Author: Xiaoyan Kong

After learning about persuasive design, we were asked to apply The Six Thinking Hats to Eric’s video. The problem he brought up is that he wants to mediate more but fail to do so due to varies reasons including that he has a busy schedule. Our group assigned to the Red Hat which is responsible to get everyone’s gut feelings about the alternatives. Different members in my groups all have expressed different emotions and feelings they have or others have. Because Eric says that he can actually manage his work well and learn new coding effectively. My feeling is that, to him, maybe he enjoys things that can directly show him result more. For meditation, he cannot see the result or the benefits they can get from it right away. It was a slower and invisible learning process comparing to coding/working on his project. It might give him less motivation to keep that meditation schedule. Giving a trigger like setting an alarm everyday at one specific time to remind him doing meditation could be one good idea. He can also write down his daily schedule to find out which specific period time he is free in general.

I really enjoyed the workshop because the six thinking hats give a way to open up a conversation to hear multiple types of ideas by design. We can easily get stuck in a specific role or way of thinking so using the six thinking hats can help each of us open to new ways of seeing a problem.

We learned about Enchanted Objects in this class. For the workshop, the goal was to identify a problem with cats. Our group came up with the problem that the cats owners sometimes cannot feed their cats on time due to varies reasons. Before deciding on this problem, we also have few different ones. For example, some of us think the cats need to have more space to play around. Since me and Gabriela both have experience raising cats, we were trying hard to remember what we observed with our cats. It turns out that the feeding problem is the most common one among all the problems we came up with. Every cat needs to eat, but not every cat owner can feed their cats on time.

After coming up with one problem, each group had to switch to another group to solve the problem they brought up. They inferred that the cats might have problem communicating with their owners for the needs they have. We came up with the idea that we can create a system that can identify cats different kinds of “meow”s. Based on this, we can understand what they are asking for.

Finally, we switched to another group again to make a prototype based on the previous group’s solution idea. The problem identified was how to feed and nourish stray cats. The solution was to create a detection system under cars and above tires to watch out for cats. The drivers would be informed if the sensors detect the cats movements. We built the detector with blocks. We also thought about using AI technology to detect the cats movement.

I really enjoyed this workshop. It is an intensive workshop but not stressful at all. And I like the ideas of switching the group to solve others’ problem and making prototypes based on others’ ideas. It allows us to reach out to more problems and ideas in a very limited period of time and to exert our own creative thinking to a greater extent. It is also very interesting to see the difference between other groups ideas and ours.

At the beginning of 2019, I bought a five years diary book for myself. With this diary, I can record my daily events and remember those of previous years at the same time. It has a separate page for each day of the year, and each page is divided into five sections for me to fill in on the same date over five successive years. I really want to keep track of my life, reflect my days and see how I grows in five years. But it is so hard to write it on a daily basis. I always forgot to write it and had to make up for previous days. It kinds of lose the point when I do that.  In order to develop this tiny habit, I created a system based on my motivation, ability and the triggers to do it.

Motivation: My motivation is to see how myself grows by looking at my diary 5 years later. I also want to have one moment to reflect at the end of the day. I believe writing diary helps me have a clear mind of what I have done and what I want/will do. Ability: I have very high ability to write a diary everyday. Even if I am so tired at some days, I can still write few lines or even few words instead to summarize my day. Trigger: Instead of putting it on my study desk, I put it next to my bed, right below the light switch with a bright purple pen attached to it. So every night before I go to bed, I will always see the diary first and write it before I sleep. I also convinced my roommate to buy the same diary book. So seeing her writing the diary is also a trigger for me to do the same.

I’m impressed by the concept of “Enchanted Objects” that David Rose brings up. He thinks that the use of the concept “enchanted” will make the development strategy for the design of Internet of Things more successful. I believe that not only can it promotes the emotional connection between people and things, but also satisfy people’s imaginary needs/desires. What’s more, it will make people’s lives more interesting, or as he said – more magical. One of the examples David Rose gives is the music player that can sensor when children start to come home from school. It automatically plays personalized music. This design not only gives out the infomation that their children are coming back with personalizes music. The object has also been given a substitute function for  the corresponding person/object, so when the parents hear a certain songs they can imagine which child is coming back. From another perspective, it also promotes the emotional connections between human beings. Just like human beings have countless ways to express their emotions, I think it’s good that the objects can also communicate with humans in varies ways, and not just by seeing what shows on the electronic screens.

Another important point is that what David Rose brings up can also change the way humans think about smart objects. Their starting point is to make the design of the future objects warmer and more humanity, rather than cold, functional screen operations. Meanwhile, it also reminds everyone “having fun” is an important part of our life. I personally look forward to seeing some of these enchanted objects come into my life.

However, one thing I am thinking about is whether this future world means that we will be surrounded by a variety of electronic impurities. The development of most Enchanted Objects is more than satisfing the necessary needs of human beings, but to satisfy our unnecessary desires. I always believe that when human beings coexist in nature, they should always remember being moderate and keeping balance with their surroundings. Excessive pursuit of one’s own desires will inevitably lead to an imbalance between people and the living environment. The enchanted objects are definitely very attractive, but the future he envisions seems to be a future centered on “people’s desires”. However, since we live in a world where all things coexist, huaman beings are not the scale of everything. It’s important for us to balance the relationship with the surrounding environment while properly developing magic items.

Norman’s discussion on affordances, constraints and conventions in relation to digital media is very relevant today as technology become increasingly integrated into our daily lives. Internet of Things places real needs to consider the difference between real affordances and perceived affordances, as these objects are often physical and so do the invention of a range of OS’s available (Android, iOS, Windows, Linux etc.). With the majority of products being sold around the world, the constraints that come from conventions in various places needs to considered. Reading this article has given me a new language for thinking about the “actions” that can be taken on an object, its affordances, and the process of developing new objects for humans to interact with.
 
Talking about interaction, the interview of Suri also provides an interesting view on how human’s act on objects around them and what we can learn from that. Whereas Norman considers the object as it is designed and physically built, Suri thinks more about how to even get an idea in the first place. She encourages us to look at everything around us, especially human behavior or what is a result of humans and think about what drive that behavior. Ironically, she mentions the case of what makes sense intuitively versus the action described on signs using the example of a door. The entrance to the AB says “Pull” but many people walks straight up and push it in, as if the sign said “Push.” It is a good example that what was the “designed” intention – the designer’s the perceived affordance – is not how it is used by the user.