February 21, 2009 • 12:43 am 0
“The three levels at play in design: visceral, behavioral, and reflective.
Visceral design is about how things look, feel, and sound.
Behavioral design is about getting products to function well, and about making that functionality easily accessible.
Reflective design is about the meaning of things, about message and becomes more important as products mature.
Filed under: Thoughts
February 20, 2009 • 10:46 am 0
RAW are a small design company based in mancheter UK I came across there work into the colours of christmas and how different colours evoke different emotions and memories for different people this link back to my research into smell, taste and touch. with these aspects triggering happy memories.
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February 18, 2009 • 10:06 pm 0
Have been thinking alot recently on how from my research into the hierachy of needs and my questionnaire result and discovered that alot of the responces to the question of name 5 things that made them happy turned out to be linked with at least one of the 5 senses.
Smells, tastes, feel and sounds can bring on all kinds of emotional responses and can usually be linked with happy memories, for instance the smell of fresh bread cooking brings on happy thoughts and the sound of a nice warm crackling fire.
I have been thinking of ways to use these senses to make people smile by playing on their memorys that the smells, and feels hold with them.
This web site bellow places smells onto products such as magazines, greeting cards and menus
http://www.print-a-scent.com/fragrances/index.html
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February 17, 2009 • 5:18 pm 0
From Paul White
It becomes more and more difficult for me to walk somewhere without seeing the ubiquitous white strings that ultimately accompany an iPod. I admit MP3 players have their usefulness – they make long rides more bearable, and can give you a few moments of alone time without disturbing others.
But here’s a word of advice to the iPod aficionados: Pull the plugs out and spare your eardrums for a few moments.
People are so in touch with their iPods that they are losing touch with the world around them. I’m not sure if it’s because they like to blink in step with Justin Timberlake, or if it’s simply because they like to tune out the real world.
Don’t get me wrong, I love music. After all, why would people do drugs if they didn’t want to listen to 311 or Frank Zappa? And I’m glad that the fad of the early 90s – the ever-present boom box – has gone the way of Kris Kross, because no one should be forced to your fickle music taste.
Some people look at Steve Jobs and call his company a genius for its world changing device. Not me. I see a man so intent on preserving the faded relic of Apple Computer that he is willing to destroy our social fabric in the process.
This may seem like overblown rhetoric, but let me explain. If people don’t talk to one another in voluntary, everyday situations, how will they react when they are forced to work together?
It may seem preposterous to believe that idle chitchat about the Lions, or discussing a current event can possibly be the hallmark of democracy. Surely people in non-democratic nations must coexist with one another as well?
I have seen on numerous occasions iPod-clad students shut the door in the face of other students behind them – not with any malicious intent, but simply because they were so lost in their own little worlds that they were oblivious to the people behind them. Is indifference any better than harmful intent? Not really, because both tend to have similar outcomes.
In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam argues that civil society in the United States is on the decline; the pith of Putnam’s argument is based on the decline in the number of bowling leagues during the last decades of the 20th century, even though the number of bowlers significantly increased during this time.
The more relevant part of Bowling Alone distinguishes between two types of social capital vital to democracies: bonding capital occurs between groups of similar people, such as those who attend a Catholic church, and bridging capital occurs among diverse groups of people, precisely the types who came together to find common interest in bowling leagues.
This is precisely the point I am trying to address. By putting on an iPod, you are essentially isolating yourself from interaction with strangers, people you may have little to no common interests with. iPods make human interaction an afterthought, cast aside in pursuit of one’s own selfish desire to get away from the ruckus of society.
You don’t even have to actually participate in these random conversations to actually be a part of some sense of community belonging. Overhearing bits and pieces of random conversations is the best way to actually get a sense of what exactly goes through students’ heads on a day to day basis.
