Design Activity Self-Evaluation Table

Mark	Comments	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Quality of the product	I think my blog was done extremely well. I went over the minimum for a lot of the activities and had actually done quite a substantial amount of work which had my very best effort put into each area. In the end I think I did very well and I am proud of my final result and think I did the assignment to the best of my abilities, with the best of my capabilities as well.							x
Depth of information & discussion	My information was very well done, I had detailed context for each portfolio and I think that my discussion’s were done extremely well. I explained everything in depth and made good references. I think the overall depth of my product is very good and has a strong amount of information within it, that were each done the best I could. I really think I did well.						x
Quality of the conceptual underpinnings	I think my underpinnings were very good, I went into detail within every learning portfolio and the quality was honestly very good. My work is legitimate and I believe the context of my final product was done extremely well. I would say that the overall quality of my product could not have been done better and is probably one of my best assignments because I really mask the task of the assignment, and created a blog that is useful and fulfills all and more than just the requirements of the assignment.						x
Quality of submission (eg presentation & referencing)	What can I say the end result is something I am extremely happy and proud of! The quality of my submission is all extremely good. I made the correct references, I submitted all required materials and portfolios. The presentation was done very well, it looks awesome and I even did more than I was required. I had many added widgets which were not even necessary, such as pictures of my dog from flickr which made my blog look even more outstanding. I also made sure I reduced all my uploads to a size that was needed, so I didn’t have the pics or snapshots too big or too small but just right. I think that overall I did a great effort and choose a good theme, which allowed me to have more space so its easier for the viewers to view my blog and pics. I am very proud and happy of my end result!							x

A2) Activity “Some Previous Assignments”

Assignment 1 (creative report) on Renewable Energy

Assignment 2 (presentation design) on Renewable Energy

Workshop Activities

(Week 2, Caricature)

I choose to do my pet dog, here you can see the before and after, the caricature looks so funny! I did some simple things in the caricature. I made my dogs eyes weird, and his nose larger than some twirls in the grassed area.

Before                                                                                                    After! As a Caricature

Creating a caricature

I you want to make a caricature of your own its simple as, all you need is Photoshop!

Step 1
Open a portrait image of the person of thing you want to make a caricature of in Adobe Photoshop. Keep in mind to start working with good resolution image, so that you can print it if you decide to later on.

Step 2
Duplicate layer (go to menu: Layer/Duplicate Layer). This is only to keep the original to go back to if you’re not satisfied with the result.

Step 3
Now this is the main part – we’re going to distort the image. It is done manually so every image you make is unique! To start go to Filter/Liquify.

Step 4
Here using the Forward Warp Tool (top left) try to “push” the face around – make the head smaller or bigger, change person’s eyebrows and ears. Change the brush size to access fine details.

(Week 6, Roadsign Workshop)

(Week 8, Colour Workshop)

So, Me? Whats my colour? For this workshop we had to choose a colour that symbolised who we our.

I choose a picture of some pansies, which is a type of flower which were yellow and purple. My reasoning for this choice was because purple and yellow are both complimentary of each other. I choose to work on the image within Photoshop and instead of doing an colour palettes I did a liquified image.

I did this because I felt it was the best way to represent the true meaning of these colours, and it really does show how the two colours compliment each other so well. The reason for my colour selection is because I think the purple and yellow represent who I am quite well. Having a honest, kind, loyal and happy personality but at the same time I can be calm but a bit anxious. Purple and yellow tend to represent these emotions.

A1) Activity “A Website example for each type of Credibility”

The four types of credibility are presumed, reputed, surface and earned.

Presumed credibility

…is a website which has its domain as “.org”, which tends to have information that is updated often . The site also has a large amount of hits and is quite popular (Fogg, 2003, p 164). The example I used for presumed credibility is the “World Wide Web Consortium” website. The site has a “.org” domain, it has its information constantly updated and its one of the most popular sites about the web.

