Technologies collapse the distance between a desire and its fulfillment by reducing either the time or the effort involved. This has long been the point on which new technologies have been marketed, and digital technologies have only augmented a longstanding trend. But they have done so to such a degree that the change may be qualitative. Consider the ease with which we may now locate, purchase, and receive commodities that just a few years ago would have taken us considerably more time and trouble to acquire. The content of a book is only one of a multitude of possible examples, but it illustrates the point remarkably well. Consider what it would have taken to find a relatively rare or out of print work in 1990. What would it have taken to find the book? How much might it have cost to purchase? How long would it have taken to actually have the book in hand? Now consider the same scenario in 2012. The Internet and Amazon together have radically collapsed the time and effort, and most l

In conclusion to the selected frameworks used, the ‘Lovemark’ framework suggests strong emotional relationships exist with brands, but give only an overall perception of the emotional connection with the consumer. Undoubtedly, this is important but in defining the specific role design might play in shaping future strategies, it is limited. It can be argued this framework is flawed as feedback is given in a language of human emotions, but how can ‘love’ in its uncontrollable nature be quantified? If love is a human-to-human relationship; can the assumption exist this is the same relationship for a human-object or human-brand? In further criticism of the ‘Lovemark’ through application to Lego, it poses several unanswered questions; If Lego had indeed not recovered, what happens to the love relationship when the brand is taken from the market, or collapses? Perhaps the some answers can be derived from the return of the Polaroid, a brand falling foul to David Aaker’s product-attribute fixa

As we expect more from technology, do we expect less from each other? Sherry Turkle studies how our devices and online personas are redefining human connection and communication -- and asks us to think deeply about the new kinds of connection we want to have.

Sherry Turkle studies how technology is shaping our modern relationships: with others, with ourselves, with it.

Floating Phone, created by designers Messizon Li, Yang Fan, Linghan Liu, Li Ke, Pengcheng An, Yunlong Zhu and Zhangxia Ruan, made from plastic polymers, oxygen compounds and various metals. The display is made using E-ink technology and Screenfloat. E-ink ensures minimum energy consumption, and Screenfloat creates on the surface relief of the display. When typing text, the user feels the keypad with your fingertips.

What explains the magic of Adele's song? Though personal experience and culture play into individual reactions, researchers have found that certain features of music are consistently associated with producing strong emotions in listeners. Combined with heartfelt lyrics and a powerhouse voice, these structures can send reward signals to our brains that rival any other pleasure.

Sights, sounds and smells can all evoke emotionally charged memories. A new study in rats suggests why: The same part of the brain that's in charge of processing our senses is also responsible, at least in part, for storing emotional memories.

For instance, the smell of turkey could conjure up a smile as it reminds you of a joyful Thanksgiving, while the sound of a drill could make you start in fear, since it may be linked to your last dental appointment.

Visual, acoustic, and olfactory stimuli associated with a highly charged emotional situation take on the affective qualities of that situation. Where the emotional meaning of a given sensory experience is stored is a matter of debate. We found that excitotoxic lesions of auditory, visual, or olfactory secondary sensory cortices impaired remote, but not recent, fear memories in rats. Amnesia was modality-specific and not due to an interference with sensory or emotional processes. In these sites, memory persistence was dependent on ongoing protein kinase Mζ activity and was associated with an increased activity of layers II–IV, thus suggesting a synaptic strengthening of corticocortical connections. Lesions of the same areas left intact the memory of sensory stimuli not associated with any emotional charge. We propose that secondary sensory cortices support memory storage and retrieval of sensory stimuli that have acquired a behavioral salience with the experience.

Lambs & Ivy Baby Nap Mat by Lambs & Ivy - Train

Contextual Design is a structured, well-defined user-centered design process that provides methods to collect data about users in the field, interpret and consolidate that data in a structured way, use the data to create and prototype product and service concepts, and iteratively test and refine those concepts with users. This is the core of the Contextual Design philosophy - understand users in order to find out their fundamental intents, desires, and drivers. But these are invisible to the users - so the only way to glean them is to go out in the field and talk with people

A sensory connection this strong is like gold dust in the competitive world of buying and selling. Many brands in today’s marketplace realise the functional differences between their products and their competitors products are very small and are eagerly trying to make a connection on any level they can. A new belief in the field of emotional connection and sensory response to brands is driving thinking and developments in this area. “We know people process in a rational and an emotional way and that there is a clutter of brands in the marketplace,” says Andy Moore, strategic planning director of research specialist Nunwood (Insight Show stand D305). “In order for a brand to make any connection with a consumer, it is helpful if it can act at a multi-sensory level.”

