Formalizing Motivational Patterns based on Colors and
their Cultural Meanings for Developing Web Applications
Advanced Interaction Laboratory
Introduction
Collaborative work via Web tends to increase due to professionals' teams separated by distance and time,
demanding more effort and stronger commitment from each person. It is noticed that many times the
collaborative work via Web is not effective, generating lack of motivation and no engagement, few effective
collaboration and no commitment with the results. It should be considered the cultural differences among
the team’s members, what interfere on each individual's performance, misunderstanding the task (for
instance, the adopted vocabulary) and not motivating to reach the goals (for instance, how the environment
looks). This research aims at discussing the process of Motivational Pattern formalizing using common
sense knowledge to associate the appropriate colors for the environment to the emotions that these colors
can provoke people into engaging, culturally motivating people through significant and appropriate colors in
the collaborative environment
Using colors from common sense to classify
objects, actions and emotions
To analyze the information these templates collect it is being done a classification of emotions, actions and
objects. Figure 5 shows an example with the red color, where the square shows the color to be analyzed.
The list of emotions that red evokes in people is show in the left ellipse. In the back ellipse, the actions that
people are willing to perform when they see the red color. The right ellipse brings the objects related to the
red color. See http://www.dc.ufscar.br/~ana_dias/esquema.html for all colors analyzed.
Common Sense Knowledge and cultural values
Common Sense is defined here as a group of facts known by most people, “including a wide part of human
experiences, knowledge on special, physical, social, temporary and psychological aspects involving daily
experiences of humans” [1]. OMCS-Br Project (http://www.sensocomum.ufscar.br) has been collected
information about what people think of certain colors, what they remember when they see a certain color,
or which color people associate with certain concepts presented. Currently, there are eight templates used
on OMCS-Br Project for to collect data of common sense on colors, objects and emotions.
1
(object) | makes me remind color | (COLOR NAME)
2
(color image) | makes me feel like | (OBJECT)
3
(image color) | reminds me (an) | (OBJECT)
4
(color name) | makes me remind a(n) | (OBJECT)
5
(color name) | makes me feel like | (OBJECT)
6
(image color) | makes me feel | (EMOTION)
7
When I am (emotion) | it reminds me the color | (COLOR NAME)
8
(image color) | makes me remind of color | (COLOR NAME)
Table 1. Templates of common sense knowledge collecting related the colors, objects and emotions
According to templates in Table 1, it is observed that there are three tables in the database, a table to
stores complete sentences entered by the site (Table entries), a table for emotions (Table emotion),
another for names of the colors (Table colors) being the images of colors generated randomly in a HTML
sequence. The outstanding words with capital letters are typed by the users and feedback in other
templates, the underlined words are the words originated from of other templates and the words in italic
are generated randomly.
Figure 1. Example of feedback in Templates
Figure 1 shows common sense knowledge is collected and used in the process of Motivational Pattern
formalization here presented. In order to know how the data organization will be done so that they can be
usable, next Section will discuss colors and emotions.
Colors and Emotions
Colors evoke emotions, also can communicate messages or transmit concepts. It is important to stand out
that in any culture, colors can transmit good or bad meanings. Some authors [2], [3] mention some
meanings for colors in the western culture: Yellow (color for light and heat, for sun and summer, it is
associated to prosperity and wealth); Blue (favorite color of more than half of the western population, color
of water, sky and sea). According to the samples in Table 2, blue color is related to water by most people.
1
sky makes me remind the color blue
2
makes me feel like dipping in the pool
3
reminds me a(n) ocean
4
dark blue makes remind a(n) ocean
5
blue makes me feel like swimming
Table 2. Examples of sentences collected by OMCS-Br Project
Starting from that list of meanings on colors, it is noticed the need for integration between colors and
emotions in order to support the patterns to be formalized. The next subsections present colors in the Web
context and the importance of considering emotions.
Figure 2. Red color associated to emotions, actions and objects
Steps for Motivational Patterns Formalization based on Colors
To accomplish Motivational Pattern formalization, some steps will be followed:
1.
Identify of the appealing problems: lack of motivation, little engagement of the team, little effective
collaboration, absence of commitment with the results.
2.
Identify the objectives to be reached: efficient work in group, team working supported by
computer, faster communication without fixed time, potential agility in tasks accomplishment.
3.
Identify in common sense knowledge base the association between colors and emotions,
reactions and objects.
4.
Work with the color specialist Prof. Luciana Marta Silveira to, based on what is registered in the
common sense knowledge base, identify the successful solutions based on colors considering
the methodology previously formalized by the authors , to the problems found in Step 1.
5.
Formalize and write the Motivational Patterns.
6.
Develop a study case with the “proto-patterns”.
7.
Submit the Motivational Patterns to the specialists' community to validate them.
Conclusion
In the literature, there still are few Motivational Patterns to help developers to create Web projects to
support the team that work collaboratively. However, the research on Motivational Patterns have been
increased due to the developers concern, to maintain the user committed to the Web solution presented to
them in doing their tasks [4]. Those patterns, however, don't explore the use of colors in the Web project,
not even the cultural aspects of the users' community. The individual motivation and engagement in the
work through Web can be stimulated applying color to the computational environment project. In the
context of Web application, it will be investigate the meaning of colors in cultural terms for people in
general, in order to provide suitable incentive to visitors to Web sites for collaborative work, considering
their objectives and motivation.
References
[1] Anacleto, J. C.; Lieberman, H.; Tsutsumi, M.; Neris, V. P. A.; Carvalho, A. F. P.; Espinosa, J.; ZemMascarenhas, S. H.; Godoi, M. S. “Can Common Sense uncover cultural differences in computer
applications?”. In: IFIP WCC - Artificial Intelligence in Theory and Practice. Santiago. NY: Springer-Verlag,
v.217, 2006.
[2] Berlin, B. & Kay, P. (1969). Basic Color Terms. Berkeley: University of California Press.
[3] Pastoreau, M. Dicionário das cores do nosso tempo.Lisboa:Ed Estampa,1997.
[4] Schummer, T.; Lukosch, S. Patterns for Computer-Mediated Interaction.
John Wiley & Sons, 2007. ISBN: 978-0470025611.
Ana Luiza Dias¹, Junia C. Anacleto¹, Luciana M. Silveira², Rosângela Ap. D. Penteado¹
¹ Department of Computer Science - Federal University of São Carlos - Brazil
² Department of Technology - Technological University of Paraná - Brazil
{ana_dias, junia, rosangel}@dc.ufscar.br; martha@utfpr.edu.br