Reputed credibility

…is a site which your own doctor may refer you to. The site is most likely to have won some award, and it has an authoritative web site linked to the site (Fogg, 2003, p 170-171). The site I used as an example for a reputed credibility is the “Hope Garden” website. Its a website that your doctor could refer you to because its made for individuals and their families who are going through cancer. The site most recently won two awards for “People’s Choice Winner” and the “Flash Forward Award”. The site also has an authoritative website link which is the BSD Medical site.

Surface credibility

…is a website which looks very professional and is made by an organization which you would recognize. The articles within the website also tend to have citations. (Fogg, 2003, p 168)The example I choose as a surface credibility is the “Australian Government” website. The site has a professional look about it, and has its symbol of the government in the upper left corner of the page, which is easily recognizable. I went through some of the articles and many of them also contain citations.

Earned credibility

…is a website which you would get a quick response from customer service about a question. The site also tends to have good navigation and the content within the site is displayed fairly fair and balanced (Fogg, 2003, p 166). The example I used for earned credibility was the “TISC” wesbite. The site has a very fast customer service response, and the navigation is very simple but good. The design of the site is also very fair, simple but balanced.

Fogg, B. J. (2003). Credibility and the World Wide Web. In Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do (pp. 147-181). Amsterdam: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Q3) Web Credibility in the Future (Critical Reading + Writing)

Many businesses and industries at this moment in time lack much information about web credibility. The study of web credibility is said to be mostly ‘uncharted territory’ (Danielson, 2005), and so studying and knowing everything needed to know about web credibility can be rather difficult.

Major factors need to be considered such as both the websites itself and the way the host produces the information on there website. Some main points are already looked today but in the future will be explored in more depth include;

• an increased number of people better understanding what web credibility is
• understanding that the host of a website might have different goals and aspirations for his/her website which could effect its credibility (Danielson, 2005)
• users will focus more on trustworthiness and expertise within a website (Fogg, 2003, p 123)
• the different types of credibility-presumed, reputed, surface and earned are likely to remain constant
• these constants are help to guild future efforts into credibility
• for most designers the need to make credible computer products
• people will begin to understand that a lot of the information published on the web isn’t always truthful (Fogg, 2003, p 155)

Danielson, D.R. (2005). Web credibility. C. Ghaoui (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction. Hershey, PA: Idea Group, 713-721.

Fogg, B. J. (2003). Credibility and the World Wide Web. In Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do (pp. 122-125). Amsterdam: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Fogg, B. J. (2003). Credibility and the World Wide Web. In Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do (pp. 147-181). Amsterdam: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Q2) Untrustworthy ‘Wikipedia’ (Critical Reading + Writing)

Wikipedia is not accepted as a resource of study for one main reason, because it is a very unreliable source! The actual website is not designed to be used as a resource and shouldn’t be (Reid & Danielson, 2007). Wikipedia is a web-based encyclopedia compiled by volunteers. This means that anyone can post information and therefor it is very likely that the information will be 100% inaccurate.

With the information having such a high inaccuracy risk u wouldn’t want to risk spending time doing a university assignment (Fogg, 2003, p. 124), to find out in the end that because you used Wikipedia you failed. Its just not worth it, the website is just not an accurate source and many people believe it should actually be banned completely (Reid & Danielson, 2007).

People can alter information in any way they want and therefor many historical dates can be inaccurate and the context can all be all wrong (Fogg, 2003, p. 124). This is the main reason why almost all universities and collages have banned students from using Wikipedia in their references for assignment.

Just like an assignment the learning portfolio does not allow resources from Wikipedia because it is just illegitimate, and one of the main things with university assignments is that you provide the correct facts which are as close to the truth as possible.

Fogg, B. J. (2003). Credibility and the World Wide Web. In Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do (pp. 122-125). Amsterdam: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Ried, S. Y. & Danielson, D.R. (2007). Credibility: A multidisciplinary framework. B. Cronin (Ed.), Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, Vol. 41, 307-364. Information Today, Inc.