To overcome this, we've created a range of product development and optimisation tools that allow us to bring together consumer appeal and precise objective sensory descriptions obtained from the highly trained panels at MMR's Sensory Science Centres located in the UK, USA and China. SensoHedonic Optimisation™ is proven to pin-point a sensory profile that maximises appeal with target consumers, whilst ensuring that product delivery is consonant with the brand - both crucial elements to long-term success. It ensures that you get things right, first time - saving time, effort and money.

Mundane routines produce mundane work. Creative rituals produce remarkable work.
Mundane routines make life dull and predictable. Creative rituals make life rich and rewarding.
Mundane routines are often imposed from the outside. Creative rituals emerge from inside.
Mundane routines kill time. Creative rituals take you to a timeless place.
Mundane routines keep you busy. Creative rituals make you productive.
Mundane routines are a distraction, a kind of procrastionation. Creative rituals force you push through resistance and get on with your real work.
Mundane routines are a coping mechanism. Creative rituals help you rise to life’s challenges.

If you are a news scanner, like I am, you probably saw that Dr. Frank Ryan (Plastic Surgeon to the stars) was killed on Monday, August 16, 2010 when his car drove over a cliff near his home in Los Angeles. At the time of the first report, the article I read said that Dr. Ryan did not drink or use drugs.  It turns out now, however, that he was Tweeting about his dog at the time of the crash (Heidi Montag Plastic Surgeon Frank Ryan Texting Before Fatal Crash).

Abstract Examining several sources of data on smart- phone use, this paper presents evidence for the popular conjecture that mobile devices are ‘‘habit-forming.’’ The form of habits we identified is called a checking habit: brief, repetitive inspection of dynamic content quickly accessible on the device. We describe findings on kinds and frequencies of checking behaviors in three studies. We found that checking habits occasionally spur users to do other things with the device and may increase usage overall. Data from a controlled field experiment show that checking behaviors emerge and are reinforced by infor- mational ‘‘rewards’’ that are very quickly accessible. Qualitative data suggest that although repetitive habitual use is frequent, it is experienced more as an annoyance than an addiction. We conclude that supporting habit-for- mation is an opportunity for making smartphones more ‘‘personal’’ and ‘‘pervasive.’’

How to know if you're a habitual checker
1. You check your e-mail more than you need to.
Sometimes you're in the middle of an intense project at work and you really do need to check your e-mail constantly. But be honest with yourself -- if that's not the case, your constant checking might be a habit, not a conscious choice.
2. You're annoying other people.
If, like Frank, you're ticking off the people closest to you, it's time to take a look at your smartphone habits.
"If you hear 'put the phone away' more than once a day, you probably have a problem," says Lisa Merlo, a psychologist at the University of Florida.
3. The thought of not checking makes you break out in a cold sweat.
Try this experiment: Put your phone away for an hour. If you get itchy during that time, you might be a habitual checker.
How to get rid of your checking habit
1. Acknowledge you have a problem.
It may sound AA-ish, but acknowledging that you're unnecessarily checking your phone -- and that there are repercuss

Business users.
According to a study by Gartner Inc., which surveyed corporate email
users, 53 percent of users check their mail six or more times a day.
34 percent check mail constantly through the day. 42 check whilst on
vacation and 23 percent over weekends. The average user spends 49
minutes per day managing email.
http://www.cio-asia.com/pcio.nsf/0/BF633D26EB9A9E0248256B3E0024C44F?OpenDocument

U.S. workers.
A study of U.S. workers by Pew Internet & American life found that 88
percent checked their inbox at least once a day. Of those 70 percent
checked several times a day. Around 73 percent spend an hour or less
per day on dealing with email. Of these, 23 percent spend under 15
minutes dealing with email.
http://www.e-gateway.net/infoarea/news/news.cfm?nid=2809
Full report
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/pdfs/PIP_Work_Email_Report.pdf

Under 25?s
A survey by Greenfield Online found that 21% of workers under the age
of 25 checked their email more than 15 times a day. Men are twi

The business aspect — this filters ideas and brings only the viable, potentially profitable and sustainable ideas to market…at least this is how it should work…
The people aspect — this really refers to the customers who are the ultimate judges as to whether or not a product/service is desirable.  Remember, your management team and employees don’t define your success.  Your customers — the people who want and desire your products/services — define your success.  As a side note, keeping your finger on the pulse of your customers is exceptionally important and something that social media can help with.
The technology aspect — technology makes thing feasible today that were not even imaginable a few short years ago.

If the user experience practice in your company was weak before Agile, Agile development isn't going to help things.

If your user experience practice was strong before Agile, it'll remain strong after Agile, and evolve to adapt.

