Activity 1: Diagnostic Assessment (10 pts)

Watch these two videos:

• The Piano Staircase: http://youtu.be/2lXh2n0aPyw

• The Outdoor Bin: http://youtu.be/cbEKAwCoCKw

Do you think that such playful methods are effective at changing people’s behavior? Why
or why not?
The fun theory is a theory used to transform mundane artifacts into novel enjoyable
user experiences in an attempt to change people’s behavior for the better. The idea was to
encourage a desired behavior by making it more fun. The Piano Staircase and the Outdoor
Bin are the most well-known examples; the stairs sounded like piano keys being played as
they were climbed, while the bin sounded like a well echoing when something was thrown
into it. Research has shown that using these kinds of playful methods is very engaging, and
they can help people overcome their social inhibition of taking part in an activity in a public
place.
Activity 2: Performance Task (30 pts)
Directions:

• This activity requires you to try one of the emotion recognition apps available
and to see how well it fares in recognizing different people’s facial expressions.
• Download the AffdexMe app or Age Emotion Detector for Apple or Android.
• Take a photo of yourself looking natural and see what emotion it suggests.

Answer the following questions:

I use the AffdexMe app

1. How many emotions does it recognize?

6 emotions

2. Try to make a face for each of the following: sadness, anger, joy, fear, disgust, and
surprise. After making a face for each, see how well the app detects the emotion you
were expressing.

SADNESS SADNESS SADNESS

SADNESS SADNESS SADNESS

 3. Ask a couple of other people to try it. See whether you can find someone with a beard
and ask them to try, too. Does facial hair make it more difficult for the app to
recognize an emotion?

I can’t find anyone who has beard, so I try the alternative one by finding men that has
beard on the internet. Yes, the app can still detect the facial emotion, but see on the pictures
above, it is not accurate, sometimes there is wrong recognition.

4. What other application areas do you think these kinds of apps could be used for
besides advertising?
It can also be used in assessing the behavior of a child, whether he/she does
have disorder when it comes on his/her emotion. In psychology they use this
assessment called facial emotion assessment.

5. What ethical issues does facial recognition raise? Has the app provided sufficient
information as to what it does with the photos taken of people’s faces?
The application is approved by the Google Play, I think that is an enough
reason for me to say that the app does not have ethical issues. The app didn’t provide
sufficient information as to what it does with the photos taken of people’s faces.
Even in the Google Playstore, there is no info added according in this issue.

6. How well would the recognition software work when used in a more natural setting
where the user is not making a face for the camera?
The software also didn’t recognize my emotion in “anger, disgust,
fear, joy, sadness, surprise” when I am not making any emotions. As
you can see on the picture, emotions are on 0%.
Activity 3: Summative Assessment (10 pts)

• Most people are familiar with the “404 error” message that pops up now and
again when a web page does not upload for the link they have clicked or when
they have typed or pasted an incorrect URL into a browser.
• What does it mean and why the number 404? Is there a better way of letting
users know when a link to a website is not working?

The number 404 comes from the HTML language. The first 4 indicates a
client error. The server is telling the user that they have done something wrong,
such as misspelling the URL or requesting a page that no longer exists. The
middle 0 refers to a general syntax error, such as a spelling mistake. The last 4
indicates the specific nature of the error. For the user, however, it is an arbitrary
number. It might even suggest that there are 403 other errors they could make!

• Might it be better for the web browser to say that it was sorry rather than
presenting an error message?

People are more forgiving and understanding when a computer says

that it’s sorry after making a mistake.
Activity 4: Group Assignment (25 pts)
(JOHN FRANCIS PADRINAO, DENZEL GO, ALECXANDER CRUCILLO)

• This is a group assignment, compose of 3 members only.

• This assignment requires you to write a critique of the persuasive impact of a
virtual agent by considering what it would take for a virtual agent to be
believable and convincing.

