We discuss about 4 pleasures which describe type of pleasures when people engage with certain product or environment. I thought that it can't be absolute standard for designing products, however it could be useful approach when we want to measure value of product or try to devise new products. Looking back my last project during 1st semester, I focused on socio-pleasure even though I didn't know about it's definition at that moment. However, I would have think about more diverse idea of solution if I had known about the concept of 4 pleasures. We also did brief research of example of 4pleasures in products.
1.Psycho-pleasure: Kindle book
We thought that Kindle book provide people psycho-pleasure, because it have more easy interaction with reader than other device with less eye fatigue and visual of screen is more like real paper than screen of other device. As a results, people can enjoy their reading with more comfortable interaction for long time.
2.Socio-pleasure: Nike +
The service that we picked for socio-pleasure was Nike+. It is running activity managing service of Nike, which connect a sense in a shoes and mobile application. The reason why we choose Nike+ as Socio-pleasure is that it provide not only functionality of data visualisation of how people ran, but also sense of proud that they are keep their health by modern ways. It was shown that Nike+ users also made their community comparing their data.
3.Ideo-pleasure: Lush
We choose the brand lush as example of ideo-pleasure. I visited a shop of rush in Cardiff several times, what I felt was they highlight eco friendly material they used for products and also smell unique smell of product. We thought that using 'Lush' products make people feel that they are contributing to solving echo issues, so it is closely related to their personal ideology concerning environment.
4.Physio-pleasure: Air conditioner
It was hard to find example of physio-pleasure because we confused it with pycho-pleasure. Both are related to physical interaction with emotion feeling. We are not sure about it, however we thought physio-pleasure is more related to results of interaction with the product while pycho-pleasure is more related to sense felt during interaction with the products. Therefore, we choose air-conditioner as example of physio-pleasure.
Although, it was very brief research we could earn more tangible understanding of 4 pleasures.I'm looking forward to chance to use this concept during upcoming project.
2015 Feb 25 Diagram of experience
I generally viewed experience as personal perception of specific product, service or environment. This perspective doesn't consider time context much. However, the design experience model which is devised by D. Rhea show how experience can be formed and circulated during repeated 4 steps. I was surprised that this model was made in 1992 when terms 'experience design' or 'user experience' are not as much popular as these days. I realised that I confined meaning of experience to individual perception.
So this model describe how existing life context could be transformed into engagement of people and end up to experience. And it's resolution can be reflected on new life context. Through the model, I could realise that we have to consider not only experience as perception at the moment of using product but also the above cycle which formulate experience.
2/26 Seminar of James Powderly
A lecturer who has worked at Samsung for 5years came for seminar. He has very interesting background include programmer,media artists, professor of design and current interaction designer at that moment. He introduced his previous portfolio and his philosophy of his career. One of the memorable his work was LED Throwie. This project was social activities which encourage people through the led-ball to any place in urban area. The ball was simply made by led,transistor and magnet to make the light when it vibrate by crash.
The aim of this project was really clear, make people fun by simple way. However, its impact was much bigger than the effort to implement the project. People threw the ball to each other and every place and even buses.
This project illustrated me that even simple engineering technology can make pleasure experiences. Therefore, I thought that suggesting meaningful experience is more important than complex technology.
His thought about Korean ideology was also interesting. He especially mentioned about '온고지신 [溫故知新]'. He has tried to synthesis his expertise, experience and new perspective that he learned at different country, Korea.
Since I have also computer engineering background, his seminar stimulated me to do further explore to programming area.
2015 Feb 27 Ground theory VS Phenomenology
We reviewed qualitative research approaches during the lecture. Although all of these approaches have own perspective, they don't look like separated each other clearly. Especially, I was confused between ground theory and phenomenology. So I asked to Rich park and he answered that focusing on talk to people and interview could be common area of these two. However phenomenology can apply same process to people of limited number and focus on more about documentation. An example of this could be research of survive of airplane accident. In contrast, in the grounded theory,it is hard to find enough cases as target of research and it tend to put int more theory than documentation. I think the best way of understand these approach is applying them into my own research. So I have to consider which is the best for my topic.
