Interactivity & Interactions

Memory
Book: Benyon, Turner & Turner 2005 - Designing Interactive Systems

" The first and perhaps the oldest theory is decay theory which argues that memory simply fades with time, a point which is particularly relevant to working memory which maintains memories for only 30 sec or so without rehearsal.."      -pg 359

" Another account is displacement theory which account for forgetting from working memory." - pg 359

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There is this research done by SMART Technologies Inc which talks about Interactive Whiteboards and Learning, how it improves student learning outcomes. This  interactive whiteboard is a touch-sensitive screen that works in conjunction with a computer and a projector.

This interactive whiteboard applies three learning theories which are Constructivism, Active Learning and Whole-Class teaching. These theories show the understanding that student engagement is crucial to learning and as a growing collection of international research proves, interactive whiteboards promote student engagement.

The research also mentioned that the interactive whiteboards managed to increase motivation and enthusiasm of students to learn something. This shows that compared to static whiteboard which using chalks or markers, interactive whiteboard is more engaging, and it encourages students to learn hence it benefits the learning outcome. This also shows that interactivity or interactions can provide motivation and focus.
Besides, the research also mentioned that there are different types of learners which are visual learners, kinesthetic and tactile learners, deaf and hearing impaired learning, visually impaired learners. For example, kinesthetic and tactile learners are usually more visual and auditory in nature. They are able to reinforce learning through exercises involving touch, movement and space on an interactive board.


One of the review and understand of interactive whiteboards is:

Lesson are more memorable because students are more engages and motivated. Students are able to focus more on the learning moment rather than on worrying about capturing everything through note taking.
Beside from the observation from the US on interactive whiteboards, it mentioned that interactive whiteboards help to improve student's ability to retain and recall the information, while observation from the UK said that, interactive whiteboards are also easier to understand compared to a traditional whiteboard.

source: http://downloads01.smarttech.com/media/research/whitepapers/int_whiteboard_research_whitepaper_update.pdf

SWOT & fish bone diagram

SWOT analysis on my final project topic (idea)

aim: reducing meat intake


STRENGTH

Benefits to the environment and health
Cutting down meat consumption benefits both the environment and also ordinary individuals. The entire
meat production systems, ranging from the rearing of livestock to their sale, are processes which will
release different types of unwanted gas which pollutes the earth. The greenhouse gas emissions vary
depending on the quantity of chemical fertilizers, fuel and other production inputs used, differences in soil
conditions and production systems, etc. implemented along the entire supply chain. However, research
has shown that the rearing of livestock, particularly lambs, cows and pigs for the production of meat, milk
and cheese, cause the highest level of greenhouse gas emissions.
Moreover, consuming large quantities of beef and processed meats will also increase your exposure to
toxins and will lead to many sorts of health problems, including heart diseases, cancer and obesity.

WEAKNESS

Responses from people to reducing meat consumption (Behaviour & Mentally)
Meat lovers will strongly reject the idea of reducing meat consumption. They are used to eating meat in
every meal, and any reduction in consumption may have psychological effects of making meat lovers feel
weak. This is because meat contains a central nervous stimulant chemical similar in makeup to caffeine
called hypoxanthine. When people abruptly reduce intake of meat, they experience withdrawals in the
form of weakness because they are no longer getting the stimulation that hypoxanthine was providing
them through meat eating.

OPPORTUNITIES

Alleviating world hunger
Another possible benefit of reducing meat consumption is that it may actually help in alleviating the
problem of malnutrition and world hunger. Animals convert plant protein and energy into meat protein
and energy inefficiently; it takes 8 kg of grain, for instance, to produce 1kg of beef. This means that
anyone who consumes large amounts of meat, pretty much the whole of the industrialised world, may be
consuming disproportionate amounts of the world’s available nutrients

Protecting animal rights
Factory farms are sources of cruelty and waste on scales unimaginable to most of us. These facilities rely
on commercial breeds of animals that gain weight quickly on unnatural diets of high-protein feeds. In these
factory farms, animals live in crowded, stressful and often unhygienic conditions. Many of the world’s 17
billion chickens, for instance, each live in an area that is less than the size of a sheet of paper. Cattle in
such farms often stand knee-high in their own waste. This may lead to the animal’s health problems and
indirectly destroy the quality of meat as well.
destroys the meats quality as well.

THREAT

Economics
With the reduction in meat eating, farmers or livestock owners have to decrease their growth of livestock
in their farms, which will result in a significant decrease in income. Moreover, the country’s economic
growth will be affected due to the low production and exportation of meat products from farms.





