HW 6: Parafunctionality

 DIY Health  No Responses »
Oct 312011

I’m still a little unsure of exactly what is considered parafunctional. But I thought this would be semi-functional:

Shouting Vase

Takes your shout, muffles it to a soft noise

I think I even made a fantasy object with this function. But I would never use it because it doesn’t a.) look convincingly functional b.) the satisfying part of screaming is not feeling like you have to curb it. So I feel like this almost goes against it’s own function, but is a good idea nonetheless.

Another one that amused me, but is less parafunctional:

Stress boob

Posted by jameree at 11:10 pm  

Jamie’s Thoughts on Health

 DIY Health  No Responses »
Oct 312011

I define health as a healthy body and healthy mindset.
I’ve always been interested in how one can affect the other when they seem like two separate mediums.

Beyond having a sound body and mind, I think what I ultimately value about my health is what being in good health allows me to acheive. Or how being mindful of the potential of my body and how to draw the maximum output for minimal input. With physical health, I don’t think there are as many shortcuts.

I want to mostly work on, is improving my cognitive functions. One thing I always struggle with is being in more control of my life. Being able to hack my motivation levels and drive. I think these are all possible from understanding your body and knowing how to read its patterns.

A healthy day would be where I am well rested, feeling like my mental capacities are functioning at full force. Learning, feeling challenged and satisfied with what I output. Have a good laugh with a group of friends. And actually, I would extend that to doing everything with good company. Eating, exercising, playing, vegging out a little. Then organizing myself and find a way to keep my schedule and surrounings meticulously and efficiently organized. (This has not happened yet. Maybe this isn’t the healthhiest of needs)

Maybe challenges, growth, exploration. Self-discovery?
Balance

Body
- yoga
- take the stairs
- taking daily supplements
- try to eat healthy
- TRYING to sleep more
Mind
- many attempts at organization (eg. to do lists)
- constantly trying to hack my productivity
Relationships
- keep tight friendships
Money
- spending money in grad school to prepare for job finding
Work
- at grad school to figure out what I’d like to do for the rest of my life
Environment
- not sure what this means?
Happiness
- engaged at school
- circle of good friends
- keeping charge of the order of my life is a satisfying but never ending challenge
- learning new skills

I think happiness, mind, and relationships are the most important to me.
I think because they’re the ones that don’t have as clear a path to optimize, but most rewarding too. I think my biggest focus has been one of self-discovery for many years now. I think I’ve struggled with defining my identity for a long time. Only now and thanks to ITP have I found that I am who I am, I’m not just what I do. I’m still curious about understanding myself. But instead of over-thinking things and falling into analysis paralysis, I try to just do and leave the thinking to the reflection portion of my actions instead.

One project that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time actually, is keeping a ‘year blog’ where I track what I’ve done everyday THIS day for years. It started where I kept a yearly diary (and still do) where I write to my future self every August. And there is little more satisfying than seeing how much I’ve seen and experienced in a single year. I feel like this could be a great way to track your own life progress. I kind of dislike how all mood/life trackers today are targeted for people have mood disorders. Why can’t my own life inspire me? Anyway, that is a project I would like to see to completion, whether in or out of of ITP.

Posted by jameree at 1:38 am  

HW 6: Use cases notes

 IxD  No Responses »
Oct 302011

ITPcorkboard
url: http://stu.itp.nyu.edu/~ks2407/ITPcorkboard/

PLANNING
Discuss the project’s overall philosophic goals.
Our overall project goal is to encourage online and offline conversation and collaboration. In a project driven manner.
What is it trying to accomplish in the world?
An organization of the useful information on the ITP list (but without the list)
A lot of social stuff is on the list, but there’s so much happening on the floor project wise where ppl aren’t aware of
This would be a space to ask for collabo, critique, and have a space for conversations around projects your’e involved in
functional like the icm and pcomp list
Identify what problem space they have decided to take on within that goal.
not being able to know what’s going on (more accurately and conveniently)
Assuming the project is transactional, not informational, what mental model of interaction are they using?
corkboard
How literal or abstract is their mental model?
very literal
Is the use of their interactive “handles” and cues obvious or does it or do they require overt instructions?
Different colors represent different types of post
Needs to be used before understanding what the colors mean
Looks random
Does the project use persuasion to get it’s point across, or does it resort to telling it’s users what to do?
Its uses curiosity
What are the sample personas your clients imagine using this project?