2015 March 2 Group study: Universal design methods
First group study session was about review of various design methods. We used 'Universal design 101methods' as text book and each member was supposed to write brief review of 10 methods. I always felt that it is hard to totally understand each method without actual experience of using it in the project, however knowing these methods will help me remind which methods is appropriate in the future, like we memorise vocabularies and practice sentence when study English.
Therefore, I didn't spend a lot of time to understand fully each method, rather tried to know what is the input and outcome of methods and how is the process.
2015 March 6 Research topic
I started to think about research topic in 3rd term. I was initially thinking about interaction between company and customer as big umbrella. Then I specify it by two possible sub topic.
Using social network in after sales market
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Comparing companies
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Research about after sale service itself
Using real time mining to improve company-user interaction
During a tutorial with rich park I could receive feedback of not only project but also my plan.
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Choosing a Job first and narrow it down the topic
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Both topics can be related to each other
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Do not think the research will be connected to getting a job to much
- Prepare other things include portfolio or any expertise
After tutorial, I realised that I was too narrow minded about my final research and whole plan of this course. I think I need to make portfolio which can demonstrate my ability and design area as well as engineering area which I study during undergraduate.
2015 March 12 Making beautiful question
Today's seminar topic was 'making beautiful question' by professor Jong-Ho Lee. I thought that this topic is about not only specification of clear and short research question, but also right terminology for better communications.
Previously, I viewed terminology as showing off some knowledge of expert, however, my perspective has been changed, because I also felt some difficulty in communication between people when they use different words which indicate similar meaning. If we used wrong word which is not used frequently in actual industry area, it will be hard to work with co-worker as well as boss or tutor of a group we belong to.
Through the session, we learned how to simplify the question and what the question aim for to deliver the purpose of research. Because, we communicate by language and the language is not always perfect to reflect our meaning exactly, I believe that our concern is more focus on how we make other clear about our purpose and persuade them rather than thinking about what to realise.
3/24 Feedback of 2nd term research
I set my second term project topic as tourism brand of seoul city. I received follow feedback from Rich park.
1.It need to analysis competitors city as tourism brand.
2.Logical process is required even choosing participants of interview
3.Primary research question is required to progress
4.I have to show reliable process
5.I have to pattern during the interview, however the questions were too open.
6.I have to decide whether focus on brand image and service, to set research aim.
I will reflect these feedbacks and specify more until next week.
4/1 Seminar of Steve Won
Steve Won was 2nd lecturer from outside Sadi this semester. He has computer science background and have master degree of interaction design. His seminar was helpful because, he illustrated some important thoughts deserved to think about our ages, since his age may similar with us.
He said that his 2nd project which is not related to university assignment led him to get a job at google. The project was about contextual change of web browser. Although, this project was initiated by his personal interest, his work was appreciated by one of the best web company.
It was impressive that he mentioned lesson that he earned whenever he change workplace. He has worked different company in cultural environment wise and industry area wise, Google, Samsung and Microsoft.
His seminar was inspired me to do enjoy more whatever I do for personal development or assignment.
4/4 Changes in 2nd term project
There were several changes in the 2nd term project. First of all, I specify research topic in brand communication area and research topic changed to tourism brand of Korea not Seoul city. Because, I found that branding it self is very huge area that I can not handle a single research project, I decided to focus on only brand communication area.
There was an article pointed out that Korean tourism brand 'Imagine your Korea' neglect that most tourist don't have enough awareness of Korea. So I thought that this brand gap is the one of the biggest problems they have. If they can't change the new brand identity, it would be desirable to improve brand communication to deliver more clear brand awareness and image.
However, one of the main feature of their branding strategy is encouraging tourist to make their own perception and brand image of Korea tourism. Therefore, main focus of the research is how inducing them to participate in creating certain images. I have to concern about detail research subject as type of touch points with tourist.
