future blog plans

I really need to blog more often. I have so many ideas and highly interesting worldshaking *ahem* topics to talk about.

In five weeks I’ll be done with my studies. And then it’s time to give thoughts to a lot of intriguing topics! Looking forward!

I’m enhancing cognitive dissonance

Recently I have experienced that quite a few people in my environment kind of avoid me (or are not that nice like before). These people are going through the same stuff like me, meaning: final exams.

In the beginning, they often came to me asking how this or that works, to whom they should speak to in this or that case, and how I am preparing the exams and so on. I felt that they consulted me as an opinion leader (always informed, always on). That’s a good feeling.

However, I turned out to be really successful with my thesis and everything (best grades, publishing etc. – see earlier posts). And the signs bode well, that I’ll continue this lucky streak.

I really don’t want to talk big but since I’ve received those marks and some highly interesting job opportunities as well these certain people avoid talking to me. The explanation for their behavior is rather simple and scientifically established, too: They don’t want to get in contact with me because they are afraid I might enhance their cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, Leon 1957) suggests that we do everything to keep our attitudes in harmony (which includes avoiding information that causes disharmony). Inconsistent information produces a feeling of discomfort so we try to avoid “bad input” and seek balancing information instead.

So the idea that there is someone (I) who could tell them (my “friends”) that she (I) has news and interesting information regarding my good (and there worse) performance causes them cognitive dissonance. They don’t want to know about how good others are because that indicates that they are not good enough. It would be better to tell them that someone (I) has performed pretty bad; that would be balm to their spirit. Pffffff

Hey, I am not hawking my achievements. Instead I try to avoid the topic in order to reduce their cognitive dissonance (I am so generous).  I just want to talk to them – nothing else.

I am so glad that I have real friends that don’t care if I’m successful or not, good or bad, black or white. Thanx guys!

The spiral of silence in cmc

Recently I have been researching on the current validity of various (political) media theories such as the two-step-flow of communication or the spiral of silence. The question is if and to what extent those theories are applicable in the area of computer mediated communication.

Most of the the theories have been developed in the middle of the last century and mainly focused on the influence of old media (esp. TV). The fundamental changes, however, that the digital communication has brought about ask for a restatement of the former concepts. I will not go into depth at this point (media effects, roles of sender and receiver, selectivity etc.) and try to focus on one certain theory: the spiral of silence. I would like to discuss the new implications of this model with you.

Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann (1974) postulates that individuals constantly scrutinize their environment to evaluate the climate of opinion. Driven by the fear of social isolation the individual is less likely to overtly express her opinion if she believes to be in the minority. Individuals, however, who believe that their opinions are popular and shared by the public are more likely to express their views. Over time, this induces a spiraling process in which the majority becomes more and more dominant and the minority dissolves completely.

I now wonder if the perception of public opinion or rather the willingness of speaking out has changed in the era of online communication, for example in social networks. Has it become easier for members of a community to express their views because of the reduced social presence and anonymity (i.e. in forums or chatrooms)? Or is it even more difficult not to take part in a disputation because the mere absence could impose negative sanctions (social exclusion)?

In short, I think that online communication could break the spiral of silence. The new modes of communication enable individuals to easily voice their opinion even if they believe to be in the minority (blogs are a very good example). More and more people strive for being heard and for having a place in the public – regardless of the significance of their statements. People want to express theirselves and show their individuality or rather non-conformity. They are proud of belonging to the minority. That’s why they speak out instead of falling silent (as the theory would suggest).

In addition, one can find any argument she needs in the WWW. Reducing one’s own cognitive dissonance becomes as easily as to intentionally change one’s mind. Whatever argument you need in order to substantiate your opinion you’ll certainly find it online. You’ll suddenly experience that there are quite a lot people that share your opinion (although it must not necessarily be the majority).

Having said this it gets pretty clear that online communication could help breaking the spiral of silence. There seems to be a multi-opinion-trend that reverses the comprehension of a “major” or “minor” public opinion. The selectivity of the medium Internet anticipates direct media effects, the user receives information with too much self-determination.

Of course there is much more to consider within this whole paradigm. That’s why I would like to get to know your ideas.

