Conceptual Design & Principles of User-Centred Approach

1. Conceptual Model

  -Describing in terms of core activities, objects or interface  metaphors.

  - Conceptualizing what we are doing.

  - Based on core aspects of the customer experience.

  - Being intuitive to use.

COMPARISON WITH EXISTING COMPONENTS

2. Propose one or more related social mechanisms in communication and collaboration to be added to your proposed project, describe the purpose, and give justification why the proposed mechanism should be included. Draw the proposed mechanism interface and prepare the detail descriptions for each component involves in the interface.

There are three types of social mechanism in Human Computer Interaction field. They are convention mechanism, coordination mechanism and awareness mechanism. Convention mechanism is a type of social mechanism that facilitates the flow of talk in an application and aids the use of voice technology. Coordination mechanism is a mechanism that allows people to cooperate and interact with each other. Awareness mechanism allows users of an application to keep updated with their surroundings, as in they know what is happening and to let others know the information as well.

In order for the users to be able to cook in the nick of time, they need a cooking application which helps they planning their meal efficiently. By taking this into account, we intend to propose our application, KitchenGeek with allows user to insert their own list of ingredients – users will be suggested with a list of recipes possible to make with their ingredients.

PROJECT PROPOSAL - KitchenGeek

THEME: Behaviorial Change

Problem Space:

Mobile apps that use traditional/usual insert-the-recipe-name and search it method is not fit to all type of users. Some may prefer to just cook with ingredients/groceries they got at home, without needing to go out to do extra groceries shopping. This group of people will find the usual apps unsatisfying their needs, and experiencing a hard time to cook; Unable to find appropriate recipe with ingredients they have, or if they do, it will take a long time until they find one. This will waste their precious time. In other word, this group of people will feels the current and usual recipe searching apps are lacking in terms of usability, and giving them a discontent experience.

Supporting Images:

DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEMS OF EXISTING SYSTEM

We chose CookPad as to compare the existing system to our own new system. It is very similar with our system so we used it as a benchmark to compare it to our own application. CookPad is available in Google Play Store and can be downloaded and used for free.

• ·         Recipes for dishes is entered by other users instead of the system administrator.

This app is depending on other users to input their own recipes. If no one inputted some recipe, then it will not be available in the search results or in its database. Besides, some recipes might not be accurate, as in the measures of ingredients quantity might not be accurate, thus it can cause problems to other users who follows the shared recipes.

• ·         The application does not have efficient settings

Its usability goals is only partially achieved. It does not fully make the tasks in the application easier. For example, we need to log out of the application in order to change the language of the application. This is not efficient as it does not have any drop down menu to change language directly, but instead it requires user to log out and change user language. It is wasting user’s time.

Another problem that is in the settings of this application is we cannot directly send feedback through this application. It is directing us to email application to send a feedback. This can be hassle for users that does not have any email application in their smartphone. It will also trouble users who doesn’t have an e-mail. Besides, both terms of service and privacy policy also directs us to a browser application to view it. It’s not directly available within the application itself.

Assignment 1 - Persuasive Technology

Cognition Process

Cognition is a term referring to the mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension. These processes include thinking, knowing, remembering, judging and problem-solving. These are higher-level functions of the brain and encompass language, imagination, perception, and planning. The processes are analyzed from different perspectives within different contexts, notably in the fields of linguistics, anesthesia, neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, 

These and other different approaches to the analysis of cognition are synthesized in the developing field of cognitive science, a progressively autonomous academic discipline. Within psychology and philosophy, the concept of cognition is closely related to abstract concepts such as mind and intelligence. It encompasses the mental functions, mental processes (thoughts), and states of intelligent entities (humans, collaborative groups, human organizations, highly autonomous machines, and artificial intelligence).

Thus, the term's usage varies across disciplines; for example, in psychology and cognitive science, "cognition" usually refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological functions. It is also used in a branch of social psychology called social cognition to explain attitudes, attribution, and group dynamics. In cognitive psychology and cognitive engineering, cognition is typically assumed to be information processing in a participant’s or operator’s mind or brain.  Cognition can in some specific and abstract sense also be artificial.  Cognition process is said to involve three main processes which are attention, perception, and memory.