4/5 Final topic of the research & a lesson learned
I finally decide the research topic of 2nd term project as 'Social media strategy of Korea Tourism brand. I considered three things to decide the topic finally. First one is to keep initial umbrella of research subject, Korea tourism and brand communication. And second one is availability in conducting research as stance of students. The last one is possibility of connecting secondary research area that I have interest in. The below is the research brief.
Aim
To improve social media strategy of Korea tourism brand to reinforce
brand communication
Research Questions
1.How branding affect tourism?
2.What is the current position of Korea tourism brand?
3.What is the weak and strength of brand communication of Korea tourism?
4.How Korea tourism brand encourage tourist(potential) to participate into touch points to increase awareness & brand image?
During these changes of research topic, I earn a lesson about research. Before I joined the this course, I used to simply thought that topic should be chosen by my personal interest. However, reality is that it is impossible to conduct research if I only concern my interest. So I had to concern three things that I mentioned previously, at early semester, but I didn't. Rich park also told us about it many times, but many students include me wanted to choose research topic carefully, looking forward to what problems they can seek, and what they can improve. However, that process is already huge part of the research. So if we tried to choose research topic by this step, it would take a very long time which is not proper scale to finish in this semester.
I'm little bit regretful that I didn't choose the more specific and more easy research topic, but it would be the best lesson that I learned during the semester.
4/6 Research plan
I made initial research plan which consist of secondary research, narrative research and case study of other country as primary research. It seems like that secondary research and case study require a lot of time in internet searching and narrative research have some barrier in collecting participants and interview.
I had also similar difficulty in Cardiff, during the first semester. I had to interview international students at Cardiff Met as well as Staffs of international office. Language was one of the most difficult things because interview was not casual conversation, which I had to understand what people said correctly. And mental pressure was arose when asking random people to interview or duration of interview is going longer.
It was similar situation. I had to ask random tourist at attraction place in Seoul. And I can't guarantee that I will meet proper participants during the research. To reduce risk as much as possible, I made interview guild line based some secondary research and my intention on tracking their touch points by timeline.
<interview guideline>
I hope that there will be tourists who are willing to response the interview.
4/7 Typography seminar of Professor Hyun mi Kim
I always had trouble with choosing typeface when writing report or visual outcome. I thought that because I lack of understanding history of typeface and their feature as well as main purpose. I just used to choose typeface randomly. I felt something wrong about it but I did not make big effort to overcome it. However, this seminar was useful to understand which typeface is appropriate in certain purpose. Tracking their history was not easy but it also provide me more comprehensive understanding of typeface.
4/9 Samsung Cooperation project
I had a chance to participate cooperation project of Samsung electronic. The project topic was 'Smart home hub', which is currently led by Iot technology. The aim of the project was develop new scenario of smart home hub in the near future. So, we did not have to consider innovating technology excessing current capability, rather finding new scenario which deserved to involve smart home hub. Main target of our team was 4 members family,most typical type of family. We initially set the concept as 'union of family'. However, after 2months of primary research, I realised that that concept is really hard to be realised by smart home hub.
It would be the most important lesson that I learned from the project, because I failed to find proper concept well matched with smart home hub. Concepts of other team focused on more functional issue. I think I tried to consider too much big picture to deal with smart home hub. So at the late of the project, I tried to specify more the concept with functional issue, saving energy by dividing devices section by each member. In this concept, smart home hub function as hub for remote of switching off and on, as well as analysis rate of energy saving. The main focus of this concept was distributing responsibility of energy saving to all the member, which was generally perceived as role of only mother.
While changing the concept, I receive a lot of criticism of staffs of Samsung which frustrate me, and I felt also difficulty scheduling with other member who is not willing to set appointment. However, I finally got feedback that my outcome was acceptable in some wise. I think that two things are most valuable experience for me.
1. Opportunity of work with current staffs of Samsnug
2. Experience of possible barrier and trial and error in real industry
4/11 Secondary research
The first step of secondary research was find reliable definition of brand communication and important issues in tourism brand. I bought a 38th edition of branding journal called "Unistas" to understand more detail about brand communication. It provide me some important issues between brand communication and marketing communication. I also find research papers about relation between branding and tourism performance as well as influence of social media on brand communication.