-Carlin who doesn’t come to the floor often and read the ITP list at all but who’s curious about other students’ projects
What scenarios do they image them going through?
it varies from ITP students to others like professors/adjucnts/residents or total outsiders
post something or just browse
What cognitive process is this interface attempting to support?
Posting and reading posts on a physical corkboard. Curiosity.
Problem Solving / Learning

REQUIREMENTS
Find examples of people who fall into the types of personas that your client has indicated are their target users.
Carlin (persona #1)
doesn’t use list
curious as to what’s happening on floor
reaches out on the list
may not like being on the floor
Rader/Colombo/Spike
people who are always on the floor
very vocal presence on the list (and floor)
Gabby Levine
On the floor a good amount
not super social
regular presence on floor
Find out their Goals, Frustrations, and Motivations in relation to this type of interaction.
Goals
Spark conversations/awareness around projects happening on the floor
Fun/Creative expression
Frustrations
Making it visually appealing
Photos might not make people post even more
Getting people to notice it
Getting more people to post to it
Motivations
Get noticed by other people
Get help by other people

FORMATIVE EVALUATION
Complete a thorough Heuristic Test of the project’s interface.
Use Neilsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics and your Interface Design Manual to ferret out potential design issues.
Usability Test
Create your questions for a usability test. Remember to include your disclaimer, background questions, overall impression questions and short answer questions, and most importantly, your walk through and wishlist questions.
Test 5 users (formative evaluation)
See below

ANALYSIS
How effective is this tool in accomplishing the creator’s stated philosophic goals?

Fairly successful, just need to get people into posting more.
Where did they succeed and where was there a mismatch?

Getting people to know what’s going on at-a-glance was successful.
Need more participants. People are hesitant to share when it’s not busy.
Does the interface successfully support the cognitive processes that it was created for?

Yes? Could be more organized (colors scheme could be more obvious)
How accurate were the user scenarios that they imagined occurring?

The gist was correct, but there were a lot of unique scenarios that require different things. (eg. partner approval)
How closely did they resemble the actual uses by real users?

Read above.
What Use Cases are missing from the project?

Missing Alumni, residents, teachers, brainstormers (ppl who don’t have a dedicated project idea)
What functionality or abilities does the user want or need to be able to accomplish that are not currently available?

Partner approval, timed posts, sorting by categories/date, personalized feeds
What specific interface problems does the project suffer from?

Posts could be sorted better.

Questions:

Hiye Shin
Have you visited this site before?
No
What do you think the purpose of this site is? (ie. selling, informing, entertainment, etc)
To share an idea.
ITP specific. Seems like a chatroom. Like the list but more public. Less private. For fun.

Who do you think the intended audience is?
ITP students

*Could you tell what the page was about?
This reminds me of post its, put down and idea and put it on the corkboard.

Was anything too obtrusive?
1. I posted a comment to ‘SpiceBox’ and did not register the comment count.
2. When I click the post it bracelet, i was hoping for a picture, but there was no picture. So i was curious abou twhat happens if i click on the title. The title and subtitle are redundant.
Expecting more information

Was anything too well hidden?
More detailed content for each project.
Expecting a photo, or an attached file. (

Problems or kudos on the color scheme?
I really like it in terms of design and color.

Easy to read (both font style and size)?
So far it’s easy to read, but I kind of wonder, if i post another thing, where would it fall and would it end up ont he bottom.
It’s good now at-a-glance, but once there are more posts will have to scroll

How did you find the layout of the site?
Concerns about scrolling
Colors +
I would make the title pop out more
When i click on a post it, the scroll down gets irritating, cuz it pushes everything else down.

The comments section is too large compared to the main ‘article’

How intuitive and helpful is the navigation system?
Main page is intuitive. Right way i got what the purpose is, but it was confusing going into a post it and trying to get details.

Did you notice the search box?
I noticed, but I didn’t notice right away.
It took a good five minutes.

I think they’re for sorting
I’d like it better on top not the bottom, more standard

Did you notice the Post Something?
Noticed the post something right away

What would encourage you to return to this site in the future?
If there is more information, more posts, then it means there are more resources.

Would you use this site to post ideas?
Not this early on, when more popular.

