產品動態特質的社交呈現研究

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(1)國立交通大學應用藝術研究所碩士論文. 產品動態特質的社交呈現研究 Enrich the experience of interacting with digital technology – Exploring the motion of product on social attributes. 研究生：陳治綱指導教授：鄧怡莘. 教授. 中華民國九十四年七月.

(2) 產品動態特質的社交呈現研究 Enrich the experience of interacting with digital technology – Exploring the motion of product on social attributes. 研究生：陳治綱. Student：Chih-Kang Chen. 指導教授：鄧怡莘. Advisor：Yi-Shin Deng. 國立交通大學應用藝術研究所碩士論文. A Thesis Submitted to Insitute of Applied Arts College of Humanities and Social Science National Chiao Tung University in partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Design July 2005 Hsinchu, Taiwan, Republic of China. 中華民國九十四年七月.

(3) 摘要. 我們相信，在現今通訊、電子技術、微晶片高度發展下，不僅只是消費性電子產品，甚至一般日常生活用品，都將擁有高度回應人們的能力與互動性，而設計師關心的議題，也將從外觀設計延伸向機構動作的設計。一個活潑跳動的電腦，可能讓使用者心情開朗，一個懂得微笑招攬客人，並懂得察言觀色販賣機，將會更加吸引人。而這些重要的元素，是來自於人們於社會的，並且確實能夠激勵人、鼓勵、安撫，或具有說服的能力，同時帶來人與產品之間更多豐富、有趣的互動。因此本研究希望藉著了解人與人的溝通互動的特質，而將這些特質融入產品互動設計中，為產品注入社交元素，企圖縮短人與機器溝通的距離，本研究將以販賣機銷售員特質作為例子，企圖透過機構動作在互動中來表達社交意圖。第一階段試圖了解人類銷售員具有什麼樣不可或缺的特質，並將這些特質應用在產品設計中並製成模型。在第二階段中，透過實際與模型的互動與觀察紀錄、訪談，探討在透過社交特質呈現的產品上，人們與產品的互動經驗、評價與看法。同時，站在設計師的出發點，檢討以動作設計表達社交意圖為設計策略的新手段，其組成的方式與影響。根據研究結果指出，產品透過機構動作呈現社交意圖可以強烈的影響著人們的身理與心理，同時更能吸引人們並與人們建立更深厚的關係。. i.

(4) Abstract. Human-computer interaction is social and emotional even when interfaces are not designed with such interaction as a goal. Nowadays, the goal is much easier to be reached while the advance in technology makes it possible than ever before. While the computer technology is unceasingly upgraded and products are capable of doing things much more than finishing tasks, usability problems remain, and other problems have already been evoked. We believe that not only general electrical products but also everyday things will be capable of responding human socially sooner or later. For instance, a charming computer may cheer its user; an user friendly and considerable vending machine may be more attractive to people. These attributes are social and be capable of encouraging and pacifying people; meanwhile, it may also bring richness human-product interactions and is much more interesting. In this study, by understanding the key attitudes of people interaction, we apply these attributes to the interaction design of our product, filled in affection and attempt to diminish the distance between human and product. We took vending machine as an example and a medium to deliver social intentions, and applied these attributes via embodying product with motion capability. Through out a prototype interaction experiment with test subjects, this study also examines the interaction effect between user factors and medium factors on feelings of social presence. On a designer’s point of view, we also purpose comments for how to construct a social motion cue as a new leverage for design strategy. Finally, we conclude that social motion attribute can allure people strongly especially psychologically. Keywords: Human computer interaction, computers as social actors, wizard of Oz, product design.. ii.

(5) 誌謝. 在研究所短短的兩個年頭中，所有的收穫、挫折與對設計想法，都在不斷的接受挑戰與重組，出乎意料外的不論在學識或是對人生的態度上皆有著很大的轉折。很感謝交大應藝所的教授給予我們這麼好的學習環境，更感謝我的指導教授，同時擁有哲學家風骨與設計佈道者角色的鄧怡莘老師，老師給予我的空間，以及思想上的辨證是最難得且珍貴的。這篇論文的完成的同時，也代表著學術生涯的第一個段落，更像是一個起點，集合著眾人的愛心以及支持而誕生。感謝在過程中，應藝所的同學，學長姐、外系的學弟妹以及接受採訪的專家給予的協助，還有辛苦的模型操作員招財跟育新，和慈祥的莊明振教授、林銘煌教授，賜與我寶貴的知識、建議與想法，乃至於無數位將寶貴知識透過論文分享予我的國外研究學者們。最後，要特別感謝論文誕生前夕，撥控給予我協助的英文老師惠先，讓這本論文文辭更為通暢精準，以及隨時在背後鼓勵、支持我的家人，雖然只負責拍手，但已經足夠。. iii.

(6) CONTENT. Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................1 1.1 Background & motivation......................................................................................................1 1.2 Objectives ................................................................................................................................4 1.3 Research Limitation................................................................................................................5 1.4 Research Structure..................................................................................................................6. Chapter 2 LITERARY REVIEWS ...........................................................................................................7 2.1 Distribution of Studies ............................................................................................................7 2.2 Social-Emotional Interactions................................................................................................8 2.3 Computers as Social Actors..................................................................................................10 2.3.1 Social presence......................................................................................................................... 10 2.3.2 Computers as Persuasive Social Actors................................................................................. 12 2.3.3 Five Types of Social Cues........................................................................................................ 12 2.3.4 Relevant CASA Studies........................................................................................................... 14. 2.4 Products as Social Actors .....................................................................................................15 2.5 Tangible Interfaces................................................................................................................17 2.6 Summary................................................................................................................................20 2.7 Relevant Methodology ..........................................................................................................20 2.7.1 Group Interview - Focus Group............................................................................................. 20 2.7.2 Obtaining Dynamic interactions ............................................................................................ 21 2.7.3 Observation of task performance .......................................................................................... 23 2.7.4 Perceptive Sorting ................................................................................................................... 23 2.7.5 Affinity Diagram ..................................................................................................................... 24. Chapter 3 DESIGN PROTOTPYE.........................................................................................................25 3.1 Design Flow ...........................................................................................................................26 3.2 Exploring Appreciate Social Attributes...............................................................................27 3.2.1 Focus Group ............................................................................................................................ 27 3.2.2 Interviewing Expert ................................................................................................................ 30 3.2.3 Integration ............................................................................................................................... 32. 3.3 Insight for Design Clerk’s Attributes ..................................................................................34 3.4 Design Prototype – Vending Machine..................................................................................35 3.4.1 Exhibit Social intention via Motion of mechanical component ........................................... 35. iv.