Talk to Google

In summer 2008, a recruiter (headhunter??) from Google contacted me via my online profile on a popular social business network. He asked me if I was interested in working at Google and if so, he would be happy to talk to me about the opportunities.

Although I’m a big fan of online communications and I appreciate networking I thought it was a bit strange to be seriously contacted in such a way. Moreover, I still had around one year left to finish my studies so I told him to contact me “next year” again (I wasn’t really interested anyway and therefore happy to have a legitimate excuse).

No sooner had the new year arrived I again received a message from Google. This time it was another recruiter referring to the established contact (aha) and asking me the same questions (how about a job at Google? When do you graduate? Which grade do you expect? etc.). This time I couldn’t help thinking that it must be serious so I gave it a try.

After a short email conversation I sent her my CV and agreed on having a telephone interview with her in March (although I won’t graduate until July). And this was today.

I searched the whole web for information on how to handle a job interview on the telephone (at that in English) and prepared for at least 4 hours. I took notes how to answer certain questions, formulated a personal slogan (that implies how clever, creative and ambitious I am) and taped my CV on the wall above my desk (where I would stand (!) when she calls – standing while talking gives your voice a better volume and makes you sound very confident).

It turned out that I didn’t need anything of that. Instead of the initially feared 40 minutes of probing questions she just wanted to hear (again!) the date of my graduation and the stations of my CV (10 minutes). Finally, she gave me the tip to pimp up my CV (more details and a special focus to all the things I’ve done regarding online marketing) so that she can send it to the actual person in charge.

She’ll get back to me then…

Successful Me

Ok. I think I should say thank you to the world of blogs.

For the last 5 months I have written my final thesis on the topic “Social Software in Political Communications: The Role of Weblogs in the US Presidential Elections 2008″. 105 pages excluding the references and the appendices. I’ve submitted it three days ago.

The study mainly dealt with the impact of blogging on politics or rather the public opinion. I’ve covered the prime examples (like kryptonite, salam pax, the rathergate scandal, the trent lott-case, mayhill fowler etc.) and also tried to describe the (political) blogosphere during the election period 2008. Phenomenons like citizen journalism, the medium weblog as a “second public” and it’s “viral abilities” have also been mentioned.

Now I seem to know a lot of the blogosphere – theoretically (not to mention my “practical experience” with the travel blog I wrote two years ago or this one of course). Obviously, I did a good job:

Yesterday my professor (who has to review my thesis) asked me if I would like to publish a book together with her. And my thesis should be a part of it. She thought the study was outstanding and definitely worth publishing.

Wow! I can’t believe it!

Thank you blogosphere for giving me good inspirations and empirical data! I am really excited about how everything’s going to develop…

Reflections

This will (probably) be the last blog entry for the category “module NM4210″. The lecture period is over and the exams are approaching.

It is time to conclude what we have learnt in “User Experience Design”.

Admittedly, not all what I have learnt in this module can be put in words that easily. Of course, the assignments as well as the final product and thus all the blog entries testify to my learning progress. After 13 weeks of NM4210,

• I have developed an eye for bad designs. I do no longer just shake my head in disbelief about such an unstylish pattern but wonder how and why this design is unsatisfactory. Sometimes I even come up with a possible solution (though only in my mind). By the way, this was one of the coolest assignments I ever had. Finding a bad design. It’s incredible how many of them can actually be found in everyday life. A considerable assemblage of good bad designs can be reviewed here.

• I now find myself analyzing a lot of things for their emotional design. For instance, I have realized that my mobile phone is more behavioral than reflective and pretty low in its visceral performance. The same with my laptop, although Dell might be perceived by some people as having a good potential of emanating reflective emotion. However, it was not my intention to enhance my status when I bought the computer.

• I ‘ve found my new favourite market-research technique: the interesting and curious way of conducting interviews through ‘laddering’. The interviewer poses as many questions as possible targeted at a certain pleasure (or displeasure) of a product until she cannot think of any other question. We tried the laddering method in class and used it also for our final product (e.g. when we thought we had identified a need). From a producer’s perspective, this modus operandi is rather useful because it is not very intricate but provides an appropriate solution.

