E238 - How do our Minds Distinguish Various Social Influences?

Welcome to human factors yeah your weekly podcast for human factors psychology and design. Hello everybody welcome back to another episode a human factors cast your this is episode 200 38 we're recording this live on 3/17/2022 I'm hosting grown joined today by Mister berry Kirby Hey good evening how are you doing I am well you'll on the other hand sounds maybe not so well. I've been better I've got I might be best if I could have it and so I I'm I'm isolating and things but commiserating where we recording then it means I don't have to miss a trip so how cool is that how cool is that the covert very gave you a visit Hey we got a great show for you all tonight we'll be talking about how our minds distinguish between various social influences and later we can answer some questions from the community about how would you approach a product that's very broken. I'm feeling overwhelmed potentially by a new job and. The controversial opinion about whether or not paper prototype prototyping is useful or not but first we got some programming notes Fauria. The next episode for 12 to the human factors podcast is live berry what is going on over on the 12 to podcast so 12 to protest on Monday if I get myself sorted out the we'll talk about muscular skeletal disorders and I know the speed boats was brought to the U. K. anyway by effects health and a co that is able to not only support muscular skeletal health in your day to day life but actually if you've then got problems it brings uses AI to bring you some some physiotherapy so been interesting to work out you know really well I don't look this good skeletal health and what can you do about it so I'll go live on Monday UK time. Supercooled looking for that episode in other news we do have a coming here on Friday April 1 at 10:00 AM Pacific one eastern we do have the next H. FES presidential town hall I'll be sitting down with a slew of folks from H. I. V. S. talk about the latest and greatest from H. FES and see what's going on our last one was pretty cool so I highly recommend that you I'll come by and check it out we'll also have it in the feed here so if you miss it live you can always listen to it here all right well I think it's time that we get into this first part of the show yes we know why you're here it's. Human factors news this is the part of the show all about. Bicycling I don't know. You know sometimes we we pick the stories and you pick them so it's gonna be a great time berry with the story this week so this week is all about how our minds distinguish between various social influences so when people change their opinion after they received additional information from the person this is an example of an information informational social influence when people revise their views because they want to be socially accepted researchers refer to normative social influences. Previously it was uncertain which neural mechanisms underlie these 2 different situations. Researchers characterize brain activities that occurred you people should be socially influence to change their opinion the study showed that our brain has all social conflicts buddies the differences of opinion be the same you will meet machinery that he uses to solve its own internal subjective conflicts specifically to the brain takes the 2 foot 2 factors into account and that is how confident we are in our opinion and how polite we are blind to be towards others. The study showed that that people tend to just the answers when that confidence was low inspected the whether they thought that was a human or not I'm not be compelled me to do big moe discussion. This information influence was controlled by an activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex D. A. C. C. 20 the rain every day this elixir cerebral cortex. To subject to also exhibited more conformity towards other opinions if they received a confirmation from the communication partner. Is known to be influence on rose only when they believe that the pond was human as did the correlation with the ACC activity moreover the normative influences associated with strong functional connections between the ACC in other social processing regional regions of the brain this is not the case for the informational influence. So Nick were you influenced into believing the article. Look there's some some really interesting. And we put this there's some really interesting nuances here that I think we can really dig into from human factors perspective I think it really will challenge us to apply it because I'm looking at your general impressions here but mine I I love social science stuff anything social psych is a really cool topic in this ads sort of the M.. The Nero psych onto it and I think that's fascinating I don't not strong feelings either way but it's. We're gonna try here folks very. What are your thoughts from my perspective it's well it's a little these the things that is light it's cool yeah I mean you're absolutely right the whole social psych stuff is cool let the. The mural behind it the new science behind it is really interesting because there is fundamental there's there's still so much we don't know about the brain how it functions and all that sort of stuff. What vehicle since. What is it gives me what what what's actually tell it what what is what is it that I can I'm going to take away and do something differently because of it hi to me things that that that isn't anything that yet though this talk about whether talk about humans and non humans giving. Get given supportive influences which will come into we'll talk a bit more about the article itself. Is interest interesting but do we want to dig into a bit of I guess on the cycle just about that social 6 to feet you like and you think it's so cool yeah do you do to dig into some of the some of them SO concept that we should be thinking about with this yeah I think you know we're talking about this the study here in terms of influencing others and there are several different ways to think about social influence. This is gonna take it back to like social psych 101 right we're gonna talk a lot about about a lot about that stuff but I think 1 thing for us as human factors practitioners is to really stretch and talk about how social influences can affect things like cognition performance decision making and I think some of those key human factors principles are actually affected quite a bit by some of the other stuff going on socially so let's open our minds let's stretch. Stretch our. Brain muscles and try to get this. All linked up for you all right so let's let's take a look at. Yes social social influences from a social psychology perspective so there's a couple different ways to think about this right there's let's start with like informative social influencer this might be called social proof and