I didn’t encounter anything amazing or shocking with regard to UX while in Belize (versus my visit to Germany). The bathroom at one of the places I stayed in had some of the usual suspect design problems.
- The toilet paper dispenser was in an awkward place, I had to turn around pretty far to get it. I am guessing the dispenser was put in place with the tiling, before the commode was installed.
- The shower was really sweet. It was massive with a rain shower head. The thing is, ‘they’ forgot to put any contraption in there to hold my soap, shampoo, whatever… There was no lip on the outward facing side either, it was just the glass. So… I put it all on the shower floor and picked it up as needed. Not awesome but livable, especially considering that there wasn’t even hot water at the previous place I stayed.
Please ask me about the jungle wine and missionaries if you would like to hear the real details of my trip 
Tags:Belize·design·trips·UX
For the past 5 or so years I have been thinking about human behavior, mental disorder, neurosis, sexuality, etc. and how this all comes together into a single personality. I recall learning about multiple theories as a psychology undergraduate, which didn’t exactly fit into what I believe because they seem to have discreet systems rather than a single, all-inclusive, cohesive model. Introducing – the Spangenberg Theory of Personality.
I am still working this out in my head here is the gist. There are many aspects of a personality, hundreds at least. I will call these characteristics. Each characteristic is expressed in a personality to a certain degree or level (I don’t have this figured out exactly either). For example, empathy might be a single characteristic; on a 10 point scale, 10 high, I might rate myself at a 7. The catch with this part is that I haven’t figured out if the scale is 0 to n, or -n to +n. I’ll update you when I have a better idea. Anyway, each characteristic belongs to a group. A group example would be sexuality. Within the sexuality grouping, there are multiple characteristics such as: openness, heterosexual, homosexual, attractiveness, femininity, masculinity, and many more. A person may embody all of these traits to a certain degree, where some are stronger than others. There are theories to my knowledge specifically about sexuality that are similar to this, like Alfred Kinsey’s, but they are not inclusive of all of the other parts of the personality.
When a person has an extreme rating on any one characteristic or averages out to an extreme, which in turn causes anguish to self or society, they may exhibit some kind of personality disorder. This might require treatment and/or medication.
The underlying premise of this theory is that a human can have all or any sub-set of characteristics to a degree; it’s not an all or nothing proposition – every aspect is a part of this continuum. The sum of all of the characteristics is ‘you’ or the make-up of your personality. Every person can be rated on this massive scale which can be turned into some kind of sweet infographic. I am going to work on an example which charts out a sample scale and image and post here at some point.
Disclaimer: a theory like this may or may not already exist. I haven’t fully researched all existing schools of thought. I have alot more thinking to do on this, and a lot of questions.
- Do you have to have a PhD to legitimize your ideas?
- Is it too self-indulgent these days, to name your theory after yourself?
What do you think?
Tags:Personality·Psychology·Theory
This is something I like to do when I’m angry or upset to vent a little bit. No harm in that, right? Give it a try, it’s super fun.
Often my hate haiku’s end abruptly with the same concept. I wrote this one back in June of 2010, and came across it today. I hope you like it.
Dull lead sweeps the page
“Chirp, sing, please me little bird.”
I really hate you.
Tags:haiku·hate·work
Hi. I am starting this blog over. Again. I will talk about whatever I want I suppose, UX related or not — because I am betting I can rationalize most things into some kind of user experience or interaction. Note I said most, not all, so no need to argue that particular language.
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