I understand the whole module as a one entire course with each lesson based on the preceding. For instance, in session 2 we heard about pleasure with products and the different emotional design levels (s. above). In the next lesson this concept got a little bit more elaborate and was elucidated by means of the four-pleasure-framework. This instrument that should help structuring thoughts as regards pleasure comprises the four components physio-, socio-, psycho-, and ideo-pleasure. With this framework, a product can be described in view of particular aspects and makes it thus better comparable to similar products. To my mind, the ideo-pleasure indicator is the most sophisticated. It concerns values and aspirations, ideologies. Why people like a product or what it tells us about them (e.g. a hybrid car appeals to people that are environmentally aware or are convicted to contribute to the entire good by buying such a car).

We did not only apply the four pleasure framework in order to describe products but also people. Assignment no. 3 aimed at creating a persona and analyze her profile via the four pleasure framework. In addition to that we should find a suitable product (a handphone) for our persona and depict the product benefit specifications. These are the criteria to which a product should be designed for the target user – the persona. To be honest, that was the first time that I effectively realized how closely the design of a product is actually related to its target user.

The insight I gained from this module is the fact that designing and creating has a lot to do with empiricism, with real life. Usually, one would not assume that product designers and producers put so much effort in observing and researching people’s behaviour or their needs. All our assignments and especially the design process for the final product demanded a great deal of discerning the user’s reaction to a particular product or circumstance.

My impression got a bit disordered when I read the Smoke & Mirrors article for the first time. User research indeed is a very important factor within the product design process. Maybe Christopher Fahey is right by saying “…the ideal of empirical, science-based user-centered design is something that we aspire to but never reach”. But why not trying to reach it?

I absolutely understand that this article causes a sensation among its readers because it really needs some concentration to get what the author actually is trying to say. At first I thought he sides with people who claim their unscientific research methods to be seriously scientific and try to palm them off on the public. However, later on it gets quite clear that Mr. Fahey criticizes the fact that too many people interpret “scientific” studies wrongly, either because they lack the appropriate skills to analyze the figures in detail or because the researchers do not advert to potential insufficiencies or constraints of their study or research method. This by the way is one important insight I gained from my own studies: scientific research is never without constraints.

With giving us this eye-tracking example, the author of Smoke & Mirrors points out that even apparently unambiguous research results can be interpreted in different ways: “If, for example, an eyetracker tells you that people don’t spend time looking at your company’s logo, does that mean that you need a new logo, or does it mean that your logo is already deeply familiar to the user? If the eyetracker shows someone spent a lot of time looking at your “how it works” diagram, does that mean that the diagram was extremely interesting or that it was extremely perplexing?”

The article tries to tell us that making good and competent design decisions is highly dependent on

a) the designer’s user research methods

b) the designer’s capability to interpret the data correctly.

Although our project was “just” part of a university course and the product not intended to be brought to market, we also had to cope with those difficulties when conducting user researches and evaluating the data. Christopher Fahay emphasizes what I have learned in this module: that designing for user experience is a highly sophisticated process that demands a certain sense of balancing intuition and analyzing empirical perceptions.

This experience makes me apprehending (good!) design differently now. How can the designer understand what the user wants and expects without proper research? Apart from the intuitive feel of the creator, a good design reflects her exemplary grasp of the user. It is not all about just having a nice design idea, but knowing that the user will appreciate it. When I think about this, I have one special phrase in mind: “Understanding the user holistically”.

Concluding I can say that the combination of theory and practice, interaction and reflective cerebration, notions and empiricism, makes this module an important contribution to my personal learning experience at the NUS.

This module is truly well designed .

The Final Product – It’s a Naptop!

[This is going to be the longest post ever]

The task for our final group project is to design a product. Well, of course, not just A product. THE product.

We had 7 weeks to go with several design phases. Each group should update the teacher and the rest of the class every week with a short presentation. As already mentioned in the blog entry before, some of the phases contain parts of former assignments. It feels like a huge puzzle. Find the missing piece and complete the product! Can you apply the knowledge gained in class to the real task?

Phase I – Need Analysis and First Product Concept

The first challenge was ‘finding a need’. We should not already think about a potential product but should first find out about a possible need. This turned out to be pretty difficult. Find a need but do not find the solution. At least not yet.