another. Other people call it that so this is when people feel the need to really be informed by accurate information when they don't have the confidence in there especially when they don't have the confidence in their own knowledge. And so this is why you know in a lot of cases people. Go out and search news stories and there's a whole bunch of issues with trust and social. Influence when it comes to misinformation and things on the news so I mean it this is a really big one. But basically when they turn to others in hope of getting that correct information. When they accept that information. Whether or not it's accurate that person is subjected to social influence so there's a whole conversation right now about how misinformation is handled from news sources and from those in your community someone could spout misinformation about vaccines or transmission of cobit or even cope it itself and relevant to you Barry so like I I there's a lot of different ways in which misinformation can manifest and it's a it's a form of social influence. Do I talk about normative social influence yes so the second type of conformity is normative normative social influence where people want to 15 among friends and colleagues and they want to be liked and respected by the members of the social group the value the opinions of other members and seek to maintain their standing within that group the full. We'll just adjust the road up to chew them behave use too much the accepted norms of that group and you thought your local community or your local family group you know the French group the conform to with the with the majority may involve the other top fashion trends the popular amongst a group of friends all adopted rituals of of a religious group which could take the TV show or not wearing masks not getting vaccines you know all them something if if people within your circle do you will not die the doing or not doing something you will generate trying console with up to you to stick with it you'll know in 2 groups. To me it is about social influence in conformity I do but I want to pause on normative social influence because I think this has a lot of potential for human factors applications so when you talk about fitting into a group. You know I'm I'm the past. I feel a couple shows we talked about. What working in the workplace could potentially do and so if you have you know those workplace relationships that we talked about last week. You might feel more likely to be impacted by these normative social influences if you want to fit in with the group that you like and if you start sort of pairing that influence with prosocial behavior or. You know we're the talk about climate ergonomics berry that's something that you're passionate about and so. You know pairing that normative social influence with like prosocial behaviors like recycling if you see your friends doing it and and they recycle you might be you will be more likely to recycle to fit in with that group if you know they are taking their bikes to work you're gonna feel more inclined to take your bike to work too because that is something that you can relate to them with and so likewise if you foster an environment of productivity I think this is where we talk about human performance we can really make that human factors connection here you foster a an environment of of productivity in the workplace and healthy work life balance I think that has a huge impact on human factors so I I just want to highlight that. Because I think it's so critical for that human factors connection that maybe it wasn't apparent at the top when we started this new story. So yeah let's let's talk about social influence because this is. I'm kind of that other piece of the puzzle right this this can take this can manifest itself in many different forms. And we you know we we've been talking about conformity and that's kind of the big one here so conformity at its bases when somebody adopts the opinions or behaviors of another person or another groups is often incorrect cursing groups and and it usually happens when an individual conforms to those social norms that. Are respected by everybody in that group right we talked just about that normative social influence I think this is really getting at that right there are other things in it that are. Not behavioral that are also adopted so they might conform as well to opinions and values which will impact behaviors right and and they expressed support for some of these views accepted by the group. And sort of withhold the criticism they have about some of these views and opinions right and and ultimately. This does come down to behavior like these these withholding of criticism and supporting views will manifest itself in ways that. Result in human behavior right now behave in a way that's similar to others in that group. I don't anything to add to that or do you want to jump into public versus private conformity because there's quite a difference yeah we'll before jumping to the I think it's what doc social influence conform to something we see a lot in in the workplace because because because of almost that. I commit that in that community old. In the workplace and how you seem to fit in with your your perception of what what what you'll work behave you should be like which ought which might be very different to what to what your home Sir it is quite a quite an interesting interesting will. The book because the private conformity is is super interesting for me because it is when you look at it when you come conforming to the social norms of agreed a past may disagree with the opinions of express or the actions that they take but none the less they are adult the behavior that is expected of them this whole public plus private that is it actually if you put the conformity is evolving matching your own behavior to meet the expectation of others but once inside you might hold a different view so the example of the the we got he was a student at expressed a liking for refund because all of their friends listen to it however probably they may just may just like the music but they pretend to like it just to fit in with the group private conformity that's when a person internalizes the views of a group and adopt a majority of the 0 as the road. So for for instance use the same idea that if you listen to the music of the rock band that their friends like over time to realize that they too enjoy this type of music personalised opinion has has changed private conform to use occurred so that's really quite interesting about how you. How you in internally internally view and that still leave you if he was going on going on around you. Which is again if you if we can influence people to I mean well that's it that's a key influencing measure about how to get people to take not just talk about and pretended that they they like what they're doing for you