Category: Interaction Design

Last week the “BeSt Bildungsmesse” took place in Graz and it was a great opportunity for myself to gather some insights for my research topic. The fair itself is an educational fair with three main target groups which are people who are looking for highschools, apprenticeships and universities. I went there and spoke to representatives of the WKO, AMS and also the IBOBB-Graz. Very interesting was the talk with the representatives from WKO as they offer a very gamified approach to deliver information of “not so well know” apprenticeships to teenagers. At the fair they had a video game you could play and also a card game. The lady I spoke to told me, that their main approach is to transfer information about apprenticeships for jobs which might not be familiar to everyone but also not uninteresting.

AMS had a station where people could do interest checks and I already analysed them (last year in my blog post). My opinion back then was that they weren’t very well targeted to the young target group as they still include quite confusing questions (especially for kids/teenagers). My analyse and the response of the teenagers to the asked questions agree.

Coming to my research project I have to think about what questions and task could be appropriate for the target group.

Some companies and representatives offered VR experiences and what I observed is, that a lot of young people are interested to test it out, also I spoke to one lady from AMS and she told me that most teenagers are very familiar with the tool. There was also a VR experience where people were able to weld. They build a physical “welding machine” – a handle and a platform to weld.

This leaves me with the impression that VR is popular and from great interest and is great tool to deliver information in a gamified way.

Links:

https://www.sic-headstarters.at

Startseite

https://www.berufe-vr.at

As I work my way towards my thesis topic, I am struggling with the feeling that “UX design and AI” is both too broad and too specific. I also wonder if it’s really the topic for me, and I have been asking myself why I chose it in the first place, what exactly interests me, and most importantly, what am I passionate about?

I initially chose to research AI because I felt I had very little knowledge of it, and I wanted to empower myself, and others by extension, to understand and use AI. Last semester, I floated the idea of designing an app using as much AI as possible, and writing a thesis on the process and outcome. But after a summer of reflection, that concept isn’t sitting quite right with me.

My initial interest in AI was driven by my love of people and of helping others, not by my love of technological innovation. Although studying interaction design means that I possess the prerequisite of a fascination with technology, my strongest motivators come from a love of humanity and human connection rather than innovation for innovation’s sake.

If I were to design an app using as much AI as possible, who am I helping? What am I accomplishing? With AI developing so rapidly, surely my work will be outdated before I am even finished. This led me to consider other ways to use my now accumulated AI knowledge. Perhaps a guide for designers, maybe in the form of an app, on how to coexist peacefully with AI? I can’t say I have come even close to a conclusion, but I am keeping my core motivators front of mind as I move forward, with the hope that they will guide me to a topic that both poses a challenge and aligns with my values and interests.

This week, I finally cracked open and read Hooked by Nir Eyal from cover to cover. When looking for inspiration, I tend to gravitate to the “basics”, with the intention of building from there and hopefully discovering something on the way. At this point in time, I would like to build my library of UX Design must-reads, continuing with The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman and 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People by Susan Weinschenk.

While I took extensive notes as Nir Eyal laid out the four stages of the Hooked mode, what interested me most was in the last 50 pages, in a chapter entitled “What Are You Going to Do with This?”, which was, coincidentally, also my question at the time. In this chapter, Eyal discusses manipulation in technology and innovation, and dives into how to use the Hooked model ethically. The author discusses the relative newness of technology and our unavoidable ignorance of possible future consequences, but also argues that less than 1% of users develop a detrimental addiction to anything, and that, excluding vulnerable groups, users are responsible for themselves and are able to self-regulate their behaviours.

Using his manipulation matrix, Eyal sorts creators into four groups: Dealers, Peddlers, Entertainers and Facilitators. Eyal argues that “manipulation doesn’t always have a negative connotation”. The book later cites The Bible App and Fitbod as examples of companies that used the Hooked model to build healthy habits.

Nir Eyal’s discussion on ethics in design relates strongly to conversations on ethics in AI. In both sectors, there are advocates for an ethical code of conduct. In both sectors, manipulation is a front page topic of discussion. In both sectors, there is opportunity for humans to work with machines either for or against other humans. In both sectors, we must work with clear intentions to use the tools we have FOR and WITH people.

Hooked was a very different read from what I expected. Like the author expects, I was uncomfortable with the idea of “a cookbook for mind control”, but instead found thoughtful reflections on meaningful design that I will bring forward throughout the process of writing my thesis, and beyond.