Q1) Credibility of Websites (Critical Reading + Writing)

It is very important to evaluate credibility of a website (Fogg, 2003, p. 124). As a user you should be able to trust that the information provided within websites is legitimate (“Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW Resources”, n.d.). We should be caring if a website is legitimate because if websites start to have no credibility than what could we trust and believe?

As a student it is extremely important that websites are legitimate. For examples if I had an assignment and researched on a website such as Wikipedia I could collect some seriously inaccurate information. This is because the website Wikipedia is not credible because the information provided can be modified and changed by anyone, you just have to sign up for free. This can majorly impact me as a student because when I had in the assignment I could have wrong dates, and incorrect information which could lead to bad marks (Kim & Moon, 1998).

It is even more so important as a university student because with assignments you have to be more professional and provide as accurate information as close as you can obtain (Reid & Danielson, 2007). It is quite important that websites strive to be credible in others trustworthy and provide correct information so that the user can obtain the correct information (Kim & Moon, 1998). However there will always be websites such as Wikipedia where all information can be altered by anyone, so its just best to avoid sites like that which you know are not credible all together (Fogg, 2003, p. 165).

Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW Resources. [n.d.]. Retrieved May, 2009, from the Virginia Montecino site: http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm

Kim, J. &  Moon, J. Y. (1998). Designing Emotional Usability in Customer Interfaces-Trustworthiness of Cyber-banking System Interfaces. Interacting with Computers, Vol. 10: 1–29.

Fogg, B. J. (2003). Credibility and the World Wide Web. In Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do (pp. 122-125). Amsterdam: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Ried, S. Y. & Danielson, D.R. (2007). Credibility: A multidisciplinary framework. B. Cronin (Ed.), Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, Vol. 41, 307-364. Information Today, Inc.

Activity

Laptop

A laptop is an example of cognitive load because it uses in a sense mental activity (perception, memory, problem solving) (Lidwell ed al., 2003). The laptop is a computer made simpler and one that you can take anywhere so its much more convenient. It is cognitive load because it stores information and at times has to use problem solving techniques in certain situations (Fleming & Levie, 1993).

Clock

A clock is more of a kinematic load as it uses physical activity (Lidwell ed al., 2003). The clock works by using a number of steps and movements to accomplish its task. The clock basically goes one way and rotates so it can show the time, it doesn’t have any mental activity only physical hence that’s why its a kinematic load.

Telephone

A telephone is another form of cognitive load because with the newest types of phones it uses quite a lot of mental activity (Lidwell ed al., 2003). Recording messages and playing them are a form of memory, and the phone uses its mental activity to accomplish its main task of retrieving phone calls and voice recordings.

Fleming,M. L., and Levie,W. H. (1993). Instructional message design: principles from the behavioral and cognitive sciences. (2nd Ed) Educational Technology Publications, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Lidwell, W., Holden, K., & Butler, J. (2003). Performance Load. In Universal Principles of Design (pp. 149-149). Massachusetts: Rockport.

Q3) Psychology (Critical Reading + Writing)

Psychology is to do with so much of the way the brain works. It’s no surprise that the authors borrowed ideas which are studied by the psychology (Lidwell ed al., 2003). Psychology is concerned about how the brain works, how information processing, memory and perception (Anderson et al., 1997). It is necessary to study psychology because as people we need to understand how the human brain receives and produces information in day to day life (Fleming & Levie, 1993) whether stressful or un stressful daily situations.

The study of psychology is quite important and necessary in the area of design. This is because our brain reads things and we receive a message which suggest that we liked what we saw or not (Anderson et al., 1997).

For example one website might be bright and colourful and very appealing to us, this is mainly because its what may stand out more for our brains and easier to read than a web page that has loads of colour and a lot of clutter (Fleming & Levie, 1993). This is one of the main reason why it is necessary to study psychology in design because we need to know what colours and what sort of designs are more appealing and give us more of a response within our brains.

