Dr. Aybil Goker

There was such a great discussion about public input and user research based on my post last week that added a few thoughts, pulling on threads from Peter Bonner, 🚀 Molly Cain MBA, CVP, Marina Nitze and quoting Genevieve Gaudet. This one talks not just who we ask for input, but when, and what we for input on. And comes back to the connection between complexity and capture, and the role of product management in countering capture. https://lnkd.in/gjaePqh9

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As the 2024 Design Research Society Conference in Boston (#DRS2024Boston) is just kicking off... today seems like the perfect time to share Chapter 3: Design and Knowing. Featuring crows, the gutenberg press, protein folding, Ezio Manzini, Robin Wall Kimmerer's Sweetgrass baskets, and some fare critiques of Design Thinking.... and many more reference points. We found there's never any harm is going back to basics and really trying to think what does Design Research really *do* .. Enjoy! https://lnkd.in/gNxREndT

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In the rapidly evolving field of UX, the integration of AI is proving to be a game-changer. Recently, I delved into two insightful articles from the Nielsen Norman Group that highlight the significance of AI in UX design and research. The first article, [“AI for UX: Getting Started”] by Jakob Nielson and Kate Moran, guides how UX professionals can incorporate AI into their workflows. It emphasizes understanding AI’s capabilities and limitations, and suggests practical steps to leverage AI to enhance efficiency in your role. One of my takeaways is that when using chatbots, iteratively craft your prompts to get the most out of its outputs (e.g. by starting new chatbot sessions). You can draw from its previous responses, pulling outputs into prompts to expand or rewrite previous responses. I know that AI isn't infallible - when using it myself, I've found that it makes things up sometimes 😆 . So revise its responses yourself, use it to provide the first draft of your work, not the last, and enhance it with your expertise. Building on this, the second article, [“Planning Research with Generative AI”] by Maria Rosala, dives deeper into how you can use AI to refine your UX Research Plan. It stresses the need to split your Plan into its components to get the most out of the AI's output. By providing clear context when giving prompts, you can brainstorm everything from the inclusion criteria for participants, to interview questions. Integrating AI into UX is not just about adopting new tools; it's about reshaping our approach to design and research. AI is an opportunity to create more efficient work and build on the creativity we UX professionals already generate. How are you currently using AI in your work? Credits to ChatGPT for supporting the build of this post haha (it did, in fact, make things up about the articles in the first draft of this post) Articles: AI for UX: Getting Started - https://lnkd.in/eMCsEpYt Planning Research with Generative AI - https://lnkd.in/eXkzg-ds #UXDesign #AI #UserExperience #DesignThinking #Research #Innovation

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Popular, but not often discussed opinion: It is significantly more fulfilling to support Product Managers/ Owners who "get" the value of User Research and data than those who don't. So this series, at least for now, is dedicated to them. After you watch it, let me know what else we should discuss.

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A system for recommending music based on #emotions https://lnkd.in/dQrZAfSs This study suggests a framework for #emotion-based music recommendations that can identify a user’s mood based on data from wearable #physiological #sensors. A wearable computing device that includes physiological sensors for galvanic skin response (#GSR) and photo plethysmography (#PPG) specifically categorises a user’s emotion. The emotion data is included as additional data to any collaborative or content-based recommendation engine. These data can therefore be used to enhance the functionality of the current recommendation engines. The results of in-depth experiments using real data show that the suggested emotion classification method, which can be used, is effective. #neuromarketing Marc Polo (Ph.D) Joan Cuenca Ph.D Josep Maria Picola Meix (Ph. D.) Jordi Collell Blanquerna - Universitat Ramon Llull Music Training Lab S.L.

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Medical literacy is essential for people's ability to make good decisions about their health, but medical jargon often gets in the way. A group of University of Washington set out to address this problem by developing an open-source API to identify medical jargon in context and provide accessible explanations based on user's proficiency level. Please consider helping them by filling out this user research survey: https://lnkd.in/gdY6fqp9

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✨ 2️⃣ We have *two* more spots left in our Maven course kicking off in one week from today. Anna Avrekh and I have been pouring all of our war stories, learnings, and practical tips and tricks into this 4-part, 2 week course. https://lnkd.in/gwSfhcEx Sign up or share with people who want to: 👉 push back on unreasonable requests with confidence 👉 obtain buy in from the start 👉 role play and troubleshoot real life scenarios 👉 receive our cultivated list of fantastic questions to ask your stakeholders in various contexts 👉 get your research heard 👉 a framework for zeroing in on the most impactful research you can do now We're offering deep discounts for folks impacted by layoffs or joblessness. https://lnkd.in/gwSfhcEx