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Fish Bone diagram of my final project
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SWOT analysis I

Did swot analysis on a few interactive websites that are related to my final project topic and share the same idea: raising awareness. There are a lots of awareness campaign websites found online, but there are not much interactive websites that raise awareness on certain matter or problem. I have selected a few awareness campaign projects that involve interactions and did a SWOT analysis to find out what are the pros and cons of the projects. 

The first project is Cocaine Basement which is a website that tells people information regarding cocaine. This website is a bit different from the others in terms of visuals and interactions as well as the way it is presented to the users. This website uses first person view allow users to imagine as if he/she is in the situation itself. 

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Another interactive is called Hurt experience which allows user to experience domestic violence victims' experience using real human interviews and video clips.

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James Bun 002 is a website that raise awareness on male bowel cancer to the public. It is similar to a static website that provides information on the disease, but the interesting part is it has a narrative/story line that able to interact with audience such as the missions, the characters according to the symptoms of disease. Audience interact with the story line as they will have to find the symptoms if they notice any.

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The Planet Zero website is created to tell people about solar energy, it is also an advertising campaign that promote their products created by Nissan Motor co., ltd. Users are allowed to move around the avatar(character) using mouse click and drag, and select the destination they want to proceed.

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Quit Doing It is a awareness campaign website that advice people quit smoking and also to raise awareness on negative effects on human body to public.

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Lastly, the WWF has created an interactive website that talks about Food. It's a simple and visually interesting interactive website that provide information regarding effect our eating habits have on our planet.

To conclude,

I found that most of these interactive websites' threats are similar which is they are worried if the audience will understand or get the message they want to deliver. 

They have not many threats such as the competitors as they are doing different campaign on different topics which share similar objective. 

I also realised that most of the websites are using real human as the character of the content probably because it seems more engaging than using a cartoon character. They use real human to create immersive environment and simulation which might affect audience's mind and behaviours. 

Beside, I also found that some of the websites have changed /turned the character according to the narrative for example in James Bum -002, the characters are actually the symptoms of the disease, as well as, in the Planet Zero website, the characters are designed and named according to the element of nature. These attract audience attention as they will find it interesting and want to continue interact with them. 

Lastly, I also noticed that most of these websites have a narrative / story for their content. It has a flow where users can choose to explore the website according to the flow, or not. It is suggested to follow the flow as it helps the users to focus on the content and they are more aware on the information as well as they won't be confused. 

Mobile vs. PC?

I have not really decided on which platform to be used for final project to deliver the message. But it will most probably be a HTML5 / flash website as I can integrate more interactions. After I have done the research on media and internet usage in Malaysia, I realised that smart phones are mostly used for getting fast information for instance when your looking for the location of a restaurant, u need a map, you will probably open the google map or google the places so that you can get the address. Another example is when you are waiting for a dish to come in a restaurant, you will probably take out the phone to play game or browse through social networking site such as twitter, facebook or instagram. Smart phones are used mostly for entertainment, and I think it's not suitable for education purpose.

There are advantages of learning using mobile phones because it involves independent learning, more interesting, users can adjust their individual learning speed, and mobile is a familiar too/medium to them. But there are also disadvantages of mobile learning.

A result shows that high self discipline is required for mobile learning. the result also show that mobile network are suitable for learning under specific premises and in certain situations. Therefore not every subject is suitable to use mobile as a tool for education purpose, it depends.

source: http://deposit.fernuni-hagen.de/501/1/Mobile-Education.com_Kuszpa_2005.12_Online-Educa-Berlin.pdf

A journal is found online that talks about the limitations of mobile phone learning in terms of technical side, such as:
1. small screens
2. limitation of accessing to internet (not everywhere has wifi and not everyone's phone has 3G)
3. lack of standardization and compatibility (apple product users are not able to view flash website using their phones // interface and functions are different btw apple and android smartphones etc..)

researchers also mentioned that psychologically, people have not become used to mobile phone learning.

source: http://www.jaltcall.org/journal/articles/2_1_Wang.pdf

For my project, the objective is to raise awareness on meat consumption and deliver the message that meat consumption can cause global warming, the effect that brought to them is not only health but also the environment. It is more to educating and telling them to reduce the intake of meat. and my target audience will be young working adults in Malaysia (18-25). So far from my research that I have done, I found out that the age group of people that i am focusing on, use smartphone for entertainment purpose, they spend time checking mails, checking updates from friends (social websites), taking /uploading photos, communication or play games.

From my own experience, I used to abandon a game after playing for awhile as I felt boring and I tend to delete the app in my phone. Same goes to some utility applications, and hence I might forget some of the applications in terms of the content/interfaces. Only applications that have attractive visuals or interface design, unique content and good functionality will catch my attention.

