Introduction
The MYmta iPhone app is a travel app designed to provide relevant information related to New York City’s many public transit options: subways, buses, LIRR and Metro-North rail services, and the Access-A-Ride program. The app allows for real-time scheduling and service changes, as well as personalized settings and trip planning, and station accessibility information.
Netflix is a major streaming service that allows users to watch TV shows, movies, animations and more. It has so much entertainment that you can never say, there is nothing to watch. In order to use Netflix, the new user could start with a one month free trial (which they can cancel anytime) or subscribe by paying monthly. The app itself is free, which is available in mobile, tablet and desktop versions.
The iOS built-in Notes app empowers users’ note taking capability by providing seamless synchronization feature, supporting multimedia input/insert, and even integrating the sketch feature to simulate the analog note-taking experience. This article would critique the Notes App based on some usability factors mentioned by Don Norman’s book- The Design of Everyday Things.
Upcoming UX, Usability, and UI Conferences in 2019
Looking to update your knowledge and connect with other professionals at UX Conferences in 2019? Here’s the list so far for UX Conferences including user experience, design, usability and UI topics announced around the world with many more that we’re tracking waiting to announce their 2019 dates. Find the right conference that meets your needs: focus topics, timing, location or cost.
Mini prototyping templates (8.5 x 11)
We use the Digital Psychology Wireframe Kit to help our students develop their skills in applying behavioral science strategies to a wide range of interactive media.
After rearchitecting our wireframe kit in 2017, our students and friends started asking for a copy.
To share the love with the wider community of digital media pros, here's a copy of our smaller 8.5 x 11 wireframe kit, under a flexible creative commons license.
About the wireframe kit
Paper is the ultimate wireframing tool for building quick concept mockups and prototypes, with full creative freedom.
We use the oversized version of the wireframe kit in our digital psychology training, where we focus on applying psychology to various interactive design, UX and marketing applications.
Since our focus is on creative concepts, rather than pixel-perfect specifications, the kit provides ballpark dimensions across a wide range of popular devices, for websites, apps, wearables, advertising and more.
This wireframe kit does not include our training system; only device specifications.
Prototype specifications
Our grid system is inspired by the Bootstrap CSS system and uses a format that is convenient for adaptive or responsive breakpoints, at 3, 4, or 6 column divisions.
The grid is 1,200 pixels wide, divided into 12 columns, with dark gridlines every 100 pixels, each with 10 light gridlines, each at 10 pixels. This is a rough approximation of the sizes typically used in grid systems, with some smaller and others larger.
Our prototype wireframe specifications follow the proportions of popular products, such as the iPhone 8, iPad Air, and Apple Watch Series 3.
Our Facebook ad templates are based on 1200x1200 and 1200x628 pixels, which are common image dimensions used across various social media ad platforms.
Our banner ad templates are based on the most common display advertising formats used in Google's adaptive ads and AdRoll’s remarketing banners.
FREE to use, under Creative Commons
This 8.5 x 11 wireframe kit is distributed for free, under Creative Commons License Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0). If you distribute any variations, please respect our licensing and show your love by crediting us with a link to: https://www.alterspark.com. To view the license, visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.
In “Walking You Through the Audience-Influence Model”, you'll learn the essentials of digital psychology in an intuitive and visual mini-publication. You'll also enjoy templates, worksheets and research questions that you can implement immediately.
Young children are significantly more likely than adults to have their opinions and decisions influenced by robots, according to new research.
The study, conducted at the University of Plymouth, compared how adults and children respond to an identical task when in the presence of both their peers and humanoid robots.
It showed that while adults regularly have their opinions influenced by peers, something also demonstrated in previous studies, they are largely able to resist being persuaded by robots.
However, children aged between seven and nine were more likely to give the same responses as the robots, even if they were obviously incorrect.
The study used the Asch paradigm, first developed in the 1950s, which asks people to look at a screen showing four lines and say which two matches in length. When alone, people almost never make a mistake but when doing the experiment with others, they tend to follow what others are saying.