but actually owned internalize it makes my skin feel Michael and there. You can also not. Yeah I mean there's there's a third kind of option here which is identification. You know you talk about public talk about private there's identification where. You know an individual in of identifies kind of with other members of a group and conforms to their. Opinions and behaviors and when they do that they may seek to gain the favor of other members. And to be accepted in the group so it's almost like. Trying to change yourself to be in that group rather than being in a group by default and and adapting to group think right so that for example this might be. You know any employee joining an office right we keep bringing up the workplace here they might go bowling as colleagues. And they might like to go once we can I think we actually talked about you know actually going out. As an example last week but you know they go out to this bowling alley once a week and privately this person might dislike this past time and prefer to spend it reading I think we talked exactly about this when I was like I just want to go to a hotel and like hang out yes. You're coming with the mount like that which is it for someone to not out so publicly what's really the difference between the progressive private on the identification. Like to the same thing. Well I think the difference for women when it comes to identification is sort of the wanting to be accepted into a group versus the public conformity is you're already in a group this is my understanding I'm not an expert in the stuff but public conformity kind of is like your. In a group by default right leg identifications I was like I want to fit into this group and that yep yep yes. Let's talk about internalization you wanna talk about internalization so internalisation is is another form of opinion conformity where the opinions of the group all minority within that group influences an individual's own options are the best men only express the views of the group publicly but also adopt these new views we got some is being that right so a former private conformity. This internalization of you believes frequency causing religious groups where members privately adult the spiritual ideas expressed by authority figures as the personal beliefs which is of the redeem trusted because we do have them we see quite a lot of that throw to rams everything to do with the cove it everything to do with we've taken the states you found them interesting activities. You're staying as one gets me. And so you can have to see that sort of behavior is occurring on a on a regular basis county. Yeah internalisation is basically the process by which those thoughts and opinions become your own when you're trying to conform to a group and then the other piece of that is like compliance this is kind of another form of conformity which. Is when somebody request something that may be an individual or group. I'm with the if they request something for that individual to. Do right it's it's instructions from another person. And unlike internalization where you are slowly. By adopting those opinions as your own VS doesn't necessarily require that private conformity they are actually might reluctantly comply in order to kind of fit in with the group. And and they might be privately doubting that request to do something right. I I feel like this is fox news. Internally they have a memo to be vaccinated that's there's there's. That's their sort of. I guess my workplace mandate is they need to be vaccinated but they're sowing distrust and. And so it's like. I don't know it's just a. I don't know where but I mean compliance right when you when you think about. Complying with these. Sort of. Requests it frequently occurs when a person is asked by an authority figure and so when you think about authority figures you're thinking about. Hierarchical relationships. Most of the time right if if you have some sort of person in authority meaning your boss or. A law enforcement officer or somebody who holds public office you know anyone in these roles. Which which is seen as a Florida native figures. You might have. I don't know as S. you might be more more likely to comply to those right you know you might have drivers complying with the directions given by traffic wardens because they have a sortie over traffic in students comply with the crest requests of their teachers. Who also have a position of authority in the classroom. A different from obedience so compliances is sort of. I guess come but let's talk about the difference you will talk about 1000000000 so we can talk about the difference between the 2 yes abedian sees is similar to complain enough that you'll you busy getting people to do was that told in that the the post modifies the behavior to obey the directives of another often with positions of authority but he doesn't actually require the server told to his or her own private opinion where we see this is in large in in Iraq globalization such as I mean the military is a really good example where because you're in the Iraqi units at an old critical.organization you get told what to do you get given all that you carry it out what is the obedience which for me is different to the compliance because it combines you may not actually know the person who's giving you the the directional the older because you respect the position that they're in and he could be just a while it's a port probably more of a one off event you will do it because the social norms around complying with what you're doing would you be in these these doing under. More much more assertive and you you were repeatedly do it. You're good to. No no no good save I brought a hierarchical in compliance and I was wrong. Well I mean like look like but you know. You know I I'm I'm calling myself out there I didn't want anyone to call me out on Twitter or anything so yeah you're right I think there's there's a distinct difference one is because somebody holds. Position of authority and the other is because there is a hierarchical relationship you know client compliance recipients. And when you talk about that hierarchical relationship you're there's also sort of social roles right and it's different in the in the sense that. There are roles in which people find themselves in this could be a human factors application here to write it if you think about the way in which people perform you talk about human factors practitioner what is that role do at work. You talk about a you X. designer verses you X. researcher what are the differences in those roles and so. If you think about sort of. I'm assigning each of these roles with a set of attitudes and behaviors with those roles or responsibilities even if you're thinking about workplace right and the role of that person has to do the things that that person have to has to do in that role it can influence