The “right here, right now” generation of instant gratification is upon us and marketers and businesses alike need to rethink everything about their approach to engaging these high value touch points between their consumers and their brands.  Budgets are not necessarily the issue. Rather, it’s the composition and allocation of the budget that needs to be revisited, especially between traditional print media, TV, radio, Internet, social and mobile.  Ultimately all budgets need to be reallocated, with anytime, anywhere user needs being the top priority for design, sales, marketing, promotion and advertising.  The harsh reality currently is that mobile devices have completely replaced TVs and computers as the “first screen” and this fact should be understood, internalized and accepted by anyone thinking about their brand.  Ultimately, these mobile devices are just like TVs and computers and anything and everything that you can accomplish with them has become core and primary to user behav

How can Tablet users replicate these types of "statements"? One idea that a colleague mentioned to me involved the notion of "dynamic weathering" of applications -- the more that you use an app, the more that it would appear "weathered" and used. People would know how often you were reading by how "worn" your iPad's screen looked, for example.

“Customers across a wide range of industries currently integrate Microsoft Surface and make it relevant to their business needs, creating immersive, collaborative and meaningful experiences,” said Somanna Palacanda, director, Microsoft Surface. “With the Samsung SUR40 available for pre-order in 23 countries worldwide, Surface computing will now be more readily available for education, financial and professional services, healthcare, hospitality, retail, manufacturing and resources, and other commercial business environments to help deliver interactive digital content, drive sales, showcase brands, and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.”

The Samsung SUR40 with PixelSense technology makes it possible for people to share, collaborate and explore together using a large, thin display. Recognizing up to 50 points of simultaneous touch, including fingers, hands and other objects placed on the screen, it has been well-received by new and existing Surface customers as companies such a

The new retail store has changed the way RBC customers are presented with choice, knowledge and advice. The bank created a welcoming, personal and informative experience as a way to connect with customers, RBC products and services while helping customers increase their financial literacy. The new technologies that were introduced were designed to enhance customer interactions with their experts. With its distinctive design welcoming customers into the new environment, Microsoft Surface has become an engaging component of the Discovery Zone, which offers a unique and digitally interactive way to engage customers to explore the ways the bank can help them increase their financial literacy. RBC worked with Surface Strategic Partner Infusion Development to create five applications for Microsoft Surface. Arbie, an RBC animated character, guides people through:

Although idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) is perceived as a progressive disease, usually with a poor outcome, the natural history of the disease is heterogeneous, with some patients dying within months of diagnosis and others living for decades. The outcome of patients with other types of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) has been less well described. Over the past decade, advances in medical therapies have changed the course of the disease and have made decisions regarding transplantation more complicated. The objective of this chapter is to answer two questions: what is the expected survival of patients with PAH, and what are the clinical factors associated with survival in

Expectations (prognosis)

The long-term outlook has been poor, but new treatments may lead to better results. Some people with this condition may have heart failure that could lead to death.

It is not a good idea to get pregnant if you have this condition.

61.9%2011 Q2

Jacqui Flugger, who no longer has photos of her wedding, photos of her vacations or photos of her Christmas parties, has learned two important things about life:

1. Always read the fine print.

2. Don't forget to update your e-mail address.

DIGGING DEEP INTO CONSUMER-BRAND RELATIONSHIPS

Knowledge Networks has helped many clients – from pharmaceutical manufacturers to multinational media companies – study the connections with consumers that strengthen brands and give them a platform for growth. In many ways, the same brand "resonance" principles are at work in the online world.

One key element, for example, is consumer perception – specifically, how consumers view a site. Is it a

Useful Tool – extremely handy, but also easily replaced as soon as an improved/upgraded tool comes along, or a
Trusted Partner – one that builds an emotional bond and offers deeper benefits – therefore inspiring greater loyalty regardless of competition or technology.
As with other media brands Knowledge Networks has studied and advised, an emotional connection to a Website is tied to increased levels of:

trust
loyalty
brand evangelism
attention, awareness and trust of sponsorship and advertising on that site

SM: What was their initial vision for Shutterfly?

JH: The vision at the time was that people were starting to buy these new things called digital cameras, but their pictures were stuck in them. They created a site that allowed people to get their pictures out of the camera, literally. Their early adopters where white men, technofiles, spending $2,000 for a 1-2 Mega Pixel camera. That was in 1999. They started programming in April, and the site launched on December 11, 1999.

The same day we launched, oFoto launched, and 4 months later SnapFish launched. It was an interesting time. It was still mostly a film world as there were very few adopters of digital cameras, and it was all about how to get a 4×6 print out of a camera.