So we randomly started asking people about their needs. And in fact, a lot of them came up with a solution instead of the actual need, saying things like: “I would like to have a mobile air-conditioning that adjusts automatically to the temperature” or “I want to have something that helps me carrying my heavy bags”.

After one week of conducting interviews and checking with the teacher about our findings, we finally stated the need for which we wanted to design a product: Taking a quick nap.

The idea stems from several observations in school, especially during project peak periods. We saw a lot of students napping with their heads on the table or on the backrest. Sometimes you just feel so terribly tired and can’t keep your eyes open. If you are in a quiet and pleasant surrounding – let’s say the library – you almost automatically fall asleep. A few minutes later your neck and limbs are aching or you have a fancy mark on your forehead created by the sleeves of your pullover. And worse, you do not feel awake at all.

The visualization of this scenario makes the problem rather obvious: one needs to take a quick refreshing nap that does not make you feel uncomfortable or unsightly. There has to be a simple and unstressful solution. Voilà:

The Naptop is a laptop case (or rather a sleeve case) with an integrated pillow. How this is going to work and look like we will find out in the next phases.

Phase II – User Profile

Due to our research environment and the product itself, the typical user group we focus on fulfills the following conditions:

• NUS student
• age 18-26
• living off-campus
• owning a laptop.

Remember Anna from London? This was the persona I created in one of the earlier posts for a mobile phone. Of course we invented a nice persona for the Naptop as well. This is Lilly, 22, a female Singaporean student. We also created an anti-user. However, in the following I will just provide a quick summary of the user profile. If you wish to read more about the personas’ lives please leave a comment and I will upload the text to the blog.

Here comes the recapitulation about the user’s profile (female advanced user, most likely to use the product):

Social Profile:

The typical (female) Naptop-user likes studying as well as meeting friends, doesn’t like to disappoint her friends and tries to meet them regularly, tries to combine her stressful day’s schedule with leisure time activities (sports or cooking with friends), parties at times (not THAT party girl), loves to be regarded as ambitious and hard-working, sometimes tries to behave like an adult

Psychological Profile:

Diligent, ambitious, doesn’t have too many hobbies (focuses on her studies), has a hobby to express herself and show creativity (e.g. singing, painting, dancing), fashion conscious, has a sense of style, loves reading fashion magazines, loves extravagant and fancy things, sometimes a bit kittenish (taste and thinking), image-conscious and self-confident, good, techsavvy, interested in innovations (wants to be informed), really goes for advertisements

Cultural Profile:

Modern Asian (characteristics: diligent, hard-working, ambitious), open to western culture (future job might be international)

Physiological Profile:

Modern fashion style (Charles & Keith, Zara etc.), loves accessories (keyring/mobile pendant etc), „pretty”

Ideological:

Motto: „you can achieve what you want if you work hard”, status-oriented, long term aspirations: success, career sometimes not really grown-up (concerning general sense of responsibility)

These are some of the characteristics of our target user group. We are going to create the Naptop for this kind of users.

Phase III – Emotion and Design / Product Benefit Specifications

Now it’s time for a more precise concept of how the Naptop should function and look like.

In this phase I can show what I learned from the second assignment. That was the blog entry with the three stages of emotion and design: visceral, behavioral and reflective. Applied to the Naptop, the description is as follows:

Visceral design:

The appearance of the sleeve case is absolutely appealing. Various designs and colours, minimal shape (slim), stylish, unique. The part with the pillow can look totaly different from the rest of the Naptop. People can choose their own favourite design = customization. That makes the Naptop pretty individualistic.

Behavioral design:

The sleeve case fulfills the minimum requirements for a laptop case: it protects the computer, is cushy to carry and looks good. It can be used as a stylish stand-alone laptop case (is light and thin enough to be inserted into another bag, too) and also as the nice pillow to-go. If you do not want to sleep you don’t have to use it. JUST IN CASE (haha).

