by madeleine.hurst -

Ontology and epistemology for UI design pattern

When researching established workflows and user interface (UI) patterns, my assumptions are that familiarity often leads to same solutions. People often tend to stick to existing methods simply because they have become accustomed to them. The same appens with changing User Interfaces. This aversion to change something is a known phenomenon.

By investigating this further, I want to find out why certain approaches are been still used and if there are mor efficient alternatives. The basic questions that intersts me are: Why do we cling to established norms? Could there be a better way to accomplish tasks?

Moreover, this universal resistance to change, also in the context of UI modifications, adds another layer. The aversion to alterations in UIs and workflows might be a recognized aspect of human behavior. But, I think that this reluctance could bereduzed if the suggested changes are beneficial or more user-friendly. Similar to the adoption of innovations such as the social login feature.

My research is going to be mostly based on existing studies and will be pretty theoretical. Maybe I can have a more philosphical approach to it and approach and interviewing different types of users to understand what they think about specific UI patterns. To find out which patterns are known and what people think about them. To get some reliable data on a pattern it has to be tested and maybe compared with an alternative with a high amount of users to find out if the pattern is just useful because it is known or because it is realy intuitiv without explanation.

Recognizing that this study takes a highly theoretical stance, I plan to draw extensively from existing research while infusing a philosophical dimension to enrich the discourse. To gain a comprehensive understanding, I aim to conduct interviews with colleagues, power users, and individuals less experienced with the system. This approach should show the prevailing patterns, feelings and attitudes towards established UI norms.

To really understand a pattern, I’ll test it and maybe compare it to another approach with a lot of users. This will help me figure out if people like a pattern just because it’s familiar or if it’s genuinely easy to use without needing much explanation.

I’m not just interested in what UI patterns are out there, but I want to know why we use them and if there might be better ways of doing things. It’s all about understanding why things look the way they do on our screens and get a broader understanding of design pattern and user behavior.

by Kris Van Hout -

Blog #10 – Topic assignment Master‘s thesis

Central Research Question
What is the best way to make a social media campaign a question that a lot of marketing teams are asking themselves but still don’t have quite clear answer to. Why is a social media campaign valuable for brands? How does a campaign communicate? What is a social media campaign and what does it include? This thesis will mainly focus on short-form-video in social media campaigns and want to find out why do they preform so well and what is the secret behind it.

Goal
The goal of this master thesis is to investigate the impact of design elements (trends, storytelling, camera techniques) in short-form video on social media platforms (Instagram and TikTok), with the aim of providing insights and recommendations for optimizing engagement in social media campaigns. with the focus of the target group Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

Hypothesis:
The use of design elements, such as visual aesthetics, narrative and trends, in short-form video on social media notably influences audience engagement, including views, shares and comments. By understanding these design elements, media designers can enhance the effectiveness of social media campaigns for brand promotion and communication.

Classification in the field of Media Design
This master thesis would be relevant for the field of media design for several reasons:
– Media trends: Short-form content with focus on video is becoming more and more popular on social media platforms. Understanding the role of short films in social media campaigns can provide valuable insight into the media field.
– Engagement and attention: Maintaining audience attention is very important. Short-form video is designed to brief and engaging. Which could be a media design strategy to hold audience interest.
– Visual storytelling: an important element in the field of media design is visual storytelling. Short-form video rely strongly on visual storytelling techniques to deliver a narrative within a short amount of time.
– Brand image and Communication: Social media campaigns are aiming to build and promote a brand. Short-form video can convey a brand’s message in a creative way.

Status of the art in research
Since short form video is quite new, there are not a lot of scientific papers about it. There are a lot of papers and books about traditional marketing where the essence of marketing can be taken from and put those findings in the new form of marketing. Also interviews and best practice will be done about this topic to figure out what the real reactions/results are of certain social media campaigns.

Theory reference
This master thesis can use theoretical references theory in narrative, visual communication, digital media, user engagement, advertising and branding and social media.  

Method
The method will be based on three pillars:

1. Theoretical Framework,
– Conduct literature to establish strong theoretical foundation.
– Identify key theories relevant for short-form video, media design and user engagement on social media.