When children were alone in the room in this research, they scored 87 per cent on the test, but when the robots join in their score drops to 75 per cent. And of the wrong answers, 74 per cent matched those of the robot.
In their conclusion to the current study, the researchers add:
“A future in which autonomous social robots are used as aids for education professionals or child therapists is not distant. In these applications, the robot is in a position in which the information provided can significantly affect the individuals they interact with. A discussion is required about whether protective measures, such as a regulatory framework, should be in place that minimises the risk to children during social child-robot interaction and what form they might take so as not to adversely affect the promising development of the field.”
Conducted by computer scientist Anna-Lisa Vollmer of the Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) at Bielefeld University as well as her colleagues from Plymouth University (United Kingdom), the Max Planck Institute for Human Development (Berlin) and Ghent University (Belgium), this study appeared on Wednesday (15.08.2018) in the scientific journal "Science Robotics."
The research team used the "conformity experiment" - the experiment psychologist Salomon Asch became known for in the 1950s. The experiment shows just how much a group can influence the opinion of an individual. "The test subjects are tasked with evaluating a visual image, and they hear the incorrect assessment from the others in the group - who are all 'in' on the experiment," explains Anna-Lisa Vollmer, who is a member of Applied Informatics, a research group led by Professor Dr. Britta Wrede that is part of the Faculty of Technology and CITEC.
In this new study, it is not people who are "in" on the experiment, but rather three Nao robots. These humanoid robots are able to speak and gesticulate, and are significantly smaller than adult humans (standing at approximately 60 centimeters). The study was divided into two parts. In the first phase of the experiment, the researchers investigated whether adults adjusted their assessment based on the one put forth by the three robots present. In the second phase, 7-9 year-old children took part in the experiment. The study participants viewed a vertical line on a screen. They had to compare the length of this line with three other lines (A, B, and C), and then say which of these lines was the same length. If the right answer was "B," the robot would, for instance, incorrectly claim that "C" was correct.
The results: "Children give into the social pressure induced by the group of robots," says Anna-Lisa Vollmer. "Adults, on the other hand, withstand this influence, even though they would be influenced by other humans in the same situation."
According to Vollmer, the factors responsible for the Nao robots exerting peer pressure or not have yet to be determined. The size of the Nao robots might be the reason why they were not able to influence the adults in this experiment. "Due to their appearance and size, the Nao robots might be more likely to be perceived as being on the same level by the children." That said, the researchers made effort to compensate for size: in both experiments, the robots' seat level was adjusted to that of the participants.
The current study is pioneering work: "Even though children are considered to be an important user group in the future, it is not really known what influence robots have on children, and how robot behaviour impacts childhood development," says Anna-Lisa Vollmer.
The results of this study are also of practical relevance for the use of humanoid robots. "There are applications in which having influence is advantageous, such as in healthcare or education," says Anna-Lisa Vollmer. "But of course we cannot disregard abuse or erroneous use. For example, how do we deal with a situation in which several robots in a store advertise a product and get a person to buy it even though they would not have done so otherwise? Other risks include cases in which autonomously learning robots draw incorrect conclusions from their sensory data and then go with this to people who trust the robot's assessment," as Vollmer explains.
__________
HUMAN-ROBOT INTERACTION
Children conform, adults resist: A robot group induced peer pressure on normative social conformity
Anna-Lisa Vollmer1, Robin Read, Dries Trippas and Tony Belpaeme
Science Robotics 15 Aug 2018: Vol. 3, Issue 21, eaat7111 DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.aat7111
Universal Design is the design and composition of an environment so that it can be accessed, understood and used to the greatest extent possible by all people regardless of their age, size, ability or disability. An environment (or any building, product, or service in that environment) should be designed to meet the needs of all people who wish to use it. This is not a special requirement, for the benefit of only a minority of the population. It is a fundamental condition of good design. If an environment is accessible, usable, convenient and a pleasure to use, everyone benefits. By considering the diverse needs and abilities of all throughout the design process, universal design creates products, services and environments that meet peoples' needs. Simply put, universal design is a good design.