Nowadays it is becoming more difficult to maintain a healthy balance with social media and technology and for a lot of people it is a challenge as well. For my fourth impulse I chose a video posted by Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Fernsehen in which they discussed the topic of Digital Wellbeing with other experts from the field. They shed a light on this issue and gave some insights.

One interesting concept that I liked was discussion of whether FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) can be transformed to JOYO (Joy of Missing Out) as this is one of the most critical fears a person has when trying to change their media/device usage. For a lot of people balance with social media, use of technologies is a difficult topic and it is important to be able to decide which technologies are good or bad for ourselves, which to waive, which type of media usage is the right one.

Crucially, all of this is difficult for adults but even more difficult for younger generation because medias and devices are part of their socialisation with peers, self-confidence, growing up, etc. So, the solution of completely avoiding media and technologies is not a solution nowadays because doing so will only isolate person from other people and the world.

This video also discussed an important topic: the differences of media perception. It was stated that research showed that men and women perceive social medias and experience them differently, which I have never actually thought before but also think it is an interesting topic to explore for my future posts.

In conclusion, it was insightful to see that this topic gets more attention and researchers are trying to find solutions. This impulse also gave me ideas for my future research.

Source:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO-aaU5Ro-I

Last week we had a chance to go through some master theses and had a task to choose one and analyse it. My choice was “Ethics of Interaction Design: A Comprehensive Research On How Interaction Designers Can and Should Be More Ethical” by Güney Güner. I chose this thesis because it is related and helpful to the topic of digital well-being.

This master thesis used the method of epistemological study and focused on acquiring as much knowledge as possible. The main goal of the thesis is close to mine because it is about raising awareness, as the topic of ethics in interaction design is often disregarded. I liked that the author of this thesis had a clear goal and structure, it was easy for me to find information and understand what they were writing about.

The result of the author’s research was the creation of a guideline and eight principle for designers to use when working on a certain product.

To my mind, it is important to think about ethics in interaction design because with all the technologies and products we have now, often ethics is neglected, which puts the user’s well-being not on first place in the UX field. Additionally what was interesting to read were the examples of immoral use of interaction design in the industry (The author used Twitter, Youtube, Google, etc for those examples). This thesis can serve as a guide or reminder while doing my research/creating certain products. The author specifically stated that further research and interview conductions can be made. Moreover, the code of ethics that was created can be turned into a visual aid (website, app, print) to increase the reach, which I think is also inspiring.

Research by Majid Altuwairiqi

For my second Impulse, I chose the research from Bournemouth University by Majid Altuwairiqi. Since I want to dive more into user emotions, and well-being while using devices, and social media, this research is a perfect way to start gaining more information about it.

Numerous studies revealed that social media addiction mirrors the symptoms of the usual addiction and contains the same elements: salience, tolerance, conflict, withdrawal, relapse, and mood modification. Additionally, this results in negative psychological experiences, such as anxiety, stress, etc.

When thinking about the usual addiction withdrawals, it is often something that we perceive as not that close to us (if we/our close circle don’t have the experience with it). Still, when we think about those from social media usage we can recognize not only someone close to us but also ourselves.

The author also states that when people are asked to spend less time on social media or online interactions, they start feeling more anxious even if they don’t have any clear purpose for that interaction. This is what I was already researching a little bit because to my mind, trying to avoid, spending less time by locking apps won’t solve the problem but will put the user into an anxious mode.

This research gave me more insights into studies and experiments, which were made for this topic as well as literature that I can use for my own research in the future. I also think that I would use this same research for my other blog post for my topic but will use it for a deeper understanding of psychological factors happening to the user while interacting with social media.

Sources:

• https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/32689/1/ALTUWAIRIQI%2C%20Majid_Ph.D._2019.pdf
• https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40429-015-0056-9

During World Usability Congress 2023, I attended the talk by Bill Albert “Measuring the Emotional User Experience”, who is the SVP and Global Head of Customer Experience at Mach 49. He began his talk by making us think about what makes a successful UX design and showing that it actually goes beyond just good usability and functionality. What matters are the emotions the product makes users feel.

