Ivan Robertson

Helped PayPal develop requirements and additional features for their new PayPal Here iPad application

The Café Pomegranate Urban Garden Project is a project dedicated to promote a holistic view on cooking and urban agricultural education. Our mission is to help the local community, and in particular the local children, to discover and explore the means and ways to grow vegetables in an urban environment and how to prepare them. By having our own model for what an urban garden can look like, we hope to encourage and motivate others to build their own. Our garden will be built and cared for with… Show more

The Café Pomegranate Urban Garden Project is a project dedicated to promote a holistic view on cooking and urban agricultural education. Our mission is to help the local community, and in particular the local children, to discover and explore the means and ways to grow vegetables in an urban environment and how to prepare them. By having our own model for what an urban garden can look like, we hope to encourage and motivate others to build their own. Our garden will be built and cared for with the limits of urban gardening in mind. We will focus on space saving concepts, year round harvest ability, and a holistic diet. Show less

The process of decision-making involves the knowledge of multiple outcomes and the choice of one outcome. Risk assessment is the determination of either quantitative or qualitative value of risk related to a situation. A frame offers perspective by managing the observer in relation to a perspective. Framing also directs the observer to focus on a feature of an issue and to disregard other possible outcome that could also happen within the same issue. The use of prior knowledge is essential when… Show more

The process of decision-making involves the knowledge of multiple outcomes and the choice of one outcome. Risk assessment is the determination of either quantitative or qualitative value of risk related to a situation. A frame offers perspective by managing the observer in relation to a perspective. Framing also directs the observer to focus on a feature of an issue and to disregard other possible outcome that could also happen within the same issue. The use of prior knowledge is essential when faced with an assessment of risks. In individuals with high levels of prior knowledge there is a more accurate assessment of the potential risk and they are more likely to therefor avoid a potential financial loss. Eighty-one San Jose State University undergraduate students participated in the study. The stimuli were four financial scenarios: mortgage loan, student loan, credit card, and payday loan. Each scenario had four versions: no prior knowledge and positive framing, no prior knowledge and negative framing, prior knowledge and positive framing, prior knowledge and negative framing. Show less

In on-line sales – a 145-billion-dollar market in 2009 – consumers decide to buy based mostly on written product information, without actually trying the product. Research has already shown that readers systematically infer information that is not explicit. But there is little research about how writing style can influence the inferences that consumers make to form impressions of unfamiliar products. If writing style does play an important role, then billions of dollars in missed sales may be… Show more

In on-line sales – a 145-billion-dollar market in 2009 – consumers decide to buy based mostly on written product information, without actually trying the product. Research has already shown that readers systematically infer information that is not explicit. But there is little research about how writing style can influence the inferences that consumers make to form impressions of unfamiliar products. If writing style does play an important role, then billions of dollars in missed sales may be at stake.
University students (N = 120) read descriptions of a product and rated characteristics of the descriptions and the product. The two descriptions conveyed the same information. The original description came from the company’s web site; the revised version was 29% shorter and 50% easier to read.

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