The pillow material is softer. It can be plush, fleece or plain textile. The fabric is sweat absorbing and wrinkle-free. No clothing marks on the forehead, no hard table, no aching cheekbones. You’ll really enjoy your 10-minutes nap! No need to carry around a pillow. No requirements for the usage (instead of having a laptop), no efforts. Great functionality and usability. In addition, the Naptop can also be used as a chair cushion or backrest (please take your laptop out before rolling the case or sitting on it). Apart from that, the pillow can be washed easily (or just buy a new stylish one!).

Reflective design:

It is not just a laptop sleeve case. It is the NAPTOP! That is an extravagant and cool gimmick which is even helpful and absolutely comfy. The user will be pleased and happy with this stylish two-in-one. It is a must-have! It looks good, it is a smart idea and the user needs a laptop case anyway!

The product benefit specifications can be summed up as follows (ps: you certainly remember the four pleasure analysis….):

Physio-pleasure

light and thin (need), pleasing material (appreciation), bolster (need)

Socio-pleasure

hip’n'trendy, cool (appreciation), advantage to nap comfortably (need), public sleeping socially accepted (need)

Psycho-pleasure

gratification through two-in-one

Ideo-pleasure

The pillow can be designed individually; a tie-in with well-known designers can make the Naptop a must-have (need), the Naptop is considered as trendy, stylish, and creative (appreciation).

Once it was clear what the product will be and who would use it it became real fun to think about the special gimmicks or other nice functions. We had lots of ideas, among them was for example the aroma-therapy effect: Some of the pillows (they are interchangeable so the user could have more than just one pillow attached to the Naptop) could have some micro-capsules that contain natural aroma (oil extracted from flowers or natural herbs). Whenever the fabric is rubbed, the capsules widely open and give off the aroma. The pillow could be washed at least 20 times without losing the aroma-therapy effect.

Another idea was that the pillow could be automatically inflatable (like a life boat). The pillow would be similar to those blow-up bolsters people often use on the plane. However, we didn’t elaborate this design and therefore couldn’t find a perfect solution for the inflation mechanism (how does the automatism work?). We could have spent some more thoughts on this idea.

But before we got completely absorbed in those nice details we first had to think about the concrete functioning of the pillow in (or on?) the laptop case.

Phase IV – The Low Fidelity Prototype

Altogether we made out three possibilities of how the pillow could be integrated in the laptop bag. In order to find out which alternative would be best we prepared a draft illustrating the three concepts; with this we interviewed some of the potential users who could also help us recognizing some hidden inconveniences (heuristic evaluation).

Type 1. Centre-Zip

One side of the laptop case is used as the pillow. This side is made from the special pillow fabric (fleece, plush, unruffled, etc, whatever the user prefers). Due to hygienic reasons and in order to protect the pillow-side from dirt, this part can be capped by a thin additional cover. This comprises two parts that are fastened by a zip. An attempt to draw this looks like this [the yellow part should illustrate the pillow, the red line is the zipper]:

Feedback we got from the users was that e.g. the cover is actually useless material (but without it is not convenient either) and that they do not want to carry around something that is useless. Some of the interviewees couldn’t really imagine how this would look like in the end and didn’t know what to think about the cover at all.

Type 2: Pillow-Flap

Here, the pillow is on the flip side of an additional flap (same size as the laptop case). The flap is fastened with a (stylish) button and can be converted into the pillow very quickly. Imagine the laptop-case like a spiral notebook, the pillow-flap is the first page. You can “open” the notebook and lay down on the pillow (which would be the backside of page 1). The flap is fastened to the laptop case by a zipper and can be removed very easily (in case you want to change the flap or simply don’t want to use it this time). In the draft again the yellow part is the pillow.

People only wondered about the weight and the thickness of the flap, otherwise liked this design pretty much.

Type 3: Pillow-Cover

The last idea for the low-fidelity prototype of the Naptop is more a pillow cover than a pillow itself. A thin covering is inserted in a small pocket inside the laptop case. The cover can be tugged out and rolled over the laptop case. Here, the laptop case itself actually serves as the pillow.

Legitimate objections by the interviewees were that it would take too much effort to unfold or unroll the pillow cover and that you just as well could use your own pullover and place it on your laptop. No need to buy a Naptop then.

Finally, most people we interviewed preferred type 2, the flap model for various reasons.