1. Look at a website that has a virtual assistant, e.g. Anna at Ikea.com, Jenn at
Alaskaair.com or any available virtual asst that you know and answer the
following:

1. What does the virtual agent do?

It helps the consumer or the customer using the website or the app with directions
or simply actions on the website, and also guides the user where to click and where to go,
and it is a sales representative, it talks about pricing, products, and mode of payments that
the potential customer can choose from.
2. What type of agent is it?
The Agent is a Customer Service representative. It is either a friendly female avatar
or a male avatar that provides a picture of what their employee look likes on uniform, the
image is default I think but the agent is different when another ticket is submitted.
3. Does it elicit an emotional response from you? If so, what kind?
Yes when I ask a question with relations to my problem for example I want to buy
this but I cant afford to buy so maybe u can recommend me something cheaper, then they
will either give me a discount or say “sorry sad to say dear but I cant give u a discount, u can
either choose a cheaper laptop but good quality” something like that. The agent is
depending the emotional response to what the customer is feeling or expressing on their
message.

4. What kind of personality does it have?

It is very proper and talks to the customer with good manners, it has a long patience
and understanding the situation of the customer and potentially changes the topic into
something positive when the conversation is getting heated and also if the customer is rude
the agent is still talking in proper manner and not saying any word that is negative.
5. How is this expressed?
There’s no facial expression, but the message itself represents an emotion and using
emoji/sticker to represent what it wants to say like we said, an emoji with bubble chat that
has a sorry or thank you message inside, and the emoji is either expressing sorry or posing
as sorry or saying thank you.
6. What kinds of behavior does it exhibit?
The Virtual agent talks so good and respecting every customer, we tried to go to the
same page and ask the agent but it keeps responding very fast and accurate to what we ask,
It never said anything that may hurt the customer but stayed giving respect even if the
customer is being rude.
7. What are its facial expressions like?
There’s no facial expression its just a smiling employee either male or female, instead
they use the stickers or emojis with bubble saying sorry, thanks, etc. and just talking
through chat.
8. What is its appearance like? Is it realistic or cartoon-like?
Realistic, because the image or the appearance is based on their employee that is
wearing the proper uniform and proper looks, the looks is based on a real human and used
as an appearance of the agent.
9. Where does it appear on the screen?
Yes, but not too big, just a small realistic image or appearance that talks through chat
based on the needs of the customer and what the customer wants to talk about.
It appears on the lower right by the means of conversation box with its picture typing
(represented by 3 dots moving consecutively) and sending a message and sending a
feedback to what the customer says.
10. How does it communicate with the user (text or speech)?
It can be speech via call I think, but it prioritized text, maybe because of scripts that
are ready to send which makes it easier to communicate with the customer, it has a nice
toned voice that gives the customer the feeling of being safe and secured in the hand of the
agent.
11. Is the level of discourse patronizing or at the right level?
It’s a little "sales’", but this is to be expected because it’s a sales representative which is an
agent guiding the customer what to buy depending on their preferences. agent can be
helpful in guiding users towards making a purchase, or finding a product or retail location.
One of the strongest features of the Ikea agent was its ability to load content that is
relevant to the user’s query onto the main window.
12. Is the agent helpful in guiding the user towards making a purchase or finding out
something?
Yes, and it does this quickly. Maybe because the agent has a lot of script or link on
the screen ready to be clicked or maybe the agent itself use another AI that shows the
possible replies to the customer depending on what the customer says or request, then the
customer Is redirected to the window or page that he or she desired to see or to go.
13. Is it too pushy?
No, instead it gives the customer choices to choose from, even asking for a single
product it will give more then 2 or 3 products to choose from based on the customer or
consumer’s preference or needs. When the customer asks for a link or for a product they
will send a link with the products name and picture or even its price in there and when the
customer clicks it, the customer will be redirected to the product’s main link.
14. What gender is it? Do you think this makes a difference?
Its female and sometimes male (but we prefer female agents), and yes, this
encourages perception of a less aggressive, softer and more helpful organization. Because
male virtual agents are not too common, it is often represented by a female virtual agent
because female tends to have long patience than males and has a better understanding than
males maybe because the age of a man is minus 3 to its mental age.
15. Would you trust the agent to the extent that you would be happy to buy a product from
it or follow its guidance? If not, why not?
Yes, because if I am shopping to buy and it assists then it makes my life easier, and
the virtual agent knows more than me about the website so I must trust her/him.
16. What else would it take to make the agent persuasive?
From my point of view to improve the interaction between the agent and the
customer, it must have more response features, a less narrow response range, more
animation, sound, possibly a sense of humor.