily, be it with their mouse or finger. Other guidelines would be to make the actual click-target at least as large as the visible click-target, make checkboxes that accept clicks on their labels as well as on the buttons, leave plenty of space between buttons and links, place important targets near the edge of the screen, and display choices in pop-up and pie menus. I also learned about the steering law, a derivative of Fitts’, which is about moving pointers and it states that if you must keep a pointer within a path, the wider the path, the faster you can get the pointer to the target. Chapter 14 in its turn, discussed the concept of time and response of a design.

3. I wanted to know more about hand-eye coordination and training to improve it and I found it this article: shorturl.at/zIOPU

4. This is what I found: I found that a good way to improve hand-eye coordination and learn sensorimotor tasks is through playing videogames. The article presents a study that was carried where gamers and non-gamers had to complete a task in which they had to track and keep a cursor inside a square as it moved. The results were that neither groups were good at it initially, but gamers had it easier learning and improving over time.

#Psychology of Design

Week 5 – Learning and Problem Solving: Ch 10, 11, 12

1. New things I discovered this week and that I had never realized: Relates to chapter 12 which explains how decisions we make are not actually rational and how things such as wording and imagination or memory makes us biased.

2. This is what I learned about this week: The brain has three main parts, which are the “old” brain where it regulates the body’s automatic functions, the “midbrain” which controls the emotions, and the “new” brain, which controls conscious activities. I also learned that we have two minds – system one, the unconscious, automatic, and emotional side, and system two which is the conscious, rational, and monitored mind. I learned the main difference between them is that system one bases conclusions off of personal experience, making itself completely biased. With this in mind, I learned further about how people learn, what is difficult and what is easy and the different factors thar affect the learning process. We learn faster if we practice frequently , if it involves task-focused objective, if the vocabulary is task-focused and the terminology is familiar and consistent, and if there is little to no risk.

3. I wanted to know more about rationality and conscious vs unconscious decision making and I found it in aTED talk by Dan Ariely named “Are we in control of our own decisions?” (https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions)

4. This is what I found: Humans are not as rational as we think we are when it comes to making decisions. We are highly influenced by the things around us, but also by our own “laziness”. In the TED talk, Dan Ariely used the example of comparing which European countries were most likely to agree to organ donation. The results were not because of each country’s morality or overall opinion about it, but because the phrasing used to ask whether they would be willing to participate and become an organ donor was better though through.

5. This is how I can use the power of influencing in experience design: The design of things carries great responsibility because it can and does influence people’s actions and choices without them knowing. Most times because it is subtle, users believe they are the ones in control, when in reality this is not true at all. It is important for designers to keep this responsibility in mind and hopefully use it for influencing positive behavior.

#Psychology of Design

Week 4 – Memory and Forgetting: Ch 7, 8, 9

1. New things I discovered this week and that I had never realized: I have learned more about how short and long term memory works in the brain and how it impacts the way humans can recall or recognize things such as memories or faces. It was interesting to be able to link this to the UX factor of learnability, where users are able to accomplish basic tasks when first interacting with the design, and memorability, where users try to reestablish proficiency upon returning to the design after not using it for a while.

2. This is what I learned about this week: how long-term memory works, its strengths and also its limitations, and in what ways can design aid users to keep track of what is going on. Visual aid is definitely a must have in the design in order to help the users fulfil their goal. It was also interesting to learn in depth how the brain is wired and what things make it easier or harder to get stuck in the brain, such as passwords (and sites that have specific password requirements like numbers and capital letters).

3. I wanted to know more about differentiating between recognition and recall and I found it in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6glQPp6q4Jc&feature=emb_title

4. This is what I found: From reading the book, I had already noted that it is best to promote recognition over recall on a design since the amount of “hints” is less with recall than with recognition, and therefore harder to remember. Usually, open ended questions are attached to recall, forcing the user to try and think harder to get to the answer. Recognition, on the other hand, helps the user by providing cues, usually with the answer already within the question.

5. This is how I can use recall and recognition in experience design: When reading about recall and recognition both from the book and watching the video, I started to really wonder and question if there is a way of making passwords easier to remember by the user, but not so easy that it jeopardizes the users’ security and safety, two other very important UX factors. One solution that has been showing up more and more on the newest phone and computer models is facial recognition and fingerprint ID. This truly is a more effective way of securing private things. I think this is a good example on improvements in experience design to aid recall and recognition of passwords, and designers can use this is an inspiration to come up with more solutions. Having to remember passwords, or having to write it on a note and also remembering where the note was placed is an outdated method of authentication.

#Psychology of Design

Week 3 – Perception and Reading: Ch 4, 5, 6

1. New things I discovered this week and that I had never realized: I discovered the answer to a personal problem I used to deal with when I worked at restaurants. Because of the limitations and short-cuts that our brain uses to read (presented in chapter 6), guests would ask for items in the menu and when the food arrived, they would be surprised that it contained an ingredient they do not like to eat. This happened many times with different guests, even though all ingredients to the dish was written in the menu in slightly smaller letters compared to the dish name. Now I understand that the menu probably needed a better design.

