Whyte vs. Gibbs

1)  Whyte mainly talks about the aspects of the Main Street, whereas Gibbs discusses the design of cities as a whole.  Whyte talks about how congested traffic downtown, helps the stores with more sells because it causes more people to look into the stores.  Gibbs talks more about how the visual aspects of the main street help draw the customer's attention into buying products from the stores.  I find Whyte more convincing because I believe in his idea of congested traffic to help improve sells.

2)  I enjoy the urban setting where there are many people, but not too many as to where you cant move around freely.  I feel there should be at least a good amount of people because it makes you feel like you picked the right place to be since there many people along with you. 

City, Chapter 6

1)  I felt that one of the author's key points in this chapter was that to be successful, you have to be able to attract your customers to you.  If the traffic in a certain is more busy than another one, then the city with more congestion will have more success with the downtown stores.  Also, the window display is very important because the display can attract some window shoppers to at least stop and look at the merchandise, and this can later lead to one of those window shoppers becoming an actual customer of the store and purchasing something.

2)  Both Whyte and Norman seem to agree on the concept of visceral design.  They believe you need good display of items to be able to attract customers.  Such as the attractive window displays some stores put out.  They both think that a store should be behavioral because it needs to function well as a store.  However, Norman doesn't agree with Whyte on the idea that congestion attracts more customers.  Norman would rather have a clean, not busy downtown.

3)  window display
congestion
second story stores
size of sidewalk
store variety

Main Street

1)  "Generator" store
obstruction of view
parking
advertising signs
cleanliness

2)  Although malls have their advantages over Main Street, I think that Main Street should stay as it is and keep its individuality.  I feel that a lot of consumers are attracted to this type of shopping rather than a traditional mall, so there is no reason to take away something that people already like.

3)  Most important qualities:
security
cleanliness
variety of stores
price
parking
other consumers there

Wikipedia Post

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Basketball_Federation

retail analysis

1.  I observed the store Claire's, which is a jewelry store that is mainly marketed to girls.
2.  a) The outside of the store has glass see through windows covering the whole store.  The entrance is not very big since it is not a very big store.
b) The sounds that could be heard inside the store were the music being played and the conversations between the customer and worker.
c) The merchandise was all displayed on many white spinning cylinder racks.  On each rack, there were many jewelry items that were packaged with the signature light purple Claire's package.
d) The floor was mainly all white and was made out of tile.
e) The store inside doesn't have too many signs except for the big Claire's one on the outside.
f) The cashier area is placed in the center of the whole store.
3.  I feel that the business is trying to project sort of a girly look.  This is because all they pretty much sell is jewelry, but the jewelry is sold with colors like pink and purple, which are normally colors girls would like.
4.  Customers were able to look at many products within a short period of time because it is not that crowded or busy and the revolving racks spin around easy to get a good look at things.
5.  What I found interesting was that the whole time I was there were no men that walked in, which makes sense since the image of the store doesn't really appeal to men.

egg drop

I thought that the egg drop was very entertaining and interesting.  For our group, we first decided it would be a good idea to freeze the egg so i would not break as easily.  After a night of freezng, we put the package together, which consisted of a shoebox and a blanket for padding.  When we dropped our egg, the whole ice block it was in broke, but the egg itself didnt since it was hard as a rock.  Even the yolk was frozen into a yellow ball.  Even though are egg technically didnt break, its hard to determine if that was even fair to do, so for next time we should try something with alot more padding and no freezing of the egg.

http://jakubiksblog.blogspot.com/  John Jakubik
http://kzooseminar.blogspot.com/2010/10/egg-drop.html Keaton Adams

The Science of Shopping

1)  I felt that the main point of this article was that basically the buyer or consumer is very predictible when it comes to shopping for items.  Designers know this about consumers so they adjust their sale designs in a way to get the consumer to buy what they want so they can make money. For example, grocery stores are set up as to have the consumer to have to walk all arond the whole store before actually getting to what they need to buy, but by designing the store this way it allows for the possible of more unwanted items. 

2)  For me, the store's design does not influence me.  I don't really enjoy going out shopping and just looking for things to buy.  Whenever I do go shopping, I have what I want to buy in my mind and I just focus on going to get that.

3)  The first thing I would analyze in a store is the environment.  If the environment of the store doesn't seem to be welcoming, then chances are not as many people will step in.  This includes the lighting of the store, the colors it uses, and the attitude of the workers there.  The next thing I would look at is the placement of items throughout the store.  If the more popular items are in the back of the store, then that just results in more walking which is a turnoff.  Finally I would look at the location of the store.  A store downtown might be more busy than one not there.