Augmented Reality (AR) is no longer science fiction. The usage of AR is rising in our society. What is AR aiming on? On the enrichment of physical spaces with computer generated images and the availability of location based content. AR can be a strong potential for traditional ways of learning. But what does AR do with the withdrawal of knowledge and the processing of this knowledge? What should we take into account if we want to use AR effectively for educational purposes?
Articles in Human behavior
Augmented Reality: A new way of learning?
User ratings: the user’s point of view
Nowadays it seems that – as an internet user – there is the opportunity to rate a product, service or piece of information whenever and wherever you want. From clothing to handymen and from articles to restaurants.
Why don’t we actually read anymore?
I still remember the good ‘old’ days in which I would go weekly to the library, sit there for hours and bring home a huge pile of often non-fictional books. I would get caught in the narrative, loose myself in the material and read the books I borrowed in less than a week. Unfortunately this isn’t the case anymore. Nowadays I don’t seem to get through a book easily. I get bored, can’t focus myself, get frustrated when in my opinion the author doesn’t seem to get to the point fast enough, loose the author’s argument(s) and miss CTRL+F so I can search on keywords in the book. What has happened? Let’s face it: we aren’t used to reading anymore
How to: Squeeze your test users till the last drop
Do you recognize this?
Moderator: What’s your impression of this page?
Test user: Yeah, I like it.
Moderator: What do you like about it?
Test user: Well, you know. The colours are nice.
Google Wave: A new way of creating dialogue
Google Wave is an online communication tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more [1]. In detail a wave means that:
Why are we using Twitter anyway?
The last couple of years online communities have been developing applications for users to share daily updates about their life, thoughts and whereabouts. Hyves provides a ‘WieWatWaar’ and Facebook has it’s own ‘Wall’ where users can update their friends. Twitter does it the light-weight way. It allows an easy and light-weight form of communication and enables users to broadcast and share information about their activities, opinions whereabouts and status. But why are we using Twitter anyway? Is it a tool that nourishes our social needs or is technology increasing our needs to keep track of out ‘friends’ every minute of the day?
Little Things: pause 4 seconds and ask “how”
Chriss Noessel (Cooper) explains how pausing for four seconds can get you more information or additional detail. It’s difficult though:
Especially with a stranger, we don’t want to leave the conversation “hanging,” preferring instead to offer up some response or reflection on what the other has said.
Online processes: less is not always more
There seems to be a tendency to try and keep online processes (registration, checkout, etcetera) as short and flat as possible. This could have grown from the false notion that “people won’t click more than three times”, or the idea that longer processes lead to higher drop-off rates. The latter often being true, certainly when the process contains unnecessary steps: you might feel you really need a user’s net income when she is subscribing to your newsletter, she might very well feel differently.
Tool Time: Stop distracting customers on product pages
One of our clients is a very successful online store. The design of their product pages is fairly traditional, and includes a nice old similar items block. This block shows a picture, the price and product name for three similar products.