How ironic is this packaging?

1. Packaging is very important in the marketing of a product. The packaging of a product can decided whether I will buy the product or not. I like most shoppers tend to be swayed by attractive packaging. For example, When I go shopping for cereal, I come to the store with a general idea of what I want but sometimes I end up getting something different or two boxes of cereal. When I have no idea of what type of cereal, I'm definitely not picking the one with the plain boring box.

2. Alcoholic beverages have very iconic packaging. The producers of the alcoholic beverages do this on purpose, because they know that people pay attention to what the bottle looks like before they buy it. The manufacturers always take into to concern the "new buyers", which are people who have never bought alcohol before and they have no clue of what's good and what's not. They assume that the "new buyer" will be more tempted to buy something that's in an attractive bottle. They also take into consideration how the visceral design will mirror the reflective design. For example, If you're rich and you're going to buy alcohol you will want to buy something that's attractive and represents your wealth.

3. There are issues with usability of packaging. The main issues are it's materials, accessibility, and it's construction. Examples of bad packaging are anything that's air sealed in extremely thick plastic. These items are very difficult to open. Examples of good functioning packaging are anything that looks good and is easily opened without tools.

"Frayed" Analysis

1. I analyzed "Frayed". This store markets to the average youth, ranging from 12-25.
2. The store had a very attractive appearance from the outside. I was instantly drawn into the store by its outward appearance. There was music playing in the store, I'm pretty sure they were playing the radio. The merchandise was displayed in a very creative way. I noticed that the more expensive clothes were in the back of the store. The men's clothes were on the left and the women's were on the right. The floor was tile as soon as you walked in, then it turned into wood. There were signs up everywhere talking about the special deals. There was a great deal of signs advertising the Western Michigan University clothing. The cashier area was the first thing as you walked into the store. It was located directly in front of the door.
3. This business is designed strictly to reflect visceral design. The image that the business tries to portray is kind of like the cool image, somewhat like "the place to be" or "THE place to come buy your clothes".
4. I noticed a lot of customers go towards the means section of the store first. I think this happens because the women's section is directly to the right and it's also in the buffer zone of the store. The female customers tend to go around the whole store clockwise.
5. In WMU section of the store it was designed as if it was part of an old western movie. I found this pretty interesting.

The Shopping Creeper!!!

1. The most important points of this article are you want to make buying merchandise as easy as possible and the decompression zone. The best thing a business can do is make there shop easily accessible to shoppers. For example, At the Airport people tend to be in a hurry, but when they constantly see the news stands and shops on there right as they're going to the terminal, they just might stop and buy something on their way because they feel as if they aren't going out of their way to buy those goods. On the other hand, If someone id truly hunger and food is to their left they don't mind going out of their way to get something to eat, because they feel it's a necessity and not unnecessary such as the goods to their right. I also feel that the decompression zone is very important. The majority of customers don't pay attention to the items locate closest to the entrance as they walk in the store because they're always looking past it to see what's deeper in the store.
2. I feel as if I'm greatly affected by a store's design. A store with fantastic design will draw my attention even if I don't need anything out of that store. The opposite applies for a store with bad design, I don't like to go in stores that are badly designed unless I need specific items from that store. I feel as though a poorly designed store will frustrate me and ruin my shopping experience.
3. My checklist to analyze a store:

• What brought me to this store?
• What was the first thing I saw as I entered the store?
• Did I see everything the store had to offer?
• How long was I in the store?
• Did I find what I was looking for, if so where was it located?
  

Web pages that suck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1. This reading relates to behavioral design. The reading discusses web sites that aren't user friendly, in other words they don't perform well. These web sites do not serve the desired function of the creator because they have made some very bad designing errors. This could be easily fixable, if they designer read a "How to for Dummies" book or two. Behavioral design is all about the user of a product, and how well the user interacts with your product. This is a big part of design that we discuss in class.
2. There are a few major points they could make or break a well designed site. Any user should be able to understand the main idea of your site within the first 4 seconds. I feel that the user shouldn't have to search for the true purpose of any site. The next biggest concept of a good web page design are navigation errors. Navigating through the site should be simple and concise. The author also talks about having heroin content. I think that must site crave the imaginary heroin content. Heroin content is the difference between a good site and a great site. More web pages need to find heroin content.
3. If I had to create my own list of important design factors for a web page they would have to be: Coherency, Usability, Simplicity, and Addictive Information.
   

Know It All

1. The author's main point in this article was that Wikipedia is still a very young vast source of information which is still unreliable. The author gives examples of how Wikipedia information can be a liability, when he stated that every can become and user and add data to its source. They have precautions which obliterate all the obscenities found in its source, but those sources don't always find everything. The author also stated that compared to the Britannica, Wikipedia has more errors.
2. In the article, the author had a great display of supporting details "Wikipedia may be the world’s most ambitious vanity press. There are two hundred thousand registered users on the English-language site, of whom about thirty-three hundred—fewer than two per cent—are responsible for seventy per cent of the work". This passage shows that the author used data as his supporting details to back up his main idea. The main idea that's being supported is the fact that a small percentage of people are speaking for the majority. The author is saying that out of the all the registered users there are only a few who actually contribute to the encyclopedia, and this few provides an even less credible source.
3. Under the aspects of visceral design, Wikipedia has the Encyclopedia Britannica beat. Since Wiki is an internet source its visual appeal can be changed all the time, whereas the Britannica can only be changed whenever it's published. As far as behavioral design, the Britannica is a more reliable source which will always function better for the user. On the other hand Wikipedia is located on the internet which is easily accessible for users. Each form of the encyclopedia has its own reflective design. Some people like to own every version of the Britannica, because it makes them look intelligent and well educated. While as others want to use Wikipedia because they feel it makes them look cool and hip to the trends.