Content categorization for memory retrieval: A method for evaluating design performance.

Designers search for memories and retrieve appropriate mental information during design brainstorming. The specific contents of retrieved memories can serve as stimuli for new ideas, or act as barriers to innovation. These contents can be divided into different categories, which are reflected in designers' creativities, and derived from individual lives and design experiences. Appropriate categorization of retrieved memory exemplars remains a fundamental research issue. This study tentatively divided retrieved memory exemplars into eight categories from brainstorming on the topic of library desk and chair design. A verification questionnaire was performed and validated the accuracy of categorization. The categorization result could be applied to design education in terms of understanding students' design performances and capabilities.

Performance and characterization of phenol-formaldehyde resin with crude bio-oil by model compound method.

In order to clarify the effects of crude bio-oil for phenol-formaldehyde resin, the phenol-formaldehyde resin with bio-oil model compounds (BMPF) were prepared by model compound method. The bonding strength and aging resistance of BMPF were determined, and their microstructure and chemical bonds were also analyzed by scanning electron microscope, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and nuclear magnetic resonance analysis, respectively. The results showed that the components of crude bio-oil had various degrees of effects on the BMPF performance, and the most obvious one is the phenols. The phenols and the ketones of bio-oil had positive effects on the bonding strength. The ketones had the biggest effect on the surface smoothness of BMPF film. But all components of bio-oil could inordinately improve the aging resistance of BMPF. The structural analysis indicated that the effects of bio-oil components on the BMPF performance by changing the resin structure. The CH2 peak in FT-IR and the methylene bridges intensity in NMR of phenol-free BMPF and ketone-free BMPF were smaller, while the results of aldehyde-free BMPF and acid-free BMPF were opposite. And the influence degree of BMPF structure was basically consistent with that of BMPF performance. These results could provide a basis for the modification of phenol-formaldehyde resin by crude bio-oil.

Differences in thinking flexibility between novices and experts based on eye tracking.

The influence of thinking flexibility on design is often underestimated by researchers in the field of design education. In this study, morphological analysis was used as a tool to develop design proposals and eye tracking technology was applied to track the attention. The feature of thinking activities in problem-solving between two groups (novice and expert) was analyzed by Heat map and Gaze plot in qualitative, and measured by indicators such as fixation and saccade in quantitative. Findings suggested that, i) Experts showed more fixation duration and fixation numbers in thinking activities, and the attention containing more AOIs was positively related to the rationality of the scheme. ii) Saccades with greater amplitude were more beneficial to the novelty of scheme. iii) Experts considered the information of each block in a balanced way, while novices tended to ignore unimportant blocks. These results will have a far-reaching impact on the development of designers' thinking and help novices to exercise creative thinking and produce high-quality designs.

Interaction Preference Differences between Elderly and Younger Exergame Users.

Existing motion capture technology can efficiently track whole-body motion and be applied to many areas of the body. This whole-body interaction design has gained the attention of many researchers. However, few scholars have studied its suitability for elderly users. We were interested in exercise-based whole-body interactive games, which can provide mental and physical exercise for elderly users. We used heuristic evaluation to measure participants' actions during exergame tasks and analyzed preference differences between elderly and younger users through the distribution of actions in four dimensions. We found that age affected the actions performed by users in exergame tasks. We discuss the mental model of elderly users during the process of performing these tasks and put forward some suggestions for interactive actions. This model and these suggestions theoretically have guiding significance for the research and application of exergame design for elderly users and may help designers develop more effective exergames or other whole-body interaction interfaces suitable for elderly users.

The trade-off between design fixation and quality: Physical objects or multiperspective pictures?

Physical objects and their pictures are two main kinds of design stimuli of creative activity, which can improve design quality but may induce design fixation. Previous studies are focused on the case where participants face a single picture, and their design stimulus may be incomplete as compared with the participants facing objects. To fully explore the influence of physical and pictorial examples on design novices, we investigated design fixation and design quality when they were provided with multiperspective pictures having information remarkably similar to physical objects. Specifically, two novice groups individually created their own designs after observing several examples by the way of the above two presentation modes. These designs were evaluated by two evaluators in terms of similarity, originality, and completeness. Statistical analysis showed that no significant difference was found in similarity and originality between the two groups, whereas the designs of the physical group outperformed those of the pictorial group in terms of completeness. This finding indicated that the two groups showed the same degree of design fixation, as multiperspective pictures presented most of the form information of the physical object. The results suggest that when instructing design novices, it is essential to control how to present design examples at different stages of the design process.

Exploring the Role of Visual Design in Digital Public Health Safety Education.

In this research, the positive role of interface visual design in digital safety education was verified taking COVID-19 prevention and control knowledge as the content of public health safety education, where interface emotion (positive, negative, and neutral) and interface layout (waterfall typed and juxtaposition typed) were regarded as independent variables, and readers' understanding, course evaluation and system usability score were dependent variables. As revealed in the results of a 3 × 2 two-factor experiment in which 252 college students participated: first, different interface emotion can cause significantly different understanding, where negative emotion has the best learning transfer effect; second, due to the difference in interface emotion, participants may give certain courses significantly different evaluation scores, while positive emotional interface contributes to the obviously high scores of three course-evaluation items, "appeal of the lesson", "enjoyment of the lesson" and "interface quality"; third, significantly different system usability can be caused by different interface layout, where waterfall-type layout enjoys higher appraisal from users; fourth, interface emotion and interface layout have a similar interactive effects in terms of "effort of the lesson" and "interface quality", where waterfall-type layout is favored in terms of positive emotional interface, and juxtaposition-type layout is more advantageous in terms of negative emotional interface. These results are of vital significance for interface design and safety education. Further, the visual design method for interface emotion and interface layout were analyzed to determine the most suitable design principles so as to improve the effect of digital public health safety education and provide constructive ideas for fighting against COVID-19 at the educational level.

Using Participatory Design Methods to Explore Changes in the Self-Efficacy of Students with Visual Impairments After Playing Exergames.

Objective: To explore changes in task/scheduling self-efficacy in children with visual impairments after playing exergames, using the participatory design (PD) method to guide students with visual impairments to engage in the design and test of exergames. Materials and Methods: A pre-/post-test was used with two experimental groups (nine high school students with visual impairments aged 18-21, nine junior high school students with visual impairments aged 14-17). Data were analyzed by an independent-/paired-sample t-test to assess changes in task/scheduling self-efficacy of different groups after gameplay. Data of three dimensions (psychological emotion, physical activity, and social interaction) were collected through texts, participative observations, live notetaking, and video recordings. These dimensions provide opportunities for children with visual impairments to improve their self-efficacy. Results: Exergames helped children with visual impairments to improve their task and scheduling self-efficacy. It confirmed that exergames can be useful to promote their psychological emotion, enhance levels of positive physical activity, and increase social opportunities to improve self-efficacy. Conclusion: Participants of various ages who engaged in exergames reported an improvement in both task and scheduling self-efficacy in terms of psychological emotion, physical activity, and social interaction. The PD approach may be useful in the design of products for people with visual impairments and may ultimately be helpful in supporting the social and physical needs of people with disabilities.