our actions and opinions right they might. Ultimately as you know like let's say someone the designer and they slowly start to think more like a designer because they're in that role and they're getting more experience with those types of things like wise if you're in a research role you might start thinking about a research differently and interacting with other researchers and trying to do that and if you're human factors practitioner. Who the hell knows that that is you know really what's so you have these these roles but you know that when we talk about the Minnesota all sense. You know you can you can think about being influenced by a number of different roles at one time right you wear many different hats you know your dad you're a brother you're a. Your I don't know as son you're a worker you are a. You name it right and so. You play professional role you play a your profession and that's associated with different types of behavior. So for example right you people expect a doctor or a naval office to be a little bit more serious than a circus entertainer. That's not always true but what you might try to fulfill this assumption when you are given that role if your idea of a doctor is serious then you might if you are pursuing a medical degree. Slowly become less fun and at this. Throwing shade on doctors here. Getting. It is not getting into. But I mean you know there's there's other types of roles as well too right we all know gender roles family roles different societal roles those can also influence behavior and this is like classic Zimbardo. If you think back to psych 101 the prison experiment this you know signing people to roles and made the kind of performance don't talk about minority influence. Yes Sir one confirmed usually occurs in response to you know the vast majority of a group coming together in influencing the member's individual all minorities group can also exhibit social as social influence so this occurs when individuals presented opinion the difference that do to you what the what is a by the majority so how does this opinion is novel and contribute to the group norms the tension of the others members adult is going to it and their letter they consider the merits of the minority opinion. Because it runs against the accepted please for the group you cannot rely on normative influence to lead the other members to comply individual individually tend towards a majority held view to feel as though they're part of a group of this minority view usually needs to exert informative influence are presenting new information might be key fact or a key bit knowledge as having been overlooked by the majority minority could dissuade other members to reconsider their opinion. This is known as conversion if I don't influence is able to convert a significant number of people are sufficient number of members within the group it will become the majority of opinion within the group so many salute social political movements such as the civil rights movement in the U. S. use minority influence to change the views of the white population. So I something you see quite a lot as it states in in in the political domain web what when you go out and try and convert people almost wanted to time approach to get your mind out to you to be taken to be by the majority. Yeah yeah so so then you have a child Anne who is like king of influencer in a well known name the principles of influence there's there's several different principles and great can go through it back and forth one by one but we'll start with like reciprocity right and and these are other ways to kind of think about influence writes a reciprocity. You're basically more inclined to give back when people give something to you so think about like a gift or a certain behavior or service right I mean there's been studies that have you know you send a Christmas card with $20 to somebody and they'll send you one back without even knowing you. With money in it because they must they must just forgot about you and they feel bad. It's it's rather remarkable thing the reciprocity thing so I mean when you think about influence what's what's up next so scarcity is basically around if you try to make out that something is going to exist anymore so if there's going to be less of something that people want more of it I need quite a typical technique used by. You know stores and stuff like that said you know you see so many sales of right thing you know end of line sales and all that sort of stuff as soon as people think that are going to get something in the mail and so the demand for everything shoots through the roof and so. Telling people something's going because gas is a key driver to get getting people want it. Due to about 30. Yeah I mean we talk about compliance and obedience this is really kind of that encapsulated in authority right it's it's people follow the lead of credible knowledgeable experts are those that are in hierarchical roles from them. That have that authority to do something. Well I am but then also the this idea of consistency so people like to do stuff that they've already done so if you'll agreeing with what we can get people to agree with what the $40 you can point out that say so we give to charity and you'll get your chart you can you can use that say what you could do you could throw the charities located any charitable so could watch RT's well any anything like that so if you can get them to continue the behavior that they've already held you can you can send that to your advantage. Yep there's liking you know you're you're more likely to say yes to people that you like so be likable. Let's I am a social proof we've only talked about social proof in in quite a detailed idea with you would be the group you want to if so we'll see doing something you want to generally go along for the ride and and and follow what everybody else is doing. Yeah. Will eat yeah Leslie's unity us versus them this is. Political parties this is. You know different groups that you feel like there's the. Another group kind of opposing you you need to be United in your thoughts and so that's kind of the last one here for principles of influence now let's. Let's wrap up that's that's influence 11 folks that's the. Social psychology let's let's talk about this in relation to the article in human factors and general. You know and I think there's there's some really interesting discussion to be had here. Potentially around sort of the way in which they measured this right so they they they've been using a computer based game for this. Come again to remind everybody since we've kind of gone so far from the original article. Basically we're we're talking about how our minds are distinguishing from various social influences so all these different social influences that we just talked about our minds are distinguishing. From them or between them through. Through