As one of the final assignments for the course Business Information Technology we had to make a webvideo including one of our teachers. We immediately knew we wanted to interview Suleman Shahid, our teacher for User Interface Design, since he really inspired us. Moreover, we were very curious about his past education and his almost finished PhD about emotions in games. Here you can see the video we made. Hope you like it.
We want to thank Suleman for his cooperation with the interview.
In one of my first blogposts I told about the lack of usability on Blackboard. Many students experience problems while using Blackboard: where to find deadlines, homework and activities? Besides students use Blackboard, they mainly have an agenda for the planning of other activities. To integrate a person’s school and social life, we designed the iPhone application Stufficient for the course User Interface Design. This application enables students to manage their courses, homework and deadlines in an agenda, make a to-do list, register for exams and check their results. But above all, this application can be personalized to meet the needs of any student.
Here are some previews of the different phases and our final design, however the real app will be kept secret until after the User Interface Design Symposium on may 18.
After a lot of brainstorm session we finally made a so-called low-fi design with the main functions of our app. First we pretested the app on paper. We wrote a few scenarios and let some respondents test these functions by clicking on them. After that a new screen was showed. Above you can see a preview of this phase.
Thanks to the low-fi evaluation we made some little changes to improve the application. Then we made our final design in photoshop. Finally, we had to program the whole application. Some screenshots are shown below.
Thanks to the low-fi evaluation we made some little changes to improve the application. Then we made our final design in photoshop. Finally, we had to program the whole application. Some screenshots are shown below.
If you want to see the real working application, please visit my website after may 18 or come to the User Interface Design Symposium to see our application and the projects of our classmates.
From now on I will regularly discuss some interesting predictions that are made about the future. Today I will show you a video from Corning, a company that states the future will be made of glass.Can you imagine organizing your daily schedule with a few touches on your bathroom mirror? Chatting with far-away relatives through interactive video on your kitchen counter? Reading a classic novel on a whisper-thin piece of flexible glass?
Even though this video might look like an imaginary fantasy, the company Corning is currently engaging in research that could bring this alive in the near future. During my lectures of User Interface Design I have seen some other interesting movies about real working applications like this. Therefore, I think this could definitely be made in the future. Moreover, this video shows some fun and useful functions we could definitely use in everyday life or at work.
However, I doubt if within ten years people will seriously live in houses and environments like this. First of all, their whole house needs to be renovated to live a life like this. This will be way too expensive for a normal household. Nevertheless, a house made of glass is not the best place to live with kids or animals, since glass can be broken or scratched easily. Although I do not believe houses like this will be the standard within ten years, I do believe some of the applications you have seen will become reality sooner than you might think.
Reliability: 6/10
Source and more information at: www.corning.com
Even though the memory tricks have come to an end, I have got one exciting new trick for you to store your memories carefully. When I have a period with lots of exams I sometimes take a nap, and not because some books are so boring that I almost fall asleep. I do this because I feel like afterwards I can better remember the things I had learned before. I did not know how this worked and if it worked for more people, however recent research by the University of California has shown that people were indeed better able to remember things after they took a nap.For this experiment 44 volunteers were invited to the laboratory at 12:00 pm. They had to remember 100 names and faces for the test they had to make at 18:00 pm. Half of the group was allowed to sleep between 14:00 pm and 15:40 pm, while the other group remained awake. The people who slept after they learned the names and faces performed better than the ones who stayed awake. The difference between the two groups was even about twenty percent.
The scientists suspect that during a nap the information in the hippocampus, the part in the brain where memories are made, moves to the long term memory. Since the hippocampus is emptied, a person is ready to store new memories.
Although I do not recommed you to go to sleep during a lecture, do not hesitate to take a nap while you are studying for an important test. There is a big chance you will do better on your test. Sleep well!
Hello everyone! Here is a quick update. I know it has been almost two weeks since my latest blogpost, but I'm back and this time with a brand new layout!
I have chosen a blue layout, because I was reading a very interesting research article about the influence of color on the purchasing habits of shoppers. It was an article of Bellizi, who investigated two colors, blue and red, within an electronics store. In the experiment where the store was blue, the visitors stayed longer in the store and were more likely to buy something than when the store was colored red. The people who were in the red store quickly left. I thought if this works for stores, it might also work for blogs. Of course I do not want my visitors to leave quickly, thus I thought a new blue layout was the best option. Within a few weeks I will see the results in Google Analytics, so let's hope my hypothesis is right. Moreover, I did not want to frighten you away with a red layout, as you could see in my previous post.
