My website - Latest Comments

Re: How I cut my morning routine time in half

Chloe — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 17:00:19 -0000

Thanks for the recommendation! It is on my to-read list :)

Re: How I cut my morning routine time in half

Ankit Ahuja — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 16:50:05 -0000

Thanks for recommending the book! I saw your recommendation on Twitter and enjoyed reading the sample of the book, I'll probably get it

Also, I recently read Optimal Functioning: A Positive Psychology Handbook (http://www.amazon.com/Optimal-... . You may have read it already, but it is easy to read and makes very concise points. There is a chapter on habits :)

Re: How I cut my morning routine time in half

Steven Jonas — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 01:26:41 -0000

I have The Power of Habit on hold at the library and am glad that it looks like I won't be disappointed.

I've been thinking lately about habits, especially in conjunction with Jonah Lehrer's writing about the finite capacity of willpower. The thought is that if willpower is finite then engaging in some behavior that is not a habit will, on some level, subtract from your store of willpower. Because your habits are, in a sense, hardwired, then they won't subtract from your allotment of willpower. So, if you're engaging in behavior change that outlines why it's so important to focus on a small number of changes until they become automatic before trying to change too much else. Too much attempted habit changes mean that you're overdrafting on your willpower account.My problem in that past is that once I start changing a few things, I get too ambitious adding new behaviors for improvement and, according to this model, run out of my supply of willpower and fail to repeat any of the behaviors consistently enough to make them a habit. I like the notion of the keystone habit. Once you realize the limited capacity you have for behavioral change at any point in time, then you have to be strategic in deciding what to work on first. Identifying habits that have multiplier effects is key. For a lot of people, I think sleep is their biggest opportunity to improve something that would have many downstream effects. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to any more insights that come from the book.

Re: How I cut my morning routine time in half

Joyce Chen — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 23:58:58 -0000

That's awesome Chloe! I think I'm going to start examining my morning routine as well and make small changes that can optimize my day. Thanks for this post :-)

Re: Traveling as a PhD student

Maya Agarwal — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:26:45 -0000

hey Chloe, that was pretty informative, I will surely try to learn at least one language.
Thanks :)

Re: Traveling as a PhD student

Chloe — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:15:33 -0000

You can sign up for Frenchpod or Chinesepod podcasts, which is a good way to start since they have free beginner lessons, and will help develop speaking skills. Another way is to find people online who want to do a language exchange with Skype, which is basically you teach them a language, then they teach you their language. If you are currently in school, sometimes they offer language classes that you can take. The best way is to go travel in a country that speaks that language, because you will pick it up very quickly, but of course it's also not the most accessible option for most people :)

Re: Traveling as a PhD student

Maya Agarwal — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 01:43:19 -0000

hi Chloe,
I am really interested in learning different languages specially French and Chinese, but how is it possible.

Re: Traveling as a PhD student

Chloe — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 10:49:21 -0000

Hi Maya,

Are you interested in doing a language exchange? Are there any languages you'd like to learn? I can speak Chinese, English, French, and some Spanish :)

Chloe

Re: Traveling as a PhD student

Maya Agarwal — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 10:46:44 -0000

Hey Chloe, may be I can help you in learning Hindi :)

Re: Mexico travel pack list

iris — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:10:52 -0000

You did lighter/smaller than me! Although, when I do the ~2.5 week trips, I'm also usually packing for a conference. And then, everything always ends up stinking anyways, lol.

Re: Traveling as a PhD student

Tiff — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:38:16 -0000

+ French ;)

Re: Emotional design and social interfaces

Chloe — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 11:40:19 -0000

Hi Max! I actually tried to put signs near the elevator that said "I'm tired. Please take the stairs today." I hid nearby and watched people for about an hour or so. Two people stopped before pressing the elevator button, got a strange look on their faces, and walked away. The problem with the signs is that they weren't big enough, and I think in order for people to anthropomorphize spaces or things, there needs to be some interactivity involved beyond paper signs, like lights and sounds that suggest tiredness (blue lights, descending tones perhaps?)

It would also help to figure out how much energy the elevators are actually using vs. other things. It could be that the elevators are quite efficient compared to heating in student dorms that's contributing to most of the energy costs or something. I think visualizations are a powerful way to motivate people when simple messages goes in one ear and out the other.

Re: Emotional design and social interfaces

Max Song — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 11:32:49 -0000

Dear Chloe, what a great idea! I watched Objectified a few months back, and shared some of the same insights into the products that surround us today. I think, on a more abstract level, the significance of building these emotional connections to our objects is really a way to influence behavior modification, and enable social change.

Your idea about the elevator is particularly striking. If you dont mind, I think I'll suggest to our emPower group on campus, and see if they want to use it as a means of saving our energy :)

Re: Why I got rid of all games and social check-in apps from my phone

Jeff Wong — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 15:02:13 -0000

Hope you won't mind some cynicism, but isn't checking in just about providing marketing data?

