TOGO truck information service: Based on mobile tracking system

In our current economic state, instant gratification from the satisfaction by the real time products and services and experiences are in demand for consumers. As a result, there are several if not many of these real-time base services that have arisen from what the consumers\u27 desire. During the research, I have witnessed the phenomenon that would fit the criteria. The perfect example would be the popularity of meals on wheels in the United States. Setting a new trend in the fast food market, the food truck industry has reached the numbers well over the thousands and still counting with their own unique ideas and innovations. I can confidently say, with the rise of the food truck industry, we have observed the decline of stationary restaurants. But, unlike the mobile counterpart, the stationary restaurants still have one distinct advantage; consumers know where to find them. For example, when struck with a craving for tacos, it is easier to Google a Mexican restaurant down the street, rather than to track down a taco truck. To counterstrike the stationary opposition to quench the hunger for the food truck enthusiasts, several apps have been created. The applications general idea is to pin point gourmet food trucks on mobile maps to even the reliability of playing fields via Twitter feeds, GPS and truck-reported location data. While none of which has achieved an exhaustive or completely accurate system, the search still continues for trucks for users depending on their location. During the present market condition, I am certain of making an accurate and effective real-time information service would be an interesting subject to approach in satisfying users and business owners desires. In demand of real-time information services, I will create a prototype for a food truck information service, inclusive of real-time location service; GPS, mobile tracking, truck-reported data and alert service. The consumers and the food truck owners will both come out as winners, with relaying precise information via real time communication devices. As a student studying the art of user experience and interaction design, goal of this study is to figure out how to enhance the user friendly interface along with meeting the expectations of actual consumers. In order to have a deeper understanding about interaction between users and real time location applications to heighten the level of services, I am willing to go above and beyond with through research to develop a next generation real time app during this project. Another critical factor that I, a user experience designer would point out would be communication. A key factor in completing the task, finding a significant way of communication method would be an additional goal throughout this project

Brand search

Consumers frequently buy the products they find most easily. This has forced manufacturers and retailers to invest in package design, shelf layouts, and expensive advertising campaigns to facilitate findability of their products. Surprisingly, there is no research in marketing that investigates how consumers localize products, which we call brand search. This dissertation investigates the brand search process and develops a statistical model that describes the eye movements of consumers while they are searching for a specific product. The proposed model uncovers the search strategies of consumers and suggests which marketing tools manufacturers and retailers may use to influence this process.

The use of non-intrusive user logging to capture engineering rationale, knowledge and intent during the product life cycle

Within the context of Life Cycle Engineering it is important that structured engineering information and knowledge are captured at all phases of the product life cycle for future reference. This is especially the case for long life cycle projects which see a large number of engineering decisions made at the early to mid-stages of a product's life cycle that are needed to inform engineering decisions later on in the process. A key aspect of technology management will be the capturing of knowledge through out the product life cycle. Numerous attempts have been made to apply knowledge capture techniques to formalise engineering decision rationale and processes; however, these tend to be associated with substantial overheads on the engineer and the company through cognitive process interruptions and additional costs/time. Indeed, when life cycle deadlines come closer these capturing techniques are abandoned due the need to produce a final solution. This paper describes work carried out for non-intrusively capturing and formalising product life cycle knowledge by demonstrating the automated capture of engineering processes/rationale using user logging via an immersive virtual reality system for cable harness design and assembly planning. Associated post-experimental analyses are described which demonstrate the formalisation of structured design processes and decision representations in the form of IDEF diagrams and structured engineering change information. Potential future research directions involving more thorough logging of users are also outlined

Study of menu selection based on human information processing : spreading activation approach

The determination of the appropriate interface texts for efficient menu selection, based on information retrieval from long term memory, is important to web site design. A psychological theory, the spreading activation model, is used to explain the users\u27 information searching behavior in menu selection tasks. Two experiments were performed: a spreading activation test and an actual performance test with a real menu. In the first experiment, the degree of relatedness between two text labels in a menu was evaluated. By using two levels of menu structure, we investigated the user\u27s search for semantically related targets and for a known target respectively. The latter was determined by target locations and the number of menu items, allowing selection time to be predicted by Fitts\u27 law. On the other hand, the former was strongly dependent on each subject\u27s memory, and required a significant cognitive load. As seen in the total performance measure, semantic relations of text information played an important role in menu selection. Consequently, the semantic distance for related information was strongly correlated with error rate (r²=0.740) and total menu selection time (r²=0.751). In comparing the spreading activation test with actual performance, response time in the spreading activation test also showed a strong correlation with error rate (r²=0.736) which significantly affected menu selection. This study supports the use of interface languages for certain information structures and provides a semantic approach to the design of menus

Brand Search.

Consumers frequently buy the products they find most easily. This has forced manufacturers and retailers to invest in package design, shelf layouts, and expensive advertising campaigns to facilitate findability of their products. Surprisingly, there is no research in marketing that investigates how consumers localize products, which we call brand search. This dissertation investigates the brand search process and develops a statistical model that describes the eye movements of consumers while they are searching for a specific product. The proposed model uncovers the search strategies of consumers and suggests which marketing tools manufacturers and retailers may use to influence this process.