our brain. My brain is clearly not working tonight. So what they did is they they did this computer based game where the the participants had to try and remember the position of a.displayed on the screen they gave confidence values for their answers however if they were allowed to revise their gases they had seen the answer of a computer or virtual partner with whom they've been introduced to before the experiment in reality all answers were provided by computers so they only you know manipulated whether or not the person thought it was a person or a computer. And and that really produce some interesting outcomes here right because we're talking about the differences between working with humans and versus working with computers and there's kind of huge human factors applications here. Yes the refs in years because the city will be doing a lot more work around a Ali machine learning and things like that we getting more more systems that going to be providing guidance to 2 was a Siemens and the the 1 of the big 11 of the good drivers of this would be interesting drives a is that if somebody if something's going to make a decision they have about low set of competence if they thought that the that the bits of advice being given to the was by human then they'd more likely much that much the advice if they if they didn't if the what we can do what they were doing. If they thought that he was gonna be given by computer then they'll be less likely to change the minds because they they assume that they know best. So but as he said the the actual at the baseline all the answers will be given by computed so you could really see that draw itself out so if we do a lot more work around A. I. A. I. system email everything from Alexa and Google home no all things like that all the way through to so quite you know some of the futuristic A. I. systems. Hi if we can have that sort of relationship with them A. I. systems which is not going to trust them and we automatically going to override them is that going to make them sort of systems. I see less trusted overall are they going to have the the impact that we truly think that they do they should have and how we deal with that from human factors perspective is gonna be quite key because we got to make sure that we present that information the right way that the the advice because it will be advice will be guidance or whatever it will be taken in the way that that we intend. Yeah I mean you're always you can always tell. Somebody that they are talking with a human to. I don't know help with that trust right that we're talking about trust in human robot A. I. teaming here and so there's going to be a what I see is a bunch of ethical questions of windy you tell somebody that it is a robot versus when you tell somebody it's a human if that robot is going to or that A. I. is going to give you a much more accurate assessment of the situation especially in like the military domain right I can imagine this would be a very tricky needle to thread you also have sort of situations where it's less in the stakes are less high something like chat bots I'm. Do you do you tell the person that it is a chat bot or not. Because if you do tell them it's chat but they're going to be less likely to trust their answer there you can click through to get to a real human or do you say you know fake it yeah I I see it sometimes I hate my name is John and I am here to help you what can I help you with today you know when it's so obvious that the chat bot but it's like one of those things is how do you design around making it feel like a human but still be ethical about it. I don't know it's a it's a huge. We're not gonna solve it here today on human factors chasm sorry if you tuned in for that but. Though on that point if you want to read more into that there was a book called virtual humans well I am David Burton is all about the the the development of of chatbots and things like put trouble to the cheering test and things like that which is thoroughly interesting 30 recommended. Right it be very interesting to see. Where social influence falls with computers that pass the Turing test and those that don't. And and you know telling them they're all robots but then kind of the ones that do pass the Turing test you like is that really I don't you know it's it's one of those things where we just don't know yet. I think we were close but we just don't know yet any other closing thoughts on this article. For one thing yeah I think you see I think it's interesting exit I think days it's it's again it's another to the foundation article by foundation building block for us to work I think this the the true value for me is is not better than the difference between how we take a I. how we take. Influential people and and the and the difference between the 2 maybe just and see what the golden institute acts what you view any final thoughts. This was a struggle. I mean look like sound like what I do oppose these these a I'm I'm the one who goes through so I said this is only a real cold but but like I'm I'm really thankful we did it because it was an exercise for us to stretch and to really think about this from human factors perspective I knew when I saw it it was human actors it's one of those things like you know what is art well I know when I see it and so for me this was human factors in the sense that it has some underlying mechanisms that will contribute to human factors discussion it in itself is not human factors and so. I always appreciate the ones that make us stretch far to get to that human factors application because really. Human factors is everything when you think about it. Someone will. All right so I may have told the story but thank you to our patrons and our everyone on Twitter who voted for selecting our topic this weekend thank you to our friends over at look at Ludwig Maximilians university for a new story this week you are a follow along we do post links to the original articles in our weekly round ups on our blog you can also join us on discord for more discussion on the stories were to take a quick break and we'll be back to see what's going on in 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 $1 per month and include rewards like access to our weekly Q. and a is with the hosts personalized professional reviews and human factors minute patrie on only weekly 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got some good ones this week this is the partial research all over the internet bring your topics the community you're talking about unity is talking about. Amor you find these answers useful out give us a like to help other people find this content wherever you're listening watching all that stuff so we have 3 today let's take this first one here is this how do you approach prioritization for a product that is very broken what techniques did you use to find the