Name your three favorite things about the site, and your three least favorite
Likes:
Post-its
Colors
Layout

Dislikes:
Title
instructions: doing/seeing/reading/thinking (italicized and hard to read)

How often are you on the floor?
Everyday
How often do you post to the list?
Once every two weeks

Just noticed login button?
Confusing – wordpress

ANTONIUS

Have you visited this site before?
I walked past it, but didn’t really interact with it

What do you think the purpose of this site is? (ie. selling, informing, entertainment, etc)
To post what your working on and get input find collaborators and equipment that you would need that you could borrow.
Otherwise browsing and seeing if you could give input or offer equip.

Who do you think the intended audience is?
ITP

Was anything confusion?
The categories are confusing, bcuase there’s a N/A category, and i feel like it needs to be curated.
Some are obvoius, but i think a category should be mandatory

When i click on a person’s name, i don’t want to email them, i want to see what else they’ve done.

I would like to see a user’s history on the site first.
Would n’t mind if there was just an email button. Along side what else they’ve done. More inclined to offer if they are active member of this community.

Was anything hard to find?
Comments section is larger than actual article. My eyes go straight to the comments first. And read that before actual content.

Front page well designed, but once you go in a level, it becomes a lot harder to find description.

I want a way to sort.

Easy to read (both font style and size)?
Fonts good.

How did you find the layout of the site? Color scheme?
Color scheme is great, but not intuitive, I dont know what it means.
I like this layout. Would be better if i kenw what it meant.

Infact, I don’t want to go to a separate page when i click on a post it.
Sort by all the post its of someone’s name

How intuitive and helpful is the navigation system?
It’s great. The best part so far is i can see everything in one page.
I like being able to scroll back down and see th rest of the postits, dont’ ahve to go ‘back’
I would like a ‘read’ option for post-its.

Did you notice the search box? Categories? Post it? Change the way you nav site?
I noticed categories, find it more helpful than search box.
If the search box were uptop, I would use it more often.
Search that sorts relevant to your search query. Keep it all on one page.

What would encourage you to use this site?
It’s such a nonspecific thing, I’m not encouraged to cuz it’s so broad.
Seeing other people’s posts encourages me.

What would encourage you to post to this site?
I was goign to post something, but I wish I could save this as a draft, and let someoen else look at it before posting. Being to time when things go out so it woudl correlate to when you need someting. (boomerang)

How often are you on the floor?
A lot these days. 6 days a week. 7 hours a day.

How often do you post to the list?
Never. Once every semester.

Michella

Have you visited this site before?
No, just seen it on big winow and would post something on

What do you think the purpose of this site is? (ie. selling, informing, entertainment, etc)
Because i’ve used post its before, it hought it was a todo
I thought it was the same thing.
More an ideas thing and to get feed back.

Who do you think the intended audience is?
Students, us? Anyone who is interested int he subject matter that is posted.

Was anything confusion?
No, I thought this was just a synopsis (post it) but when clicking on it, there wasn’t more information.

Was anything hard to find?
Not really

Easy to read (both font style and size)?
It seems okay, not too complicated. The colors i’m not so fond of, but it’s okay easy on the eyes.

How did you find the layout of the site? Color scheme?
Nothing really stands out. Everything looks the same.

How intuitive and helpful is the navigation system?

Did you notice the search box? Categories? Post it? Change the way you nav site?
Arrange thing by the color from post-its.
I didn’t check out categories.

What would encourage you to use this site?
I’m more likely to respond to things that are visually appealing. I would respond to images in place of text.

What would encourage you to post to this site?
Visual appeal color.

How often are you on the floor?
5 days a week, probably more than that. Group projects that bring me to floor.

How often do you post to the list?
Not often. Once every 6 months or 3 months.

Dave Miller

Have you visited this site before?
Yes, posted out front

What do you think the purpose of this site is? (ie. selling, informing, entertainment, etc)
To update people on what other people are doing that you may not talk to all the time.
It’s a cork-board where you have different projects up and potentially get involved with them.

Who do you think the intended audience is?
Us. The ITP people.

Was anything confusion?
1. On add something page. It also has a leave a reply. Which is confusing.
2. It says 1 comment, but there should be another link that says ‘leave a comment’
3. It’s little weir that the comments box rolls the entire page down. But it’s a pretty good setup. Things in order

Was anything hard to find?

Easy to read (both font style and size)?
Font is perfectly find for the amount of text you have.

How did you find the layout of the site? Color scheme?
Wasn’t aware color scheme represented.
The layout is okay. Unsure as to what the order of the post-its are.

