E223 - How can AI Improve Learning?

Welcome to human factors yeah your weekly podcast for human factors psychology and design. Hello everybody welcome back to another episode human factors cast this is episode 200 23 we're recording this live on 10/21/2021 I'm your host Nick Rome I'm joined today by 2 wonderful people we got berry Kirby. Hey how you doing. Good thank you for joining us and also on the line we also have Frank lacks an. Okay to be here. Thanks for being on the show ring you haven't been on since I think I was looking at it was what episode 197 or something and you're right before our 200 extravaganza. Yeah I'm in that pocket 200 Bucks. We got a great show for you all tonight we're talking about artificial intelligence in the classroom and later we're gonna answer some questions from the community about some really great things like what does it mean to be human factors I think that's one of them anyway I didn't hit them in their notes there you go that's what I get for overlooking anyway what exactly are human factor skills how do you conduct and analyze research in relation to a product feature and what is some advice on making designs that are easier for developers to follower but follow but first got some programming notes at there's not gonna be a show next week. Stick around though they're always pleasant surprises maybe anyway we'll be back on November 4 for sure maybe a pleasant surprise next week who knows and what we're not gonna be here life doing this. We are now streaming on linkedin so if you're up for the first time on through our channel tonight so if you're watching on link then thank you welcome all new Lincoln viewers. We also have human factors minute available for everyone outside of Petri on for I guess the first time a couple weeks ago now it's been out there anyway it's 886 episodes available to you and we'll talk about patriarchal little bit later and of course we have some conference coverage coming up so stay tuned for that but right now it's time that we get into human factors news. That's right this is where we talk about everything related to the field of human factors. For a stock about very what we have up this week. So this week we look at new research showing that learning is more effective when active so they could be 19 pandemic consisted a reading quick diverged into remote learning styles would look to schools colleges and universities having deliver remote learning online and certainly very keen to adopt an exploit you technologist so students faced negative psychological effects in isolation restlessness and inattention photo by Corentin remote learning therefore the interesting new teaching technologies and methods has been very popular so if I could from Carnegie Mellon university's human computer interaction institute do the research concluded that engaging students through interactive activities discussions feedback in any items technologies resulted in improved academic performance compared to traditional lectures lessons or readings 2 research also found the active learning methods used not only hands on minds on approaches but also hot zone approaches. I'm providing increased emotional and social support. Basically the research found that incorporates an AI based virtual helper to question students encouraging them to think critically and engage them in discussions increased learning and hands on activities was also supporting teachers. Researchers performed by control experiments the CM's children lead was instructed with a mixed reality learning platform where children perform and interpret we would experiment with personalized interactive feedback with the artificial intelligence turned on and off when the when it was turned off the students learned far less. So the pandemic made it quite clear that put traditional approaches to education may not be the best way to learn the questions of the sister rubble active learning is how best to use it and how to excite students. So Frank what are your thoughts on that. Bob this is a little bit a little bit of irony. If we remember some of our a lot of studies have shown a different technology specially smartphones have caused people to become more isolated so you saw a lot of that in the news articles and other kinds of studies and to see that technology is bringing students together and having people come back to be active that's really good and that shows I know it's it's not technology just the designers of technology and how people adapt to it is is is what we need to kind of study it also reminds me of that with one of those classic human factors principles the Yerkes Dodson law which describes a kind of bell shaped. Relationship between pressured performance I wonder some of our time in the past that because because because their shift to to move towards the passive side and a lot of the students are receiving our negative impacts on that and I think a I was doing a great job nudging forward up people look very students prospector of 2 more kind of more optimal kind of performance level. I think a very you mentioned I think in the preshow doing some of the work your origin story on some kind of aviation kinds of things have you received that your stocks of law pressure performance kind of relationships and some of the work that that you've been experiencing. Yeah absolutely it's so one of these things is that the dem. It it's almost so obvious that some days that he just gets wrapped into everything you're doing and you need to be able to put things in a way that redeemed would use if you want to pressure well on the on the cognitive load more than anything else and the ability to carry out them so tasks so yeah I I come I'm complete complete with the he can see you can see how it plays out. Nick from your perspective what what do you think yeah I mean I have it I have it facetiously in in the show notes and in other no doubt news the sky is blue. Look I think. I think there's been a lot of advances in artificial intelligence lately that maybe may not be. Or it might be actually we'll get to that in just a minute but it might not be as perceptible to the public as they realize you know even simple things like like a little learning apps like Duolingo or. You know any of these other little language learning or just trying to learn a new skill often artificial intelligence is going on behind the scenes that will present. Context based knowledge to the user based on their previous responses and I