Duncan Gotobed

When technology goes too far...

The Open Rights Group has been campaigning for sometime against Phorm, which scans and profiles peoples’ online behavior so that it can bring them more relevant advertisements. The problem is that the technology they use infringes people’s privacy because it illegally intercepts confidential information.

The Open Rights Group is asking for people to write to major companies asking them to block phorm and in so doing protect people's privacy. Wikepedia and Amazon.co.uk are some of the companies that have blocked Phorm but they highlight there is more work to be done.  

They provide a list of major contacts here.

Picture: "I want privacy!" by bejealousofme

Give and You Will Receive

Freakanomics has found that reciprocity is the secret to a successful blog. Reading and commenting on other people's blogs apparently increases the readership of your own.

What do you think?

Picture: Give us this day... by Mr. Kris

Grabbing the headlines

Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisionsexplains why Swine Flu has hit the headlines, despite more pressing problems:

1. We pay attention to what’s happening now: things that are recent and things that are repeated often get more attention, even if they are not that important 
2. We overweigh new risks relative to comparable risks we are accustomed to. People obsess about spending 5 minutes in lifts with others (an infinitesimal chance of contagion) while blithely crossing the road to have an artery-clogging cheeseburger with fries and then smoke a pack of cigarettes. These things have much higher risks, but because we have grown accustomed to them, we don’t think of the risks. 
3. Our brains are wired to work well with stories. And there are many stories one can make from the news reports: pandemics amplified by airport air recycling and global travel; mass extinction followed by anarchy and mayhem; terrorism taking advantage of the burden on the health system, etc.

The moral of the story – just because something is important doesn’t mean it will grab people’s attention. 

Breaking the rules

 

 

Tim Brown's (IDEO) observations about Formula 1 explain the current furore over Brawn GP's diffuser.

 

"Formula 1 motor racing...  is a sport where the rules are often changed with little notice and the race teams invest millions of dollars in their response, attempting to gain tenths of a second in performance over their fellow competitors. Formula 1 is a kind of experimental hotbed where new rules are constantly tested. The intent of the rule makers is often to create a predictable reduction in performance so as to create safer or more competitive racing. What often happens however is that the ingenuity of engineers and designers combined with poorly written rules result in faster rather than slower cars. Design is testing the rules and innovation is the result."

Read the blog post here.

Changing Behaviour

 

Dr BJ Fogg of Stanford University has recently released a behavioural change model that makes a lot of sense. He highlights the importance of motivators, ability and triggers:

 

There are three types of motivator, each with two sides (pleasure-pain, hope-fear, and social rejection-social acceptance). Ability, means making the particular behaviour easier or simpler to do. There are also three types of triggers named (facilitator, spark, and signal, but as the model is in its early stages the difference between these three isn’t very clear yet).

 

The Fogg model says that if you get the motivators right, and if the behaviour is made easier for people to do, and if you trigger it - then the behaviour is more likely to occur.

Doodling

 

 

NPR has an excellent article on why people doodle.

 

Professor Andrade, who recently published a study on doodling in Applied Cognitive Psychology, argues that doodling provides just enough cognitive stimulation during an otherwise boring task to prevent the mind from taking the more radical step of totally opting out of the situation and running off into a fantasy world.

(via Dan Pink)

Picture: President Obama's doodle 

New Maths

 

Dan Pink writes about Craig Damrauer, an artist who renders abstract concepts in the orderly form of equations.

 

What equations can you come up with?