(7) 3.4.2 Feature Descriptions ............................................................................................................... 41. Chapter 4 METHODOLOGY.................................................................................................................43 4.1 Research Flow .......................................................................................................................43 4.2 Research Issues......................................................................................................................45 4.2.1 Objective of experiment.......................................................................................................... 45 4.2.2 Recruiting Subjects ................................................................................................................. 45 4.2.3 Planning ................................................................................................................................... 46. 4.3 Extended Experiment ...........................................................................................................53 4.3.1 Part 1 – Control....................................................................................................................... 54 4.3.2 Part 2 – Association of waving Stick ...................................................................................... 54. Chapter 5 FINDINGS ..............................................................................................................................56 5.1 Comparing Three Observation – Primary Stage................................................................57 5.2 Assessment Interview – Primary Stage ...............................................................................60 5.3 Assessment of Design Intention............................................................................................64 5.4 Extended Experiment ...........................................................................................................67 5.4.1 Part 1 – Control....................................................................................................................... 67 5.4.2 Part 2 – Association of Waving Stick ..................................................................................... 68. 5.5 Consolidation.........................................................................................................................73. Chapter 6 CONCLUSIONS ....................................................................................................................75 6.1 Research Conclusion.............................................................................................................75 6.2 Design Social Product ...........................................................................................................77 6.3 Contribution ..........................................................................................................................78 6.4 Further Research Comment.................................................................................................79. REFERENCE .......................................................................................................................................80 APPENDIX ...........................................................................................................................................83. v.

(8) FIGURE CONTENT Figure 1. 1. Volkswagen New Beetle……………………………………………………………….……….…….2. Figure 1. 2. Imac TV commercial………………………………………………………………….……….…….2. Figure 1. 3. BeoCenter 2, B&O………………………………………………………………….……….…….3. Figure 2. 1 Research scope....................................................................................................................................8 Figure 2. 2 Social Interaction design Framework.............................................................................................16. Figure 3. 1. Design flow. The structure of designing social product.................................................................26. Figure 3. 2 Focus group session..........................................................................................................................28 Figure 3. 3 Process breakdown - buying things from a clerk...........................................................................36 Figure 3. 4 Process breakdown - buying beverage from a vending machine..................................................37 Figure 3. 5 Planning task process - buying beverage from prototype .............................................................38 Figure 3. 6 Refining task process- buying beverage from prototype...............................................................39 Figure 3. 7 Paper mock-up prototype a new designed vending machine ........................................................42. Figure 4. 1. Research Flow ................................................................................................................................. 44. Figure 4. 2 Observation from other two activities ........................................................................................... 47 Figure 4. 3. Experiment set up ........................................................................................................................... 47. Figure 4. 4 Operation procedure for purchase a beverage ............................................................................. 49 Figure 4. 5 Sequences of subject’s operating prototype and prototype’s reactions....................................... 50 Figure 4. 6. Approaching Step ............................................................................................................................ 50. Figure 4. 7 Ordering Step .................................................................................................................................. 51 Figure 4. 8 Paying Step ...................................................................................................................................... 51 Figure 4. 9 Getting Beverage Step..................................................................................................................... 51 Figure 4. 10 Getting Beverage Step................................................................................................................... 51 Figure 4. 11. Leaving Step................................................................................................................................... 52. Figure 4. 12 Change in the design of charging in extended experiment ........................................................ 54 Figure 4. 13 Photographic images use to help subjects tell their opinion and thought................................. 55. Figure 5. 1 Card sorting: photographic images ............................................................................................... 68 Figure 5. 2. Subject 2-C’s sorting....................................................................................................................... 69. Figure 5. 3. Subject 2-D’s sorting....................................................................................................................... 69. Figure 5. 4. Subject 2-E’s sorting ....................................................................................................................... 70. vi.

(9) TABLE CONTENT Table 2. 1 Primary Types of Social Cues ...........................................................................................................12. Table 3. 1. features of prototype…………………………………………………………………………………40. Table 4. 1. 12 keywords to help recalling experience……………………………………………………...…...53. Table 5. 1. Score of Adjective words toward Prototype.................................................................................... 62. Table 5. 2 Comparison between designer’s purpose and people’s interpretations........................................ 65 Table 5. 3. Degrees of being aware of social intention ...................................................................................... 67. Table 6. 1 Subject A’s Action toward three situations ..................................................................................... 84 Table 6. 2 Subject B’s Action toward three situations ..................................................................................... 84 Table 6. 3 Subject C’s Action toward three situations..................................................................................... 85 Table 6. 4 Subject D’s Action toward three situations..................................................................................... 86 Table 6. 5 Subject E’s Action toward three situations ..................................................................................... 87 Table 6. 6 Subject F’s Action toward three situations ..................................................................................... 88. vii.

(10) Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION. 1.1 Background & motivation. Over the past decades, the design community has made a lot of effort to create user-friendly products. However, nowadays, rapidly growth of powerful products carrying abundant functions not only distant people interactions but also made further away from its goal – to avoid hard-to-use products and confusing consumers. In order to diminish this gradually increasing distance between human and product, many experts try other ways to achieve the goal besides usability consideration, in hope that people would appreciate and be interested in the products more. Here is a typical scenario: One day, we walk into McDonalds, after standing in front of the counter, staring around menu on the wall for a while, we finally order a pack of French fries. The clerk takes our money and takes out the French fries, finally, he drops it on the ground at our feet, to let us bend down and pick it up… We may hardly see this embarrass situation happened actually, but it does truly happen when we buy something from a vending machine, offense has been made. Somehow people have come to accept a standard of respect in human-machine interaction which is very different from that in human-human interaction (Overbeeke et al., 1999). Though it seems that we won’t expect such respect form a machine, while having no trouble in use, what if it can be improved? What if it can treat us in a much “respectful manner”? When a product is aesthetically pleasing and plays to our ideas about ourselves and society, we experience it positively (Donald Norman, 2004). It is wildly known that people don’t just use a product, mostly they become emotionally involved with it. So products come in many kinds of new features beyond functions, and products with pleasing look did enrich. 1.