have a fun little anecdote about Duolingo that we can talk a little bit about later but I'm. I do want to talk briefly about social bots so if you are watching live there's still time to answer our social but we are of course talking about AI and learning this week and so tonight social thought is have you encountered a Ike when trying to learn something new if so where was it and was exit wasn't successful. M. as of right now we are at 100 percent yes we don't have any responses yet as to where those things were successful and and how was successful but 100 percent yes which is a little surprising to me so we'll see how that changes throughout the show if at all. You know I think we can kind of. Take a step back this is an interesting article but if you want to kind of cover some ground here on generic backgrounds on learning and education Frank you and I cover this a little bit in the episode that you were on last I think goes to 197 or something like that I'll get I'll get an exact number on that and then maybe we can talk a little bit about how artificial intelligence is feeding education I'm come back to the article discussion. Do you wanna talk a little bit about this this article by Nancy Fenton that's on site learning curve. If I had a few friends being that yes I would all. Laid out for you so there's an article here that we're going to use a supplemental material here is 2 articles we're gonna use a supplemental material this one 's 20 psychological principles that are kind of. The impact of learning right and so it's broken down by a couple categories I figure maybe we can go down this list and kind of talk about. Just a couple that stand out to us in the show notes I've highlighted my pics but anything that stands out to either of you berry will start with you. Yeah I think the I'm I'm quite like the the the less this story around feedback and it is very much that around you could close that loophole student you know you're teaching something to shoot and then them them feeding it fitting it right back to you that they've understood it and I'm actually 30 understand it not to be back I guess this is where the A. I. peace comes in because it allows a lot more of a of the act on a on a personal level so yeah I think that feedback for me is probably the I think the world one of the key things in that that that this technology can deal couldn't cook S. sorry comply with. How are you Frank anything that stands out from that list to you. What started ring a bell is that the context the clash of conduct in the spreadsheet X. expectations and support. And it's one of those things begin in in more of this kind of online environment I think has really changed. What what the expectations and support are worried over gosh maybe hundreds of years we had only a certain way of doing things that's been a great year after year. Do this wasting your seat. Are you know pay attention would you tell you to pay attention that kind of thing and and now this whole online environment has given a lot more freedom from that kind of thing so I think there's a lot of adaptation and calibration that's going on with many different students and some students are doing well some students need a baby technology assistance to kind of kind of help help calibrate some of that and maybe some students are thriving it's one of those things we talk about negative tax maybe for some things that are some students are not used to you're not suitable we stood in their in their mind set for kind of in classroom convict students are doing quite well should be interesting to see any any kind of unintended data that comes up with all the cell types all separate. Yeah this this list is interesting so there's this kind of like an overview of learning and it has a lot of. A lot of various attributes here right we're talking cognition and I'm talking high level concepts here there's 20 total I'm not gonna go over all of them I think we picked out some good ones already but there's cognition and learning there's motivation social and emotional considerations contacts and assessment Frank you brought up some great points about a context talk briefly about the social component of this an assessment. Because berry covered cognition we can get into motivation if we want but I think the social considerations are interesting from a perspective where you are dealing with an artificial intelligence. That social component kind of goes out the window or does it you're then interacting with a virtual agent in some in some regard right I mean it is presenting you information that is more relevant to you it might not necessarily be interacting with you like a human might but there's still some sort of human robot teaming going or human AI teaming going on behind the scenes that is going to need to be taken into consideration I think that would fit under this category of social and emotional dimensions at least in terms of you know dealing with virtual agents. Then you have the other. Attribute of assessment and this is I think we're a I can really shine because if you have formative and summative assessments of. Some learners. I'm trying to make it fairly. The ubiquitous here some learners ability right you have formative and summative assessments. There's different approaches that are that can be taken for each of these and I think a I can really provide a useful input to these types of assessments because you might have you can evaluate effectiveness of some sort of intervention and then alter course. And then evaluate that and then alter course again to give this personalized sort of learning. The. Curriculum for the learner so I did want to touch on those I'm gonna do circle one more time any of these other. Attributes stand out to you that you wanna talk about yeah I just want to push the M. the the assessment thing a bit further because I think this could be a. A really big thing the not only can you talk about how things going but actually we we could really change the way we look at how we assess a lot these courses because we we we spend a lot of time obsessing over what grade did you get at the end your large we'll do either piece of calls with Cosby and all you'll do your you'll do your exams or whatever and this so much pressure on the exams and actually we can still see that the output you get from the exams S. can be so skewed for the actual skills the personnel when fundamentally what we're trying to do is to get a really good understanding of just