• This pillow seems to be easy to use, one does not need to prepare anything and can simply lie down
• People liked the idea of the detachable flap as well as the different designs and materials
• It is just a great idea!

So our group set work on creating the high fidelity prototype for the pillow-flap-Naptop.

Phase V – The High Fidelity Prototype

This is actually the last phase. Creating the high fidelity prototype (the real tangible product) and test it with the target users.

We bought a cheap laptop sleeve case, some extremely soft pillow covers and other materials, a funky colourful cover etc. and crafted the Naptop. We experienced that the model facilitated the user evaluation immensely because people could familiarize themselves with the Naptop, could feel the softness of the pillow and could explore the usability. Additionally we asked them questions about their emotions towards the product. People could indicate to what extent they agree to statements like

• I like the look of the Naptop.
• I like the material of the pillow flap.
• The pillow is soft, putting me to sleep is easy.
• The Naptop is easy to use.
• Owning Naptop makes me feel trendy.

…and so on.

When we carried out the user evaluation we also observed the interviewees carefully while testing the product. All in all we got a very positive feedback about our product. People liked the creative though simple idea and said that they would definitely buy the Naptop (if it would not be too expensive of course). Whatever questions they had, we always had the right answer. For example, if someone didn’t like the colour or the material of our prototype, we just said that they could choose their own design. If they said that they probably would not need the pillow every time we told them that the pillow flap is detachable.

Of course our prototype does not look like the newest Louis Vuitton super laptop case, however, it served its purpose. People understood the concept and could assess the product easier.

In the beginning, we were so desperate because it seemed an unsolvable task to find an unmet need and design a “new” product. In the end, the idea with the pillow integrated in the laptop case seemed so simple and it was so much fun to create the Naptop! Thanks to all who were so patient and so helpful with the numerous evalutations and interviews!

One really would need this product!

NAPTOP – JUST IN CASE.

This is the model “inflatable flap”: the grey part is the actual sleeve case, the orange-red pillow is the interchangeable flap. Normally the flap would be as thick as the empty laptop case, but here it is filled with lots of air . Once opened, the back side of the flap is endued with the soft/cushy/fleece-fabric to lie on. The default flap of the Naptop, however, is not inflatable, but filled with a thin layer of light and soft foam.

Improving the Learning Experience in NUS’ Lecture Theatres

We slowly approach the final project thinking process. The last few assignments have been a piecemeal preparation for the design development of the end-product. It appears that each of the first four assignments represents at least one stage of the final project design procedure. With all the preliminary work the teacher ensures that we know what to expect in the different phases we will go through later.

This assignment is all about observing and gathering the relevant information. The task is “Improving the learning experience in lecture theatres”. It should be a group assignment and it was announced with the words: “Warning: nightmare assignment”.

No one should say we haven’t been forewarned.

A lecture theatre (LT) at the NUS is more a hall than a class room. It is characterized by providing the lecturer with all necessary multimedia-based facilities. The student benefits by having the feeling of sitting in a cinema hall and watching the new movie “Please pay attention to this interesting lecture” with a lot of friends.

NUS, LT 27


NUS, LT 24
[pictures taken from http://www.cit.nus.edu.sg]

On the one hand, LTs can hold a huge amount of people who would not fit into a normal seminar room. The equipment is excellent and the advanced sound system abets the students to stay awake. A high quality camera system, DVD player, projector and so on ensures an exciting overall experience (as exciting as a lectures with 200 students can get). It must be fun to be a teacher here (at least for the lectures with entertaining potential – a Maths lecture might not be that fancy).

On the other hand, all the spaciousness makes it extremely difficult for the interested student to pay full attention to the lecturer. There are so many distractive factors, e.g. the aforesaid multimedia-system (in case it is used), sitting in one of the last rows which additionally hampers the possibility to pay attention, or the other students who talk to you without being recognized by the lecturer that easily (she is too far away). It is almost impossible to build a familiar student-teacher rapport.