Anderson, J.R., Fincham, J.M. & Douglass, S. (1997). The role of examples and rules in the acquisition of a cognitive skill. Journal of experimental psychology: Learning, memory, and cognition, 23(4) p.932-945

Fleming,M. L., and Levie,W. H. (1993). Instructional message design: principles from the behavioral and cognitive sciences. (2nd Ed) Educational Technology Publications, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Sweller, J. and Chandler, P. (1994). Why some material is difficult to learn. Cognition and Instruction, 12(3) 185-233.

Q2) The Chunking Technique (Critical Reading + Writing)

The ‘Chunking technique’ is a method used when a large amount of information needs to be learned (Lidwell ed al., 2003). The chunking technique uses the way to ‘chunk’ the large information into smaller groups which is easier to memorize. It is designed to make it easier to remember large amounts of information but in an easier way. The main aim when chunking is to brake down details or information into smaller parts so that your brain can remember it all (Paas ed al., 2003).

The chunking technique can be used for all everyday situations encountered not just information and numbers (Sweller & Chandler, 1994). For example with the visual aspects of our lives when we see our own car for example our brain chunks the colour and design of your car rather than recognizing it by the model type and number. Even with someone as big as knowing our suburb, our brain creates a map within the brain and we memories simple “chunks” or pictures within our suburb rather than memorizing the exact street numbers and so forth.

Companies tend to produce simple but strong logos or unique icons, this is so people can remember that logo or icon and therefore recognize the company. This is also a chunking method one that we don’t actually realize we do but our brain does. These things are how the Chunking technique come into things such as the design and visual communications aspects within our life’s everyday (Sweller & Chandler, 1994). The technique is in turn quite a useful and effective tool, especially for companies if they design a strong and iconic logo which people can remember and recognize instantly.

Paas, F., Tuovinen, J. E., Tabbers, H. K., & Van Gerven, P. W. M. (2003). Cognitive load measurement as a means to advance cognitive load theory. Educational Psychologist, 38 (1), 63–71.

Lidwell, W., Holden, K., & Butler, J. (2003). Performance Load. In Universal Principles of Design (pp. 149-149). Massachusetts: Rockport.

Sweller, J. and Chandler, P. (1994). Why some material is difficult to learn. Cognition and Instruction, 12(3) 185-233.

Q1) Summary (Critical Reading + Writing)

The article “Performance Load” discusses the basic idea that the more effort a task is given to be accomplished, the less likely that it will be successful (Lidwell ed al., 2003). The articles name performance load just means the metal and physical activity required to complete an activity.

The article suggest that with an increased amount of performance it is more likely that there will be more mistakes and that the major goal of the activity will not be accomplished (Anderson et al., 1997). Basically opposite of that is that is a task has a low performance load than it is less likely that there will be mistakes and therefore there is a greater chance of the task being successful (Fleming & Levie, 1993). The article than describes two main types of performance loads, that of the cognitive and kinematic load.

The article has a good amount of evidence provide which in turn helps support the argument about performance load being made. The conclusion of the article however is very weak and doesn’t really conclude the arguments what so ever relating to the topic of performance load. However the article is quite informative and does suggest good points that performance within a final outcome is affected by the amount of mental and physical activity pushed into creating the final result (Baddeley et al., 1974), that being too much isn’t good for an end product.

Anderson, J.R., Fincham, J.M. & Douglass, S. (1997). The role of examples and rules in the acquisition of a cognitive skill. Journal of experimental psychology: Learning, memory, and cognition, 23(4) p.932-945

Baddeley, A.D. & Hitch, G.J. (1974). Working memory. In G.A. Bower (ed.), Recent Advances in Learning and Motivation, Vol. 8 (pp. 47–89). New York: Academic Press.

Fleming,M. L., and Levie,W. H. (1993). Instructional message design: principles from the behavioral and cognitive sciences. (2nd Ed) Educational Technology Publications, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Lidwell, W., Holden, K., & Butler, J. (2003). Performance Load. In Universal Principles of Design (pp. 149-149). Massachusetts: Rockport.