(via Dan Pink)

Influencing Behaviour

 

 

Dan Lockton, has collated a number of methods that influence behaviour change:

• Give the user feedback on the impact of their behaviour energy meters
• Suggest a behaviour to a user at the ‘opportune’ moment, i.e. when it would be most efficient or the most desirable next step to take e.g. automatic warning signs can alert drivers to upcoming dangers at the right point for them to respond and slow down accordingly
• Simplify tasks - make it easier for users to follow the intended behaviour.
• Personalise the way a system responds to individual users’ needs / abilities / situations, to engage users to interact in the intended way
• Guided persuasion: a user ‘agrees’ to be routed through a sequence of pre-specified actions or events. Their commitment to following the process motivates the user to accept the outcome
• Provide a simulation showing users what consequences particular behaviours will have, compared with others: make cause and effect clearer to users
• Operant conditioning means reinforcing or ‘training’ particular user behaviour by rewarding it (or, indeed, punishing it). This could be a system where a user chooses to work towards a target behaviour, being rewarded for every bit of progress towards it, or something which periodically (perhaps unpredictably) rewards continued engagement, thus keeping users interacting (e.g. a fruit machine)
• Classical conditioning, can be applied to influence behaviour through helping users subconsciously associate particular actions with particular stimuli or settings, and responding accordingly: basically, developing habits which become reflexes. If you automatically feel for the light switch when you enter or leave a room, this has effectively become a reflex action.
• The media equation describes the idea that many people treat media (computers, TV, other systems) as if they were real people in terms of social interaction. If users believe that a computer/system) s ‘on their side’, and helping them achieve their goals, it’s probably more likely they’ll follow advice given by the system: you can design systems to use ‘persuasive agents’, whether explicitly using simulated characters (e.g. in games) or by somehow giving the interface a personality.

While Dan's focus is on helping product or service designers his methods are just as relevant to learning design.

Freestyle Dining

Trina T. Epilepsia writes about an interesting eating experience she had, in which she was able to choose the raw materials for her food and play mix and match with it.

The man behind this concept is chef-owner Marco Legasto, who describes the experience as akin to having your own personal chef and wine cellar. You grab a bottle from the store (you pay retail here, which is a huge, huge, bonus for aficionados), settle into one of the seats, pick your food of choice, and tell the kitchen how you want it prepared. Chef Marco readily admits that while the concept is intriguing, some people may be overwhelmed with the idea of telling the chef what to do in the kitchen, thus the aforementioned "set menu."

(via PFSK)

High Performance Design Teams

 

Joseph Selbie, founder and CEO of Tristream, which specializes in web application design, has written an excellent article on the qualities of high performing design teams.

All of the members of the best teams could tell us, with relative ease, the top five business goals of their application, the top five user types the application was to serve, and the top five platform capabilities and limitations they had to work within. And, when questioned more deeply, each team member revealed an appreciation and understanding of the challenges and goals of their teammates almost as well as their own.

His points are just as relevant to learning design. When you understand the business goals that the learning is supporting, the needs of different participant groups and the pros and cons of the communication media you will be using you can create a better fitting learning programme.

An improvised start

 

Improv Everywhere are a long form improvisation troup which executes pre-planned "missions" which involve socially awkward or unusual situations.

 

In one of their most recent missions, Rob Lathan gave out 2,000 high fives by standing next to a subway escalator during the morning rush hour. Five additional agents spread out along the adjacent stairs, holding signs that prepared commuters for the upcoming high five fun.

 

Enjoy the video here.

The trouble with questionnaires

 

Classic British TV comedy Yes Prime Minister has important lessons for those who want to interpret questionnaire data. This clip shows two civil servants discussing a policy suggestion. Bernard Woolley, who we see first, thinks the public are in favour of the policy - the minister has had an opinion poll done. Luckily senior civil servant, Sir Humphrey Appleby is there to set him straight:

While the example is exaggerated, it does show questionnaires can be designed to encourage the answers you want. People's opinions are not objective facts like their height and weight, they change depending on the context and on how they are asked.

(via Mind Hacks)

Get under your customers skin

 

Nissan's interaction designers spend countless hours looking for signs of awkwardness as people interact with their vehicles.

 

One technique the team uses to understand the challenges aging drivers face when using their cars is by wearing a proprietary "aging suit" that gives them the mobility and faculties of a driver in their 70s and 80s. "Sure, it's uncomfortable," Naoki Yamamoto says, "but to really understand a problem you have to feel it in your bones."

 

Testing how learners will access or use the materials is often neglected in learning design but can go a long way to reducing participant frustration.