He was talking about how considering a variety of potential emotions a user may experience while interacting with a product helps in designing the experience. To show how this works, Bill had a few examples of when users’ emotions and facial expressions were analysed when they were trying out a certain service or product. He highlighted that the topic of emotional analysis is complex and unequivocal because certain expressions may represent two completely different feelings, for example, a smile can represent either happiness, joy, or uncertainty and confusion. Because of this complexity, researchers try to think of techniques, methods, and tools to help interpret and understand human emotions. Additionally, Bill Albert mentioned the Journal of User Experience – an online journal, which can be accessed by everyone and to my mind, will be a good resource for my future research.

What additionally makes this process even more complex is cultural differences and mentalities. Bill didn’t state this in his talk, but one of the quests had a question about it, which is really important to always keep in mind. Due to this, researchers try to find a way to create more universal models that can adapt to different contexts.

In summary, I chose this for my Impulse because it’s always been fascinating to me – the topic of the multifaceted nature of emotions, and this talk gave me information about what softwares are being used for that and how important it is in the field of UX Design.

Sources:

• https://uxpajournal.org/all-issues/
• https://www.affectiva.com/science-resource/affdex-2-0-a-real-time-facial-expression-analysis-toolkit/

Last year I was exploring the topic of cultural adaptation through interfaces. It was an interesting topic to explore because through it I also could learn something new. I analysed government websites, conducted surveys, and explored technologies that are out there relevant to my topic. It was a nice experience, which helped me understand that researching and analysing different emotional states of people while using certain products/interfaces is what is interesting to me.

Because of this, I decided to take the opportunity to change the topic and try something a little bit different. The topic I want to explore in this semester is – Digital Well-Being. Why the shift? The past few years have strongly shown that technologies will become a part of our daily lives more and more with each year and it sometimes becomes harder to control time and quality of the experience. We rely on our digital devices a lot, which we can notice even more during global events like COVID-19.

This raises the question about the negative consequences this has on our mental and physical well-being. It is now nearly impossible to control what you’ll see on your feed and how that will affect you. For this many resources were created to help with controlling time spent on digital devices or certain apps (for example: do not disturb or lock app modes) but what I’ve experienced and what I saw people experiencing is the result of thinking even more about your devices, feeling guilty/irritated, avoiding any locks. And since we rely on our devices too much these days, the solution of just leaving or turning off your phone (for example) won’t work.

So, my idea now lies in the question – is it possible to create something that would make the experience with the device more “ecological” for the user without compromising their need for the device? And what emotions/feelings do users have while interacting with their device?

Während meiner Teilnahme an der World Usability Konferenz konnte ich aus drei inspirierenden Vorträgen wertvolle Erkenntnisse gewinnen, die meine Recherche für meine Masterarbeit und die Design&Research Blogs bereichern werden:

1. Aus dem Vortrag von Jen Romano blieb folgender Satz im Gedächtnis hängen: „You are not your User“. Obwohl mir ihr Vortrag nicht wirklich zusagte, mochte ich diesen Satz. Er ist für mich wichtig, weil für den Relaunch der Website der TU Graz „digital university hub“ viel umstrukturiert werden muss, und der Input von manchen Mitwirkenden nicht unbedingt hilfreich ist. Diesen einfachen aber fundamentalen Satz werde ich schon bald im Team in meiner Arbeit erwähnen.
   
   
2. Aus dem Talk von Javier Bargas Avila, fand ich für mich, wo er darüber sprach, wie die auf englisch designte Website „youtube“ in alle möglichen Sprachen übersetzt werden konnte. Obwohl ich kein Fan von reinen Piktogrammen bin, weil ich die Meinung vertrete, dass Icons zunächst immer erlernt werden müssen, außer das Icon ist textlich unterlegt, hat mich Javier überzeugt, dass Buttons mit einem X Symbol nicht extra nochmal das Wort „schließen“ benötigen. Erst recht nicht, wenn es sich bei der Zielgruppe (der Plattform der TU Graz) digital affine Menschen sind, welche die Bedeutung ohnehin kennen.
   
   
3. Von der Keynote am Donnerstag, 11.10.2023 von Jamie Levy über „The Best and Worst Practises of the Discovery Phase“ wurde mir wieder bewusst, wie wichtig es ist, zuerst Probleme zu definieren, um dann nach Lösungen suchen zu können. Für den Relaunch der Plattform der TU Graz werde ich im nächsten Schritt eine Problem-analyse machen und alle Probleme definieren, um weiters Lösungen finden zu