Through the secondary research, I could make more specific framework of the research to make clear its process and what to find during the research. I could find online performance was key factor in tourism brand ranking and also thought that tracking tourists' online touch point could provide insight to improve social media strategy.
4/12~14 Interview
I spent 3days for interview and also used interview research by teammate of group study. I could interview 10people. The defect of the interview was that I can't target specific tourist group, just sampling random tourists. However, I generally try to interview people around 20s~30s, main target of the research and could identify few simple pattern of their online behaviour and further issues to identify. The interview was semi-constructed interview so I could initially arrange the interview results by their category. I will look forward to find new issue or insight through analysis of the results.
4/16 Barrier of research and trying to overcome
Most difficulty in progressing the research by interview research was that it is hard to generalise common pattern of these random tourists. Moreover, sample size was to small to make certain conclusions. Therefore, I decided to use secondary research as much as possible to cover lack of sample size. For example, I used report of internet and mobile internet usage by KTNO to understand how tourist use internet and social media for information source or decision making. Then make imaginary timeline for interview guideline and will put each attribute of tourists from internet results.
4/19 Connecting secondary research and primary research
I tried to find correlations between key findings from secondary research and primary research. Firstly, I could identify that social media is used for information source as well as chance of inspiration in tourists between 20s~30s. Therefore, I try to specific time when they use it as information source or get motivated by it.
Secondly, I analysed interview results by open coding to find how each element of 'Brand Equity Model' were changed in tourists experience, which was referred in one of secondary research. Although, it was hard to make fixed conclusion, I could generally find that purpose of using social media is quiet different depend on time context and tourists who have more clear brand awareness of Korea tend to make more clear brand image and positive attitude toward of it. I will concern outcomes of the research by using this insight.
4/23 Bring secondary research to explore solution
The insights that I found during research illustrate that tourism brand have to approach differently using social media depend on time context of tourists. Therefore, my thought on it was that it have to focus on inducing engagements as many as possible to increase brand awareness before travel, while focus on help them navigate find information on their purpose on social media.
The first thing that I did for suggesting solution was bring the social science study to concern about online engagement of potential tourist. I used concept called 'social pressure'. It illustrates that how we can encourage people to certain cooperative behaviour. The principle is simple. In brief, people tend to be more active in certain behaviour when they are belong to network depend their relationship if they get social incentive, not traditional incentive.
Therefore, my assumption was that if tourism brand held the online campaign giving common mission of each participant group and promise the reward depend on their performance, they are more willing to do something like share, or like the post about campaign.
4/28 Final presentation and criticism
I finally had presentation to Rich Park and a professor from Cardiff. One positive thing was that I completed the presentation anyway although I had some personal problems so had hard time to schedule the project. And main negative thing of presentation was that I tended to hurry to make conclusion.
I wanted to show some example of what online campaign look like if it use social pressure of potential tourists. However, I thought that it was appeared like final solution and there was no visual element to explain the campaign, with only some texts. The testers looked like embarrassed about my sudden suggestion. It would not been to appear on the presentation.
Despite of hard tome to conduct research, this trial and error also remind some important lessons.
1. Research is about communication with proposer and listener ultimately
2. Research topic have to be considered with three element, personal motivation, commercial or social benefit and capability during available time.
I hope that I will not make same mistakes.
4/30 Reality
There has been a lot of change in my thought about this course, my plan and myself. I decided to take a rest and will not attend next semester this year due to the personal problem. Although, I had quiet hard time to finish this semester, there were definitely valuable lessons that I never should overlook. Main reflection was that I had too fixed perspective of design area, trying to find something like formula that can be applied uniformly. I also had to acknowledge about lack of my design background. The next step should be how to reduce this gap and overcome my weakness as well as personal problem. I hope the lessons earned through the semester will help me someday.