how well other skills and how K. believes that person for the future and you know the next step of educational football for employment it's not just for the sake of honest difficult it's it's going to be something NASA if we got these ways the the canalis S. almost on a continual basis and. On on a real small small scale you cannot you can actually do it when the weather a post is just off the game and you could maybe highlight things like I is that some mental health issues that are they potentially L. so that I got so so a real camera elements on a short term basis production a long term basis you will get a much better idea of that that capability capacity I'm in a way that is almost how I don't easily available that's probably a bit going a bit fat but a much better thing much better idea than what what they would like just a one day in one exam room well the one whatever pressure that the intent on realistic situation so I think that for me would be an absolute. Will win but just to find one on the on the on the backside of it is this is. The social interactions sort of thing worries me to a certain extent because already we treat you know the online and offline at 2 very different things so even if you are texting somebody missing somebody we think of as you're talking to a computer you're talking and it definitely doesn't have the necessary the same store social standing social chaos as talking to a what we call a real person so be talking face to face to somebody the street is very different the way that we talk now we know we know that we've built people well I believe the real people so I've been told I'm at but I wonder whether we but then you know you go put you look the people thought that talking on the phone all the time dune check text on the phone with this not maybe exacerbate that problem and get was maybe thinking that but a lot most of these is online and therefore not real so I think you that's just a small flag but actually I find this story massively interesting. For this yeah Frank I'm gonna circle back to you is there any other attributes of of learning and education that you want to highlight here before we move on to talking about specifically A. I. in education. I wanted to the second kind of berries investment arms of the formative and summative thanks bye the we think of a you know different kinds of users while interning with doctor shot to kind of not just the user but other kinds of maintainers and other kinds of things so thinking about the teacher it's a type of user being able to use AI to get a summary say dashboard summary of how different students are doing question online environment and if there's kind of a dept when we talk about that performance curves to be able to use. Interventions talking to the student asking challenging questions and so that way it does so in a very safe manner well kind of okay a student axes you know needs a little bit of a Dodge okay I'll also the question or call on that student. But also I think with the the interpersonal relationships D. making sure that there's quality interactions and I think it was cal Newport one of the authors that does suck on digital minimalism talks about the importance of quality interactions the difference be clicking like on something versus picking up the phone and talking to a friend you haven't talked in awhile I think we do need to catch up yeah we do. But yeah we got nothing more to add on that what a lot of great things a lot of great possibilities and it's great to see something that's going on that's helping students especially. Different times. Yes so let's get into this other supplemental article that we have here this is from Yang and and G. ow and I'm probably messing up Nancy ation there so apologies to the authors. But I do want to like start this with a little anecdote that kind of fits in well with that assessment piece that we were just talking about I mentioned this earlier. I've been re kind of kindling my ability to speak multiple languages you might not necessarily think of it looking at me but I have many years of experience speaking Spanish and I've lost a lot of that ability over time and sort of one of the things that has rekindled by. Desire to speak in other languages because I started teaching my son the language to. And I'm not like a fluent speaker by any stretch of the imagination but I know enough to get by if I were in a foreign country. Mexico Spain I could probably get you know enough out that I could find in a local market or I could you know find a hospital or I could get on a plane or you know the the essentials and I think that's really important to to do that anyway my my little guy he's young and I want to encourage that language development as he's young and so we've started pulling out the Duolingo app. And one fun thing that I notice it's kind of serendipitous that we're talking about the story tonight. Is that as you get something incorrect in that app the system will understand that you need to more practice with that and they will loop that thing that you got wrong back into practicing that you're doing and so you know if you. You may just a minor mistake it'll ask you the same question again but after other things it kind of just broke it back into the curriculum without your knowledge that it's wasn't part of it to begin with it's just saying Hey you got it subtly having you practice it again just to make sure that you got it right and there are other subtle nods in that program that are really interesting. From a learning perspective that encourage you to. Sort of revisit the context based. Questions and that you got in correctly and I'll just leave it there I do want to get into this article on education and just a brief overview here this one kind of breaks down. I'm. Sort of A. I. in education into 3 different paradigms and you have a I directed a I supported an A. I. empowered maybe we can just break this down one by one to kind of talk about each of these I will talk about him all together I don't know is that sound okay to you guys works for me okay Frank why don't you go ahead and talk about paradigm one. So highly. Yes one day I used to represent knowledge models and indirect cognitive cake so that day I will come to represent the domain knowledge talked in that previous article has incredible a body that helps the clip children the classroom I direct the learning process while the world is a little bit more of it in a passive mode acting as recipient