(11) our experiences. Besides using fancy or pleasing appearance to allure the users, some designers hope their product can have certain human’s charming attributes. Take the use of “Anthropomorphism” in design of Volkswagen’s new beetle (figure 1.1), which has a warm and charming smile on its hood, shows a much friendly temptation, and distinguishes from others. Apple presented Imac with a neck, a head and a hemisphere body in the early 2000s. They declared that personal computer, which was no longer a powerful machine, had become a decent companion in our work or life. On the other hand, Apple set a cute Figure 1.1 Volkswagen New Beetle,. look, vivid characteristic and a charming smile to its CD-ROM tray. http://www.vw.com. door for Imac to be closer and more intimate with people. We could even see Imac acting and responding to a passenger through a shopping window as a naughty kid in its own TV commercial (figure 1.2). Having such interesting characteristic like human “personality” in that commercial can make a very impressive image to consumers. In addition, what if product can really respond people as they have personality? and not only by differing from a glance at charming appearances, but also affecting people’s emotion or mood via aggressive and active interaction.. Figure 1.2 Imac TV commercial, http://www.apple.com. According to a highly development in computer science, both in hardware and software nowadays, the advance in technology enables computers to recognize people, express themselves and respond to people’s emotion and status. Products do have chances to participate in context of people’s living positively and are capable of responding human in the near future which may be impossible yesterday. Further more, some robots have already integrated into our daily lives in the present times. These interaction topics between human and products will be much more than task-oriented, more aggressive and more emotional beyond form,. 2.

(12) taken to be social involvement. The design issue will no longer be concentrated only on concerns of usability and ergonomics, but may have fun.. Since these technologies grow so fast, and even now a gadget can have several computing abilities within, how they should behave and interact properly with people still remain much unknown and become an emerging issue. Moreover, what kind of system should be made, which context should we consider, where they should be placed and what can they do for us are also worth discussing. Today, designers should create experience, rather than a product. It should provide users to use their senses to enjoy the whole context experience, and whole activity is for user to immerge into the use for a period and get pleasure in the experience. Some may call it an “Aesthetics of Interaction”. In figure 1.3, we can see that B&O has designed their media player with a special manifestation of the opening door, and it may be interpreted as a smile or other meanings for inviting people to use it. Figure 1.3. BeoCenter 2, B&O. An example for product motion delivering psychological meaning,. http://www.bang-olufsen.com/web2/. Fogg, a director of persuasive technology lab at Stanford University, points out that designers can change what people think and do through interactive design presented by computer system or computing equipment (Fogg, 2002). The application of design so-called “computers as social actors” is one of the primary design strategies. From a user friendly design point of view, interfaces possessing social attributes may alleviate the anxiety of people while using a computer. By providing intimate and organic feeling, social presence on interface is capable of influencing and encouraging people. In our study, we also approach the problems on product with the aspect as a goal.. 3.

(13) 1.2 Objectives Design approaches form as the total expression of the product — not just how something appears, but the whole experience of the interacting with the product. Form includes a product’s physical manifestation, materials, and behavioral qualities (DiSalvo, et. al., 2003). Since industrial designers use form to balance the needs of people, the capabilities of technology, and the context of use into a single product, little attention has been given to the raising social interaction aspect in the field of product design.. According to present. researches, computers consist of social attributes can bring a positive influence or be persuasive to people who interact with them, but most of studies are related to graphic or virtual condition. When it comes to product design field, interface becomes tangible. This study’s objectives are to discuss the possibility of product delivering human attributes and demonstrate how mechanical motion could convey social intentions, acting socially, since communication between people occurs mostly through non-verbal channels (such as eye contact, facial expression, body language), and how people deal with and respond to them. Moreover, finding appropriate materials that would be useful for design is our purpose as well. In brief, we take social motion attributes as new element into our product design beside the usual material and form. It will act as a new seductive attributes to diminish the distance from product to people.. 4.

(14) 1.3 Research Limitation Various types of interaction design capable of delivering social presence have been outlined as a framework including forms, motion, languages, social dynamics, and control (Tung, 2004). Through appearance, physical manifestation or behavior, products may make themselves more human-like. This study is intended to explore the design of social interaction for digital products in their “behavior”, especially how product could express social intensions by their motions of mechanical components. Meanwhile, this study mainly focuses on digital product, possessing possible sensors and abstract mechanical motions. Manifestations that robots behave socially and anthropomorphic form will not be discussed, especially when “motion” is our primary concern. This study take vending machine as a social medium, which is familiar to people. However, it is hard to find a product that is off-the-shelf, providing a ready-made social attribute to interact with people for this study; therefore, in the first step, we have to make a prototype for our experiment and then go through the assessment with social issue. “Motions”, what we mention here for product, are as body language when human communicate with each other, including gesture, posture, facial expression and other non-verbal communications. In our design, they are as tangible interfaces to express and interact with people. The reason that we chose vending machine is that it has a much bigger size which implies it may have several mechanical components. Its function, selling things to people, is easy to compare with a social role by means of many social communication patterns.. 5.

(15) 1.4 Research Structure. The structure of this research include: (1.) Finding problems in the circumstance today, and explaining background and motivation with relevant references and examples, and proposing research limitation that depends on resource we could handle. (2.) Scheming out surveys for gathering information to build prototype. (3.) Proceeding experiment with prototype to collect observation data. (4.) Analyzing the aggregated data and arrange findings. (5.) Propose conclusion and comment. The content covers into the following chapters: In Chapter 1, motivation, research background, objective, scope and limitation are introduced. In Chapter 2, review of relevant studies, human-computer interaction in social aspects, tangible interface and social robot are discussed. Before the primary experiment, a new social vending machine was designed first. Two survey approaches from different perspectives toward clerk were used in gathering design ingredients. The design process will then be introduced in chapter 3. Afterward, how we conducted the experiment and collected data in details are written in chapter 4. Chapter 5 includes the outcome of experiment from analyzing our observation findings and interviews. Finally, conclusions of this studies and achievements we have made are discussed in chapter 6.. 6.

(16) Chapter 2 LITERARY REVIEWS. In the past, interface works have primarily be viewed by their designer as the development of tools to facilitate the performance of information tasks. However, many experimental studies in the past decade have shown that instead respond to interactive software as a mere tool, people bear a wide range of social rules and learned behaviors that guide their interactions with, and attitudes toward, interactive system. It is similar that interface can induce a wide range of emotions and social responses in users, and are assigned a wide range of emotions and social presences by users naturally. These factors may become benefit as tricks in interaction design to facilitate and improve how people use products. In this chapter, several different aspects toward interaction have been reviewed, which beyond usability and allow users having different or even creating their own experience via interacting with computational devices, including several studies related to social or emotional interaction.. 2.1 Distribution of Studies. This study mainly focuses on providing social attributes via motion as a design strategy. Computer as social actors in human-computer interaction is the genesis of this domain. While we move the concentration on the interaction with digital product as a product designer’s perspective, physical interfaces become our concern. In depiction, our study may locate as the following figure 2.1:. 7.