2. Best practice, Interviews and User feedback
– Case studies on successful short-form video campaigns on social media
– Conduct interviews with professionals in media design and digital marketing
– Collect user feedback through surveys and analyse existing user interactions on social media platforms

3. Implementation to own campaign and analysis
– Design and execute own campaign for Cycling race Acht van Bladel
– Gather and analyse data, Performance, engagement and user interactions
– Compare findings with theoretical framework, best practice and user feedback to draw conclusions

Material and sources
Material that can be used for this master thesis are:
– Academic Journals, for insights into user engagement, visual communication and media theories
– Books, by experts in media design, digital storytelling and social media
– Case Studies, successful social media campaigns that use short-form video
– Interviews and Expert opinions, with professionals in the fields of media design, advertising and digital marketing
– Social media platforms, they often release reports and analytics that can be valuable of understanding user behaviour and engagement.
– Surveys and User feedback, to gather data on user preferences and responses to short-form video on social media.
– Other theses, this can help me with a base for my own research and highlights where I can contribute new insights.

Literature (temporary)
Brown, R. E., Jones, V. K. & Wang, M. (o. D.). The new advertising: branding, content, and consumer relationships in the data-driven social media era. Volume 1 Traditional advertising transformed (Volume 1).

Brown, R. E., Jones, V. K. & Wang, M. (o. D.). The new advertising: branding, content, and consumer relationships in the data-driven social media era. Volume 2 New Media, New Uses, New Metrics (Volume 2).

Coker, K. K., Flight, R., & Baima, D. M. (2017). Skip it or view it: The Role of Video Storytelling in Social Media Marketing. Researchgate.

Structure (temporary)

  1. Title
  2. Abstract
  3. Introduction
    – Background
    – Research Problem
    – Objectives, the specific goals
    – Significance of the study, why is this thesis relevant?
  4. Literature Review
    – Relevant theories such as narrative, visual communication, digital media, user engagement, advertising and branding and social media
    – Identify gaps in the literature that this thesis aims to fill.
  5. Theoretical Framework
  6. Method
    – Theoretical Framework
    – Best Practice, Interviews, User Feedback
    – Own campaign implementation and Analysis
  7. Results/ Data analysis
    – Evaluate
    – Present and analyse the data
    – Interpret the findings
  8. Discussion
    – Compare findings in relation to existing literature.
    – Address any limitations of this study and suggest directions for future research
    – The potential impact of the findings on the field of media design
  9. Conclusion
    – Summary of findings
  10. Recommendations
    – Practical recommendations for media designers, marketers
    – Suggest strategies for optimizing short-form video in social media campaigns
  11. References
  12. Appendices

Timeline[1]
February – March
Weeks 1-2: Refine topic
– Finalize topic, align with interests and goals
– Refine research question
Weeks 3-4: Conduct first literature review
– Begin a literature review, identify key theories related to short-form video, media design and social media campaigns.

April – May
Week 5-6: Develop theoretical framework
– Build theoretical framework based on the literature
– Define key concepts and theories that will guide the research
Week 7-8: Plan best practice analysis and Interviews
– Identify relevant case studies
– Plan and prepare of interviews with industry professionals

June
Week 9-10 Conduct Best practise analysis and interviews
– Analyse successful short-form video campaigns and extract insights
– Conduct and transcribe interviews with industry professionals
Week 11-12 Collect user feedback
– Develop surveys to gather user feedback on short-form video
Week 13-14 Design and implement own campaign (achtvanbladel)
– Develop detailed plan for own short-form video campaign
– Implement the campaign

July – September
Week 15-16 Analyse campaign data
– Analyse data collected from own campaign
– compare them with theoretical framework, best practices and user feedback
Week 17-18 Write draft chapters
– Begin writing thesis chapters, Introduction, literature review, method
Week 19-20 Refine and finalize thesis
– Edit end refine Thesis
– Ensure arguments are well-supported and structure is cohesive.
Week 21-22 Finalize and submit
– Make final revisions and polish thesis.
– Submit the final version of thesis.