severe issues this is my chicken kraal crew on the user experience sub reddit. They go on to write let's say you identified in your online store the search is the most important experience and everything is broken search filters don't work or act as expected it's bloated the U. X. absolutely horrible categories make no sense naming of features make no sense selecting a few feature shows results but the results don't seem to contain the thing you selected how do you identify all issues. Technical and design or and prioritize the best anything besides doing a humoristic review Barry how would you approach the situation. I'd start again by the Senate I am I think the reason I mean almost 7 seriously on that point there is certain times when you if you've got something like that and that just sounds like like a horror story the the. Sometimes it's easier to just out again go and work out right what what what is your if it's not X. if it's not meeting what you expected in terms of user experience what is the user experience go back to basics in terms of what he uses stories the workflows that you're expecting. Started through again the well the one I quite like to used to justify the I guess is by things like cold to walk through that that type of approach of again if you're going through right what what is your expecting detail it and yet but just from the aisle I would repeat to bits and start again because because of our collective that's often what you take out how do you I'm I'm sure you take them a much more considered approach to just a couple. I don't know I think I think the tear down and and try it again is is a good approach but let's say you don't have that option right I think there are some clever ways to sort of suggest a major overhaul with some simple tricks. The. BM save this one simple trick I'm so. Like what I would do is I would sit down some users and really talk about. You know do you kind of a card sorting exercise of features right what is the most that what is the thing that you need. I'm. To be 100 percent you know and and kind of have them sort by that way and that way you have some sort of indication of priority for what's important to the users right searches the whole thing and yes it's broken but are you going to fix the results first because that's what they're most interested in are you going to do filters first because they need to be able to have that functionality and that might result in better results it really comes down to. You know what the search is intended to do for your product because you know search could be broken but what if it's like a very minor part of your other products like your whole product what if it's what your product is mostly controls. And really searches for like minor things like settings you know it doesn't make sense to do a whole overhaul for something like that so really how big is the problem in relation to the rest of the product and then understanding what I'm. Sort of requirements are are needed from the user perspective right I think that's kind of a conservative approach to. Maybe not tear down the whole thing and start over. Yeah I do Ponsonby say's the it's something I mean because because they said everything is broken policy says that what I eat when I go to use at that point would Ali should I know beautiful in from either my own experiences all please be able to you know if it's a stole then when things are going to be up to sell something of a Google to see what would be a cell I should be able to at least hit the top 3 things that need to be working over the line still isn't rocket science yeah that would be it depends what they mean by you know my version everything is broken is possibly less dramatic than what their version of all into everything is broken if you truly broken I'm an engineer it with a hammer but if it's beef it is a bit more you will stand up and then I think you should be able to rely on your skills in a as an HR practitioner but then yes if it's if it's with only one star in the making uses and then and do that it depends on your severity again it depends are you telling me that something in the actor's depends yeah I'd like to look into that did. Well it really does right in the house of yours the product you say it's it's very broken everything is broken but really what is salvageable from it and you should know like you said berry like what the top couple issues are I think you could go out if it makes sense to do I don't know I was talking about generally right I would urge. Anyway let's go into this next one here this is feeling very overwhelmed with my new job this is by mango strudel on the experience user experience about it. I just landed a job as the only designer we can say human factors engineer you X. research or whatever it is it's all applicable at a start up because I had 5 years of experience working as the sole designer for start ups I am 2 days and I realize that being the only designer at all times has created bad habits and me my methods are not as clean and it's the first time that I have someone in the company my direct boss and CTO who have some level of experience and figma to be honest he knows more than me just isn't as experience with the visual design I feel like I can't fake it til I make it here like in all the other jobs I had so far the fact that this is on an entirely new subject matter A. I. isn't helping me either since today's 3 hour meeting I understood almost nothing I am working from home today and I am having panic attacks constantly will this get better am I in over my head too long didn't read am I panicking about a new job Barry have you been in this situation and yes what do you recommend I was in the situation last week I'm so literally I started a new project. And it's in a subject area the I know a bit about but no a customer demand I know my role in it except you will please go but complex integration but the actual subject albeit is something I haven't touched old since university and so from that perspective I am a 20 odd years out of date so yes I I completely get where you're coming from the M.. What I would say is that you join the team and they wouldn't apply if you if they didn't see the skills that you have because you may be asked you if you had skills and you told me you had some skills but but probably this although you fully demonstrated some soft skills as well. And me covered I am. So I trust them to set extended they fight that they've hired you. They might assume some more experience of like St in figural any other told it doesn't really matter but they do you've said the cell they don't have the same experience as you in in visual design so go with it that that's your role in the team bring that social ad bring the visual design to the team you know if you if you lean on them to learn more about figma from them if they got more experience