of a our service and following the the that instructions and in the process the problems are specific learning pathways. It looks like there's a paradigm to talk a little bit how they are shifts during that other database yeah so in part I am to the A. I. and the lead to take a more collaboration collaborative real with each other so the I. A.'s effectively relinquishing its control and to support the learner as they as as they go through the through that learning process so a really high level let's say it's it's more of a alerting together type approach make you a ticket into into part I'm sorry yes I will serve in in the third one this is interesting right so this is actually. Empowering learning. While they are while the learners themselves are taking agency to learn. And and. That's a whole complicated sentence of. A weird way of saying A. I. is just using a tool is is used as a tool to augment human intelligence. So it is it's almost less learning based on that third paradigm and more geared towards augmenting abilities and and. And keeping that intelligence at. Easily reference doubles as a lease how I'm understanding it. I'm. Frank I see is that I that might be I think who who wrote that next point there I want to talk to whoever of that next. That was. Frank what is what is this bullet point and what do you mean well. So it is looking at the sum of the human factors research out there talks about what they're called levels of automation are there a lot of medical research is to talk about these different levels which are especially for informing the design. Try to set the level of automation based on the capabilities of the user. So for certain levels the automation would do a lot more of the work. Pretty good he was maybe a little bit more of a supervisory level and then when it. It it does with the humans what if there's a need for that for the user to do more of the task the automation service more of us checker just check to see making sure that the that the user stays on track with certain certain parameters so it's really interesting to see that a ticket to probably hold many levels of complexity with one act yeah I was concerned because they're actually representing the models and doing some of that goal the actual learning itself but it's really really great to see how the kind of. Traditional frameworks of automation start does not see itself well it was kind of a I work. Yeah. Very any other closing thoughts on on this kind of other supplemental article on A. I. and then we'll all kind of get back to the original article yeah this is I sort of played with these demands before I still see them as the but I. But as the teacher learn a mental approach so the the teacher is that the I. T. U. teaching you the the learner is you working together to learn on the on the journey and the men told the ease the you know the the the the letter taking that's the agency on the A. I. support supporting them it was a really good book that I would recommend call virtual humans today and tomorrow by updated but and this was old around. What does the future of. Humans look like any really goes into a lot of detail around the mental based specifically. Mmhm the main reason I know about it was because part of the project that they did was they created a virtual Barry. Well they took a look at that I great I was a and I invite the party still on an online agent whether taking all of my thoughts experiences and things like that so what will they do with I. 22 a chapel that can then support as. Mentoring of individual so that the whole base around A. I. empowering people I just fine absolutely fascinating in its recent release something to watch. Yeah let's get back to the original article here so one kind of thing that I wanna make sure we talk about that I thought was really interesting is that they're kind of using AI at least in the context of this article for. Physical hands on activities and they're using this tool called Marilla. Mmhm at it which is a mixed reality learning platform. Basically allowing children to interpret real world experiments in the end they get this feedback and it's it it's an earthquake table. Ramps or other physical apparatuses with A. I. turned on and off. And and the idea behind this article is that you know as the A. I. is on just remind everybody they are more successful at learning. So I do want to talk about that Frank do you have any thoughts about using this platform. Now after we kind of visited all the other US supplemental material here. Yes it's one of those things where. I think we're some of the individual differences could start by. And so I think you know when there's music being able to turn a I offer have different modes of A. I. where students can learn. And this is kind of specially helpful in the classroom where you may have students with different abilities different learning styles different kind of just baseline abilities and it's one of those things where. Teachers could I could imagine construct a struggle make sure that he did pace of them thank so using the A. R. to tell boosted and challenge the students. Would be something that would be all pretty pretty neat to see the questions. Bury any other thoughts on on this article. Yeah I think this is this is highlighted the fact that I need is the the stuffing pressures going on in in schools and educational facilities at the moment and this is a fantastic way been able to relieve some of that pressure to be able to get some mole directed education towards each individual student based on their own capability and beat him to push them to their own limits much more often so you know most if it's implemented right you've got the ability to keep that student constantly engaged and motivated and the motives of these motivated to lead will lead way mall and be what be more successful rather just being drowned out from the from the the front of the classroom the fundamental thing this also highlights the that I think you know the digit traditional educational model is broken Mr this article talks a lot about active learning and things that you need a lot more resources to do that just on the front of the classroom and lecture if we want to have quality learning it isn't about how long you spend in this in an establishment it's the quality of learning that you get out of it you know and if I if we can get people to learn more in a shorter period of time it makes it way more effective so I think for me this shows