How intuitive and helpful is the navigation system? (search/categories)
It’s okay. IT would be nice to color code the menu or what the different thigns are. Or organize things by categoroy. So if theyw ere in columns w/ category heading on top.

Did you notice the search box? Categories? Post it? Change the way you nav site?
Saw them there, but hadn’t thought to use them. It doesn’t seem liek there are more things than i could see at once.

What would encourage you to use this site?
Getting feedback. If you post something and someone posts back.

How often are you on the floor?
Almost every day

How often do you post to the list?
Everyday

Phan

Have you visited this site before?
No

What do you think the purpose of this site is? (ie. selling, informing, entertainment, etc)
Update to what’s going on. Brainstormings, where people chip in ideas and get feedback. Part of a new crit group. Give waht their ideas are. And color coding based on categories.
If people want to collaborate, people can share skills.

Who do you think the intended audience is?
People at school.

Was anything confusion? hard to find?
Going back to home/getting back to the main page.
Is there an ‘offer help page’ (so function of ‘post something’ not obvious)

Easy to read (both font style and size)?

How did you find the layout of the site? font? Color scheme?
As long as you keep it in primary colors. I’m color blind.
I can’t tell the difference. I can see all 4 colors, but for me, if i don’t concentrate, red/green look the same. (so maybe non-color indicator/pattern etc.)
Category/search bar could be moved up, so it brings awareness to different categories.
When you can see ALL the post-its it’s definitely help to have sorting functions.

How intuitive and helpful is the navigation system?
I didn’t know. I thought there shoudl be a header per color/category. (like dave miller said)

Did you notice the search box? Categories? Post it? Change the way you nav site?
Search/categories not obvious until i saw colors changing.
Post something totally makes sense.

What would encourage you to use this site?
If i were to be looking for people to work with or people need help.
A feed relevant to your interests. (personalized feed)
Send alerts

What would encourage you to post to this site?
A little snippet or picture of what people are workign on, and a little gallery withint he post it to get a better idea/get peole excited about project.

How often are you on the floor?
All the time. 5 days of the week.

How often do you post to the list?
Maybe once.

HEURISTICS

Visibility of system status
Organization is not intuitive
Good at a glance feed
Match between system and the real world
Corkboard mental model was easily established.
User control and freedom
Navigation could be more clear. Could use a ‘home’ button.
Have to click on title.
Consistency and standards
Search and category bar was on the bottom rather than top. People expect it to be top right.
Error prevention
Not much room for error.
Recognition rather than recall
Function was straightforward.
Flexibility and efficiency of use
Shallow learning curve, therefore differences btwn exp. and inexp users are too minimal.
Aesthetic and minimalist design
Fairly straightforward.
Some design could have better organizational structure (eg. sorting)
Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
No real errors.
Help and documentation
Maybe more guidance on the sorting side.

MORE NOTES:

Questions: anonymity?
sorting?

Why this layout:
The diea of winternet wishlist website.
like the layout of ‘theinternetwishlist.com’

- a community corkboard
- harbors conversation

- make it interesting without overdesigning it
- a place to skim
- date relevant feed

- general interest in what other people are doing
- a way to connect with people at ITP you’ve never known
- browsing fun: ‘see all stupid pet tricks’

- good for students and residents. cuz no one really knows what anyone is doing.

- user who doesn’t kow this exists:
- intuitive (hopefully)
- post to the thing your’e here to work
- drop idea and go

- what are ppl working on
- i’m here this afternoon is there someoen i can help out or something i’m interested in
- Carlin: doesnt come on the floor that often, doesn’t read the list
- if carlin was sitting at home and wanted to know what was happening on the floor
- *** what projects do i get out of certain classes

- have knowledge to share

- color coordinaation:
- yellow: just announcing
- blue: need input
- pink: collabo
- green: critique
- multiple colors

- p comp list/icm list
- tones are different
- functions are explicit
- finding something really specific
- FILTER

- kickstarter esque page
Problems:
different levels of commitment i have as a poster

Posted by jameree at 5:37 pm  

HW 7: Exformation Response

 DIY Health  No Responses »
Oct 272011

So, to be honest, the reading confused me a bit. At first I liked the idea. I’ve often been described as a very literal person. I’m not sure if it’s a cultural thing, but sarcasm is often lost on me. I definitely went through a sarcastic phase, but somehow it hasn’t stuck much! I found the exercise with the rivers kind of confusing, so I ended up doing some googling. Some interesting facts I found was the Kenya Hara is the creative director of MUJI. Muji is a ‘brandless brand’ that sells assorted things you need in your daily life. There is pure minimalism an almost complete lack of branding on all the objects. I felt like this was a good example/practice of Exformation in design. It communicates a lot about the object, the culture, and the MUJI branding without having any obvious visual evidence.
But I was still stumped as to how this could apply to health design. Looking around I found this:

But to get the impact, you don’t send a lot of information–you send almost none. Instead you rely on the knowledge you share with your reader or listener.