Traditional games in the PC, Xbox, and PSN do this now too and what they do is inventing a void in you. They tell you what you don't have. And then when you go online to their message boards about games, you see other people's sigs and you compare yourself. Kind of like looking at other people's CVs.

In Battlefield: Bad Company 2, there's this concept has all of these "stars" (like medals) that you earn for every 100 kills with a weapon and then platinum at 1000. A bit crazy but the design goal was to get people to try everything.

OTOH, I don't play games for any particular goal. Arbitrary goals can result in an unhappy life. A mortgage, marriage, and kids can be those kinds of goals if you didn't enjoy the experience of going through them.

Sometimes it helps to ask yourself if anyone will care in month or a year. Will you care? Are you enjoying it right now? Or is the activity giving some long-term benefit (like exercise or learning)?

Re: Why I got rid of all games and social check-in apps from my phone

Chloe — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 23:03:41 -0000

Definitely. I can't think of a reason for play games that's not fundamentally to escape from real life. People might say a game is fun, entertaining, etc, but it only distracts from the real world. Not necessarily a bad thing, I've just realized it's not for me.

Re: Why I got rid of all games and social check-in apps from my phone

urchin — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 14:15:30 -0000

i like to take photos of places i go to, but i've restricted myself (for the most part) to only taking photos at places where i have decided that photography will be my activity there. 4 square and all the checking in is really the same thing, the "arcade" or "casual" version of it, if you will. it's an easy way to say "i've been here and experienced this" but without that drive to record our history, humans would be like most other animals with a lot less in the way of shared knowledge. which i think is our true edge on this planet.

do you ever find you play games simply as an escape?

Re: Summer 2011 Goals

Chloe — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:06:00 -0000

It's going pretty well! We tested out a lot of recipes and foods that we like the most, so now when we go shopping, we know exactly what to buy. Slowly testing/tweaking our diet to see what works well and what doesn't in terms of energy, weight, etc.

Re: Summer 2011 Goals

Dave Asprey — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 04:37:57 -0000

So how's it going with the Bulletproof Diet? Love the Kerry Gold "Bulletproof & Delicious" caption! :)

Re: Changing winds

Chloe — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 15:19:19 -0000

I'll still probably make some research posts if they're compelling enough. If I just post about research, I'll probably only write once every few months.

Re: Changing winds

Jeff Wong — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 15:02:17 -0000

Write to solicit discussion on research ideas! Andy Ko does it pretty well.

Re: WiiFlash Paint

Chloe — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:42:25 -0000

Hi Dan,

If you look in the WiiFlash documentation (http://wiiflash.bytearray.org/... and go to the Wiimote class, there's a method you can use to create a new Wiimote object. After declaring a new Wiimote object, you need to connect() it. Also see the sample code under the "API" heading (http://code.google.com/p/wiifl.... You can do that for multiple Wiimotes.

Re: WiiFlash Paint

dan — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 06:15:20 -0000

hi chloe fan! i was wondering how you got data from multiple wiimotes. any help would be appreciated. im currently using wiiflash 0.4.5

Re: Emotional design and social interfaces

Chloe — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 11:39:11 -0000

(sorry, the dates/numbers of comments is messed up because I just installed Disqus and it didn't auto-add the old comments)

Re: Emotional design and social interfaces

Chloe — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 11:36:31 -0000

@Nick: I had more non-gadget-like objects in mind as it would be easier to build these small enhancements and somehow attach it to them, not to mention that they have greater affordances for low-res enhancements. With electronic gadgets (mobiles, cars, mp3 players, etc) however, I think people will expect them to be built in, not attached to its surface. With cars though, it’s probably easier to form an emotional bond to it, because (and you see this in movies a lot! dunno about actual life :)) people travel with others and have memories of their friends or family or some cool place they went to. Cars already have some sort of social/emotional value to them, so it might not be necessary to manually add on another layer. The questions I posed were preliminary thoughts – I haven’t actually thought it all the way through yet :)

@Catherine: I read that paper in Jen’s class! Loved it! It seems like there’s a lot of literature on sustainable design, but not any that I know of that combine with emotional design as well. They seem to be mostly tailored to people’s sense of practicality and what’s good for the environment rather than emotional attachment. I’ll add references to the blog post as updates when I find them.

Re: Emotional design and social interfaces

Catherine — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 11:35:02 -0000

I'm not too familiar with literature on the emotional design side of things. On the sustainability side, you could check out Eli Blevis' CHI 2007 paper on Sustainable Interaction Design, but more specific to this idea would be "Understanding Why We Preserve Some Things and Discard Others in the Context of Interaction Design" from CHI 2009.

I like your idea of applying emotions to stairs and doors, I can see it as a cool proof-of-concept video!