how technology can have a huge impact and could probably revolutionize what we do but also we need to take it as a wake up call about how we are actually teaching people and getting the most value out of that teach about that I would teaching practices. You know you left it on a semi hopeful note and I am going to use that as a springboard to leave it on a on a somber note. It it's often fun for us to sit here and talk about these types of things on a platform we are. I guess fortunate enough to have the technology to stream a podcast across the internet to many people. M. but you know I think this really does highlight the importance of equity of of technology and and. You know to to be able to have this sort of equipment in every classroom and not just the classrooms in the good zip codes or postal codes. But to have this in every classroom and have it be a. A learning experience that everyone gets access to I think is a really important thing and so I'll just leave it with that anyway we're gonna take a quick break on that note and be right back to see what's going on in the human factors community right after this. Human factors cast brings you the best in human factors news interviews conference coverage and overall fun conversations into each and every episode we produce but we can't do it without you. The human factors cast network is 100 percent listener supported all the funds are going to running the show come from our listeners our patrons are our priority and we want to ensure we're giving back to you for supporting us pledges start at just 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name we just got this in today but I did want to read it we always love hearing stories like this. I think you know one of my goals with this podcast is always to make human factors accessible and fun and so thank you I love hearing that. From you guys. Speaking of patrons were 2 away from being self sustainable and not incur any out of pocket costs so. You know we pay for this yourselves that's going to pay for things like our hosting fees are website domain in our website capabilities anyway if if if that's what you wanna do that's out there where we go ahead and get into this next part a show we like to call. Yes it came from this week it is already part of the show research over the internet to bring your topics the communities talking about you find easy answers use will give us a like wherever you're at to help other people find this content we have 3 tonight and we're gonna get into so the way this gonna work I'm gonna read it I'm a pass to bury or Frank be on your toes guys and then I will pass it to somebody else so everyone has to be on their toes tonight since it's a 3 headed game. This first one here is what exactly are human factor skills this is by I. D. K. with the username. From the human factors separate. Goes to show I don't read this note use an answer for them as the title says when you're applying for human factors jobs what are the skill sets that you guys have or want to have that employers are looking for I've been told that you and factors is a good industry route following completion of my PhD N. A. but I'm gonna skip all that but looking at job postings that seems a little unclear to me. That's an attainable route. There seems to be a lot of you X. design which I have little experience although I think there are certain transferable skills and rules but curious to know what people think like statistics coding. A bruising this up a little bit it appears that there's a few different sides of human factors some sound more attainable than others happy to talk about in any other way just trying to pick people's brains all right who's gonna be Frank what do you think what exactly are human factor skills. Okay I think the first one is up to date we are not something that you don't study. But to understand the users being able to. Ultimately understand what are they going to task wise performance wise and that helps with your intuition to be able to see what is the the root problem because a lot of times in human factors to a lot of compounding problems the technological organizational human interaction with technology that are in there and so to be able to kind of pick through that too to help identify the problem will put any kind of human factors practitioner and a good starting point that would be great my number one draft pick they were talking sports with the pre show but on the human factor skills. Empathy. All right who's gonna pass to Frank. Well let's see what what what is it then go number one pick against. Aha. Can a can 90. In other words it depends it is is that allowed yeah the. Not me fundamentally it's it's what it is one of the reasons I love worked in the age of world is that the range of things we can get involved with is so broad you know from the physical to the committed to the organizational. HCI design you X. design if you down with the cool kids all all the way down to you know physical handling of physical design of an out of of an object and and it really depends what you want to get into but what what the the big thing I like about it is that there was always an excuse for us to get involved every project involves people one way or another even in things like autonomous systems and things like that it's always a user in the loop somewhere so we have a really good excuse to go get involved in anything to do everything. I think for me that does it there is a lot of light hot skills in into what you get what you get but fundamentally I think you need to be inquisitive you need to be. Willing to. Put forward an argument in a room where you might not be popular and you could be willing to stand your ground because what you gonna get into a lot of discussions a lot of places where you might be the one lone HF person in the room but your rights and you need to let the year right because you and use well thank you for it. Yeah so you took empathy you took. Sort of the it depends route I'm gonna go with the word flexibility. And I'm going to use this as an opportunity to bring up the full saying of Jack of all trades because no one knows the full saying or at least they always miss quoted a Jack of all trades is a master of none but often times better than a master of one and I think this is really important when it comes to human factors I think being flexible is one of the biggest strengths that we have in this field. I'm. I was gonna go on a tangent about how I