(17) Human-C omputer Interact ion. C o m put ers A re So c ia l A c t o rs. Product delivering social presence. Ta ng i b le- U s er I nt e rfac e. Figure 2. 1 Research Scope. 2.2 Social-Emotional Interactions. Social and emotional responses occur even when designers do not elicit these responses, and they occur when users know that they should not and believe that they do not exhibit these responses. Furthermore, users present social and emotional responses without explicit training, and regardless of their level of computer experience (Reeves & Nass, 1996). Nowadays, computational chips are implanted almost everywhere, not only in working place but also in our living place, making this phenomenon inevitable and the concern with its rapid growth has also raised. Although traditional human-computer interaction (HCI) disciplines are necessary to properly develop computer-human system, it is believed that social and emotional reactions that users have are important keys to building more useful, successful, and productive systems. These factors will enormously enrich both the conventional interfaces we are all familiar with and new systems we have not even yet considered. We will begin by discussing the following four researcher’s address on social-emotional interaction topics from different fields and perspectives: Nass (1996) introduced their experimental findings which illuminated the theory of social-emotional. 8.

(18) interaction with computer interfaces after conducted over 50 studies on the social psychological interfaces. Evidence that individual’s interactions with computers are fundamentally social were addressed, in other words, computers are as social actors to people. This claim inspired us and will be discussed in details later in this chapter. In contrast, Picard (1997) who works in MIT media lab believes that interfaces do not necessarily become more human-like instead she argues that they should be designed with explicit regard for human emotion. One way to study and minimize user frustration is to give the system the ability to sense and infer users’ frustration and to respond with skills of emotional intelligence when the computer has caused a problem. Her lab has created new technologies that enable computers to sense, understand, and respond to human signs of confusion, frustration, anger, interest, and joy, among other emotions. Warwick (2000) and his research team have advanced the possibilities for emotional sensing and social communication to a deeper level — literally — by designing and building implants that sense personal information and communicate it to others. This is also well known as “cyborg”. Breazeal (2002), designer and developer of the captivating Kismet robot, presented an interface capable of taking on a human-like or creature-like physical form. Her creation also highlights the importance of expressing and responding to social and emotional cues in human-robot interaction. This technology illustrates the potential for interfaces to adapt for better pleasing people, without requiring any special skills on the part of the user.. These researches show different aspects on social and emotional concern due to the arising computational progress, while some base on providing human computing implants for assistance or enhance of sense, and some respect on emotional feed forward and feedback expressed by machines. Part of them may focus on the psychological affection induced by machines’ expressing emotion or behaving socially. As product designers always want to know how to provide help and attract their user both physically and psychologically. We think of presenting social intention as a new leverage to communicate and interact with our users instead of putting icons and words of cautions.. 9.

(19) 2.3 Computers as Social Actors Reeves and Nass gathered their research findings and published a book called: ”The media equation” (Reeves & Nass, 1996).. In this book, they point out that people respond to computers as they were living. beings, and these responses to certain types of computing systems are fundamentally social; human beings are hardwired to respond to cues in the environment, especially to things that seem alive in some way. By providing social cues in human-computer interface, users can sense the social intention and take the computer as a social actor, and this interaction comes into being human-human-like interactive relationship. Thus, Nass purposed the aspect of “computers as social actors” (CASA) to characterize this phenomenon. Following the psychoanalyst Langer’s explanation of mindlessness (Langer, 1992), Nass and Moon conducted a serious of experimental studies to demonstrate the “Mindless response to computers”, a perspective for the reason that why people act socially with computers (Nass & Moon, 2000). The studies have argued and ruled out the possibilities of “anthropomorphism”, “orientation to the programmer” and “characterizing computers” by evidences from experiments. Instead, they point out that “individuals mindlessly apply social rules and expectations to computers”. In details, it includes three reasons: (1) Individuals overuse human social categories, applying gender stereotypes to computers and ethnically identifying with computer agents. (2) People exhibit overlearned social behaviors such as politeness and reciprocity toward computers. (3) People tend to apply premature cognitive commitments due to their former experiences and impressions.. 2.3.1 Social presence “Presence” was first used as “telepresence” by Minsky (1980) to explain the sense of presence from users providing in communication technology. It has become a term for discussing sense presented and conveyed by mediums. Lombard and Ditton (Lombard and Ditton, 1997) defined presence as “the perceptual illusion of nonmediation”. The term “perceptual” means that presence “… involves continuous (real time) responses of the human sensory, cognitive, and affective processing systems to objects and entities in a person’s environment”. By “illusion of nonmediation,” they refer to a phenomenon in which“… a person fails to. 10.

(20) perceive or acknowledge the existence of a medium in his or her communication environment and responds as he or she would if the medium were not there”. Physical presence and social presence are two dimensions of presence. Physical presence, the extent to which people feel that they are in a virtual world, is exhibited from medium, such as the presentation form virtual reality. Social presence, the sense that other intelligent beings coexist and interact with us, reflects the social connection or approaching. In advance, Lombard concluded presence in six types: (1) presence as social richness, (2) presence as realism, (3) presence as transportation, (4) presence as immersion, (5) presence as social actors within medium, (6) presence as medium as social actors. “Presence as social actors within medium”, means that actors or virtual actors in medium induce audiences or users to act as unconsciously socially interaction to them. In “presence as medium as social actors”, it means audiences or users exhibit human –human interaction pattern via application of language, real-time interaction and social norms. This type of researches, focusing on the presenting social sense in interaction between people and product or people and system, mainly addressed in “computer are social actors” by Nass. These studies discuss about the human-computer interface in computing medium exhibiting verbal feedback, rich interaction and social role. After perceiving social cues, users tempt to be induced naturally social feedback. Our study here is to discuss about the social presence, exhibiting by computing product, which is as a medium, throughout interactive experience linking with social aspect.. 11.

(21) 2.3.2 Computers as Persuasive Social Actors In the book “Persuasive Technology” (Fogg, 2002), Fogg has proposed five primary types of social cues being able to cause people to make inferences about social presence in a computing product: Physical, Psychological, Language, Social dynamics, Social roles (table 2.1). These social cues may provide positive feedback and emotional support. We take these five cues as basic guide line for us to observe what social attribute of a clerk may attract people, and base on this, it is much easier to reconstruct what kind of effect that social motion cues may induce.. Table 2. 1 Primary Types of Social Cues, purposed from Persuasive Technology. (Fogg, 2002). Cue. s. Example. Physical. Face, eyes, body, movement. Psychological. Preferences, humor, personality, feelings, empathy, “I’m sorry”. Language. Interactive language use, spoken language, language recognition. Social dynamics. Turn taking, cooperation, praise for good work, answering questions, reciprocity. Social roles. Doctor, teammate, opponent, teacher, pet, guide. 2.3.3 Five Types of Social Cues The fact that people respond socially to computational products has significant implications for persuasion. It shows the possibility for applying a host of persuasion dynamics that are collectively described as social influence – the influence type that arises from social situations. “When perceived as social actors, computer products can leverage these principles of social influence to motivate and persuade users” (Fogg, 2002.). (1) Persuasion through Physical Cues One way a computing technology can convey social presence is through physical characteristics, such as eyes, mouth, movement, and other physical attributes. Furthermore, physical attractiveness 12.