Besides, I prefer to look for information using laptop as it has bigger screen and I feel more comfortable to use a laptop then a mobile to do certain work (most of the work). For example, I prefer to watch Youtube videos on a laptop than to watch on a mobile. I will only use mobile for quick information such as browse through social networking websites and send text messages to friends and family. And most of the time I use my mobile phone to play games during my free time. Laptop/Pc is actually a place/medium that for me to absorb new knowledge and information beside BOOKS.

Research on internet usage and media preference in Malaysia

In order to decide on which media/platform is effective for my final project I have researched on several reports/statistic about internet usage and also media preference in Malaysia. The reason of doing research regarding these is because I want to find out that what are the things/media that young adults (target audience) are exposed to, is it mobile? is it laptop or is it games? and also I would like to find out what are they spending time on the most, such as what kind of activities? 

The statistic that I have found show that 15-19 age group uses the internet the most followed by 20-24 age group. There are mostly secondary school students and young working adults. 

Another result shows that Malaysian uses internet on finding information, followed by communication with others and third highest usage is on education regardless any age group of people. Finding information as in search for relevant information using search engines. 

However, I found that this result is not very accurate as it never specify internet usage in different age group.

source: http://comm215.wetpaint.com/page/Malaysia+Internet+Penetration

Beside researching on internet usage in Malaysia, I have also found some related information on smartphone usage in Malaysia.

The reports:
The typical smartphone user accesses the web almost every day (43% mobile, 73% fixed) with several sessions on a usage day – however rather short ones on mobile and longer ones on PC. One third expects to spend more time on the mobile web via smartphone in the future. Future web usage on PC is expected to be higher (52%). (<< this shows there are more people using PC than using a smartphone to access the web nowadays.) 


Nokia (35%) and Sony Ericsson (25%) with highest market share and with clear distance to other brands. Rather un-mobile location usage place number 1: at home followed by in restaurants. Important as purse and key, two thirds don´t leave the house without the smartphone. The users are driven by killing time and having instant information at hand by taking the smartphone along. Internet usage – especially browsing (41% last week) and accessing a social network (37%) – are very important for smartphone users. Only 13% of users do not have cross-media usage habits: the majority does something in parallel when using the smartphone like listening to music (63%) or using the internet on a further device (49%). (<< this shows people using smartphone mostly for entertainment purposes.) 

Age	18 - 24 Years	38%
	25 - 34 Years	41%
	35 - 44 Years	13%
	45 - 54 Years	8%
Gender	Male	29%
	Female	71%
Education	Low	1%
	Middle	26%
	High	71%
Employment	Employed - full-time	66%
	Employed - part-time	5%
	Retired	1%
	Student / Apprentice	20%
	Unemployed/homemaker	8%

(<< this shows people using smartphone are mostly 25-34 years old which they are working adults and have income, and they are also have high education)


Source: http://www.it-sideways.com/2011/10/management-summary-facts-and-figures.html

From another source, I found that the top four mobile-related activities that Malaysians mostly indulge in are emailing, accessing, social networking sites and downloading ring tones and instant messaging. However, this result did not tell what is the specific age group.

source: http://www.liveatpc.com/mobile-internet-growth-in-malaysia-more-than-doubled-since-2010



Another source shows that most Malaysian uses their smart phones on browsing internet followed by taking photo, and social networking. Again, this statistic did not tell us which is the specific age group.

A statistic shows that the Malaysian uses smartphones mostly at home(97%) and followed by in a restaurant and a working place. This statistic probably tell us that the Malaysians are using smartphones in these places for browsing internet, social networking and taking photo. 

Another statistic shows that most of the Malaysian agree that they will die without a smartphone including 66% of them never leave home without it, and 62% of them sleep with a smartphone close by. and there is 52% of them said that they are afraid to miss anything if they turned off their smartphones. 

This shows how important a smart phone is to the Malaysian nowadays as they never want to miss any information, messages from friends or any news. They tend to seek for information in a quick and easy way. 

source: http://humanwebsite.com.my/blog/categories/listings/mobile-marketing.html

To sum up:
There are more female young working adults than male (22-34 years old) using smart phone.
Most of the Malaysians get excited when receive a message or a new notification.
They use smart phones on web for search base content.
The use smart phones mostly in short period especially during waiting time (eg: in a restaurant waiting for food) or spend long time on smart phone at home.
There are 55% of Malaysian using laptop/ notebook to access to websites
while 19% of Malaysian using mobile phones for internet access.
They go to smart phones for getting fast information but use laptop for more detailed information.

source: http://www.it-sideways.com/2011/10/management-summary-facts-and-figures.html

other related sources:
http://www.elioe.com/franz/state-of-the-internet-statistics-focus-on-asia-malaysia/#11
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/malaysian-internet-usage-takes-off-in-2010/
http://ramayah.com/journalarticlespdf/impactofintrinsic.pdf

54321 Poster

07/06/2012

Today we were having a small activity which is presentation of everyone's poster regarding the topic/subject matter of the final projects. The poster contains of 5 similar works/cases with our project title, 4 sources of our inspiration, 3 heroes who we think that will be related to the work we are going to do, 2 relevant theories to our project and lastly the biggest issue that we will be facing in the production of final project. 