always pick in MMOs are video games the class that kind of. It is best suited for most situations but is not really hyper focused in one I'm not gonna go that route I said it but I think you know we may be facing like a a project management role in one context or a user research role in another context or designer role even in another context and I think that flexibility to work within your constraints and ultimately put your best foot forward to ensure that you have the empathy for the user. You know it is out there and and that you are putting your best foot forward with the design and making sure that whatever product you put out there is going to alternately serve. Its use case best for the people who are using it I think that's ultimately what the tell me what human factor skills are. Okay that was a long winded answer let's get on to this next question here. Mmhm how do you conduct and analyze research in relation to a product feature this is by mouse talk on the user experience I've read it we're gonna go Frank again. You gotta switch it up. The rockets reaper rock. Analyzing research in our relationship I didn't read. That's my bad wow I've been doing this for how many years this is they they write Hey everyone some background on my question that would help right I work in house on one product to use by large companies and my research slash U. X. process typically consists of working on one page flow or process or feature within the product I was wondering how the process of research and design typically goes for others in the situation what's the materials and advice out there seem to cover end to end design. Or of a full product do you find that you'll go through the full process for each project or skip parts what does your research typically focus on what methods do you use the most curious to see everyone's answers all right Frank we're going with you now that I've given up the full context of this question how do you conduct and analyze research that is for a specific product feature rather than the whole product. Yes so I think a lot of the reasoning of why. What would do research for a certain product feature it just depends on where the product is in its life cycle so a lot of times it's easy to assume that Hey we're designing a system from scratch and we got to do the whole holistic method we have time to do our discovery but sometimes are specially in larger companies and depending on what what project that you're on you have. Well maybe a more mature product and it's a little feature that helps enhance that that that product J. incremental teacher so being able to kind of understand where you're at with the life cycle will help. The path and conducting research and and once you specify a specific product you want to. Kind of follow more more standards based kinds of things versus research because there's things that are maybe already built or established rules and best practices. And then being able to use those findings to help help towards the the bigger bigger research effort so it's a lot of the scoping effort. Engine and once you apply the scoping of the constraints say like builders on a spreadsheet of processes and tools you can kind of find the ones that that work best for you if you're eager to soak it up there could be any what what are your thoughts on this product features yeah that's a good question I think for me when I'm approaching just a product feature and the the say it depends but I think largely what I'll do is kind of understand the context of that feature in the larger. Either work flow or product that it belongs to. I think understanding that context really helps with sort of. Outlining exactly what you need to do to research that thing right do you need to do. A deeper analysis because this is a standalone product or you know it you know it is a product feature in this case so I guess it would be what exactly do I need to research Frank you mentioned you know you you're there might be things that are already established for a product certain design standards designed guidance that exists already that you don't have to think some hard about about this specific feature so United focus more on things like work flow. Or how they get to that product the entry points and exit points from that product feature from other parts of the product as a whole. That's kind of my short answer berry I'm gonna pass it over to you what do you think how do you tackle this problem yeah I'll take that I mean alongside the stuff the. Do you both said I I saw go by I I take a lot from our journal in a job which is in this but I I don't have a mantra scope size maturity which means the scoping it what is the scope of what you told what you see is what what you're getting manageable 8 does it and give itself to a good user story in its own right or is it more of an epic. So that because a number of use cases put pull together so have you got things down can you derive it down to either a use case or said the use cases. What is the size of of the over role he sees it is it very large is small are you talking about the entire product or are you talking about and a small elements of it not real I was get 2 souls to tell me what sort of products I want at what sort of methods and tools I want to bring into play and the final thing is maturity is it something I just need to tweak is something that's got a little work in and I just need to push it slightly forward in in a new way. Or is it broken and I get the jewelry old ripping it to shreds and starting again so I guess mine is is really influenced by the fire to do a lot of I guess firefighting rather than starting many products from scratch and so I tend to go in and and have a fairly almost its analysis way of going through being able to look at my school size maturity and then be able to apply what I wanna do offer I found this through our experience be able to do that saves me so much time at the far end because I can sex back to you should and I can set my own expectations what was one of the clients. Good answer speaking of basically the research side of things let's talk about turning that research into design and then. Specifically this next question here advice on making designs that are easier for developers to follow this is a went wrong at prom from the user experience sub reddit. I don't even know what it would only want to know what that means current student relatively new to U. acts and you why I've been working with a small team