KEER(Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research) is a series of international conferences that focuses on the research and industrial application of Kansei Engineering. Kansei Engineering(KE), originated in Japan for measuring users’ sensory preference, has become a new user centric product development technique for creating satisfactory products. In the meanwhile, green attitude in treating our environment and the natural resources, has become trendy and human-autonomic movement. The fusion of the two is foreseeable in the near future.

When Yahoo bought IntoNow earlier this year (for a reported $20 million), some people wondered what Yahoo wanted with a TV "check-in" app. Now we know: Today the IntoNow team is releasing a fully featured "second screen" iPad app that listens for audio signatures from news, sports, or other TV programs as they're being broadcast, matches them up with a database, and then serves viewers supplementary content on their tablets.

Methods for predicting, measuring and targeting emotional reactions to current packages and products as well as understanding aspirations for better next generations are a key part of developing brands that succeed today.
Eight out of ten new product introductions fail. Of the two that make it through, eight out of ten of those fail in year two. These are dismal statistics and point to an enormous amount of wasted effort and revenue. Perhaps it’s past time to better understand why the target isn’t being hit more often. Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman in his seminal book "How Consumers Think" 2003 suggests that 95% of why we buy something is motivated from our subconscious. He goes on to say that 95% of why marketers make what they make is also based on a subconscious response. And the book, a terrific read, goes on to strongly make that case. The subconscious of course is where emotions live. Understanding the emotional drivers behind a Brand purchase has gone from a nice to know to t

Wondering about the origins of the sample size controversy in the usability profession?  Here is an annotated timeline of the major events and papers which continue to shape this topic.

The last five years have seen a major paradigm shift in the role of human factors in product design. Previously this was seen as pertaining almost exclusively to product usability, but new recognition is being given to "pleasure-based" human factors. This emphasizes the holistic nature of the experience of person-product interaction. While traditional human factors approaches tended to characterize the user in terms of his or her physical or cognitive processing capabilities, new human factors approaches are concerned with wider lifestyle issues. The quality of a design is judged not only on its fit with a person's cognitive and physical abilities but also depends on how it fits the person's lifestyle and self image -- his hopes, dreams, values, and aspirations. Under the new paradigm, human factors specialists are concerned not only with the interaction design of products, but also with the product's sensorial and aesthetic qualities.
Usability may once have been a seen as an added bo

This conference offers a platform for researchers and practitioners to connect and exchange knowledge and experiences within the realm of user science and engineering and the technologies and context of use related to it.

great visual of a speedometer in this book

Emotions (Affectiv suite): "Excitement", "Engagement/Boredom", "Meditation", and "Frustration" can currently be measured. Emotiv admits that the names may not perfectly reflect exactly what the emotion is, and says that they may be renamed before market launch.

No doubt we are all familiar with the stereotype of Japanese mothers who push their children far too hard when it comes to schoolwork. Well, so have the Japanese; they even have a word for it: kyoikumama. Literally translated this means “education mother”. Kuoikumama can be seen in many Japanese movies, literature and, despite western nations having similar parents these days, it does not have a word exactly like it in English.

6. Kyoikumama

Japanese – “A mother who relentlessly pushes her children toward academic achievement” (Altalang.com)

7. Tartle

Scottish – The act of hestitating while introducing someone because you’ve forgotten their name. (Altalang.com)

8. Ilunga

Tshiluba (Southwest Congo) – A word famous for its untranslatability, most professional translators pinpoint it as the stature of a person “who is ready to forgive and forget any first abuse, tolerate it the second time, but never forgive nor tolerate on the third offense.” (Altalang.com)

Workshop at the upcoming 2nd International Confernece on User Science and E=
ngineering: Beyond Usability November 9-December 2 in Malaysia. Synopsis: K=
ansei Engineering is generally applied to industrial product design. The me=
thodology enables the inclusion of human emotional experience in generating=
design requirements.Various efforts were done by designers and researchers=
in interface design and much knowledge was gained through cognitive functi=
onality and usability research. Yet, the knowledge often ignores the affect=
ive quality experienced by consumers, and most importantly reaching the way=
to fulfil the affective needs of the consumers. In Kansei Engineering, it =
is believed that reaching to the heart of the consumers is key to success.T=
his workshop will address the implementation of Kansei Engineering in Human=
Interface Design. The session will introduce scientific way in which appro=
priate design principle can be formulated geared towards human experience, =
so that an interface can be designed embedding the requirements generated b=
y human experience.

