Experience Architecture Recommended References
The best way to start a flame war is to argue over terminology. Experience Architecture is no different. Here is a list of some of terms you’ll find to describe (some aspect) of it: user experience (UX), information architecture (IA), interaction design (IxD), usability, content design (CD), information design (ID), visual design, and service design (SD).
Overviews
- Brilliant overview from Morville on Information Architecture
- Useful poster on UX career paths
To see the full list, please visit: https://www.msu.edu/~lpotts/ux.html
Does Facebook Praise Kill Self-Control?
Columbia Business School professor Keith Wilcox and University of Pittsburgh business professor Andrew Stephen studied people who use Facebook to stay in touch with their closest friends and found that the more likes and self-affirming comments they got, the more likely they were to reach for a cookie over a granola bar.
The study, titled “Are Close Friends the Enemy? Online Social Networks, Self-Esteem, and Self-Control,” was published in the Journal of Consumer Research and found that your self-esteem can soar while browsing your Facebook feed, but only if you have strong ties to your Facebook friends. If your feed is populated with updates and comments from people you’ve never met before, you won’t feel any better after reading their updates.
That boost in self-esteem can come with a price. For one experiment in the study, Wilcox and Stephen asked 84 study participants to either browse Facebook or read CNN.com for five minutes. Both groups then had to choose between a healthy granola bar or not-so-healthy chocolate chip cookie. The Facebook group was much more likely to go for the cookie, while the CNN group picked the granola bar.
The results surprised Wilcox, who knew from prior studies that spending time on social networks makes us feel better about ourselves. He expected those good feelings to help bolster self control, not diminish it. “People with high self-esteem typically have more self control, not less,” he says. “It seems the momentary increase in self control that the participants got from browsing Facebook for a few minutes creates a sense of entitlement to do what they want and, therefore, lower self control.”
The final experiment of the study found that those people who reported higher self-esteem and lower self control from browsing Facebook happen to have a higher body mass index and more credit card debt. Those with strong ties to their Facebook friends and who used the social network frequently had a higher BMI, were more likely to binge eat, and had several hundred dollars more in credit card debt than frequent users that barely know their Facebook friends and those that go on Facebook less often. Wilcox cautions that those findings do not necessarily mean that spending time on social networks causes any of those things.
These two business school professors did not draw any lines between the findings and how advertisers could exploit them, but you can be confident that one cookie company or another will take this golden opportunity to stuff your Facebook feed with more ads and your face with more cookies. After all, the cookie peddlers know you won’t be able to resist the temptation.
via Wired
Celebrities Photoshopped to Look Like Ordinary People
The Tom Cruise is my fav…
Stand with victims of military sexual assault
Recently, a shocking Department of Defense report showed that the estimated number of sexual assaults in the military dramatically increased to a record 26,000 last year. Tragically, only a small number of these crimes were ever reported, let alone brought to trial.
Survivors of these vicious crimes are scared to come forward because they doubt that the military and its criminal justice system will protect them and punish the perpetrators. It is no secret why. A full 62 percent of those who reported a sexual assault felt they were then victims again when they were retaliated against. Moreover, senior military officers with no legal training have the power to decide whether a case goes to trial, or even to throw out a military judge or jury’s verdict.
Our service men and women deserve better.
Together we must ensure that decisions about whether to prosecute sexual assault cases are made by independent prosecutors, not senior commanders. Together, we must ensure that commanders can no longer unilaterally overturn a verdict rendered in military court. Together we can — and we will — do right by our service men and women.
IMAGE: Libertarian society pictured with a scene from Road Warrior vs. Socialist society pictured with a scene from Star Trek
I would say “socialist democracy” or “radical democracy,” but I think the comparison holds…
“”Jason Richwine’s dissertation is an example of scientific racism - the use of science or social science to explain the inferiority of a racialized group. Scientific racism has no place in twenty-first century academia.
In 2009, Jason Richwine successfully defended a dissertation at Harvard University where he wrote that Hispanic immigrants have a substantially lower I.Q. than the white native-born population and that, because of the hereditary nature of I.Q., this fact should be taken into consideration when designing immigration policy. In May 2013, Richwine’s views became public as part of his role in writing an immigration policy report for the Heritage Foundation. …
As academics, we find it appalling that, in 2009, three professors at Harvard University were willing to guide and approve a dissertation in this academic tradition. There are two central problems with Richwine’s work that should not pass muster in any dissertation committee: 1) the argument that I.Q. scores are an indication of intelligence; and 2) the idea that I.Q. is a genetic trait. Both ideas have been discredited and both are linked to an unfortunate history of scientific racism. …
Dean Ellwood at Harvard Kennedy School takes the position that this dissertation is part of an academic debate. However, there is no academic debate on whether or not Hispanics as a group are less intelligent than native-born whites. There are debates on whether or not Hispanic is a pan-ethnic, ethnic, or racialized category. There are debates on how and whether or why we should measure intelligence. There are debates on the extent to which intelligence is a heritable trait. But, there are no debates on whether or not Latino immigrants have the intellectual caliber to be part of the United States. Those kinds of debates happen in nativist and white supremacist circles, which have no place in academia, which prizes arguments and debates based on valid constructs and scientific evidence.
ASA Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities
academia has come so far, but still has so far to go
(via feministsociology)
(via lamalotta)
“ You mean the generation that paid three times as much for college to enter a job market with triple the unemployment isn’t interested in purchasing the assets of the generation who just blew an enormous housing bubble and kept it from popping through quantitative easing and out-and-out federal support? Curious.”
(via lamalotta)
yahoo wants to buy tumblr so i’m making an early prediction as to what would happen if this were to take place
(via dickmeat)
George Takei responds to “traditional” marriage fans.
George Takei is flawfree.
My favorite internet personality of all time…
(via pantsareanillusion)
Genetically Modified Democracy: Monsanto and Congress Move to Stomp on Your Rights
Reliable sources in Washington D.C. have informed the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) that Monsanto has begun secretly lobbying its Congressional allies to attach one or more “Monsanto Riders” or amendments to the 2013 Farm Bill that would preempt or prohibit states from requiring labels on genetically engineered (GE) foods.
In response to this blatant violation of states’ rights to legislate, and consumers’ right to know, the OCA and a nationwide alliance have launched a petition to put every member of Congress on notice: If you support any Farm Bill amendment that would nullify states’ rights to label genetically modified organisms (GMOs), we’ll vote – or throw – you out of office.