I have spent quite some time figuring out the HTML, but it is more or less finished right now. I'm very curious what you think, so let me know! Moreover, I have a lot of new and interesting updates for you, so stay tuned!
Good news for the ones of you who love to wear red. Researchers of our University have determined that people who wear red clothes have more success in negotiations.
Within the experiment people had to negotiate with each other about the purchase and sale of coffee. The only thing that varied in the experiment was the color of clothing, which was red or white. It appeared that both buyers and sellers got significantly better results in the negotiations when they wore a red shirt.
The explanation the researcher gives is that there will probably be a fright when people are confronted with the color red, making them worse performers in the negotiations. It even seemed that people who were exposed to the color red before they made an IQ test performed less than people who saw the color grey.
So, if you want to negotiate about the price of those beautiful new shoes or the holiday destination of this summer, be sure to wear something red!
The method of Loci is one of the most famous mnemonic techniques for remembering. With this method you connect information with visual images of a map that is familiar to you.
For example, if you need to learn the digestive system, you can link the different phases of this system to your own house. You enter your house through the front door (mouth) and then enter the living room (esophagus). Then you walk to the kitchen (stomach) and walk up the stairs (small intestine) to the bedroom (large intestine). You finish on the toilet in the bathroom (anus). When you walk this map a few times in your head, you will see you easily remember all different phases.
Trick 1: Use the method of Loci for remembering different phases or objects in a specific order.
In the example above you have connected a room to every object. However, you can also do this the other way around by connecting an object to a place. This can be very easy when you are trying to remember a shopping list or a to-do list.
(1) Think of a route you often walk or drive. This can be the route to work or school, the rooms of your own house, the route you usually walk in the forest or garden, anything.
(2) Create key points within this route. For example, the rooms of your house, the traffic lights, the roundabout, the bakery or the big house on the corner.
(3) Connect every room or key point to an object you are trying to remember. The trick is to make really strange combinations, because the sillier it is, the more likely you are to remember it.
In this example we will use the rooms in a random house and we have to remember a grocery list with the following items: milk, shampoo, grapes and butter. You start within the kitchen where you see shampoo bubbles overflowing in the kitchen sink. When you walk to the living room you see grapes hanging from the chandelier and when you walk to the hallway, you see a fountain with milk. Finally, you want to run up the stairs, but you slip because it is completely smeared with butter.
Walk this route in your head a couple of times with these mental images. When you eventually are doing grocery shopping, you start walking the route again and you can easily remember every single item on your list.
The first time I heard about this method, I thought it was a silly thing and rather impossible. However, the truth is that it is a very easy and efficient way to learn things by heart. The first few times you apply it you will be surprised by all the things you can remember. Moreover, the more you use this method the better you will manage it.
Trick 2: Use the famous method of Loci for remember shopping lists or to-do lists.
With the method of Loci we have come to the end of the Memory Tricks series. Click here if you want to read previous parts:
I hope you have enjoyed the tricks and that they were helpful for you. If you have any questions regarding these tricks, please leave a comment and I will be glad to answer it.
Primarily, first letter mnemonics can be very useful for remembering all kind of different things. When I have to learn large lists for an exam I always take the first letter of every object and try to make a word out of it. This way, I only have to remember this word. Research showed that showing the first letter of a word, makes most people remember the word again.
An easy example I had to learn are the four uncertainty reduction strategies for social media: passive, active, interactive and self-disclosure. I made the word ‘PISA’ from it. When I saw the first letters, I could easily remember the names of the four strategies and these names referred to the content of each strategy.
Trick 1: Try to make a word of the first letters of the objects you have to learn.
Another example of these first letter mnemonics are spelling acronyms. Sometimes words can be very hard to write and by learning an easy sentence you can remember how to write it.
ARITHMETIC: A Rat In The House May Eat The Ice Cream
BECAUSE: Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants
GEOGRAPHY: George Edwards’s Old Grandma Rode A Pig Home Yesterday
NECESSARY: Not Every Cat Eats Sardines, Some Are Really Yummy
RHYTHM: Rhythm Helps Your Two Hips Move
Trick 2: Use spelling acronyms for remember how to write a difficult word.
The same counts for list order acronyms. Sometimes you have to remember objects in a specific order. Therefore these list order mnemonics can be very useful, since they are much easier to remember than the lists itself.