[1] ChatGPT is used to create a guidance for a timeline for Topic assignment Master‘s thesis, February 03. 2024

by edwin.lang -

Blog Post – Master Topics Feedback #2

In this blog post I will summarize my conversation with Mr. Martin Kaltenbrunner who is the head of the Tangible Music Lab (University of Arts, Linz) and gave me feedback on my previously discussed ideas for my master thesis. Mr. Martin Kaltenbrunner provided me good insights into conferences and researcher working in the field of embodiment and tangible interaction design.

Conference

The International Conference on Tangible Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI) delves into the realm of human-computer interaction, pioneering tools and technologies, interactive art, and user experience. At TEI, the spotlight is on merging atoms and bits to create seamless interactive systems.

Professors

Furthermore, he mentioned Prof. Dr. Eva Hornecker who is currently teaching at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. According to Mr. Martin Kaltenbrunner, one part of her research is about the Tangible User Interfaces and Education.

Books

Lastly, he mentioned the following book to me as I was released in 2022 and summarizes the entire research field of embodiment and tangible user interfaces very good.

Weaving Fire into Form: Aspirations for Tangible and Embodied Interaction can be found under the following link: https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.1145/3544564

by edwin.lang -

Blog Post – Master Topics Feedback #1

In this blog post I will summarize my conversation with Mr. Orhan Kipcak who gave me feedback on my previously discussed ideas for my master thesis.

1. Framing Skepticism Towards Digital Media in a Positive Light

Highlighting the advantages of an analog focus without criticizing digital components.

– Reduction of complexity
– Multisensory experience

Concealing technical components is a notable unique selling point when expressed positively.

2. Defining Users

In the first step, define potential users and their motivations.

“Information measures for politics and large companies”

Potential target groups:

– Museums / Festivals

– Research projects (dissemination and communication to the public)

– Communication for political decisions

3. Establishment

Research funding opportunities and possibilities for establishing a company or a design studio.

4. Biography Tips

My technical studies provide a unique selling point that I can highlight even more. Express how much I enjoyed or gained from the experience.

5. Tips for the Master’s Thesis

Explore usage scenarios for Tangible User Interfaces and Data Visualization.
Make an inventory to identify what is needed – “Starting from the beginning and not the end.”

by nadja.pirchheim -

IMPULSE #8_How to design interfaces of the future by Matt Corall

Matt Corrall held a guest lecture at our institution at the FH Joanneum. He works as design director at the company Ultraleap which is known for their devices with handtracking controls.

As I am very interested in spatial design and VR as well, I found his talk at the atelier super inspiring and wanted to delve deeper into his work. On his website I found another speech he held at the Interaction 23 Conference in Zurich, Switzerland.

During his talk Matt mentioned a lot of interesting aspects designer need to consider when designing for interfaces for the future.

  • Virtual environments with hand tracking is more intuitive as with controllers. Users do not need to remember which button does what. Also gestures have a natural variance.
  • How user interact with certain objects is quite interesting. It depends of the size of the object. Is the object rather small the index finger and thumb is used, for bigger objects the whole hand is used and for really big objects, people use both hands.
  • Objects needs to be signified if they are interactive e.g. by glowing or label when hovering/going over the specific object
  • Objects have to have three dimensional aspects. A button is instantly know to be triggered when it has a physical appearance. In general UI components work best when they are in 3D.
  • Wearable UI is really important for certain interactions. But they should only be triggered when needed
  • Exaggerated feedback: To simulate haptics in VR is not possible (yet). That the user understands that a trigger/interaction was made, the feedback has to be clearly visible and in best case be exaggerated.
  • In general every/most of the VR applications have their own interaction and process, a tutorial before first usage is very important to clarify the upcoming experience.