of developers on a start up want to make their life easier by translating my designs to an actual product but using an 8.grade so far but I'm not sure what else I can do to streamline the process does anyone have advice on optimizing dab hand off. Things I should avoid doing in my designs tools that may help thank you all right we went with Frank for the first 2 who are we gonna go with for the last one it's gonna be Barry nobody saw that one coming that that key. I guess the first thing I would I would so survived but he don't have the oath and if you come trying to get trying to parts of the team work work with the devs alongside the because if you can the best team I've ever worked with is when you get the whole team together when you go to Dave and you the devs a new cells work is part of that same again I guess I'm leaning towards a job in a certain way but this existed way before our child did I guess it really so I tend to use things so if it was a great thing where you can actually you know you do designs but you can actually demonstrate the design so show the devs what is that you really wanted to achieve not just the actual graphics but great use that presentation mode which is pretty powerful to be able to flow it's you show them what your intent is not just the actual design but what is it you're trying to achieve. Basic thing style guides and things like that get a lot of the basic stuff did it out the way you use that sometimes you think for small projected developing style guide things can be a real pain you just wanna get on and do it do the good juicy stuff but actually saves you time I thought I think in the in the long term but fundamentally no matter what you do get everybody in the same room and and communicate Jones I do I worry when I see the com. Comments like I wanna handle for like like that like the whole football hope tighter actually get your bring them closer give them a nice hug tell them what you want. Anybody else do that was it just me. I love that Frank I'm gonna point to you what what do you do in this situation. Yeah similar similar approach to bury having conversations that's probably one of the also the agile one of the best practices and principles is that the having a conversation allows you to understand what the developer needs so he took a developer as as as another user or internal customer will get their user needs to get their pain points the get feedback on the way you're doing things and and it's best that not not just a slack chat or email it's the the pick up the phone we talked about deep levels of communications are against slack call huddle teams call whatever is it yeah whatever whatever you have to get the above the person on the line and hearing their voice because you can pick up a lot of the social cues on how things are going fine doesn't always mean finding good doesn't always mean good. And so to get that kind of feedback. Hayler your processes and tools a lot of tools out there you can pick from but it's a like you know a lot of the thieves are said a lot of these other things and it's a soft skills and and using those tools and getting that art of finding what tools to use that that will help set sets more sense I think you have any additional parts of this one here yeah the only thing I want to add to this is okay I I understand it's best to. Include them in the process I completely agree that's how I operate too however I am going to approach this in the hand off. In the handoff direction so I think the the one thing you want to consider here if you are handing off again best practices to not do that but. Do it in a way where you provide as much information in context as possible. Make a very thick document that would encourage them to sit down and meet with you next time because they don't want to sit down and read through this whole thing but also you know make this a standalone product make it Hey users were saying X. Y. NZ back it with user data and. Say that you know this is a required feature or. Component that you need in order to satisfy user needs. So bring in the actual data and then as you're talking about designs itself so you've given them the context with the data when you're presenting the designs itself make sure you list out every single interaction as it should be and you know if you can down to the specifications of lake transitions on on. You know if you're talking about strict interaction design what you know the cursor speed and all these other things the very specific. Some attributes of your design the color codes everything that way you are eliminating possibilities that they mistake what you have given them as some sort of a rough approximation and they now will take that as the ground troops and that's my best advice if you do handed over again best practice is to kind of go with the Hey come over here I'm gonna give you a hug we're gonna take a look at this you're gonna ask me any question you need to because we are best buds all right. That is all for the it came from section we're gonna get into this last part of the show needs no introduction is one more thing this is where we talk about just one more thing what's going on with you. I am I'm gonna take my will more things split in half so it might look like 2 more things but it's not your 2 halves of the same thing I am so in a couple weeks on a on the November 3 I'm chairing a taunting shoe of the dogs human factors weapon a way that marks John Paul Simon and Rachel Poole talk about using artificial intelligence in healthcare so we'll be pushing the all details of that fairly soon but if you're interested in learning more about last there's just been a a white paper published and it's really actually. I'm a geek perspective like me really interesting so I'm really really sure to be asked to chat about but my true one more thing is I just buy new washing machine. And the washing machine for me just don't wash clothes that's brilliant does it read but it's good it's Bluetooth enabled as in I've got now going up for the motion do I need an app for the washing machine undergo the same for the dishwasher and invite someone now the the the clothes dry it doesn't have a and not by I almost feel like that's that's a bit left out I kind of think we going all over the top with the with the level of apps that require it can I ask what the app does like is it just the interface like is there no interface on the physical device or is it that's all I do is this is the usual