The 7 Principles
The 7 Principles of Universal Design were developed in 1997 by a working group of architects, product designers, engineers and environmental design researchers, led by the late Ronald Mace in the North Carolina State University.The purpose of the Principles is to guide the design of environments, products and communications. According to the Center for Universal Design in NCSU, the Principles "may be applied to evaluate existing designs, guide the design process and educate both designers and consumers about the characteristics of more usable products and environments."
The OXO "Good Grips" range of kitchen utensils began with a goal: to produce a vegetable peeler that was easy to hold and use, regardless of strength or manual dexterity. This resulted in OXO applying a universal design approach when designing any of their kitchen products.
The oven is installed on the wall above the counter. When it is opened, the oven floor can be lowered electronically right down to the counter. This makes it very easy to put things into the oven. The floor surface is made of glass ceramics and can also be used as a warming zone.
The 'slide and hide' features of this Constructa-Neff oven enable the door to be tucked away underneath the oven, providing barrier-free access to the oven. The pull-out trays are fully self-supporting, and thus don't require the user to keep a hand on the tray at all times.
The container can be easily opened and closed by simply pressing an extra-large button on the lid. After the container has been opened, the button can also be used as a large simple handle.
Lavabomobile is a washbasin that can be electronically adjusted. Its design makes it convenient for wheelchair users to use as well people of smaller stature, children or anyone wishing to the washbasin while sitting down. It also travels to a higher position to ease access for taller standing users.
The large LCD display makes it easy to read the temperature. The large, flat shape of the probe enables it to be held stably in the armpit. This provides a more usable design for everyone, from small children, who can't sit still, to older people, who may have trouble reading a small display.
The 161x161x32-mm sized m-smart jumbo switch is a highly visible switch for your whole hand or other operation. It is potentially suitable for use in public environments such a seniors' residences, hospitals, kindergartens and rehab centres.
The Emporia TIME mobile phone is designed for people of all ages that works without a standard menu system. Functions, such as texting, are activated by pressing special buttons positioned on the side of the device, which studies show to be most ergonomically suitable.
A perforation on the packaging of this Panasonic battery pack means the batteries are easy to remove. The word "new" is printed on the plastic so that it is easy to tell the old from the new batteries.
Part of the packaging is formed as a flap creating a handle for the small battery. When the flap is broken off, the battery can be removed and easily inserted into the hearing aid. The packages are colour-coded to identify the battery sizes.
The absence of detectable information makes these nontraditional elevator call buttons difficult for first-time users with reduced vision to recognize.
RoDyMan, an acronym for Robotic Dynamic Manipulation, is a five-year research project (2013-2018) funded by the European Research Council to the CREATE Consortium and carried out at PRISMA Lab in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology of the University of Naples Federico II.
The goal is the development of a service robot able to manipulate elastic and soft objects, which change continuously density and shape, as well as to manipulate objects in a non-prehensile way, i.e. without grasping them.
These robots will be used not only in manufacturing but also as an aid to elderly or disabled people, for medical and surgical use, and in other manual activities.
Preparing a pizza involves an extraordinary level of manual dexterity: for this reason, a pizzaiolo robot has been conceived and a pizza chef has been involved in the project to learn his keen motions directly through a biokinetic sensor suite he wears while stretching the dough, seasoning, tossing and baking on the pizza peel.
It is also a tribute to Naples, at the forefront of technology, robotics and automation, but especially of culture and gastronomy, of which pizza is a symbol and tradition.
Creating a robot able to manipulate objects like humans is one of the most sought and difficult challenges of robotics. It means to replicate skills that are the result of human biological and cultural evolution.