A Danish writer, Tor Norretranders, invented a term for this in his book The User Illusion: exformation. Exformation is short for “explicitly discarded information,” the information you strip out of a message because you know your reader already has it. The more you share with your reader, the less you have to say.

Though the idea still kind of escapes my grasp in the field of design. Designing for the unquantifiable? What’s considered ‘discarded’? Is it bringing the intangible forward into an expressible form of information? The context, beliefs, implications around information?

I guess I understand the idea of Exformation as far as a conversation goes. But I don’t really see it having a part in practical design. I see it more having part in ‘art’. The kind that makes no sense, that sits in galleries, the kind that you have to know the backstory of to find interesting.

One of the things I can see a good subject for Exformation is Premenstrual Syndrome (Or PMS). I think there is always interesting discussion around it. Saying one is PMS-ing dismisses a lot of explanation. Maybe because it’s a bit of a private topic, and not one that’s well understood, a lot of assumptions are made. According to wiki: the abbreviation is used frequently even in casual and colloquial settings, without regard to medical rigor. If I could construct a fantasy device for this. It would involve something that could identify exactly what each woman (or man with irritable male syndrome) is experiencing biologically. Then it would not longer be “I’m PMSing” or “she’s PMSing” it would be “I am experiencing 6% increase in water retention” or “my hormone levels of fluctuated.” I think this is kind of moving from exformation to information, but in doing so I think it can also filter for excuses and real discomfort.

I think another thing worth looking into is the circulatory system. I think there is a lot more tied to it than we are consciously aware of. I think I generally have poor circulation. I was born with a mitral valvue prolapse which is a very minor heart defect where the heart flaps don’t close fully, not maximizing the flood flow through the heart. It’s hasn’t really affected my life, but sometimes I wonder if I could be more alert, less cold (my extremities are always cold). The way I found out was actually interesting. My parents had been undergoing suction cup treatment and thought with my allergies this would be a good time to find what parts of my body were congested. (They have a strong and probably accurate belief that everything in the body is tied together) After going for a few treatments and looking at the darkness of the suction cup marks on my back, the practitioner kept insisting something was wrong with my heart. (To be fair she was insisting there was something wrong with me everywhere. I think it was a scare tactic, but she was usually insistent about my heart.)


So then my mom, being a mom, took me to a cardiologist and after getting a cardiogram, MVP was confirmed. This experience hasn’t exactly made me a full believer, but it made me believe that the body is able to be read without machinery. Taking this experience, I think it would be interesting to replicate this procedure, but in a much more discrete way. What made me stop going was because one day she insisted on suction cupping my forehead. Then the highschool vice principal approached me and asked if I was taking a vacuum cleaner to the forehead. So if the suction areas could be stylized, or minimized to specific parts of the body and thimble sized rather than fist sized, I think it could garner interesting conversations. It would be like a health tattoo. (In fact that is what I will call it). If it could become popular, it could be an automatic indicator of health, but without being so strict with the diagnosis that it scares people away. It would be more like a stylish health bar.

Posted by jameree at 11:26 pm  

HW 4: Nagger pt. 2 – No Nagging

 DIY Health  No Responses »
Oct 162011

V1.0 Revision

Nagger v1.0 certainly had it’s problems. Originally the idea was to promote productivity by occasionally ‘checking in’ on your progress. Basically it was an hourly reminder to get back to work. But after the readings, comparing it to the Fogg Grid, I realized my goals and targets weren’t specific enough.

The hope was by checking in on you, you would know to close browsing tabs that weren’t contributing to your work, and bring the focus back on tabs that you would work on. But that behavior is very specific to an audience like myself. Further more the trigger isn’t very hot. Over time, motivation and ability would be slightly below average at best.

So with these thoughts in mind, I decided to simplify the idea and turn it on its head.