Our task is to find out what we as designers could do in order to improve the learning experience in a lecture theatre. Of course, the entire learning experience is influenced by various factors such as:

• Subject being taught
• Motivation of the students
• General teaching style of the lecturer
• Learning habits and environment (some might feel more comfortable in a small intimate class room, some enjoy learning in a more crowded surrounding)
• Teaching culture of the University / the lecturer.

This means that a “bad” lecture or unpleasant learning experience must not necessarily be due to the its location in a lecture theatre. There are various other factors that contribute to a more or less good learning experience.

In order to explore the distinct situation in the LTs, our group attended a few of those lectures. We observed the teaching conditions, took notes and conducted some (laddering) interviews with the students there.

We found out that

• students mostly found it too cold in the lecture theatres
• the seating capacity of the lecture theatre was not fully utilized
• in most cases there was no student-teacher interaction
• the teaching method was rather impersonal; mainly due to the physical distance between the lecturer and the students which was then accentuated by the use of the teacher’s microphone
• questions raised by students were partly inaudible
• the lecturer was monotonous in some cases and the students not interested.

The main voice raised in the interviews was the lack of communication between the students and the lecturer in the LT. Thus, our group decided to focus on this issue.

I came up with the idea of a customized microphone system for each seat in the auditorium.

A display is attached to every mic which is connected with a monitor on the teacher’s desk. When the student chooses her seat, she logs-in by scanning her matriculation card in the appropriate appliance. The student’s name is now shown on the display of the microphone as well as on the teacher’s monitor. This procedure with the matriccard does not only activate the individual default sound and volume settings but also helps to take the student’s attendance along the way.

The monitor on the lecturer’s desk can be operated via touchscreen. It displays the seating plan of the LT indicating the names of the student. As soon as the student scans the matriculation card the teacher can see that seat x is now occupied by student named s.

In order to activate the microphone, the student presses a small button. The microphone then flashes with (a stylish) neon blue light and gets automatically connected to the loudspeaker of the LT. When the teacher asks the student a question, he just touches the appropriate field on the screen which again activates the student’s microphone.

Here is an example of how this would work:

1. The teacher wants to pose a question

When the teacher wanted to ask student s a question, he previously had to describe the student’s location when addressing her ["What do you think? ... I mean the girl in the green t-shirt sitting in the middle row just behind the boy with the blonde hair..."]. This interruption takes away the fluency of the lecture. It also might take too much time to encipher the addressee, meanwhile people start chuckling and chatting.

With the new interactive microphone system, the teacher just touches the icon on the monitor which stands for seat x on which student s is sitting. In an instant the student’s microphone flashes so that she knows that it is her turn.

2. The student wants to pose a question

The student simply pushes the microphone button and activates it. The teacher then sees the flashing icon on the monitor (and of course the light on the microphone in the real LT as well) and can start communicating with the student.

However, I have experienced that a lot of Singaporeans do not take courage in posing questions during lectures. They are probably too shy and fear the spotlight effect. That might also be an explanation for the fact that lecturers attach such importance on class participation that this is even becomes part of a modules grade (at my home university they would smile at this ). One might assume that Singaporean students would not participate with the microphone system either. After all I think that if every student knows about those circumstances in a lecture theatre and if it would just be a normal way of learning no one has to wonder about, it should not be a problem at all. On the contrary, I am convinced that this stylish and fancy microphone system would encourage students to communicate with their lecturers and vice versa.

Persona

Anna, 28, columnist for a trendy fashion magazine, living in London.

Anna enjoys life.

So far, everything went exactly how Anna had planned it. After finishing school she worked for a local newspaper in London for two years. During her studies of journalism and law she worked as a radio presenter on Hit FM 99 in London where she was the one who interviewed the celebs. After graduating three years ago she decided to start writing again and is now working for a trendy fashion magazine called “Excite”. Her weekly column “What are the odds!” is quite popular. Her style of writing is funny, partly exaggerated, peppered with lots of irony and sarcasm, realistic though. Sometimes she earns some extra money with a short story she publishes on different internet sites. The inspirations for her columns she gathers from everyday life (has a stylish notepad with her and writes down every interesting idea – even when she is dating her new lover).

