100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People by Susan M. Weinschenk, Ph.D. -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Page Title Page Copyright Page Acknowledgments Dedication Contents The Psychology of Design How People See

1. What you See isn’t what your Brain Gets

The brain creates shortcuts

2. Peripheral Vision is used more than Central Vision to get the Gist of what you See 3. People Identify Objects by Recognizing Patterns

The Geon Theory of Object Recognition

4. There’s a Special Part of the Brain Just for Recognizing Faces 5. There’s a Special Part of the Brain for Processing Simple Visual Features

Well, Maybe not Just One at a Time

6. People Scan Screens Based on Past Experience and Expectations

People have a Mental Model of what they want to See and where they want to See it If there is a Problem, People Narrow their View

7. People See Cues that Tell them what to do with an Object

Perceived Affordances on Screens Hyperlinks are Losing their Affordance Cues Too

8. People can Miss Changes in their Visual Fields 9. People Believe that Things that are close Together Belong Together 10. Red and Blue Together are Hard on the Eyes 11. Nine Percent of Men and One‑Half Percent of Women are Color-Blind 12. Colors Mean Different Things to Different Cultures

How People Read

13. It’s a Myth that Words in All Caps are Inherently Hard to Read

Reading isn’t as Fluid as it Seems So is it Harder to Read Text that is in All Caps?

14. Reading and Comprehending are Two Different Things

Readability Formulas Can you Read this Paragraph? Titles and Headlines are Critical What you Remember of what you Read Depends on your Point of View

15. Pattern Recognition Helps People Identify Letters in Different Fonts

If a Font is Hard to Read, People Think the Task is Hard to do

16. Font Size Matters 17. Reading a Screen is Harder than Reading Paper 18. People Read Faster with a Longer Line Length, but they Prefer a Shorter Line Length

How People Remember

19. Short-Term Memory is Limited

Working Memory and Focused Attention Working Memory vs. Sensory Input

20. People Remember Only Four Items at Once

Why it’s an Urban Legend Using Chunks to Turn Four into More The Four-Item Rule Applies to Memory Retrieval Too

21. People have to use Information to Make it Stick

Repetition Physically Changes the Brain The Power of a Schema Experts Store Information as Schemata

22. It’s Easier to Recognize Information than Recall it

Recognition is Easier than Recall Inclusion Errors

23. Memory Takes a Lot of Mental Resources

Memory is Easily Disrupted

24. People Reconstruct Memories Each Time they Remember Them

Memories Change Why Eyewitness Testimonies are Unreliable The Impact of Reconstructed Memories on User Research

25. It’s a Good Thing that People Forget

A Formula to Show you how much you will Forget Design with Forgetting in Mind

26. The Most Vivid Memories are Wrong

Flashbulb Memories are Vivid Vivid but Full of Errors

How People Think

27. People Process Information Better in Bite-Sized Chunks

Applying the Concept of Progressive Disclosure Counting Clicks isn’t what Counts Know who Needs what when

28. Some Types of Mental Processing are More Challenging than Others

All Loads are not Equal Making Trade-Offs Use Fitts’s Law to Determine Motor Loads Sometimes you want to Increase Loads

29. Minds Wander 30 Percent of the Time

Mind Wandering is a Very Common Phenomenon Why a Wandering Mind can be a Good Thing Why a Wandering Mind can be a Bad Thing

30. The more Uncertain People are, The More they Defend their Ideas

Alter Our Beliefs or Deny the Information? Ask for Small Commitments

31. People Create Mental Models

What Exactly is a Mental Model?

32. People Interact with Conceptual Models

What if it’s Brand New and I Purposely want a Mismatch?

33. People Process Information best in Story form

Tried-and-True Story Formats Classic Stories Stories Imply Causation Stories are Important in All Communications

34. People Learn best from Examples 35. People are Driven to Create Categories

People Love to Categorize If you don’t Provide Categories, People will Create their Own Who Organizes it Doesn’t Matter as Much as How well it’s Organized

36. Time is Relative

If People Feel Pressed for Time, they won’t Stop to Help Someone Expectations Change Over Time

37. People Screen out Information that Doesn’t Fit their Beliefs 38. People can be in a Flow State 39. Culture Affects how People Think

East = Relationships; West = Individualistic Cultural Differences Show up in Brain Scans

How People Focus Their Attention

40. Attention is Selective

Unconscious Selective Attention

41. People Habituate to Information 42. Well-Practiced Skills don’t Require Conscious Attention

Too Many Automatic Steps can Lead to Errors

43. Expectations of Frequency Affect Attention

A Mental Model about Frequency

44. Sustained Attention Lasts about 10 Minutes 45. People Pay Attention Only to Salient Cues 46. People are Worse at Multitasking than they Think

One Exception Do age and Multitasking Experience Make a Difference? Some People Enjoy Multitasking

47. Danger, Food, Sex, Movement, Faces, and Stories get the Most Attention

Why People can’t Resist Paying Attention to Food, Sex, and Danger

48. Loud Noises Startle and get Attention

People Habituate to Auditory Stimuli

49. For People to Pay Attention to Something, They Must First Perceive it

Signal Detection Theory How to Apply Signal Detection Theory

What Motivates People

50. People are more Motivated as they get Closer to a Goal 51. Variable Rewards are Powerful

What the Casinos Know Operant Theory and Design

52. Dopamine Stimulates the Seeking of Information

Pleasure Chemical or Motivation Chemical?