Nagger v2.0 (No Nagging)
After reading “Do not shoot the dog” I was convinced that positive reinforcement would be better than negative reinforcement. So rather than having a scheduled nagger, instead there’s a scheduled break. In order to keep it simple it would be a mandatory break. In order to keep the break productive, I selected episodes of a cartoon that were exactly 15 minutes long.

1. One hour of work
2. Fifteen minutes of break
3. Repeat

Results & Eval
After running this test on a friend and myself, I find myself wishing I had more time to modify it further. I feel as though Fogg’s advice to fail early and iterate often is something I should have done.

The largest problem was that now there was a count-down to break time. I think it was good I had an activity that spanned 15 minutes exactly, but my friend who did not easily went over the 15 minute break. I discussed the test with my friend and we both felt that this experiment would work much better scheduled throughout the week, while Nagger v1.0 is actually better when you have a large block of time you want to dedicate to work.

And especially with a large block of time, rather than breaking work into increments of time, it might be better to break the work and rewards into specific chunks. Eg. 1 article read = 1 episode of a tv show.

Or like one of Karen’s ending behavior tips and something my friend and I had already been doing, schedule work hours right before a TV show want to catch. I kind of have to eat my words because originally I really disliked Karen, but I can’t seem to stop calling her rules to mind.

Posted by jameree at 4:43 am  

HW 4: Self-regulation in Health Care Response

 DIY Health  No Responses »
Oct 162011

Like others, I found this reading a bit difficult to get through. For the most part it felt like it was just re-affirming what we already know with more solid evidencing behind it.
Example:
self-management = better solution than medical care
- esp with the shift from acute to chronic maladies (medicine is more a one time treatment)
3 self-motivation levels in individuals/patients
technology can be a key asset in self-management

But I was impressed that this piece came from 2005, which isn’t too long ago, but I feel certainly before self-quantification became as popular as it is now. It also got me thinking on how much we take our bodies for granted. People constantly neglect their health and get upset when modern medicine can’t fix a problem they’ve left developing for 20 years over night. This is where I find my parents’ focus is generally on prevention should be the motto I follow, even though it occasionally leads into odd superstitions. (Eg. sneezing means your body is already sick, jumping/basketball makes you grow, using an umbrella indoors will stunt your growth)

Posted by jameree at 4:20 am  

HW 4: MIP Response

 DIY Health  No Responses »
Oct 162011

I found this to be an interesting read, although in my mind I do have a hard time sorting between a ‘viral content’ and ‘MIP’. I know Fogg talks about how the viral content requires less than an MIP, but I just can’t separate the two in my head. I also don’t know if Facebook is the best example to give. Especially with all its privacy issues, I feel like it has lost a lot of trust. Not that that really stops the Facebook empire from growing, but I would have been curious to have Fogg address that. Below, once more, are my notes to self:

1. Persuasive Experience: An experience that is created to change attitudes,
behaviors, or both. (eg. Amber Phillips has added you as a Top Friend! Does Amber Phillips make your Top Friends?)

2. Automated Structure: Digital technology structures the persuasive
experience.
- the speed and simplicity of automated tasks

3. Social Distribution: The persuasive experience is shared from one friend to
another.
- social guarantee

4. Rapid Cycle: The persuasive experience can be distributed quickly from one
person to another.
- like all online trends. tumblr, popular things easy to share, build momentum
- unlike things like TiVo (took a while to grow on people)

5. Huge Social Graph: The persuasive experience can potentially reach
millions of people connected through social ties or structured interactions.
- massive amounts of ppl available

6. Measured Impact: The effect of the persuasive experience is observable by
users and creators.
How stats can help the experience:
- seeing how many ppl joined the group/see how large the accumulation/feel bad for not joining
- social proof it’s good
- helping creators improve persuasive experience

MIP does not equal Viral Adoption
- viral can do without: social raph, automation, rapid cycle, or measured impact

What doesn’t matter:
- the technology
- the topic
- the initial intent

Posted by jameree at 2:17 am  

HW 4: 8 Steps Response

 DIY Health  No Responses »
Oct 152011

I found this reading much much more concise and informative than the book reading. I also appreciated all his insights into exceptions to rules and such. Again I took notes while reading in order to jot down main ideas.

