Consumer Perceptions of Organic, Natural, and Conventional Products When Provided at the Same Price.

Today’s grocery stores are filled aisle to aisle with an overwhelming variety of options for the consumer. In a consumer-driven market structure, the food industry has grown to encompass many niche markets which meet the ever changing demands of consumers. From organically produced food to more modern agriculture practices and even to finding non-meat protein alternatives, the options are endless. However, in the United States (a country with a higher level of disposable income compared to others), the question arises are customers educated about what the products truly are that they are spending a price premium on? This study assessed the perceptions that college students have regarding the labeling terms organic and natural – specifically in regards to the poultry industry. Through a focus group interview process and administration of a brief survey questionnaire, data was collected surrounding the various perceptions. The collected data was analyzed using the constant comparative method and NVivo software to arrive at common themes amongst respondents. The results found in general consumers believe organic and natural to be synonymous terms that are both equated to a “cleaner,” “healthier” product. Although most respondents placed heavy emphasis on the influence of price to their current buying decisions, if all three (organic, natural, and conventional) otherwise identical products were offered at the same price, they would gravitate towards either the organic or natural option. After presenting respondents with the technical definitions, there was a shift away from natural products and a newfound interest in what other food labels mean. This solidified the importance for strengthened agriculture communication and proved consumers do like to be knowledgeable about their food, they just may not know where to find accurate information. Future research should evaluate broader demographic populations and look further into what methods of education would be most beneficial

Visitors' Interpretive Strategies at Wolverhampton Art Gallery

Making Meaning in Art Museums is one of two research projects on the theme of art museums and interpretive communities. The first was published as Making Meaning 1:Visitors' Interpretive Strategies at Wolverhampton Art Gallery (RCMG 2001). Making Meaning in Art Museums 2 is the second of two research projects on the theme of art museums and interpretive communities. The Long Gallery at the Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery was selected as the research site for this second study. Both studies have explored the ways in which visitors talked about their experience of a visit to the art museum-both what they said about the paintings and the whole of the visit.The research questions on which this project is based are: What interpretive strategies and repertories are deployed by art museum visitors? Can distinct interpretive communities be identified? What are the implications for the communication policies within art museums? This research is an ethnographic study, using qualitative methods.This research project was funded through a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Boar

Pedestrian Pal: A Route Recommendation System for the Android Mobile Phone

With mobile phone technology pervading people\u27s everyday lives, using these devices has become prevalent for route recommendations while traveling in unfamiliar locations. Current research works to improve algorithms that calculate efficient and effective routes between two or more points. While expedient travel is necessary in time constraint situations, efficiency is not always required. This paper describes Pedestrian Pal, an application built for the Android mobile phone, which offers route recommendations to users based upon their desired specifications. The recommended routes are not necessarily efficient, but rather are paths based upon collected user ratings, aesthetic interests, and users\u27 inputted parameters. During the development of this project I issued a short survey to 23 individuals to collect data to seed the system and solicit desired functionality for the application. Results of this survey confirmed most pf the design choices and were incorporated into the system. Special design choices were applied during the interface designing phase due to the limited screen real estate of the Android mobile device. Large buttons, simple menus, and familiar layouts do not overwhelm the interface and offer a seamless and intuitive user experience. Upon completion of the application development, ten users participated in testing sessions. These tests required the users to walk through eight separate tasks to examine the system\u27s ease-of-use, fluidity of design, and intuitiveness. A follow-up interview questioned the users about the system\u27s menu navigation, usability, and opportunities for improvement. The user tests provided encouraging feedback that affirmed the design choices as well as discovered faults in the system

Class, Individualisation and Perceived (Dis)advantages: Not Either/Or but Both/And?

One of the core contentions of individualisation is that the residents of contemporary Western nations are no longer willing or able to perceive the motors of their life paths as external, social forces such as \'class\' or material resources and instead talk of internal, personal facets and motivations. This paper, grounded in a Bourdieusian understanding of class, engages with this prominent assertion through analysis of 55 life-history interviews with people from a mix of class positions. It reveals that though individualistic sentiments are present, the respondents were all too ready to cite various forms of capital as advantages or disadvantages as well, though the degree to which they were seen as \'external\' or \'individualised\' differed by class. Furthermore, when \'class\' was brought explicitly into the frame it was generally seen as a playing a fundamental role in life\'s trajectory, but mainly through issues of interaction and (mis)recognition rather than deprivation and inequality. Insofar as individualistic schemes of perception and class thus intertwine these processes could be said to represent what Beck refers to as a \'both/and\' situation, but since they are neither particularly new nor damaging to class analysis the individualisation thesis is put in doubt.Bauman, Beck, Bourdieu, Capital, Class, Individualisation, Self-Perception

Spartan Daily, October 26, 1982

Volume 79, Issue 41https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/6953/thumbnail.jp

Searching with Tags: Do Tags Help Users Find Things?

This study examines the question of whether tags can be useful in the process of information retrieval. Participants searched a social bookmarking tool specialising in academic articles (CiteULike) and an online journal database (Pubmed). Participant actions were captured using screen capture software and they were asked to describe their search process. Users did make use of tags in their search process, as a guide to searching and as hyperlinks to potentially useful articles. However, users also made use of controlled vocabularies in the journal database to locate useful search terms and of links to related articles supplied by the database

Spartan Daily, March 11, 1991

Volume 96, Issue 29https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/8097/thumbnail.jp

The User Experience Redesign of a Product Instruction Manual Using the Poka Yoke Principle

The purpose of this research is to address the issues associated with user experience in consumer products, particularly in the introduction phase of consumer product acceptance. Instructional manuals serve the role of educating new users on how to assemble or operate a new product, aiming to bridge the gap between the intended use idealized by the designer and the actual use that a consumer would intuitively perform. Historically however, instruction manuals have been known to be confusing and not usful.;The design of a toy spider instruction manual was analyzed using sequential explanatory method to determine the effectiveness of the instruction manual using a descriptive survey (User Experience Questionnaire) and grounded theory was used to develop themes that would describe issues in the instruction manual. The study utilized the design aspects of user experience, usability and desirability to determine the successes and short comings of the manual. To address design issues, the industrial manufacturing principle, poka yoke was used. Poka yoke, or mistake proofing, is a strategy used by engineers to inspect products during the assembly process to check for errors instead of conducting quality control at the end of assembly.;The results presented 12 themes that were used to revise the instruction manual. For this experiment, it was found that the implementation of the poka yoke principle increased the scales of attractiveness and desirability, and decreased the usability of the instruction manual as defined by the descriptive survey

Task Force on the StaffWeb: Final Report

On 30 March 1999, a StaffWeb Committee was created to make recommendations about the future development, content, and maintenance of the StaffWeb. This is a final report