that that's that's fabulous crackled. Mmhm. It even a couple days in a what have you started a new project of the evening's not within you you complete same company or whatever it seems you when you start your project you while learning new stuff all the time you would you will feel swamped but don't panic you it will all become fine. If you still feel like this in sort of 6 months time that's when you start asking questions of before it could be days in into a job I mean it I'm if you look at it all the time she got to go to a new system for that and let's face it most companies about the most important thing so yeah I think I think just don't stop panicking brief moment and realize that you've got you've got they've they've hired you because of your skills not because the skills that of that they've already got you've got you you're bringing something new to the table. Yep yet the clients are very they hired you for a reason I think I think what you're experiencing here is imposter syndrome and you I mean you are overwhelmed because yes it's a new domain I know a lot of people who work in. Contracting where like you said berry you might get introduced to a new contract that is a completely different domain and it's your job to understand but not on day 3 all right yeah you know not on day 3 you don't need to understand everything about artificial intelligence on day 3 take your time and learned they expect it you know like. I just wish domains recently too and I am still completely lost and that's okay right it's gonna take the time to understand. It I I feel a little. Nervous about not knowing but then. It's it's okay you know it imposter syndrome is a real thing as long as you're not. As long as you can do the job you know and if you can't communicate that you know you need a little bit more information or time or whatever it is I don't see this as yet like you like you said berry 6 months maybe but 3 days after. Let's face it letting go a eyes day 5 thing not a 3 thing right yeah 3 hour meeting is like definitely not a first week thing I don't know and if you want to work closer to drop then we'll talk about that in a couple weeks that's a. All right last one up here bear you chose this one because it's very controversial this one is paper prototyping is the biggest waste of time ever this is from the user experience sub reddit this is hi I'm from your ****. For your next. Depending on how you read it anyway as they go on right so I'm working on an app concept and I wanted to try paper prototyping just for fun the first thing is I need to paper and scissors but I don't have any scissors on hand so I had to spend time just finding a scissor and having the tools I needed then it was over to drying I started by drawing up some iPhone mockups I figured I could start with 10 I started to draw some user flows my gonna read this whole thing after drawing some mock ups I realize that one of the change button placement now I have to do everything all over after drying up of the screens are very specific user flow I had to spend some time cutting out all the mock ups then user testing switching out of screen for another take so much time that users lost contact with what they were doing I also realize that my hand writing we're more sloppy than I thought so I spent 10 times the time of paper prototyping compared to creating a low fidelity prototype figma the whole experience sucked and for everyone I got nothing out of it Barry. Do you feel that paper prototyping is the biggest waste of time ever. I can see from this story why they would think that however just think yourself look at the you able to use something like a tool like figment in order to do it what I would suggest is having worked in you know defense for quite a while they were there times when you you just can't use of fancy new cool tools and you know in this is just looking things up this could be trials it could be anything I know but you got to build a rocket back to pen and paper however what I would say in in the description as well is of the devil what you read that was it seems maybe they've gone to to end the call now well the paper look up look up should be that issue relative light weight should be for the next week if you'll draw going everything else actually missing half of the south of half the fun there was getting the users themselves to draw them out and because it's if you're doing is part of a that that session land you know if you don't you don't get the users to test it because you get them to do some of the work as well so yeah I think this is. The direct tools out there that you could be confuses you said think with that is there's others but that make it seem a lot quicker but sometimes just going back to pen and paper is is just just the thing to do is get a hold of me. Now I am I mean I've been in the same situation you you need to take a pen and paper in to secure locations where you can't have access to fun fancy tools the thing that I have like issues. I hate to like call people out but like this this post is frustrating for a variety of reasons I am the sentence I wanted to try paper prototyping just for fun why would you not planet why would you just in the moment decide to do it and then get frustrated when you don't have the materials to do so like it it requires planning it requires thought and the fact that just on a whim I'm gonna try this and then the fact that you're drawing the mock ups you know in in a certain fidelity and the fact that the you're drawing them with a button placed on the way out already that is part of the issue you draw that out separately so that we can move it around. On the overall layout it's just. This is very frustrating to me I think that the advice that you've given is very good this is a. This is a situation where you need to be better prepared. And it is a tool in the toolbox and you know if if it's more efficient for you are the right tool for the job then do it. But you know if you are better at creating low fidelity mock ups and think month and do that. I don't know I just I have a whole lot of problems with I I hate calling people out but this trip the post is just so frustrating. No it isn't it so rough but with so with some of the best surround you know if your sets up by going right we got it we got a put types such as saying right so it's not half an hour I knew we could do better papers well Sir you know and then you go to do all the prep work well yeah because it's going to suck if you do not foam look up to you Weiss was it they're dry so dry and grow I feel mock ups what I for macos photocopier done you know if you're doing them because like you say then you'll then you you're printing out your your objects right facts or you know that's what you move around your goal I think you may be. Read the book but also of the lessons possibly. 