This goal is arduous, mainly for two issues. First, we do not have a total knowledge of human nature, but this is the condition to be able to replicate the human functions in a machine. Second, there are many technical limits to implement a bio-inspired robot, not the least those making it user-friendly, safe and aesthetically appreciated. Source: rodyman.euPrismaLab rodyman
How designers silently tell you what to do? - Affordances and Signifiers
Sometimes, you just look at a thing and know how it works. That's not an accident - it's good design, called affordance, and it can be applied to video games.
Learn how to design game environments so that the environment tells the player what to do. Affordances are a way we can design something in our game so it communicates the way we are supposed to interact with it via it's form. If you take the example of a cup, people intuitively know how to pick it up because the big round handle looks like it can be grasped. We can apply this logic to objects in game design and level design. By constructing their form in a certain way, the player will intuitively know what to do with the object. This is often considered a form of user experience design.
Signifiers are things we add to objects when an affordance is not 100% clear. These signifiers can be words, symbols or other things, but we put them onto objects to hint at an affordance or to flat out tell a user what to do. We can take advantage of these in a similar way we took advantage of affordances by using them to guide the player with more difficult interactions.
There are many situations in games where we leverage affordance when we play. In this video we cover a number of examples and I explain in depth the definition of these terms we have been discussing. We will cover the classic door design example where we design door handles to fit the way a door opens. We also talk about how affordance isn't just for environment design but is applied all over different disciplines of design including combat design. source: Game Design by Gigity McD
In his article Affordance, Conventions and Design, Norman emphasizes the difference between perceived affordance and affordance.[1] Thus, affordance can not be understood as feedback made by system when we are using screen-based equipment and instead it should be explained as something that “provide strong clues to the operations of things”, according to DOET written by Norman[2]. In general, affordance serves as the role that leads users and consumers to think, learn, analyze and interact.
As a representative form of interactive media, video games never lack materials for us to research design principles such as affordances, constraints and conventions.[3]
1.HUD design in video games
When we talk about interactive media, it is inevitable to talk about user interface and user experience. As for video games, a player can not judge the quality of gameplay when he first starts adventure, but he can decide whether the art style is to his liking or not once he sees the title. Jesse Schell in his book The Art of Game Design explicitly explain the hierarchical mental structure of players’ cognition. Even though for designers, mechanism, story, aesthetics and technology are equally important, the first two things players notice are usually aesthetics and mechanism maybe because these two are most easily to be symbolized.[4] So the combination of aesthetics and mechanism should provide players with enough affordances.
Games, especially the role-playing game, often leave tons of information for players to learn. Obviously, game designers in modern age will not list everything on screen just as their predecessors did. Instead they just place the most important information, such as hit point, mana point and ammunition, on the screen. Actually, the important information presented on screen is called Head Up Display (HUD), which is originally used in military area, describing the parameters shown in cockpit. To keep the HUD interface as concise as possible, one strategy is integrating the information into game contents.
The ammunition design of COD: AW
In Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, designers cleverly make the ammunition information one part of the guns (the number will move as you move the gun and change view), giving players clear information that it is something related to weapons.
However, this strategy does not make game mechanism clear all the time. Metro 2033 uses the watch to indicate the duration of gas mask. It is really a good idea if players have been familiar with the game mechanism, but the vague and indirect relationship between mask and watch can frustrate new players at first. In contrast, Call of Duty: Black Ops uses the cracks on mask to warn players, which is a more intuitive design.
The watch design of check gas mask is somewhat confusing
2.Map and interactive elements design
It is the responsibility of game designers to tell players what they should and should not do during the gaming process. HUD serves as the instructor of player from beginning to end, but it is not enough for players to do well when they are required to make an immediate response. So designers should leave hints to players.
One thing that designers are good at is using both affordance and constraint to give players instructions. In many action games, players have to manipulate their characters to climb cliffs or trees and jump over chasms. Under such circumstances, designers often mark rocks that can be climbed and restrict characters to access those areas that can not interact with players.
