Author: mpullen

Dan Ariely is a professor and writer about behavioral economics. Multiple times he has written about an MIT study that demonstrates the psychology of the architecture of choice. I will tell the story in reverse. When selling the famous Economist, they set up some experiments. Scenario 1: Choice to purchase the Economist: When selling a… Continue reading 1% Everyday – the Architecture of Choice

Thank you to Lauren Golden starting the day with this quote: “The true delight is in the finding out, rather than in the knowing.” — Isaac Asimov This made me think of the quote attributed to Socrates: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Get a sense of who Socrates is on Philosophize this! (great weekend… Continue reading 1% Everyday – Socrates

Ergonomics focuses on the human centric design of the physical space … think cars, planes, machines, and your desk at home. In the past couple of years many of us have developed some bad habits. Watch this video to get some tips and reminders of how to set up your laptop, computer, chair, and desk.… Continue reading 1% Everyday – Working Ergonomics

According to the Neilson Norman Group: “Contextual inquiry is a type of ethnographic field study that involves in-depth observation and interviews of a small sample of users to gain a robust understanding of work practices and behaviors. Its name describes exactly what makes it valuable — inquiry in context: What is Contextual Inquiry? Consider the… Continue reading 1% Everyday – Contextual Inquiry

<a href=”url“>link text</a> https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_links.asp How the Hyperlink changed everything (3:30 mins) -Margaret Gould Stewart The earliest screenshot of the web that I can find is from 1992. Some thoughts on designing links for use: (10 mins) https://usabilitygeek.com/hyperlink-usability-guidelines-usable-links/ Or if you prefer the hubris of the “perfect” link: (5 mins) https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2018/07/8-secrets-of-the-perfect-link/ Consider:

Concept mapping is a technique to visualize complex relationships in a system. In the design of products and systems, understanding the objects and their relationships in the domain assists in providing deeper meaning. – Universal Methods of Design by Martin and Hanington Typically, a concept map is built top down with nouns as shapes and… Continue reading 1% Everyday – Concept mapping

What is a visual affordance? These are the visual cues that provide information about how to interact with your environment. “Form implies function.” In this post, the underline and different color text indicates something that you can click on (a learned visual affordance). Affordances from the game design point of view: (6 mins) Don Norman… Continue reading 1% Everyday –Visual Affordance

Here is a little task for you. There are 2 pictures below. For each picture, time yourself and move your pointer (cursor/finger/pen) from start here to stop here. Do this 5 times for the first and write down your time. (BTW don’t miss or you need to start again…) Do this 5 times for the… Continue reading 1% Everyday – Fitts’ Law – Size matters for speed and accuracy

Hedwig von Restorff is remembered for her contributions to research on memory. “The isolation effect is a well-known memory phenomenon. If all but one item of a list are similar on some dimension, memory for the different item will be enhanced. Modern theory of the isolation effect emphasizes perceptual salience and accompanying differential attention to… Continue reading 1% Everyday – The Von Restorff isolation effect – memory

Time to make a decision is directly related to the number of items you have to decide from. The decision time goes up fast but reaches a limit and flattens out (a logarithmic scale). NNG has some design advice using Hick’s law: Some considerations:

“decision-makers have a tendency to actively seek information and assign greater value to evidence confirming their existing beliefs rather than entertaining new ones” – the Decision Lab Some explanations for confirmation bias from simplypsychology.org https://www.simplypsychology.org/confirmation-bias.html “Information processing: To form an unbiased decision, one would have to critically evaluate every piece of information present which is unfeasible, therefore people… Continue reading 1% Everyday: Confirmation bias – supports what I know

“Swiping on apps is inherently rewarding due to a dopamine hit in the brain every time a new message is received” – USC psychology lecturer “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works” – Vice President of User Growth at Facebook Using smartphone apps has been compared to using… Continue reading 1% Everyday – Designing for the dopamine release for reward-and-pleasure

We are busy people. Learning a new behavior requires making something a habit. It is so easy to start something then just not come back to it because more immediate/important things come along. Using a little psychology, designers have come up with the idea of using “Streaks” to artificially draw you back to their app.… Continue reading 1% everyday: Compelling a habit through streaks

Tom Peters: the ideal 25-person product development team is: 15 WOMEN. 10 MEN. 10 AGE 50 PLUS. For some context … in the 1970s Tom Peters wrote the book In Search of Excellence. From then until now in his late 70s he has been obsessed with businesses and how they can be excellent. He has made… Continue reading 1% everyday: team composition

“occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure” The standard Lorem Ipsum passage, used since the 1500s “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip… Continue reading 1% Everyday – Lorem Ipsum

My colleague Mariana Kuper found this article to contribute to 1% Everyday. She and I thought that it was very thought provoking and wanted to share. A sliver of history of memory research from the gestalt world:  Zeigarnik Effect “The Zeigarnik Effect is the tendency for tasks which have been interrupted and uncompleted to be… Continue reading 1% Everyday – Are interrupted tasks recalled better than completed tasks?

80% of the results come from 20% of the causes Such as 80% of a product’s usage involves 20% of the features Why should you care? Using this rule can help focus resources and effort. Doing More by Doing Less (5 min) What are the implications of this in your work?

Mary’s room thought experiment The thought experiment was originally proposed by Frank Jackson as follows: “Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose,… Continue reading 1% Everyday – is knowledge enough? … a case for experience

I was listening to This American Life: Off Course – the Audition. Near the end of the story there is passing mention that Chinese musical notation is different than Western notation. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/765/off-course/act-one-3 I am not a musician and I never thought about that before. I took a brief travel through some beautiful ways of notating music… Continue reading 1% Everyday – the Design of Musical Notation

First impressions happen very quickly … from less than a second to 30 seconds. “First impression bias: a limitation in human information processing that causes us to make quick and incomplete observations about others based on the first piece of information we perceive. UX case: Participants viewed website homepages for 50 milliseconds each, then rated… Continue reading 1% Everyday: First impression bias