(22) plays an important role; since a more attractive technology (interface or hardware) will have greater persuasive power than an unattractive technology.. (2) Persuasion through Psychological Cues Psychological cues from a computing product can lead people to infer, often subconsciously, that a product has emotions, preferences, motivations, and personality, in short, the computer is a psychological. The psychological cues can be simple, such as text messages that convey empathy (“I’m sorry, but…”) or onscreen icons that portray emotion, such as the smiling face of the early Macintosh computer. Or cues can be more complex, such as those that convey personality. Such complex cues may become apparent only after the user interacts with technology for a period of time.. (3) Persuasion through Language Computing products also can use written or spoken language (“You’ve got mail!”) to convey social presence and to persuade. Dialogue boxes are a common example of the persuasive use of language. One of the most powerful persuasive uses of language is to offer praise.. (4) Persuasion through Social Dynamics Most cultures have set patterns for how people interact with each other- rituals for meeting people, taking turns, forming lines, and many others. These rituals are social dynamics – unwritten rules for interacting with others. Computing technology can also apply social dynamics to convey social presence and to persuade. Some social dynamics can show in dialogue or text.. (5) Persuasion through Adopting Social Roles Applying powerful and influential social role can be persuasive, such as an authority. Consider the roles of “friend”, “entertainer” and “opponent”, each of which can cause people to change their attitudes or behavior and these will be other influence strategies that don’t leverage power or status but also can. 13.

(23) be effective. For computers that play social roles to be effective in motivating or persuading, it is important to choose the role model carefully or it will be counterproductive. Knowing target audience is important for designers to incorporate social roles.. Although people respond socially to computer products that convey social cues, to be more effective in persuasion, designers must understand the appropriate use of those cues. In general, Dr. Fogg believes it is much more appropriate to enhance social cues in leisure, entertainment, and educational products (e.g., smart toys, video games, kids’ learning applications). Users of such applications are more likely to indulge, accept, and perhaps even embrace an explicit cyber social actor— either embodied or not. By applying social roles, people who work in sales, advertising, and other high-persuasion areas know the key attributes of persuasive, and they do what they can to be attractive. Therefore, our approach to the new vending machine which may attract people more as a result, will be finding a social role as a paradigm for our first step, which has to be taken as a survey before design activity.. 2.3.4 Relevant CASA Studies Besides proceeding in improvement of technology, researchers focus on retrieve the value of human-human interaction so that can be the insight in applying more social and more appropriate attributes appreciated by people. In order to enable more natural and life-like human-robot interactions, Breazeal purposed a guide line for how the social nature of the robot is expressed was taken from social literature on human social interaction (Breazeal, 2003). Applying social norm on HCI design is able to eliminate sources of frustration and provide emotional and empathetic support. For instance, Klein and his team’s research results indicate that a designed HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) agent was able to support users in their ability to recover from negative emotional states, particularly frustration. The agent uses social-affective feedback strategies delivered to the user with text-only interaction (Klein, et. al., 1999). 14.

(24) Providing voice feedback on HCI can also induce social presence. Qvarfordt discusses about the influence from designed voice feedback to users’ experience. Their research indicates that the more humanlike the spoken feedback is the more participants preferred the system to be human-like. (Qvarfordt, et. al., 2003). Another related issue is the impact of autonomy on the social role of an intelligent robotic product. The degree and type of autonomy these products can exhibit will shape their interactions with people greatly. The interactions can range, for example, from: (1) People do all the work (e.g. interacting with a toy like Furby) (Furby, 1998) (2) People team with robotic products to accomplish tasks. (e.g., robots designed to help elders remain independent in their homes (Montemerlo et al, 2002). (3) Products providing simple social response to human interaction (e.g., Kismet, a socially aware research prototype) (Breazeal, 2003). (4) A fully reciprocally social robot. Researchers examined issues related to the design and development of social robots that act autonomously — that is, on behalf of humans without continuous input from humans. A forum for researchers in a variety of disciplines is needed to discuss issues related to the interactions between humans and social robots. In point (3)’s situation, it is close to what human-social product interaction we want to deal with. But the response that we provide is social motion cues. In these different contact and relationship between human and robots, of course, would come out with various specific problems requiring more studies to deal with and raise a number of design challenges. In many kinds of robots, personal service robots have the highest expected growth rate. They assist people directly in domestic and institutional settings. Robots that work with people is defined as social robot - an autonomous or semi-autonomous robot that interacts and communicates with humans by following the behavioral norms expected by the people with whom the robot is intended to interact.. 2.4 Products as Social Actors Base on several researches purposing types of social presence induced by digital media by Nass, Marakas, Fogg and Brown, Tung (Tung, 2004) purposed a design framework in product design’s point of view, through defining aspects of the social interaction toward human and toys. The framework includes five aspects: forms,. 15.

(25) motion, languages, social dynamics, and control (Tung, 2004). The study also provided a new thought for designer to develop a friendlier human-computer interaction. The framework (figure 2.2) provides general guidelines for the design of social interaction as it is applied to the “human-product” relationship. It also points out possible directions as design material for further research on the issue. The classified aspects including five types: (1) Form (2) Language (3) Social Dynamic (4) Control (5) Motion.. For m Abstract. Anthropomorphic. Motion Static. smooth. Lan guage non- language feedback. corr espondin g fully feedback. Soc ial Dynamics non- social feedback. multi- social feedback. Con trol Passive. Figure 2. 2. active. Social Interaction design Framework (Tung, 2004). This framework could also help designers to explore social presence exhibited from interaction design of digital learning toys, especially digital media product which have a physical body. In addition to evaluating several present related products and their potential development, the studies then purposed the following directions for design course: Social presence in interaction design on computer has already been an important issue in HCI, but it is still a novice when applying on physical digital product, and is able to play as an ingredient of industrial design. The study also inspire us a way to transfer the exact attributes from human-human interaction which has a similar function and task into human-product interaction. For instance, if an appreciated attributes from a clerk was applied on vending machine, it may be much persuasive on selling beverages. Further, it also points out an important notice of “corresponding to limitation of digital interface and product’s ability”, this is the congenital restriction of product design when we try to transform human-human interaction.. 16.