The climbable part in Rise of the Tomb Raider is different from other parts
In Rise of the Tomb Raider, the ice that can be climbed is evidently lighter than the unclimbable part. What’s more, it is a standard design in the whole game, meaning the pattern of climbable part can be understood instinctively by players.
Another common trick used by game designers is setting margin for map with seemingly accessible perspective. I guess every player of Counter-Strike has the experience of fleeing outside the map. A more intricate way is to destroy the environment intentionally in order to force players to move to the next scene, especially in some linear cinematic games. Naughty Dog is the master of using such a strategy. In Uncharted franchise games, players must keep moving to avoid being buried by collapsed houses and cliffs, which in turn destroy the scene and stop characters from going back. This constraint ensures that players can have compact gaming process and have no problem with finding the destination.
3.Thoughts of future game design
Murray in her book Inventing the medium listed four affordances for digital artifacts: encyclopedic, spatial, procedural, and participatory.[5] Intrinsically a computer program, video game itself of course own the four affordances. For example, RTS(Real-Time Strategy) and MOBA(Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) games produce infinite possibilities for players and professional tournaments with bonus of millions of dollars. Compared to legacy media, video game is totally multisequential and interactive.
However, the complexity and flexibility of video game have brought designers a question – how to know what players really like. In traditional media age, users receive information passively, so designers only have to consider the transmission process from one direction and in digital media age, especially during the process of designing HCL system, designers should select the appropriate conventions that human interactors can understand, according to Murray.[5] Modern video game design is based on the mature media like movies and novels and asks designers to consider the balance between mechanism, story, aesthetics and technology. The problem here is that players have different preferences so designers can only accumulate experience by making mistakes to set good conceptual models for most players. A typical example is the failure of No Man’s Sky, whose developers are seduced by new technologies. [5] They create an universe by automatic random algorithm but neglect the importance of level design, thus making the world vapid, sterile and repetitive.
In general, game design is a formidable process and requires developers to correctly construct conceptual model for most players and make clear affordances, constraints and conventions.
References:
[1]Norman, Donald A. “Affordance, conventions, and design.”interactions 6.3 (1999): 38-43.
[2]Norman, Donald A. The design of everyday things: Revised and expanded edition. Basic books, 2013.
[3]Norman,Donald A, “Affordance, Conventions, and Design.” Interactions 6, no. 3 (May 1999): 38-43.
[4]Schell, Jesse. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. 2nd edition. Natick: A K Peters/CRC Press, 2014. Print
[5]Murray, Janet H. Inventing the medium: principles of interaction design as a cultural practice. Mit Press, 2011.
[6]Stonehouse, Anthony. “User interface design in video games.” Gamasutra. 27 Feb 2014.
[7]Zhang, Jiajie, and Vimla L. Patel. “Distributed cognition, representation, and affordance.” Pragmatics & Cognition 14.2 (2006): 333-341.
Game Developers Conference - GDC 2016 video presentation
Discovering and mastering a video game is a learning experience for the user. It requires mental efforts. This is why it’s important to understand how the brain learns to craft a compelling onboarding experience – one worth putting effort into, one that will matter to your audience.
Anything the brain processes and learns originates from a perceived input and changes the memory of a subject. The quality of the processing – therefore the quality of the retention – depends highly on the attentional resources applied, which are also dependent on the emotions and motivation felt by the players. In sum, to improve the experience of the players, video game developers must take into account the perception, memory, and attention limitations of the brain, as well as the emotions and motivation felt by the players.
The Gamer's Brain: How Neuroscience and UX can Impact Video Game Design
Upcoming UX, Usability, and UI Conferences in 2018
Planning ahead and looking for UX conferences announced for 2018? So far there are 120+ user experience (UX) conferences including design, usability and UI topics announced around the world with many more that we’re tracking waiting to announce their 2018 dates. Find the right conference that meets your needs: focus topics, timing, location or cost.