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A bit off-topic for my data analysis posts, but I book I recommend is Don Norman's *The Design of Everyday Things*. https://lnkd.in/effBa9MS Besides just being an enjoyable book to read (me and the wife spot a Norman door pretty much every time we go out into public), it has made me reflect on certain things I do in data science. Examples include systems that have slow feedback are very difficult for people to understand (often the case with administrative data applications unfortunately). And things that you interact with (such as designing a button on a webpage) need to have visual cues what you can do with that button. Seems trivial but Norman discusses design decisions he made while working with Apple that you can tell fundamentally influenced cell phone user interfaces as we know them today. #productdesign #uxr

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What is good #research and how can you learn to do it for #industry? If this is something you're interested in, I have a learning opportunity for you! (Warning: my giant face is on this post) User research happens at all stages of a product's lifecycle or at least it should! It happens at the beginning to understand who the users are and what they need. It happens in the development process as products are prototyped and iteratively developed. It happens during beta-testing and pre-launch. Of course, it even happens after a product launch to see how things are going and what needs to be fixed/added in the next iteration. Good user research is empirically based and can rely on large amounts of quantitative information, small focused qualitative data, and every combination in between. It is focused on making the experience better for the target audiences which leads to better outcomes for the organization providing the product or service. We now offer an Advanced User Experience Research post-graduate certificate at #UBalt. We focus on methods, statistics, special populations, and qualitative research. It's a four-course progression that can be used towards the MS in Interaction Design and Information Architecture as well as our doctorate in Interaction and Information Design. Conversely, if you already have our IDIA degree, you may not need to take all four courses to earn the cert! If you have any questions, reach out and I can talk you through the program. https://lnkd.in/ebRhEGYS

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New JMR article available: "The Effects of Psychological Distance on the Diagnosticity of Digits to the Left Versus Right of a Separator" Read it here: https://buff.ly/3WnLfJI Authors: Dengfeng Yan, Suhas V., Jiewen Hong #numericalcognition #consumerpsychology #marketingresearch

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Continuing my "What is" series, this time around I delve into UX research. Explore the diverse perspectives through which work in this domain can be perceived, and the strategic and profound influence it has on the broader context of the UX process. You can read the article here: https://lnkd.in/emWBM_Tn #UXResearch #UX #Usability

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In our latest blog post from noodle, we explore the importance of embracing a multidisciplinary approach in design research, exploring how diverse perspectives enrich insights, foster collaboration, and pave the way for groundbreaking solutions. Check it out today! #multidisciplinary #collaboration #design #designresearch #research #qualitativeresearch #innovation #systemsthinking #diversity

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I love that we are talking more about the relationships between humans and the built environment. I love that we are talking more about the psycho-social impacts of #architecture on our well being. I love that we are talking more about the value of #QualitativeResearch methodologies in doing this work. I dream that architecture as a practice undertakes robust #PostOccupancyEvaluations that include technical, functional, and behavioral (psycho-social) assessments. We need the development industry to be #accountable to us for our #health and #wellbeing. #HumanEcology #DesignAnthropology #ESG #SocialReturnOnInvestment #CommunityWellbeing

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We're thrilled to announce the publication of our latest paper: "When Design Workshops Meet Chatbots: Meaningful Participation at Scale?" co-authored by Stephen Yang, Jonathan Dortheimer, Aaron Sprecher, and Qian Yang. In this groundbreaking study, we delve into the potential of #LLM #chatbots as a tool for fostering community participation in architectural design. By integrating remote chatbot engagements with face-to-face workshops in a real-world mixed-use building project, we explored a hybrid approach to scaling up the reach of participation while ensuring it remains meaningful, genuine, and empowering. Key Findings: * The hybrid approach amplified the strengths and mitigated the shortcomings of both methods. * Chatbots effectively sustained the length of participation, broadened the reach, and created a personalized environment for introspection. * Face-to-face workshops played a crucial role in bolstering community ties and trust. We're excited about the potential implications of this research for the future of community participation in design and beyond. If you don't have access due to the paywall, please contact me for an author's copy of the paper. https://lnkd.in/dC7z4n9P #hci #urbandesign #architecture #participatorydesign

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How do designers approach the creation of toolkits for digital literacy and other pressing needs? We found out.