(26) 2.5 Tangible Interfaces Another field related to our study is the field of tangible user interfaces (TUIs). Comparing with software or graphic designers dealing with HCI, researches in TUIs focus much on tangible product as industrial designers’ perspective. For people with a HCI background, the physical aspect is often new ground, and the physical has of course always formed an essential part of product design. Virtual aspects are gaining foothold in product design, as more and more electronics are embedded into products and distinction between products and computers become blurred. Product has become “intelligent”, and intelligence has no form. Design research naturally turned to the intelligent part of humans and thus to the science of cognition to find answers. This has result in interface design place a heavy burden on human intellect. Some researchers especially argue about how designers start to group and color coding related functions, adding displays with an abundance of text and icons, and writing logically structured manuals. They think the design of electronic product has got stuck as a result of this cognitive approach, which neglects the user physically and emotionally. (Djajadiningrat and et. al., 2004) At CHI 1997, Ishii and Ulmer first presented “tangible user interfaces (TUIs)”, which they defined as user interfaces that “augment the real physical world by coupling digital information to everyday physical objects and environment.” This paper has aroused a great interest in the research community. There have already been many research efforts devoted to tangible user interfaces (TUIs). Its all share a basic paradigm – a user uses their hands to operate some physical object via physical gestures; a computer system detects this, alters its state, and gives feedback accordingly.. Aesthetics of Interaction Good interactive products respect all of human skills: cognitive, perceptual-motor and emotional skills, in other words, knowing, doing and feeling (Djajadiningrat and et. al., 2004). Current interactive design emphasizes our cognitive, our abilities to read, interpret and memory. Furthermore, what happens inside 17.

(27) electronic products is intangible, it neither fits the mechanics of our body nor the mechanical view of the world and the electronic world is more opaque to us. The researchers point out that augmented reality - by exploring perceptual-motor and emotional skills - could play a role in restoring the balance in addressing all of man’s skills in interaction; With perceptual-motor skills, it means what the user can perceive with his senses and what he can do with his body. With emotional skills, it means our abilities to experience, express emotions and recognize emotions. This includes our susceptibility to things of beauty as well as boredom. And they believe that with emphasizing these two aspects, it is the bridge between virtual world and physical world (Djajadiningrat and et. al., 2000). According to the study, it focuses on a branch of design called “formgiving”. Traditionally, formgiving has been concerned with such aspects of objects as form, color, texture and material. In the context of interaction design, they have come to see formgiving as the way in which objects appeal to our senses and motor skills, both appearance and actions as carriers of meaning and they take usability and aesthetics as inextricably linked. They try to argue that in addition to a data-centered view, it is also possible to take a perceptual-motor-centered view on tangible interaction. They highlight a concept as “aesthetics of interaction” in which three factors play important roles:. (1) Interaction pattern Interaction pattern spins out between the user and product. The timing, flow and rhythm, linking user actions and product reactions, strongly influence the feel of the interaction. (2) Richness of motor actions Current creative program exploits a very narrow range of motor skills. “Skill” in the digital domain has become mainly a cognitive one - the learning and remembering of a recipe. There seems to be a fair amount of space to maneuver between the actions required by those objects and the push-bottom interfaces of today’s electronic products.. 18.

(28) (3) Freedom of interaction In most current products, activation of a function requires a fixed order, single course path in which the user does or does not get things correct. In this path the action are prescribed and need to be executed in a particular sequence. Instead of what interaction design has been concerned with optimizing this repetition of a single path for speed and efficiency, the researchers are much interested in products that offer a myriad ways of interacting with users. It implies that the users can express themselves in the interaction. The product allows expressive behavior - not constraining the user-and may even take advantage of it and also allows the feel of the interaction to stay fresh.. The studies in aesthetics of interaction inspire us when we try to deal with physical motion design. In stead of thinking what features should our prototype have, thinking of what people appreciate most in their experience and the fulfillment they get when dealing with a real clerk may be much important since we are try to transfer a real social experience into interaction design. Further more, in contrast to the controls of the current generation of electronic products, whether physical or screen-based, the buttons and labels indicating people is not base on intuition and require learning. We want to overcome this barrier with applying social dynamic design, by guide people under an analog behavior and interactive pattern they already get used to. In advance, different functions should be presented through different actions, and the timing of or prototype responses should be appropriate to the actions and functions involved. Tangible user interfaces have received much attention. It is believe that, at core, they are leaving the conventional computer virtual world, and taking steps into the physical world. Fitting interactive, physical products to man’s perceptual and motor capabilities may ultimately provide not only a route to improved usability, but also to an aesthetically rewarding experience. In our aspect, applying social intention is a way to achieve the goal of aesthetics of interaction.. 19.

(29) 2.6 Summary Although efforts toward TUI moving paces into the physical interactive world, they focus most on exploring perceptual and motor skills and try augmenting the aesthetics of interaction. Nevertheless, they still direct a new way to reconsider the form and interactive content. Meanwhile, human-computer interaction relationship is proved to be fundamentally social. The evidences are extracted from experiments; even when test subjects are biased toward social orientation, they sit down at a computer and interact socially. Researches also demonstrated that individuals apply social rules and expectations to computer mindlessly. The cause of mindlessness include: individuals overuse human social categories, people exhibit over-learned social behaviors and premature cognitive commitments. These reasons also point out that when the role of social actor, computer, changed into another similar object – digital product, capable of delivering social cues, it will certainly receive the same conclusion. As the phenomenon of social presence exists, positive effect resulting from it may be welcome by industrial designers. The key point is that we need to notice about the differentiations between two medium – computer and product. These differentiations may show on restriction of digital product itself, features or functions it has – less computation abilities, physical components and possible voice feedback. A design framework, purposed by Tung (Tung, 2004), suggested several directions for product designers to think about their design course based on a digital-product-specific aspect. Similar robot-human interaction studies also conducted a social framework, but the richness of interactivity and intelligence is much more talented than digital product.. 2.7 Relevant Methodology In this section, we make introduction and comparison with methodologies related to our research including interview, observation and dynamic interaction experiment tools.. 2.7.1 Group Interview - Focus Group Focus groups are structured group interviews, focusing on schemed topics, which quickly and 20.