-machine-to-time-machine
In his speech this past March at SXSW, Libin said that in a post-scarcity e=
conomy, the new primary driver is love, and what determines the value of yo=
ur company is how much people love it. As you store more and more of your p=
ersonal notes, memories and work in Evernote, essentially giving it immense=
personal value, how can you not grow to love it?

the origins of emotion, self-awareness, stimulus, and isolating/quantifying=

Then Kijima jolts me yet again by launching into a discussion of Kansei engineering. Huh?

Kansei engineering, he says, allowed Mazda’s engineers to take the subtle imagery of Jinba Ittai and turn it into the nuts-and-bolts reality of a modern car with a body shell, a drivetrain, and chassis components. Huh, again?

Kansei engineering is a tricky concept for a Westerner to understand. It has something to do with being thoughtful and aware, of maintaining a high degree of sensitivity to all the parts as they work and come together to become a whole.

Kijima tells me Kansei underscores every aspect of the design, mechanical functions, and dynamic responses of the 2006 Miata. Together they contribute to driving satisfaction, something critical for this car.

So the new Miata is a very Zen-like two-seater. But then it always has been.

Interview: Chris Angus on Kansei Engineering
Chris Angus and Carolyn van Lottum co–founded Instinctive Choice, an organisation focussing on designing and engineering instantaneous emotional appeal into products and services. A large part of their work is in communicating the need and viability of emotional design.

They have spent several years translating Kansei Engineering for European contexts and are pioneers in developing Kansei based approaches for service design.

UX, user experience, has become quite popular. How does Kansei make user experience a viable, feasible, workable proposition for business?
Chris: The whole purpose of KE (Kansei Engineering) is to develop a product or service that evokes the desirable instantaneous emotional responses and psychological impressions for target groups of users – in that sense it is a tried and tested scientific methodology that can deliver on certain aspects of user experience. It deals directly with the desirability, although it’s most v

A Desirability Design Process Diagram
Aesthetics is a greatly misapplied term in product development, often adopted simply to mean ‘styling’. The term, however, is derived from the Greek word ‘aisthetikos’, meaning ‘perceptible by the senses’, and in a design context should refer to the whole range of ways in which we use and interact with products. As the technology in a product group reaches a point of sufficiency, the success of one product over another becomes dependent on the user’s subjective experience.

—Measuring Aesthetics

Desirability design provides a set of techniques for affect–based design. Of designing product interaction to align with and be accessible to user desires and perceptions. One of the objections to desirability and affect design is you can’t design an emotion. No technical person would argue against aerodynamics on the basis you can’t engineer air. And desirability is no more about designing emotions than aerodynamic engineering is about engineering air.

T

Although the tools of today are developed to be convenient, they do not always satisfy people. Tools sometimes evoke negative feelings in people such that they get tired of using them. In consideration of this fact, to create guidelines for designing tools to make human life richer, this paper focuses on the relationship between the ldquobenefit of inconveniencerdquo and ldquoemotional design.rdquo After referring to their outlines and backgrounds, the discussion about their relationship leads to a proposal of characteristics that are required to be installed to artifacts to enrich human life, and refers to a strategy and applying it to system design theory.

Two Extremes of Touch Interaction
By Janie Chang
October 17, 2011 9:00 AM PT
Microsoft Research Redmond researchers Hrvoje Benko and Scott Saponas have been investigating the use of touch interaction in computing devices since the mid-’00s. Now, two sharply different yet related projects demonstrate novel approaches to the world of touch and gestures.

OmniTouch gives users the ability to make an entire wall a touch surface, while PocketTouch enables users to interact with smartphones inside a pocket or purse, a small surface area for touch. Both projects will be unveiled during UIST 2012, the Association for Computing Machinery’s 24th Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, being held Oct. 16-19 in Santa Barbara, Calif.

The theme of this exhibition, “Resonance−Designing Experience and Story,” serves as the frame of reference for new trends in Japanese design. Resonance means people and products responding to each other. When a person comes in contact with a certain product, he or she undergoes a“chemical reaction” that generates expectations and excitement. These emotions, in turn, cast a new light on the product. As feelings of empathy and attachment draw nearer to each other and within this mutual relationship, the product stimulates the person’s senses again. This cyclical process of mutual reactions between people and products is what we call “resonance.” When we feel that something will create new experiences, lead to new possibilities, allow us to discover a new part of ourselves, or create new memories, we come to believe that we want keep that thing close to us, that it has value that cannot be exchanged for money and that we want to treasure it forever. We will introduce such products.

Emotional design and the experience of Angry Birds
Why is the game ‘Angry Birds’ such a huge success? Why is this game that has been downloaded more than 100 million times worldwide so addictive?

