Just Simple

Lately I’ve been reading on cognitive bias due to further research into “intuition”. I came across a recent study called “The Dunning Kruger Effect”

The Dunning Kruger Effect is described as overconfidence in unskilled people of their abilities to perform above and beyond what they can do. This allows incompetent people rate their skills much higher than their competent counterparts.

What is interesting about The Dunning Kruger Effect, the people with the competent skill set rate their skills lower than average.

The Dunning Kruger Effect in essence is:

• Incompetent  individuals who overestimate their level of skill
• Incompetent  individuals who fail to recognise skills in others
• Incompetent  individuals who fail to recognise their own inadequacy

It has been proven if these individuals are trained they do adjust their skills sets accordingly. Where they once thought they were 10 / 10 , they would now think they are a 6 /10 with training.

In the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt- Bertand Russell

After reading about The Dunning Kruger Effect I could see points in my own life where it had effect me. Before tertiary education I was over confident in my abilites, now even at work I second guess everything.

I think everyone, in any work place or tertiary institute has come across The Dunning Kruger Effect.

A link to the science show article on The Dunning Kruger Effect:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/2893602.htm

And a blog which explains the Dunning Kruger Effect:

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/05/11/the-dunning-kruger-effect/

Orson Wells on how to win an audience. Although most people will think this has nothing to do with design, I believe otherwise.

Just like an actor we are trying to win over an audience with words, content and images. Designers just do it in a different way. I can similarities in this video and Donald Norman’s “Emotional Design”

Have a look, whether you find it helpful or not, you’ll enjoy the video.

I’m always interested in other aspects and disciplines of design. Although design as a whole is vast I can see there are similarities between disciplines and process.

The other day I found an interesting review site called Red Letter Media. What sets this review site apart from other is the way the reviewer (with a little bit of humour attached) breaks down the movie stage by stage. He explains why a movie works, through character development, what emotion the movie evokes. What really impresses me is he doesn’t say bad or good things about the movie without reason. This reminds me of what we were taught while learning design.

An example is to do with “Disney Eyes”.  He explains characters with wide eyes are more identifible and gain the audience’s sympathy due to look that they have nothing to hide. Where are characters with beady looking eyes are less likely to gain the audience’s sympathy due to looking like they have something to hide. This is all true and can be backed up in People Watching by Desmond Morris

He explains in one review that sometimes movie makers forget that they should aim to envoke an emotion, an aspect that I have to remember when designing. As designers we sometimes forgot we are trying to get a reaction out of people not to make things look pretty.

I really appreciate the time and effort this person has put into these reviews. Not only are they humourous but go into great detail! I’ve embedded the first part of the review. For the 2nd part if you are still interested go to his website.

For a link to Red Letter Media’s Site:

http://www.redlettermedia.com/

“….the potential use of video games extends far beyond the playing of games. They could be excellent teaching devices. In playing a game, you have to learn an amazing variety of skills and knowledge. You attend deeply and seriously for hours, weeks, even months. You read books and study the game thoroughly, doing active problem solving and working with other people. These are precisely the activities of an effective learner, so what marvelous learning could be experienced if only we could use this same intensity when interacting with meaningful topics. Thus, game machines have a huge potential for everyone, but it has not been systematically addressed.”

- Donald Norman “Emotional Design”

Earlier this week I found an article on the web designer’s depot on Jakob Nielsen.

Jakob Nielsen along with Donald Norman are considered to be experts within the web usability field.

It’s an interesting article on Jakob Nielsen’s current thoughts on web usability. I found it quite useful and will use it in my future web design developments.

I found the concerns about web usability today quite interesting. When Jakob Nielsen started out, it was in the days of 28.8kbps. I believe because we are in the age of ADSL people are less likely to hang around for a response on a webpage. I tend to think of it like art you have 30 seconds to impress someone, the time is cut down to 1 second with web design.

I suggested people read this article and frequently visit his site to gain more hints on web usability.

Donald Norman’s books Emotional Design and The Design of Everyday things are a good read. I suggest anyone planning on getting into design to have a read of them.

For a link to the article:

Web Designer Depot Interview with Jakob Nielsen

And Jakob Neilsen’s site:

Jakob Neilsen’s site

And Donald Norman’s site:

Donald Norman

I found an interesting article on future technology on news.com.au today.

The article doesn’t go into great depth about what the technology could achieve but rather talks about what is being developed. As a potential interface designer it’s interesting to see where new technology is going and how the interface will be used.

I found the foldable phone and the XO -2 particularly interesting.

Here’s a link to the page:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/gallery/0,23607,5037461-5014321,00.html#

For my essay I was asked to research intuition, I came across the website for affective design. It has some great essays on how to meet a positive emotion for the end user. As designers it’s always important for us to consider the end user and what mindset we will invoke. Without the end user there would be no product for us to design.

While products are meant to be functional we should always consider the emotion. This site is a great resource for understanding emotional design. They also reference cognitive sciencetist such as Donald Norman.

Here’s a link to the site:
http://www.affectivedesign.org

And a link to Donald Norman’s site:

http://www.jnd.org/