(30) inexpensively reveal a target audience’s desires, experiences and priorities for their needs and their value. Before we start to design our experimental prototype, we have to realize and gather information from people, and we can use a focus group to understand and get insights about how people perceive in their shopping experiences, as it is a way to get lots of firsthand experience in a short time, and give development an early, solid foundation from which to analyze our target product – vending machine and it’s possible user’s need. The session is conducted by a moderator which follows schemed script of discussion guide. By preparing snack and set comfortable environment, audiences can reveal their thoughts and feeling at ease. They may share their views and assumptions that lie at the core of their experience and to relate them to real world situations. Focus groups are not a way to get usability information because it is impossible to show using in practice during the session, and what it gets are not statistically significant samples so the result can be extrapolated to large populations. In contrast, focus group can still give people a good idea of why the audience behaves how it does. Once the why has been determined, it can be verified through statistical research. There are four types of focus groups, exploratory, feature prioritization, competitive analysis and trend explanation. Our study’s objective is to know what words customers talk about clerks, what criteria they use to judge them and what their expectations to an ideal clerk are. This approach can be sorted as the exploratory one. (Kuniavsky, 2003). 2.7.2 Obtaining Dynamic interactions Spatial models are a necessary addition to the visualization techniques which support the designer to explore and test interactions. They are beneficial to create contexts for experience. Spatial models come in all kinds of forms throughout the entire design process, from simple paper mock-ups to refined full-scale working prototypes, ranging from low fidelity to high fidelity prototype, and can have high-interaction or low-interaction relevance (Rettig, 1994). The kind of experience which user has depends on the kind of model which is created. With low fidelity models which have high-interaction relevance, such as an easy made paper models. Simple paper models allow designer to explore the interactions early in the process, and clay or 21.

(31) polystyrene foam models are extremely suitable for exploring the appearance of products. A designer can study the aesthetics of appearance with more refined models. Detailed working prototypes are suitable to evaluate the context of use, the response of users and their behavior when interacting with the model. The special models are generally adequate to generate and demonstrate the hardware part but not the virtual part (software) of a digital product. A way of obtaining a dynamic interaction is the use of a so-called “Wizard-of-Oz”, adapted from the movie of the same name. The wizard is the person who impersonated the product or computer. He interprets the interactions of the user with the product and provides him/her with appropriate feedback. The person acting as the computer is preferably invisible, so that the users can immerse themselves in the activity and create their experience. The Wizard-of-Oz approach enables the designer and user to test interaction concepts early on in the design process, without having to rely on a difficult and expensive (financially as well as in time) implementation phase. Another way of obtaining a dynamic interaction is called “Interaction Relabelling” technique (Djajadiningrat, Gaver and Frens, 2000), which shows that every day products can also enhance interactive imagery. With this method, participants interact with props, existing products, pretending it is the product to be designed. The participants are asked to relabel the provided prop with their original mechanical components. According to this method, researcher can get rich information mainly on the resulting richness of the gestures and stories, other benefit may show in the metaphor that participants think about. These dynamic participatory design tools may focus on different demand. Interaction Relabelling are much benefit on exploring the richness of gestures, and it is much like a generative tool for inspiring designers’ innovation and exploring new manipulative possibilities. Making special models could pay much attention to evaluate the designed features. In order to observe and get information from people with a social product, after gathering customers’ opinions from surveys, we have to make experimental model to proceed the study. Making paper mock-up prototype can let us quickly explore and test interactions, while to be seized, turned, moved and used with a spatial model is necessary. Although the shape of the paper mock-up is not yet explicit, the possibility of grasping and using it is often enough to get a first feel of the interaction for us. 22.

(32) Therefore, our prototype needs reactions and feedback and these have to be achieved by using a simulated tool – Wizard of Oz. (Hummels and et. al., 2001). 2.7.3 Observation of task performance Observation of task performance is a method for observing users (Argyle, 1990). In our study, we try to observe behavioral indications such as nonverbal gestures, eye-gaze by using observation of task performance, as opposed to self-report measures such as questionnaires and anecdotal accounts because behavioral observation have the potential to offer greater information over self-report ratings Individual subject’ behaviors were observed by researcher when they operate and execute given task, and then analyze the concepts and relationship between them. There are two ways to go through this method: (a) Complete observation involves: Researcher participates with highly involved in the subjects’ task, and asks questions or different point of views to subjects. They act with frequent interaction during experiment. (b) Passive observation: Researcher records and observes from the sidelines during the task was proceeded by subjects. After finish the experiment task, researcher ask questions base on their findings in video coding or voice coding.. As the feeling and percept from subjects are important, it will be much better if their engagement could be much immersed in the schemed scenario and the interaction with our prototype. Another reason is that the sequences of task are uncomplex and fixed, and we have certain features need to be assessed while having no wide range of freedom to afford extra operations. So in our concern, we tend to not interrupt their operation during whole task for augment the immersion.. 2.7.4 Perceptive Sorting Perceptive sorting (PS) is a method inspired by the field of visual research. By combining card sorting and keywords it may be used to gain responses to product familiarity, product function, and aesthetic considerations. Our study refers to a use for gathering information about how participants assess product. 23.

(33) attributes, assign value, and tell stories of product use (Forlizzi and et. al., 2003). When people evaluate an image, they project meaning upon the image and thereby reveal apperceptive knowledge about how they structure their experience. Stimulus images can also serve as records of social artifacts that help reveal what a particular user group values. We are interested in the use of photographic images as a stimulus to assess the perceived function and associations of our prototype after operation in experiment.. 2.7.5 Affinity Diagram The affinity diagram, or KJ method (after its author, Kawakita Jiro) is a creative process, used with or by a group, to gather and organize ideas, opinions, issues, etc. Though it wasn't originally intended for quality management, this process has become one of the most widely used of the management and planning tools. In Seven New QC Tools, Ishikawa (1990) recommends using the affinity diagram when facts or thoughts are uncertain and need to be organized, when preexisting ideas or paradigms need to be overcome, when ideas need to be clarified, and when unity within a team needs to be created. In this study, affinity diagram is used for sorting and organizing qualitative concepts into naturally related groups from people’s opinion. It was built bottom up, by grouping similar raw concepts into categories, taken as the first consolidation step, and it also helps researchers to think for all the rest of gathered information.. 24.

(34) Chapter 3 DESIGN PROTOTPYE. Base on a premise: human-product interaction is fundamentally social. The objective of this study is to demonstrate how motion could convey social intentions and discuss about social motion cues from knowing people’s response, opinions and expectations toward socio-product. Vending machine were chosen as target product because it has a similar function, selling things, as a social role, clerk, which make it easy to compare the differences since they both proceeding similar task ”selling things”. The most important of all, vending machines these days do have some interactive problem as we mentioned in chapter 1. In order to shape a similar experience from human-human interaction and implant social attributes into a vending machine, we have to realize how a good clerk interacts with their customers and what attributes are most appreciated by people. Although social-emotional interaction is something that all human/users have some expertise in it (we all have experience with human-human interaction), but to transfer this expertise into human-product interaction is difficult, and seldom researches have been made toward product design. Hence realizing popular attributes of clerk will be approach first, and an experimental prototype have be made on our on. Information was collected in two surveys for extracting design ingredients from a pre-existing relationship between two social roles – clerk and customer, where have interaction for certain specific tasks, modalities and causal behavior patterns. Interview data were then aggregated, organized. According to these insights, we then make a paper mock-up with social motional attributes for following assessment.. 25.