If the so-called student leaders on this campus want to help foster a sense of an SVSU community, they should start by encouraging students to unplug their iPods once in a while and actually talk to one another. If students find out they can actually talk to one another on campus, maybe students wouldn’t have as many reasons to leave as soon as their classes end. You can’t build a community spirit if no one talks to one another.
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February 17, 2009 • 4:58 pm 0
As i was walking into uni today i noticed that almost everyone i passed didn’t acknowlege anyone that they passed the majority had their heads down looking at the ground, some were on their mobile phones and almost all of them had headphones in and were listening to music.
As I am on a mission to make eyecontact with strangers and smile at them I found it very hard to make any one smile because of these devices of distraction that every one had to remove them from the world around them.
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February 17, 2009 • 4:40 pm 0
Hear is a act of kindness and community to total strangers in New York. This shows that one person can make many happy by a small simple act that leaves people grinning from ear to ear and most probably will start their day off on a good note and in turn make theirs and the people they work with or come into contact with better and happier.
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February 17, 2009 • 10:53 am 0
Ok now i know this video starts a little slow but give it a chance I found it hilarious reminded me of my friend Matt Tapp.
Shows how alot of creativity comes from the south west and this video portrays it in the way that people from the south west do best.
Dedicated to Pat Tapp
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February 17, 2009 • 10:43 am 0
Came across this video for every object has a sound, when looking into visual sounds. As a responce to my questionairre I found that the majority of simple things make people smile and happy ie sounds, smell, taste and touch all bring different aspects of emotion and play on memories of the user. For instance alot of people said the smell of fresh cut grass made them happy, and the feel of being cozy in bed.
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February 17, 2009 • 10:17 am 0
I had never heard of this artist so i checked him out and came across this music video for the song “her morning elegance” which shows a girl in bed sleeping then she begins to sleep walk in her bed. I love the stop motion animation in this video and the whole video gives you a feel good feeling and makes you smile.hope you enjoy it.
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February 14, 2009 • 8:40 pm 0
Lousy day? Don’t try to think happy thoughts—just think fast. A new study shows that accelerated thinking can improve your mood. In six experiments, researchers at Princeton and Harvard universities made research participants think quickly by having them generate as many problem-solving ideas (even bad ones) as possible in 10 minutes, read a series of ideas on a computer screen at a brisk pace or watch an I Love Lucy video clip on fast-forward. Other participants performed similar tasks at a relaxed speed.
Results suggested that thinking fast made participants feel more elated, creative and, to a lesser degree, energetic and powerful. Activities that promote fast thinking, then, such as whipping through an easy crossword puzzle or brain-storming quickly about an idea, can boost energy and mood, says psychologist Emily Pronin, the study’s lead author.
Pronin notes that rapid-fire thinking can sometimes have negative consequences. For people with bipolar disorder, thoughts can race so quickly that the manic feeling becomes aversive. And based on their own and others’ research, Pronin and a colleague propose in another recent article that although fast and varied thinking causes elation, fast but repetitive thoughts can instead trigger anxiety. (They further suggest that slow, varied thinking leads to the kind of calm, peaceful happiness associated with mindfulness meditation, whereas slow, repetitive thinking tends to sap energy and spur depressive thoughts.)
It is unclear why thought speed affects mood, but Pronin and her colleagues theorize that our own expectations may be part of the equation. In earlier research, they found that people generally believe fast thinking is a sign of a good mood. This lay belief may lead us to instinctively infer that if we are thinking quickly we must be happy. In addition, they suggest, thinking quickly may unleash the brain’s novelty-loving dopamine system, which is involved in sensations of pleasure and reward.
The kind of rush that a person gets from rapid-fire thinking may be transient, but “these little bursts of positive emotion add up,” says psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California, Riverside. Studies have demonstrated that happiness yields myriad benefits, including greater productivity, stronger social support and improved immune function, she explains, adding that “even brief periods of heightened mood can lead to upward spirals.”
Note: This article was originally printed with the title, “Think Fast”.
Filed under: Thoughts
I'm thinking. 