Anna loves her job, she is ambitious and diligent, though not overworking (1 column per week). She earns quite a lot of money and can afford “everything” she wants. She lives in a nice maisonette in Notting Hill and has her own car (a mini cooper) although she is annoyed by London’s traffic and often takes the tube. Anna tries to show up in office every day though she doesn’t have to. Usually she writes her columns at home, at Starbucks or at her friend’s beach house.

Anna has a good sense of fashion and loves stylish clothing as well as fancy accessories. Trendy handbags are one of her favorites. In her weekly planner you will not only find her business appointments with VIPs but also the regular dates for various beauty treatments (hair-dresser, nail studio, cosmetics). She likes going out and enjoying the best cocktails in the coolest clubs and bars in town (she can’t remember when she ever had to pay the entrance fee).

Smoking is one of her bad habits and she tries to quit at least three times a month. Besides, she drinks cocktails, sometimes a glass of red wine and her favorite food is sushi. Anna likes to dine in exclusive restaurants and sometimes she mentions this in one of her columns (hoping not having to pay). Anna watches her figure but still loves to indulge in fine swiss chocolate. Of course she likes sports, too: she sometimes goes running in hyde-park or takes a yoga class (though she finds normal hatha-yoga too boring, so she is in to power-yoga).

Anna is not in a relationship, she has an affair every once in a while. However, she tries not to change her lovers too often since she wants to keep her image clean. Besides, Anna hopes to fall in love with the one and only. Although she loves being independent and living such an exciting urban life, she can imagine to have a family one day. Anna hates feeling lonely so she tries to keep herself very busy with work, sports, party and friends. Anna wants to get along with everyone. She is a very generous person and loves to exhilarate her colleagues with small presents when she comes to work at lunchtime (e.g. coffee from Starbucks). She appreciates an intelligent sense of humor and is able to laugh at herself.

Anna’s parents who live in a classy suburb of London are proud of her daughter. However, they always ask her when she is going to look for a real job and when she thinks she is going to settle down with the nice man she brought to lunch one Sunday. Anna loves her parents and tries to visit them once a week for lunch or dinner. She wants her parents to be happy and avoids telling them that this “nice guy from last time” is already out of date. Sometimes Anna tries to meet her parents on their holiday, e.g. joins them for a short trip to Paris, Berlin or Milan (Anna checks out the latest trends in the metropole along the way).

1. Physio-pleasure

Anna’s whole life is quite stressful because she commutes between desk, shopping, clubs, and meeting friends and always is trying to balance everything. A good day is a day on which she hands in her column, meets with a friend for lunch, enjoys a massage after shopping and is invited to a stylish Japanese restaurant before heading to the club. She loves this kind of stress and doesn’t really seek relaxation. However, she sticks to her weekly beauty and spa treatments and loves spending money.

2. Socio-pleasure

Anna is quite popular in London’s scene and loves being a VIP. She loves being a sophisticated modern woman with a good social network. She is allowed in every club and invited to the coolest parties. Although she knows a lot of people and enjoys being admired she tries to meet her two best friends as often as possible. Anna is afraid of feeling lonely and always needs to be entertained. When she gets sick of everything she visits her parents over the weekend and enjoys doing nothing.

3. Psycho-pleasure

Anna is an optimistic and positive thinking person. She loves the liberating feeling when she has finished a new column. She likes getting fan mail and the idea of being admired. She always joins the latest trends and loves being innovative. Her parents are her ease of mind, here she can lean back and relax.

4. Ideo-pleasure

Saving the environment (e.g. through recycling) gives her a good feeling. She is not religious and sees herself as a free thinker. She believes in the good in man and is sometimes even a bit naive.

Product benefit specification – Anna’s hand phone

picture taken from: http://www.cyberindian.net/wp-content/

Anna’s hand phone is a stylish clamshell phone that looks better than it works

This phone is small, silverish-sleek and probably quite expensive. Anna is an urban woman with many contacts. She doesn’t really need special functions like bluetooth, video-clip-maker or mp3 (she has an iPod anyway). She uses the 3-megapixels camera randomly but loves browsing through the pictures she has taken so far. Anna loves the stylish keypad because it is not rubberized and has a fancy neon-blue glow. The mobile phone is a status symbol for her, however, it has become a crucial utensil in her everyday work life.