THE EIGHT-STEP DESIGN PROCESS

persuasive technologies: tech that changes what we think and do (eg. prius)
hard to create entirely new persuasive techs (like it’s hard to create new behaviors)

- scale back ambitions of target behavior change
- achieve small successes first
- fail fast (prototype early)
” Large projects will succeed
when built on a foundation of many small, measurable successes”

8 step design process

1. Choose a simple behavior (leads to ambitious behaviors)

  • eg. reduce stress level –> stretch for 20 seconds
  • small goal can be: an approximation or a step to the larger goal
  • approx: stretching contributes to de-stressing
  • step: getting a papsmear = step 1

2. Choose a receptive audience

  • persuade someone not everyone
  • eg. pick someone who is likely to want to improve this behavior (eg. a blue behavior not a green one)

3. Find what prevents the target behavior (what’s the problem?)

  • lack of motivation, ability, trigger

4. Choose a familiar tech channel

  • unfamiliar tech = bad, unless it serves to increase motivation/ability

5. Find relevant examples of persuasive tech

  • is it successful?
  • Find 9 examples: 3 similar behavior, 3 similar audience, 3 tech channel

6. Imitate successful examples

  • Do not be afraid of doing something similar to another
  • Innovation comes after solid foundation (step 8)
  • id ‘secret sauce’ – psych power

7. Test and iterate quickly

  • success correlated with trial #s

8. Expand on success

  • scale up: make behavior more difficult, expand to new audience, expand distribution
Posted by jameree at 11:34 pm  

HW 4: Don’t shoot the dog response

 DIY Health  No Responses »
Oct 152011

After reading 3 Chapters of the book, I have to say that while I found parts of it interesting, I strongly disliked the author’s tone. I felt like when she wasn’t speaking about her time as a dolphin trainer, she was making a lot of generalizations and came across as extremely judgmental.

Her generalizations about humanists, to wall street workers, to the way young mothers treat their crying children in the supermarket all felt unnecessary within the book. I felt that 50% of the time i was just chumming through superfluous text. But overall, I found it informative, though so condensed with anecdotes, it’s was hard for me to hold a the core essential information together. (at least in the first two chapters) As a result, I tried to record while reading through it the main points. (Below)

Notes

  • We expect people to do the right ting without reward
  • We assume people should know better and punish long after behavior has occurred
  • Maintain an already-learned behavior do not reinforce on regular basis, reinforce only occasionally and on an unpredictable basis
    • the rarer and more unpredictable these moments/reinforcers, the more powerful they will be
      • give consistent reward if it’s a puzzle
  • delayed-start phenomenon = procrastination
    • treat w/ steps with treats
  • accidental reinforcement –> superstition

10 laws of shaping:

1. raise criteria in small increments
2. train only 1 beh. at a time
3. vary the schedule of reinforcement (she’s so redundant)
4. when learning new criterion, relax old ones
5. stay ahead- ready for break throughs (gifted students bored)
6. don’t change trainers mid-training
7. try other methods
8. don’t interrupt sessions
9. review if shaping deteriorates
10. Quit while you’re ahead – end on a high note (or easy)

Shaping tips
1. targeting (following a target: fist/flag etc.)
2. mimicking
3. modeling (standing behind golfer showing them swing)

Ending behavior
1. ‘shoot the animal’ remove the animal from situation
2. punishment
3. negative reinforcement (remove unpleasant when desired behavior occurs)
4. extinction (wait for beh to fade)
5. train incompatible behavior (can’t do both at the same time. when scared, do this)
6. put behavior on cue (turn unwanted beh into something u can command)
7. reinforce all desired behaviors (when u don’t have anything specific u want to reinforce, just really want them to stop what they are doing)
8. change motivation (stop chewing gum- makes u look cheap) – focus on why this behavior happens, how do you fundamentally change the person to stop this action.

Posted by jameree at 3:45 am  

HW 5: Human Genes

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Oct 132011

Download (PDF, 316.27KB)


An intro to APP.

The Soul of an Old Machine Response

I actually had a little trouble following the logistics of what had happened with the genomes. As far as my understanding goes, there is now a complete genomic sequence for the Neanderthal, and by comparing it to the sequences of people around the world, we can trace our lineage back in time. But I have trouble understanding exactly how they deduce what portions survive and how.

And with rising controversy in uncracking the code to genetic superiority (who has greater intelligence and what not) does leave me feeling both unsettled and curious. I’m curious to see how different we actually are at a genetic level. The idea that some of us may hear differently from others is fascinating, but makes me wonder what new kinds of racism will arise.

Posted by jameree at 2:29 pm  
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