(35) 3.1 Design Flow Figure 3.1 demonstrates the prototype design flow of this study. Two approaches, focus group and expert interview, were used to gathered usable design ingredients. A breakdown analysis of human-human interaction and human-machine interaction were also done. It then provided the base patterns of interaction flow for our prototype.. FOCUS GROUP. EXPERT INTERVIEW. Opinions from customers. Opinions from an expert. Findings. Findings. INTEGRATION of clerk’s attributes. ANALYZE INTERACTION. DESIGN PROTOTYPE Add on social attribute. Figure 3. 1. Design Flow. The structure of designing social product. 26. PROCESS.

(36) 3.2 Exploring Appreciate Social Attributes In order to collect ingredients for further design course, designing social vending machine, two kinds of survey projects have been set. We approached it from two sides – using focus group to get opinions from customers, and visit a clerk trainer with an interview.. 3.2.1 Focus Group a. Objective In this survey, the objective was to look for qualitative data derived from people’s opinions, especially as a “user”, being a customer and willing to share their rich experience of shopping and encountering clerks. This structured group interview was held at the beginning of this study. It is a quick and inexpensive survey which reveals target audiences’ desire, experiences, and priorities.. b. Recruiting Audiences Our interview was held with six carefully selected people, ranging in age from 24 to 29, having interest and rich experience in shopping, brought together to discuss a host of topics about shopping experience. All of them are classmates, so there is no obstacle about discussing with each others. Also, having a design background makes them talk their opinion fluently.. c. Developing Questions First we conducted the topic on their most impressive shopping experience, including both good and bad feeling in memories, in shops of department stores and restaurant or convenient store. Comparative questions for things that different clerks do in different situations were asked as well. Next, we focus the discussion on what attributes will people appreciate, and what will they do to let people feel better or delighted. After discussion, conclusions have been made by all participants as an ending. Interview questions are designed into the following points:. 27.

(37) (1) Have you ever have good or bad experience when shopping? (2) What do you care most while you are shopping? (3) What is the difference between those cashiers’ attitude, what have they done? (4) If you were a cashier, what would you serve customers instead of offending them? (5) Conclude the good attributes a clerk should have that is appreciated by people.. d. Planning Session The focus group session were held in a meeting room. We prepared six planned and structured questions. Equipments we used were the following: (1) Cam-coder x 1, to record interview and capturing body languages. (2) Computer x 1, for presenting schemed process to handle the session. (3) Projector x 1, projecting demonstrative scenario and questions. Different questions were projected with different background colors and scenarios. These changes not only triggered audience to recall their experiences but also reminded them the change in topics. We also prepared soft drinks and snacks for our participants to let them feel comfortable and relax to say anything in their mind.. Figure 3. 2 Focus Group Session. The session was about 2 hours long.. e. Analysis Notes of each dialogue during the session were typed down first, and concepts that considered meaningful for us were extracted later. Affinity diagram was used to sort these gathered concepts. Afterward, we concluded clerks’ attributes into several points.. 28.

(38) f. Summary of Result According to customers’ opinions, a clerk role model should have the following attributes: (1) Keep in appropriate distance. While providing enthusiastic service, clerk must give sufficient space to customers for appropriate privacy, not being monitored and forced to buy anything.. (2) Possess pleasant attitudes. Clerk should deal with problems of their customers actively and aggressively as a friend. If they are able to care about customers’ mood and thought or even remember their customers, it will also be considered as friendliness.. (3) Be helpful. Provide helpful information, suggestions and assist customers to solve their problems and requests as necessary, even if they don’t buy anything from the clerk.. (4) Good communicate skill. The tone or manner when speaking should be fastidious and correspond to individuals. No one likes to be offended. Therefore they should possess good communication skill.. (5) Attract customers. Be humorous when talk and encouraging their customers to try on clothes or to taste. A kind attitude can also be attractive psychologically.. To sum up findings, appreciate personalities include honesty, reliance and friendliness. A clerk must respect and trust their customers as well. Providing particular suggestions as being perspicacious, providing sufficient information and professional opinion is also important.. 29.

(39) 3.2.2 Interviewing Expert Another approach to find attributes that a clerk should possess and their commitment of work, we visited an expert to get information. It is believe that a person who trains clerks will have the original concept of what a “standard clerk” should be like, since this is his/her expertise.. a. Objective Base on the concepts we found in former survey, we still need an approach from another side to consolidate clerks’ attributes differing from customers. Opinions from an expert who is profess on train clerk may be a short cut to verify our former findings and get further insight into good attributes that a clerk should possess.. b. Looking for Expert We chose to interview a training manager who is in charge of training clerk in a department store. The person we visited works in human resource department in a famous department stores in Taiwan, and she once was a cashier in a clothing store in Canada several years ago.. c. Developing Question According to our former findings, we focused much more on what a clerk should notice and do while encountered with customers. Therefore, to verify the concepts we concluded is also be a task for us. Questions are developed into the following 4 parts: (1) How does human resource department train their new employees? Why?. (2) What kind of attitudes should a clerk possess?. (3) We want to know about the adjustment of distance between customer and clerk in the shop, what does the “appropriate distance” mean? For instance, when should a clerk move closer to customers after they entered the shop?. 30.

(40) (4) Are there any other basic requirements for being a clerk? Including words they have to say to customer?. d. Interview The interview was held in her office, and was about one hour. We recorded the entire interview for future analysis. Findings we had in focus group were proven. Beside the perspective from her expertise, she also mentioned self requirements and attitudes when being a clerk must have due to her own experience.. e. Analysis We typed down notes of each dialogue, and then extracted opinions that we think is meaningful for us later. Affinity diagram was used again to sort these gathered opinions. Afterward, we concluded clerks’ attributes from clerk trainer’s perspective into several points, and then consolidated with the findings in focus group.. f. Summary of Result Corresponding concepts from both former and later survey are found. From a successful clerk’s point of view, feeling pleasure for helping people should be their commitment, especially assist people to buy what they really want. The expert also mentioned the necessity of enthusiasm and active attitudes, and a clerk should treat their customers equally without discrimination. (1) Be helpful, provide helpful information, suggestions and assist customers to solve their problems and requests, even if they don’t buy anything from the clerk.. (2) Show kindness and friendliness, a clerk must be active to provide assistance as well.. (3) Keep in appropriate distance, customers normally do not like to be kept in a close watch or followed by the clerks.. 31.