Aside from the quality of the graphics, animations and sound effects, perhaps partly because the gameplay is pretty straightforward and void of complex rules that have to be learned and remembered. Partly also because the game spreads out over many levels which create a sequence of motivational rewards: for each completed level the gamer is rewarded with the joy of personal archievement and the prospect of a new, (slightly) harder challenge.

But this is not quite what sets Angry Birds apart from other good games. Angry Birds does something else, something which is quite unique: it reflects and enhances the gamer’s own emotions during gameplay to enhance the desire to play. Angry Birds uses principles of emotional design to motivate game playing behavior.

Skinput: Appropriating the Body as an Input Surface
We present Skinput, a technology that appropriates the human body for acoustic transmission, allowing the skin to be used as an input surface. In particular, we resolve the location of finger taps on the arm and hand by analyzing mechanical vibrations that propagate through the body. We collect these signals using a novel array of sensors worn as an armband. This approach provides an always available, naturally portable, and on-body finger input system. We assess the capabilities, accuracy and limitations of our technique through a two-part, twenty-participant user study. To further illustrate the utility of our approach, we conclude with several proof-of-concept applications we developed.

Since Mozilla Labs launched the Concept Series with an open call for participation we’ve had thousands of people join in, share ideas and develop concepts around Firefox, the Mozilla projects and the Open Web as a whole.

In response to our open call Billy May, in early 2009, produced a throw-away concept for an “Open Web Concept Phone”. Working directly off of that community feedback, Billy has since finished the exploration with his concept “Seabird”.

The following write-up is by Billy May and explores what an Open Web phone might look like:

Web designers have historically had to work within a tight set of restrictions. Computer’s were restricted to 256 colours, with only 216 consistent across Macs and PCs; Keyboards and mice were the only input devices used for navigation, and; Users generally only accessed content sitting at a desk — either at work or home with a monitor. All of those restrictions no longer apply; designers aren’t limited to the same set of strict rules. Users access sites from TVs, phone, tablets, laptops and other devices, all from a variety of locations. They expect a consistent experience and web designers are now asked to work across these multiple platforms so it’s crucial to create an adaptable set of visual design rules that can be implemented.
Many websites fail now that they are being accessed on mobile screens with touch inputs; or viewed on a TV with a remote control. So I’ve been investigating the future for interface design to ensure concepts for visual languages we’re developing now will w

This is the journal of the Japan Society of Kansei Engineering.
We are focusing our efforts on producing special features on themes we select for each issue and providing timely issues for discussion. Furthermore, as information for members of the Society, the journal contains topics including the presentation of doctorate theses about Kansei engineering, explanations of key words, reports on international conferences, research sub-committee reports, and information about the support, etc. of related societies.

Mobile Phones Dominate in South Africa
September 30, 2011
Jan Hutton, Director, Telecoms, Nielsen Southern Africa

Africa is in the midst of a technological revolution, and nothing illustrates that fact than the proliferation of mobile phones. Consider this: more Africans have access to mobile phones than to clean drinking water. In South Africa, the continent’s strongest economy, mobile phone use has gone from 17 percent of adults in 2000 to 76 percent in 2010. Today, more South Africans – 29 million – use mobile phones than radio (28 million), TV (27 million) or personal computers (6 million). Only 5 million South Africans use landline phones.

Where Are Smartphones Being Used? [Infographic]
7th October 2011 - Posted by Derek Johnson in category Text Message Infographics

inShare
19
In our last infographic we showed you how smartphones are being used. Have you ever wondered though, where smartphones are being used? To help you get a better understanding of where smartphones are being used, the team at Tatango created the infographic below.
Does the data below match up to where you use your own smartphone? Let us know in the comments section below.

Mobile devices have proved particularly useful in the field of radiological imaging, where physicians and technicians are continually looking to implement technological offerings to improve their access to imagery and their ability to diagnose based on that imagery. Researchers at the University of Calgary, for example, last year proved the efficacy of the app ResolutionMD as a diagnostic aid during a stroke trial. [11] Previous studies have also demonstrated the effectiveness of app offerings such as OsiriX in diagnosing acute appendicitis. [12] With results like those, one would expect radiologists to be near the top in mobile device use as compared to other specialties, no? Not quite. A study by Bulleting Healthcare found mobile device usage among specialties to be as follows: [13]
Emergency Room Physicians – 40 percent
Cardiologists – 33 percent
Urologists – 31 percent
Nephrologists – 31 percent
Dermatologists – 30 percent
Gastroenterologists – 30 percent
Psychiatrists – 28 percent
Optometrists – 28 percent
Radiologists – 24 percent
Rheumatologists – 22 percent
Endocrinologists – 21 percent
Oncologists – 20 percent
Clinical Pathologists – 16 percent.