28 you need to use the right to use the right tool for the right job the end of the. Yep. I just want. So not controversial at all in our mind all right let's just move on this one needs no introduction it's one more thing very what is your one more thing this week so in interesting and exciting use of them we go to buy an electric vehicle I save by we will be going to we're going to lease an electric vehicle because it was too expensive. Yeah it will be so it's a patron in the in the coffee money you know it's it's funny,nd and great I can't wait if only I am not so we we buy anything which is legalese navy which is very very exciting and this leads to from that but the one thing I've got I don't know whether so the supplies in the same way the states. But the reason when we first I total EV's that was sold one main network for charging and you know you just woke up and was a plug plug in the car I mean how how can that be really. But cost now is become more popular. There's more you know that it does no such thing as free electricity anymore but you know to the different network the different shot people on the charges we'll see want to make some money back because your they should take their interesting. And so now this seems to be a whole bunch of different network providers in the area that I live in South Wales that seems to be about 10 to 15 different electricity network contracting networks you will need a different crowd full and all this sort of stuff so the complexity of this new era of easy by now doesn't seem to be about range and stuff like that because you know that's getting better please I'm gonna need to walk around with a whole lot flexible it full of about 2030 RFID codes just to be able to use the charges that I might need to use all along the journey I just did this just because this could be a solution here the really has to. So I think I'm I'm without a doubt new this tentative at at a point where I don't know quite how it's going to work I don't know quite I know it's going to evolve and look to change behavior um and changing attitude because you also have the the brand new color of the note description of things like that so it's quite exciting time but also quite some scary as well here's what you do you have a separate wallet that you just keep in your car that's just Evey cards. And yet you have your other wallet that you carry with you everywhere and whenever you go to any V. charging station you just take out that while it pay and then. You know leave it leave it in there I want to sign up to all of these different networks to make it happen so I go to work out whether allow will to do notes of honeyed multiple take contactless now because trenching and then you know I'm I'm a bit of a math and yet only. With the spreadsheet a map pull it up on your test the dashboard and call it done thank you okay not a Tesla not. So yeah what a party on the eve these do exist allow the interest past anything fascinating the. Yes my okay you're ready for dorky. So my one more thing this week it's it's gonna be a little bit of showing tells all try to describe it best I can for the audio listeners. I bought an adjustable goose neck phone clip now what this means we're gonna get a little dorky here for a second what this actually means is that. I it's it's it's a it's a device. That you put around your neck and it has a magnetic clip front and now I can look at my phone or whatever I want the perfect time to freeze to us. Right that's perfect but so to describe seeing big scope this what looks like a color old with my management team I guess you think in the front of it and but the camera is frozen in fact now the cameras crashed no that's yeah you can't crashed so yeah that's a good exercise this is actually a good exercise because I need to describe for everyone so yes I am I am I have this like little goose neck thing that goes around my neck and it is effectively. At a phone holder that puts your phone out you know like 12 inches from your face and you can like look at your stuff while you're laying down in bed or on the couch and it's just right there in front of you or you can play games you know on the I'm sorry anyway so I liked it so much that I got another one that clips on the top of my head board and displays the phone right now on top of my face while I'm like looking up words so I don't have to like crane my neck or anything. Pretty great and would highly recommend it. You know the thing that you're not meant to take you're going to bed with you. Yes yes I I'm I'm aware okay so now you're just buying more things to enable even more E. yeah what what about it what I mean like I don't know what you don't want to take your phone to bed with you your men to live downstairs all in another room I made about this by by lex's got my limit and not looking through the night because if you look at through the night then the largest just the light of it and they eat it's blocking your brain into going means that it's going to I'm going to do things to make you know sleeper will. Yeah well you know it there are some sacrifices that you make and. That is one of them so yeah did you get that make you happy Mike my goose neck makes me happy. I will show more of it in the post show for those watching. What. All right well that's going to be a per day everyone if you like this episode and enjoy some of the discussion around influencing human behavior we urge you to go check out listen to episode 208 we talked about how work pandemic protocols influence human behavior employee behavior. Same comment wherever you're listening with what you think of a story this week for more in depth discussion you can always reach out to us on our discord community visit our official website and mention its prequel resource sign up for our newsletter stay up to date with the latest in factors news like what you hear your support the show there's a couple things you can do it with 5 star review every year listening watching now that is recreated do you can tell your friends about us word of mouth really helps us grow. And we we like that. We apologize rowing is is a sign of yeah it's a good thing and 3 consider supporting us on Patreon if you have the funds to do so and want to support the show you can certainly do it that way we are putting in putting that money to good use as always links all of our socials on our website and description of this episode Mr Baker thank you for being on the show today we're gonna listeners find you if they want to talk about what the story is next week. You can find me on Twitter at by the disk okay if you're committed to meet with trump to guests and talk some interesting people final 12 what you can expect us to travel to focus don't comb. As for me I mean it has the chrome you can find me across social media at Nick _ Rome thanks again for tuning in human factors cast until next time. And.