Order of colours in the rainbow, or visual spectrum
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet
Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain
Order of taxonomy in biology
Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species
Kids Prefer Cheese Over Fried Green Spinach
Trick 3: Use list order acronyms for remembering specific orders.
In the last episode of Memory Tricks I will tell you about one of the most famous mnemonic tricks: the Methode of Loci. This trick learns you have you can easily remember shopping lists or to-do lists. Click here for Memory Tricks Part 4.
“The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information” is one of the most famous papers in psychology. This study concluds that the short term memory of an average human can remember seven (plus or minus two) objects. However, i will share some tricks with you so you can remember more than just this magical number seven.Trick 1: Split the code you have to remember into seperate parts.
A phone number for example, has 10 digits. According to the previously mentioned study, this would mean that an average human is not capable of remembering his own phone number. However, a phonenumber is mostly split in seperate parts, which is called chunking. The phonenumber: 0134669111 is much easier to remember when you put it like this: 013 - 466 9111. The same has been done with credit card numbers. The 16 digits are split up into four parts of four digits.
What is even more useful is to split a code you have to remember into meaningful parts. Numbers can be coupled to dates, ages, phonenumbers, roomnumbers etc. For example
201945422 could stand for your age (20), the year the second world war ended (1945) and the number of your appartement (422). The same holds for letters.
1) FBIVIPUVTCBS
2) F BIV IPU VTC BS
3) FBI VIP UVT CBS
Trying to remember (1) can be very hard. The example in (2) is already easier since the code now exists of smaller chunks. However, if you chunk the words into meaninful units, which has been done in (3), it will be easier for you to remember.
Trick 2: Try to give meaning to the seperate parts.
Furthermore, if you try ro visualize the meaningful units, it will be even easier for you to remember. For example, if you look at (3) you can think of a newsreportage from CBS news where a FBI agent was a VIP at the party of the UVT. The weirder the image, the easier it will be to recall the related information.
Trick 3: Make a mental imagery of the things you have to remember.
Pi = 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971...
The most famous example of remembering digits is the Pi memory record. In 2005 the record has been broken by Haraguchi from Japan who could remember 83,431 decimal places of Pi. A trick that is frequently used in these competitions is the word-length mnemonic. The number of letters in each word corresponds to a digit. Here an example to to remember 15 decimal places of Pi.
"How I like a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics"
Trick 4: Use word-length mnemonics.
If you want to now more about mnemonics, come back next sunday for some new memory tricks!
Look at the image above. These are the number of years it took to have 50 million users. As you can see, the world seems to adapt new developments a lot quicker than in the past. What is especially striking is that the last few years the user plays an increasingly important goal, because web 2.0 allows users to generate content.
• 25% of the results of the top 20 brands is user-generated content
• 34% of the bloggers, with a total of 200 million blogs, write opinions about products and brands
• 78% of the consumers rely on the advice of someone else
• 14% of the consumers rely on advertisements by the company
This has a great impact on marketing, since consumers seem to rely more on the opinions of others than on advertisements on radio, television or internet. Therefore, marketers need something else to attract the attention of the consumers.
This is when Social Media Marketing arises. As was shown before, Facebook is an upcoming medium which has now over 680 million users. So, when marketers spread their advertisements through social media many people will be reached. However, an advertisement needs to be striking, which is done by making a personalized campaign.
In these campaigns the name or a picture of the user is displayed, which mostly has a positive effect for the company, since the user feels personally addressed and therefore pays more attention to the campaign. However, marketers go further and further with this. A lot of user-generated data is available for the marketers and they can use it whenever they want.
But where is the line? What if your phone number is used in an advertisement? Or what if your private photos are showed in a campaign? In the research project for my research traineeship I will examine where the boundary lies. When feel people threatened in their privacy? In Partnership with Hyves (the biggest Dutch social network), a master student and Tilburg University I will investigate this the coming months. Of course I will keep you informed of my findings on my blog.
I believe that due to privacy concerns, it is only a matter of time until 50 million people will unsubscribe from Facebook.
Facts are from: http://www.rogenica.nl
Does the following scenario sound familiar to you? "You are in the living room and you realize you need something from your bedroom. Once you arrive in the bedroom, however, you have no idea why you made the trip. You return to the living room, and you immediately remember what you wanted.”