Love this house!

particularly in product design. Many approaches that take emotions into consideration during the designing process have been introduced. One of these approaches is of course Kansei Engineering as proposed by Nagamachi. Though principles of emotional design have been adopted in product design, less its known on its effect in the field of instructional design. This is what my current research is all about. In my latest paper (to be presentend in CISSE 2008) "Bridging the Emotional Divide in Instructional Design: A Kansei Prespective", I have summarised clearly the need to reconsider the effects of emotion in the design of various instructional materials. Cognitive processes are important, so as affective processes, both are complementing each other in forming an effective and engaging learning environments to the learners. Many instructional design models neglect this, and in order to claim that a product or a design is human-centred, the role and effects of emotions should be part of th

This research deals with the circumstances of subjective or psychological lifetime of products.
Most scholar works concerning psychological lifetime of products have regarded user-product
attachment as the only means being effective for extending the subjective lifetime of products.
Aiming to find out the other possible effective means in this regard, here, we have conducted a
comparative and analytical study on the evolution of users’ Kansei toward a short-lived and long-
lived product during the entire lifecycles of those two kinds of product. As Kansei embraces all
subjective issues of product, this research is based on Kansei Engineering approach. In this
research, the product lifecycle from user perspective is divided into three different stages
including purchasing/choosing, keeping/using and replacing/throwing away the product. The
assigned short-lived and long-lived products for investigation are respectively mobile phone and
private passenger car. Two groups of subjects, as the user or owner of mobile phone or private
passenger car, are investigated and the changes of their Kansei toward their mobile phones or cars
are analyzed. The outcome of this analysis will be the Kansei factors associating with the
investigated groups of subjects’ rationale when purchasing, keeping/using and replacing their
mobile phones or private passenger cars. Finally, the extracted patterns and trends of the Kansei
evolution of those two groups regarding their mobile phones or cars during the lifecycle stages of
those products are compared.

Affective design has received much attention from both academia and industries. It aims at incorporating customers’ affective needs into
design elements that deliver customers’ affective satisfaction. The main challenge for affective design originates from difficulties in mapping
customers’ subjective impressions, namely Kansei, to perceptual design elements. This paper intends to develop an explicit decision support
to improve the Kansei mapping process by reusing knowledge from past sales records and product specifications. As one of the important
applications of data mining, association rule mining lends itself to the discovery of useful patterns associated with the mapping of affective
needs. A Kansei mining system is developed to utilize valuable affect information latent in customers’ impressions of existing affective
designs. The goodness of association rules is evaluated according to their achievements of customers’ expectations. Conjoint analysis is
applied to measure the expected and achieved utilities of a Kansei mapping relationship. Based on goodness evaluation, mapping rules are
further refined to empower the system with useful inference patterns. The system architecture and implementation issues are discussed in
detail. An application of Kansei mining to mobile phone affective design is presented.
q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

“Design for Emotion” is a guide to understanding and creating emotional products and interfaces.
Based on the author and co-author’s combined experience of over 30 years in the fields of graphic, interactive and industrial design, human factors, ergonomics, product management and product innovation, “Design for Emotion” explores the basic questions around designing emotional experiences with the products and interfaces we use.

The goal was to create a system in which the separated parts add up to a whole greater than the sum of parts. Every user has got a shoe with a tone. Alone he can’t do much, but together with others a song can be played.

Confectionery giant Nestle is building an in-house global design network based around a Japanese design philosophy, called Kansei, which has been successfully used in the car industry to tap into consumer emotions. Ben Mortimer, senior designer, at Nestle, is among a team of designers based around confectionery in York that is starting to use the Kansei methodology.

The Kansei method focuses on how consumers feel about a product idea very early on in the design process, before putting pen to paper, then translating the data into a physical design that satisfies these emotional needs. The concept originated in Japan and has been used by companies such as Mazda and Toyota.

Read more: http://www.dexigner.com/news/17348#ixzz1VhmEApo2

Confectionery giant Nestle is building an in-house global design network based around a Japanese design philosophy, called Kansei, which has been successfully used in the car industry to tap into consumer emotions. Ben Mortimer, senior designer, at Nestle, is among a team of designers based around confectionery in York that is starting to use the Kansei methodology.

The Kansei method focuses on how consumers feel about a product idea very early on in the design process, before putting pen to paper, then translating the data into a physical design that satisfies these emotional needs. The concept originated in Japan and has been used by companies such as Mazda and Toyota.