I have selected a few interactive projects that have the same object with my project: raise awareness on certain matter to the people. There are websites, installations and also mobile applications. I have talked about their interactions as well as the content during the presentation. 

The main source of inspiration would have to be my high school friend because she has inspired me to have this idea for my project. the other sources include games, tv series and others. I will be using HTML 5 for my final project because I realised that html5 is much more useful as it can be viewed using mobile such as iphone. it is great since apple products do not support flash, therefore I can use html5 to design interactions in a website rather than just creating a static website where users just only can read and view. But this also has became my biggest issue and challenge because i am totally new to HTML 5 coding. I have to learn from the very basic in order to create a fully function HTML 5 website at the end of the semester. 

I have chosen Sara de Freitas to be one of my heroes because she is researching on learning in immersive and virtual world. In her research or study, she also talks about effective learning in gaming, simulation and virtual environment. Her studies will help me in my project as my aim is to create an interactive website/app that is immersive or maybe will be involving some games to educate the public on meat consumption. 

However, after the presentation we were given feedback by the peers and the lecturer. Some of peers mentioned that they are unclear about my thing that I am focusing in my project and they were wondering will there be too many stuff in the website? Some were unclear about what platform I am going to use. 

One of the peers (zak) mentioned that learning codes can be hard. He also suggested me to talk about how different meats have different impacts. It's interesting as I am going to find out and decide what types of meat I want to focus or else it will be too many stuff in my project. They also provided some good sources for me to explore further. 

Research on meat consumption pattern in Malaysia

08/06/2012
I've found several online pdf/ journals that show survey/report/statistic on meat consumption pattern in Malaysia. I was trying to find result that show meat consumption pattern in different specific group age.

One of the pdf (Study on habitual food intake of adults ages 18-59) shows the following results. young adults who are 18-19 apparently consume more chicken(meat) compared to other age groups including male and female. Then followed by age group of  20-29 years old. These two groups (which are young adults) consume more meat than the others.

Another result shows that age group of 18-29 meat consumption has excess food pyramid recommendations and have very close amount of servings per day which means they consume meat big amount of meat daily.

 in the conclusion of the study also said that Malaysian consumed too much meat in their diet. In this case, I might want to focus the age group (18-25) years old for my final project.

source: http://nutrition.moh.gov.my/pdf/final_all/Habitual%20food%20intake_Vol7.pdf


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Another study (FUTURE MEAT CONSUMPTION: POTENTIAL GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS
FROM MEAT PRODUCTION IN MALAYSIA) found online also shows that meat production in Malaysia in the future can cause greenhouse gas emission which will lead to negative effect on environment.

The forecast for meat consumption and production in Malaysia will generate potential future greenhouse gas emissions. the higher the meat consumption, the higher the meat production and hence cause greenhouse effect. This is a serious matter as consume too much meat will affect not only the environment but also human's health.

This study supports my final project idea which is to raise awareness on meat consumption in Malaysia. Public needs to be educated to prevent greenhouse effect from becoming worse. My aim is to make them realise that actually consume meat = affecting the environment + bring negative effect to health.

source: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/14534/1/FUTURE_MEAT_CONSUMPTION-POTENTIAL_GREENHOUSE_GAS_EMISSIONS_FROM_MEAT_PRODUCTION_IN_MALAYSIA_15-01-09.pdf


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Another report/study (ESTIMATION OF MEAT DEMAND SYSTEM
IN MALAYSIA:  MODEL SELECTION BETWEEN
THE ROTTERDAM MODEL AND
THE FDLAIDS MODEL) was found also show that meat and poultry consumption has increased in Malaysian diet from 1961-2002. Malaysian is consuming more and more meat.

source: http://eprints.usm.my/8630/1/ESTIMATION_OF_MEAT_DEMAND_SYSTEM.pdf


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other related sources (online journals) :

Demand for beef in Malaysia: preference for quantity, quality or lean:
http://www.ifrj.upm.edu.my/15%20(3)%202008/13.%20Tey%20Y.S..pdf


Food Consumption Patterns: Findings from the Malaysian Adult Nutrition Survey(MANS)
http://nutriweb.org.my/publications/mjn0014_1/mjn14n1_art2.pdf

A Complete Demand System of Food in Malaysia 
http://www.cpiasia.net/english/dmdocuments/A%20Complete%20Demand%20System%20of%20Food%20in%20Malaysia.pdf