2. This is what I learned about this week: I learned a lot about the human eye, how it works, and how it has developed compared to how our ancestors. Nowadays our vision is based entirely on input from our cones, compared to having to use the rods in environments with low light back in the days. I learned about the three types of retinal cones: Low, Medium and High frequency and to which part of the light spectrum each frequency belongs to. We also studied a bit of colorblindness which I think is a very interesting topic to think about, especially as designers. Chapter 5 of the book talked about how the human peripherical vision is poor and how that affects what we see and what we miss when reading. This chapter gave really good input to us future designers to take this into account when designing since the ultimate goal is to makes things as clear as possible for the user. Finally, chapter 6 is about reading and how it is not a natural ability that we humans have, but something we have developed at a later stage in our development. Due to this, we have some limitations and issues if information is not presented clearly and in a well-thought manner.

3. I wanted to know more about designing for colorblindness and I found it in a blog (https://usabilla.com/blog/how-to-design-for-color-blindness/)

4. This is what I found: This blog starts off by explaining colorblindness further. They offer very good and simple argumentation as to why should designers involve such as small group of people in their design in the first place. “…generally, the elements that are favorable for colorblind users are actually considered to be good design practices in the wider sense. So if your site is well designed, it should already be accessible to all users.” I also learned that a combination of colors and symbols is better to use instead of just colors to convey a message, since for example, colorblind people who are not able to see the colors red wont be able to realized they made a mistake or missed out on filling a field in a sign up page if the only way to see this is by coloring the outline in red. Also, keeping a design minimalistic is a good tip so that a designer wont need to worry much about colorblindness being an issue. The blog also gives the tip that contrasting patterns are an easier to differentiate than colors if placed directly next to each other. This is helpful in graphs, for example. Smart use of colors and tones can also help colorblind people to distinguish different things even if they cannot tell what color they are looking at. If the tones are different, it may also be different for the colorblind. However, there are a few color combinations that a designer should definitely avoid when designing with colorblind people in mind.

This is how I can use the guidelines from the blog entry above in experience design: Keep these guidelines in mind if a designer would like their product to be accessible, as it should. Accessibility is a UX factor that most designers tend to forget or put aside as not so important. However, after reading about designing for colorblindness, I have learned that once a design is made accessible for all potential users, it definitely becomes a better design.

#Psychology of Design

Week 2 – Perception: Ch 1, 2, 3

1. New things I discovered this week and that I had never realized: I discovered how poor the human vision actually is. What I mean with this is how easily fooled we can be by things we think we see but are actually something different, and how this can affect how we view the world and what we think is the truth, when it actually might not be, or might be different for someone else who sees something different than I do. Optical illusions are always a good example of this, but I also learned about how our vision can impact our other senses such as hearing. The McGurk effect gave the class a laugh, but if you take time to think about it, it can be very dangerous if miscommunications happen because what we see overrides what we hear.

2. This is what I learned about this week: I learned a lot about the Gestalt principles and how the human brain is optimized to see structure. In short, the principle of proximity is about how our brain organizes and categorizes things in relation to their proximity with one another, so the closest one thing is relative to another makes us determine whether it is a group. The principle of similarity is about how we tend to group things that look the same compared to other things. The principle of closure is about our brain being biased to visualize whole objects even if they are incomplete. Another principle describes how the brain tends to look at complex structures and simplify them. There is a principle that describes how the brain separates visual images into foreground and background, even if it is a two-dimensional image. Lastly, there is one gestalt principle which refers to moving objects and how they appear grouped if they are moving together.

All these principles describe how and why we perceive the world the way we do and understanding and knowing them is important so that we can generate a feeling of order into people’s lives.

3. I wanted to know more about bias in perception and I found it in a TED Talk by Poppy Crum (“Your Reality Might Not Be Mine: Sensory Perception and Empathy” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYytiQmXNTc)

4. This is what I found: This Ted Talk is about the power of perspective and how a change in perception can completely change how you experience the world. She talks about how we can use this ability to switch perspectives to empathize with those who cannot (The power of seeing both sides).

5. This is how I can use perception in experience design: Following the Gestalt principles I learned that there is a pattern that most humans follow in order to organize things in their minds, so I can use that when thinking about where to place buttons and choices for the user so that it creates a seamless experience for them and they won’t have to do much thinking when using the product. However, Poppy Crum’s Ted Talk about sensory perception and empathy also taught me that others might have a different world view and that we can also use these differences to find innovative ways of connecting as humans.

#Psychology of Design

Week 1 – Kick-off and Emotion

This week we were first introduced to the subject Psychology of Experience and how the coming weeks would look like for us. Groups were formed for the workshops and I am in a group with Chiini, Daphne, Julie, Paul, and Riccardo (group 2). Our coming tasks in week order are going to be the interactive lesson, example of UX, five multiple choice questions, present the blog, and presentation. I think this is a good group and I am looking forward to working with them.

At the kick-off presentation, we looked into the topic of emotions and how we perceive it. It helped me understand better how to differentiate emotions that could be considered similar and it also led me to having a better idea on what to do for my assignment in the Design for Emotion course.

#Psychology of Design

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