Generally speaking the talk and the website of Matt Corrall is very interesting to me and has a lot of helpful insights. Can recommend 10/10 😊

Links:

https://www.corralldesign.com/writing/how-to-get-into-xr-as-a-ux-designer

https://interaction23.ixda.org/online-schedule/day-1.html

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattcorrall/?originalSubdomain=uk

by daniil.ivanov -

Change of direction in Master Thesis

In the last week of the 3rd semester, I received a huge amount of insights related to the topic of my master’s thesis. Therefore, I decided to change the vector a little. I would like the practical part to prevail in my work. I compared feasibility, my own desires and interests, my skills and decided to focus on practice.

Recently I have spoken with Mrs. Lagger, Mr. Kipcak, Mr. Baumann and Mr. Kaltenbrunner about the framework for my future work.

Therefore, now in the near future I will take the following steps:

  1. I will compile all the information that I received from the professors into one document, which also includes a mood board for a future potential exhibition.
  2. I will formulate the exact purpose of the exhibition and what topic it will be created on.
  3. I will accurately formulate the topic, title of the work and question.
  4. I will rewrite the Expose in accordance with all the changes that my topic has undergone.
  5. I will explore all the opportunities that the city of Graz provides for such independent art exhibitions, be it art venues, museums or Leerstand.

All these steps will certainly be completed by me in the near future, so that I can begin the theoretical part of the study as soon as possible.

by daniil.ivanov -

Impulse #8 – Exhibition at ESC

At the end of the 3rd semester we organized our final exhibition in the ESC Kunst Labor space. This event had quite an impact on me, so much so that I was able to decide on the exact direction of my Master Thesis. I got great pleasure from the process of preparing and creating complex technical exhibits, from all the difficulties that this brought.

It was very inspiring to see how visitors came and interacted with real interest with the exhibits that we created with our own hands, how our ideas came to life and really brought some emotions to real people.

I came to the exhibition every day 20 minutes before the opening to launch the main exhibit “Portfolio machine” and every time small difficulties arose and were constantly different, which was especially interesting. Sometimes during the exhibition my colleagues had difficulties and then I always responded to help. I really enjoyed this work and would be very happy to do this in the future.

by daniil.ivanov -

Impulse #7 – The use of AI-based image generators.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am the organizer of the LARP games. For this activity, I decided to use AI image generators to visualize the rules more clearly.

I created a page on the Notion platform and created different sections, for rules, for character descriptions and so on. The only question was which neural networks to use. We used three and I will describe my experience below.

Lime Wire

Lima Wire is a free neural network that can generate pictures based on promt. It is worth noting that the quality of the generated content is not that high at all, this is due to the fact that the service is free and still in the active development stage.

Artbreeder

Artbreeder uses a slightly different model. We used it to generate character portraits. It doesn’t use promts, rather it generates images based on existing ones, can compile multiple ones, and offers to change parameters, allowing for unique results.

Midjourney

Midjourney is perhaps one of the most famous image generators. For a subscription it allows you to generate images of quite high quality, although some things the neural network still doesn’t understand. For example, I needed an image of a drakkar, the platform didn’t understand the word at all and drew me a dragon. Anyway, we used this very service to design the rulebook.

by nadja.pirchheim -

Ontology & Epistemology

Ontology:

If I reflect on the nature of reality as it pertains in my research topic I assume, that teenagers often don’t know what they want to become nor where their professional journey is heading. One reason for this is the lack of opportunities to gain insights into different professions. This is also been examined in a survey conducted by Zukunft.Lehre.Österreich.(1)

I definitely view this assumption as objective facts as they were asked and examine in a broader field.

Epistemology:

The primary sources for my study are mainly from the WKO (chamber of commerce) as they conduct studies and surveys every year about apprenticeships in Austria. As well as other institutions in Austria which work for the Ministry of Education, other job seeking platforms or have any relation to education and employment. Also personal experience and subjective experience from people in my surroundings play a major role and give insights into for instance the change over time. The understanding is mostly empirical based on data and observation throughout the years as well as the material which is provided by the WKO.

Possible limitations could be that I have already delved too deeply into the topic and do not see other relevant information or my own biased interpretation of certain aspects.

Source:

(1) https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1229681/umfrage/hinderungsgruende-fuer-eine-lehre-in-oesterreich/