The word “Kansei” is interpreted variously and has been used in many researches related
with not only design but also other research fields. It is a word which inclusively involves the
meaning of words such as sensitivity, sense, sensibility, feeling, aesthetics, emotion, affection
and intuition. Fig.1 shows the etymology of Kansei and Chisei interpreted from Chinese char-
acters, both of which are processed in human minds when they receive the information from the
external world. As you see in the figure, Chisei works to increase the knowledge or understand-
ing which is matured by verbal descriptions of logical facts. And Kansei works to increase the
creativity through images with feelings or emotions.

“Design Ethnographers find ways for people – within and across industries – to tap into unexpected insights that might have been missed otherwise. We think understanding people keeps a business on track.”

captures DE in a really lovely way. I think our task goes beyond that too – we also have the responsibility to find a way to effectively communicate those unexpected insights to the people who need to hear them. I thought it was really telling in our class discussion today when we hit on the thoughts behind different groups of people having differing goals and ways of approaching various issues. Like Jon said, if you have a hammer everything starts to look like a nail…

Personally, Kelly is an inspiration due not only to her knowledge and expertise as a designer, but as a woman designer. She acknowledges in an article for Wise-Women, that she percieves her company to be a “woman run” company. She proceeds to boast of the balance between the ability of these women designers to be able to manage their professional lives with motherhood and family, and how it can be achieved. Kelly provides flexibilities to her mother and mother-to-be staff members, but it doesn’t stop there. She openly encourages traveling, sebbaticles, and vacations (in moderation of course…let’s face it, life isn’t the travel channel) when necessary and it may be sensable for the job at hand. Kelly’s strength as a designer, research methods, advocacy of conferences, and overall management style all impress me a great deal, and provide a nice model for success for all those willing to absorb.

Read the rest »

The emotion slider is a device developed to collect self-reports of the valence of users' experiences with interactive systems based on recent theories on the embodiment of emotion and basic approach/avoidance behavioral tendencies. To test it, participants (N = 51) watched 10 positive and 10 negative slides from the International affective picture system while using the emotion slider in two different ways: pushing the handle to report positive feelings and pulling it for negative feelings in one condition (incongruent condition) and pushing the handle to report negative feelings and pulling it for positive feelings in the other (congruent condition). Response times were significantly different between the two usage conditions but the direction of this difference did not conform to the prediction. Shorter response time was associated with fewer errors. The conclusion describes some implications for human-computer interaction research.

PrEmo is based on 14 animations of a cartoon character. In each animation, the character expresses a different emotion in approximately one second (both with movement and sound). The character expresses seven positive emotions, i.e. inspiration, desire, satisfaction, pleasant surprise, fascination, amusement, admiration, and seven negative, i.e. disgust, indignancy, contempt, disappointment, dissatisfaction, boredom, and unpleasant surprise.

Then I had a serendipitous moment while attending the CHI conference this year.  The session entitled “Beyond Usability: Evaluating Emotional Response as an Integral Part of the User Experience” was presented by researchers at Salesforce.com and Stanford University.  In their research, they used Emocards to measure the emotions that participants’ associated with Web page tasks (their paper can be found here).  Using this tool, they showed that there was a distinct difference in the emotional impact that the different tasks had on the users.  Emocards is a tool developed by Pieter Desmet at the Delft University of Technology (the original paper can be found here).    The Emocards show faces that depict various emotions and the user gives a 0-4 rating for each of the emotions.  The first advantage that Emocards have over the GEW is that it is a cross-cultural tool – facial emotions are typically universally recognized.  Intrigued, I started looking into Emocards and how I can incorporate

Beautiful slides / illustrations and great data to share.

Emotion, Arousal, Attention and Flow: Chaining Emotional States to Improve Human Computer Interaction

Osgood's semantic differential was designed to measure the connotative meaning of concepts. The respondent is asked to choose where his or her position lies, on a scale between two bipolar adjectives (for example: "Adequate-Inadequate", "Good-Evil" or "Valuable-Worthless"). Semantic differentials can be used to describe not only persons, but also the connotative meaning of abstract concepts—a capacity used extensively in affect control theory.

The meaning of meaning

In everyday speech we bandy the term 'meaning' around quite happily without giving it a lot of thought:

'...if you see what I mean.'
'...if you take my meaning.'
'What's that supposed to mean?'
'I always say what I mean.'
'"Cochon" means "pig".'
'I didn't really mean it.'
'I meant to write.'
'A green light means "go"'
'What is the meaning of life?'
'Health means everything.'
'His look was full of meaning
'What's the dictionary meaning of "meaning"?'
That's fairly typical of the sort of things we might say. You can see from those that we don't even use the word 'meaning' with the same meaning every time. Some of the examples are taken from The Meaning of Meaning b