The reason you remembered it immediately when you were back in the living room is because contextual cues are highly important for remembering. It is also proven that students who made the exam in the same room they studied, tend to have better results than students who studied in a different room. (Do not ask me why the University always gives us another room during the exam than the one we had classes in for half a year).
Trick 1: It could be very helpful to visualize the original context where the information was learned during the exam.
Try to see it, feel it, hear it, smell it, taste it; all senses could help you to remind something. Therefore, if you were eating chocolate during studying, you should definitely bring some during the exam. The taste could bring back other contextual factors that can help you remind the facts you learned, and off course it is always nice to have a good excuse for eating chocolate.
Another important aspect of memory is fragrance. Fragnances often remind you of a specific place, for example a vacation, or a specific person. This is because the area in your brains that stores memories, is close to the area that receives oder stimuli. Link a fragnance to a fact and you remember it easier. This can be really helpful when learning for an exam.
Trick 2: If you wear the same fragrance during learning as during the examen, you will see that you can remind the facts you learned better and easier.
So, do not feel guilty anymore when you are again buying a new perfume. You’re just improving your memory!
Come back next sunday, for more memory tricks!
It is quite of an understatement to say most students do not like blackboard. There is even a Death to Blackboard-page on Facebook (yes, seriously!) and when you google for 'blackboard frustrations' you'll find a document written by the University of Hartford called: 'Strategies for Faculty to Forestall Student Complaints and Frustrations with Blackboard'. Seeing this document I was wondering, why people put so much effort in using a program that's so hard to work with. Everybody seems to have some difficulties with blackboard and the study guide: finding deadlines, enrolling for courses, choose which courses to follow in the next semester, sign up for exams, setting the week schedule and so on. Luckily in my first week at the University I had a special course in which we learned how to use blackboard, but I was wondering why there should even be a course like that. I think a program that you have to use on daily basis should be naturally to use, since the intention of the program is to make the life of students and teachers easier.
Thus, when we had to choose a topic for our User Interface Design project, we immediately thought of improving blackboard, but then in a totally different way. We is by the way: Elsa Jonkers, Jamie van den Eijnden, Eline Jansen, Evelyn van Kelle and me. For this course we will not be redesigning blackboard, but we will be designing a Tilburg University App for iPhone, iPod, iPad, Blackberry and Android. This app will contain a personal agenda with personal courses, all important deadlines, options to choose new courses and minors, enroll and sign up for courses and more easy-to-use functions. We want to design a timesaving and more fun way for students to organize everything concerning their study.
Therefore I would like to know from you: what are you biggest frustrations with blackboard, what functions you think are hard to use and what options would you like to see within an app? Please post your comment on this blog, since that will really help us designing our app. And maybe sharing it, will even help you to get rid of your pent frustrations. Off course I will keep you updated about the project via twitter and my blog.
By the way, within three days the new version of Blackboard, Learn 9.1, will be launched at our University. So, let's keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best!
Moreover, when people ask my what I’m studying and I tell them ‘Communication and Information Sciences, with the specialization Corporate Communication and Digital Media’, mostly no one really gets what I’m talking about. You should see their faces! However, in the future I can give them the URL of my blog, since I have to update you about anything related to my study. I’ll be writing here about all ins and outs in the field of communication, digital media, user interface design, social media, cognition, usability and everything else I forgot about at the moment. If you have no idea what I’m talking about right now, don't worry and just follow my blog on regulary basis. You'll see that within a few weeks you can impress your friends and family with your knowledge about communication and digital media.
So, welcome at my first blog! I hope you'll enjoy yourself here and get just as inspired by communication as I do. For updates you can follow me on twitter or follow my blog via Google Friend Connect or RSS.
I hope to see you back soon!
P.S. If you are blogging for BIT as well, please put your blog in the comments and I’ll add your blog to my interesting links on the side.
About Me
- Saskia Kanters
- Student Business Communication and Digital Media @ Tilburg University
Popular Posts
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It is quite of an understatement to say most students do not like blackboard. There is even a Death to Blackboard- page on Facebook (yes, se... -
The method of Loci is one of the most famous mnemonic techniques for remembering. With this method you connect information with visual imag... -
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Does the following scenario sound familiar to you? "You are in the living room and you realize you need something from your bedroom. O... -
“The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information” is one of the most famous papers in ... -
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Even though the memory tricks have come to an end, I have got one exciting new trick for you to store your memories carefully. When I have a... -
Look at the image above. These are the number of years it took to have 50 million users. As you can see, the world seems to adapt new dev...