invite does the usual controls on the front of the washing machine but there is a party will not allow me to check where it is in its cycle which I'll know because if it's still tied notes finished if it's all if it's still growing and making noises it's still going apparently this one will we might allow me to set off remotely so which in theory sounds sounds good I consult to see that however I have to go to the physical machine turn it into remote mode so I have to fill it will save you know you'd be close in the new detergent not sort of stuff then sits in remote mode go to another part of my house wherever and then access the apple my phone is going to be with the Bluetooth. Range and then set it going on it's remote cycle when actually follow today I could just press go before I left instead of putting 2 remote mode I just put into an old. So yeah I I like this idea I I looking I could be got to geek and I think everything is like a is amazing but I just can't help thinking I don't think my washing machine needs its own up. Like look I get the use case for dryer right you're set then bad and you stop a load in there from last time and you you know you want warm socks or whatever you just hit it while you're on your phone and that to me makes sense but a washing machine weird Frank what's your one more thing this week. Yeah actually yeah both trip to Costco and so I got these new ear buds and I was just kind of trying them out. And it just kind of walking along the aisle and it usually go to Costa Rica in a grocery store with a common lay out I'm just gutted by Old World just kind of just you know just on autopilot. But they change the snacks section I I get these like mixed nuts or beef jerky apps cosco because the holiday season is coming and so this next section is usually right where the registers of the cosco where I shop at. But then I just didn't know what to do and that there goes my mental model and they sent but I was actually listening to your buds to the previous version of this episode of the podcast of mental models and cognitive models I think that you 2 have gone so that it was kind of a oh well okay calm down about a mental models change a listen to the podcast and and kind of get get some tips and tricks of what to do so that was really what a coincidence kind of a funny things that happened recently in it and not be here to talk about so that was a key coincidence there. That's funny that you're listening to the mental model what might happen. My one more thing is is. I guess let's see here so I had. Are you are you familiar that the pixel 6 event was earlier this week he was on Tuesday yes I heard about y'all y'all gadget geeks so. The here's here's my ex I I've wanted this phone since they announced it back earlier this year. Because it's time for an upgrade and mines from 2017 which isn't that long ago but it's long enough and it's only got 64 gigabytes of storage on it and I need I desperately need more for the type of things that I'm doing now. Like you know podcasting and storing media on my actual phone. Anyway so here's let me describe to you the launch experience of the pixel 6 pro so you sit down you watch an hour long video on YouTube by Google about the phone you get super hyped super excited about the new product and then you spend 2 more hours on Google's broken store trying to order this product getting frustrated because it is bouncing stock around. Because the store is broken it couldn't accurately identified to me what things were in stock so I one of the 512 gigabyte black version because that is just it's it's the only person that has the 512 gigabytes and I won a lot of storage. But then I also wanted it in this package called the pixel pro pass which includes things like their game pass and you to premium and the the cloud storage which all of those things I use well maybe not the games yet but maybe yeah well anyway it's it's a package that saves you money over the long term so I I was trying to get all the stuff together and. It was an awful experience but I'm super happy I stuck with it I stuck with it and you know one hit on my credit report later because they have to get it through Google's financing. Accounts anyway I got it and it'll be here next month and I'll report back on that but I'm I'm very thankful that I was he can stick through it for 3:00 hours trying to get that phone on the day. Anyway yeah that's what I got more fun exciting things to talk about next week for one more thing but. Before we get out here is once a week well we got a couple more votes in it's still 100 percent yes for learning with the with A. I. which is interesting to me not a single person said no as of this recording 5:27 PM on a Thursday evening Pacific all right well that's gonna be it for today everyone if you liked this episode we invite you to check out episode 100 96 I've been quoting it wrong this entire time where Frank and I talk about how Google is improving virtual classrooms the comment wherever you're listening on what you think of the story this week for more in depth discussion you can always join us on our slack or discord communities visit our official website sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date on all the latest in the factors news you like what you hear you wanna support the show there's a couple things you can do 1 leave us a 5 star review that's completely free for you to do that right now in whatever podcast app you're in to tell your friends about us word of mouth really helps show grow and 3 you know we support consider supporting us on Patreon again we are 2 away from being self sustainable everyone let's get there and as always thanks to all of our social and our website in the description of this episode I don't think Mr Perry Kirby for being on the show today where can our listeners going find you if they want to talk about artificial intelligence. On Twitter you can find me at bass and disco okay or you can search for travel to the human factors podcast women my new shiny website W. W. W..trovagene focused don't call. And Mister Frank lax and work in our listeners going find you if they wanna talk about education and learning. Hello the best place to find me some link there aflac's and because white is the most recent there as for me I've been hosting Grove you can buy me streaming on twitch every Monday for office hours across social media at Nick _ Rome thanks again for tuning into human factors cast until next time. It.