53. Unpredictability Keeps People Searching

The Pavlovian Reflex Small Amounts are Even more Addictive The Dopamine Loop

54. People are more Motivated by Intrinsic Rewards than by Extrinsic Rewards

From Algorithmic Work to Heuristic Work

55. People are Motivated by Progress, Mastery, and Control

Small Signs of Progress can have a Big Effect

56. People are Motivated by Social Norms 57. People are Inherently Lazy

Is Lazy Another Word for Efficient? Satisfy Plus Suffice Equals Satisfice Design Websites for Scanning, not Reading

58. People Will Look for Shortcuts Only if the Shortcuts are Easy

Provide Defaults

59. People Assume it’s you, not the Situation

But for You, it’s Situational People can’t Stop it Even when they know they’re Doing it

60. Forming or Changing a Habit is Easier than you Think 61. People are more Motivated to Compete when there are Fewer Competitors

Competing Against 10 vs. Competing Against 100 Building in Competition

62. People are Motivated by Autonomy

People are Social Animals

63. The “Strong Tie” Group Size Limit is 150 People

Dunbar’s Number The Social Group Size Limit for Humans Does that Number Seem Low to you? Is it The Weak Ties that are Important? Purposely Designing for Strong or Weak

64. People are Hard Wired for Imitation and Empathy

Mirror Neurons Firing

65. Doing Things Together Bonds People Together

Bonding in Online Communities

66. People Expect Online Interactions to Follow Social Rules

Online Interactions have the Same Rules

67. People Lie to Differing Degrees Depending on the Medium

Ninety-Two Percent of Graduate Students Lied Managers Lie Too People Lie most on the Telephone Do People Lie in Text Messages?

68. Speakers’ Brains and Listeners’ Brains Sync up During Communication

Syncing Plus Anticipation Equals Understanding

69. The Brain Responds Uniquely to People you know Personally 70. Laughter Bonds People Together

Tickle Laughter vs. Joy Laughter Laughter and Technology

71. People Can Tell when a Smile is Real or Fake more Accurately with Video

Real or Fake? Questioning the 80 Percent Figure

How People Feel

72. Some Emotions May be Universal

The Controversy: Are Facial Expressions Universal? Cultural Differences in High Emotional Arousal vs. Low Emotional Arousal

73. Positive Feelings About a Group can Lead to Groupthink 74. Stories and Anecdotes Persuade more than Data Alone 75. If People Can’t Feel, then they Can’t Decide

No Emotions = No Decisions

76. People are Programmed to Enjoy Surprises

Craving the Unexpected

77. People are Happier when They’re Busy

People Need an Excuse

78. Pastoral Scenes make People Happy

Pastoral Scenes Provide “Attention Restoration”

79. People use “Look and Feel” as their First Indicator of Trust 80. Listening to Music Releases Dopamine in the Brain

Pleasure vs. Anticipated Pleasure

81. The more Difficult Something is to Achieve, the more People Like it

Cognitive Dissonance Theory Scarcity and Exclusivity

82. People Overestimate Reactions to Future Events

People are Poor Predictors A Built-In Regulator

83. People Feel more Positive Before and after an Event than During it 84. People want what is Familiar when they’re Sad or Scared

People want what’s Familiar The Desire for the Familiar is Related to the Fear of Loss

People Make Mistakes

85. People will Always Make Mistakes; There is no Fail-Safe Product

Assume that Something will go Wrong The Best Error Message is no Error Message

86. People make Errors when they are Under Stress

Using a Website Under Stress The Yerkes-Dodson Law Tasks are more Stressful than you May Think

87. Not All Mistakes are Bad 88. People make Predictable Types of Errors

Performance Errors Motor-Control Errors

89. People use Different Error Strategies

Systematic Explorations Trial and Error Explorations Rigid Explorations

How People Decide

90. People make most Decisions Unconsciously

Unconscious doesn’t Mean Irrational or Bad

91. The Unconscious knows First

The Unconscious Mind Picks up the Danger First

92. People want more Choices and Information than they can Process

Too Many Choices Paralyzes the Thought Process Why People can’t Stop

93. People Think Choice Equals Control 94. People May Care about Time more than they Care about Money

Spending Time vs. Spending Money People want to Connect

95. Mood Influences the Decision-Making Process 96. You can Engineer Better Group Decisions

The Danger of Groupthink But Two People can be Better than One

97. People make Habit-Based Decisions or Value-Based Decisions, but not Both at the Same Time

Habit-Based Decisions vs. Value-Based Decisions Only One or The Other

98. When People are Uncertain, they Let others Decide what to do

Uncertainty Tips the Scale People Take Action Only if others Take Action Testimonials and Ratings are Powerful

99. People Think Others are more Easily Influenced than they are Themselves

The Third-Person Effect Why do People Deceive Themselves this Way?

100. People Value a Product more Highly when it’s Physically in Front of them

The Real Deal Counts Toys, Trinkets, and Plexiglas What about Samples? Is it Olfactory? A Pavlovian Response?

References Index Credits

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