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“Image as a template” is an interesting concept. Certainly, this concept captures nicely the idea of using images in GenAI as references for new images - but in practice, its not so simple. Let me offer my thoughts on this. In Language of New Media (2001) I had a section on templates that already become a key part of digital culture by that time. Templates in Word or Canva design app (current example) allow the same content to be presented in different ways.  This is the key aspect of digital media - separation of the three levels: 1) content, 2) structure, and 3) presentation. HTML (1989-) and graphic web browsers (1993-) were the perfect examples of this.  Now, with GenAI, we see a new process based on ML. And it works very differently—if it even works. Before, we had document content, structure, and rendering layers, all clearly defined. Now it’s about a very challenging process of trying to “extract” structure (or what in the AI field is referred to as “style”) from already existing published media.  As I analyze in chapter 5 (2023) of our Artificial Aesthetics book, often GenAI can’t really separate “style” and “content.” Sometimes it works - and often it does not.  To specify a style reference in Midjourney, you add “in the style of X [artist or art movement name] ” to your prompt, or use —sref parameter with one or more images. However, often newly generated images have traces of the content of image(S) used for style reference, or the typical content of the specified artist, as opposed to a pure style we would like AI to extract. (And does such a thing as pure “style” even exist in culture?)  So in ML and GenAi it’s much more messy then in “classical digital media” - such as HTML examples or templates in Word, PowerPoint, Premiere, and endless other digital media software and services developed in the last decades.   So now that we think more about this… is image in GenAI really a “template”? Or something else? Do we need a new term for it?  These are good questions, in my view. For a wonderful detailed discussions of using images as style references un Midjourney, and tips on how to make it work, see: https://lnkd.in/gYK-HmtK

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#Designers try to #empathize with their #endusers, and in the #design of #assistive or #supportive #technologies, this seems especially important. However, there are complex, even philosophical issues at stake, when it comes to the question of empathy. Can one ever really step into the shoes of the other? This dilemma becomes quite clear in the case of #neurodivergence, for example #autism. Autistic people have in the past been 'accused' (in leading theories of autism) of fundamentally not being able to empathize with others. Such theories are now increasingly abandoned by researchers, under rightful protest of autistic advocates. Because, if anything, we have in fact what is called #DoubleEmpathy problem (a term coined by autistic scholar Damian Milton): In #neurodiverse #communication, both sides have difficulty empathizing with the lived experiences of the other, simply because these experiences can be so radically different from one another. (We often do not realise, how much we rely on a shared familiar background of similar lived experiences, to make communication go smooth and easy.) So, then, how does a designer ensure that the #lived #experience of #autistic young adults are central to the #design of #assistive and #supportive #technologies? One way to do it, we figured, is to simply stop trying to empathize as designers and instead let #neurodivergent people design their own things, out of their own experience. "Empathy from within"! A new challenge emerges: how can we then support people in empathizing with themselves, and how can we help them design their own things? Furthermore, as design is traditionally helped by communication and co-production in design teams: can we still organize the process as a social interaction process, in which important others (in particular care-givers) play a productive role, yet without taking over control and enforce their neurotypical perspective? Yes we can! But you might need a #toolkit! 🤗 We introduced the #DesignYourLife toolkit in the journal of enabling technologies in 2021 and won a best paper award for it: https://lnkd.in/eKcv8CqA We also presented it two years ago at #drs2022 https://lnkd.in/eCTJi5fT In last week's edition of #DRS2024 we presented our latest insights on evaluating it, focusing particularly on the autistic #lifeworld experience at #drs2024 in Boston: https://lnkd.in/eSZRPy_x And in that same week, we also presented our latest insights on the role of the #caregiver as a #codesigner who of course has their own valid lived experiences and interests into the process, at #design4health in Sheffield: https://lnkd.in/etDd26mM Niels van Huizen Thijs W. Maurice Magnee Koen Dortmans Jan Pieter Teunisse Nathalie Overdevest Wouter Staal Mascha van der Voort

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Which research or design concepts are most challenging to explain to executives (or other stakeholders) in a way that it sticks? #ux #uxresearch #uxdesign #uidesign #servicedesign #research #design

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