Author: Susan Weinschenk
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Top 10 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People: #2 – Writing By Hand Can Increase Commitment
I remember, many many years ago, when I wrote my Ph.D. thesis in graduate school, my first draft was done by hand (ok, now I’ve admitted that I’m quite old!). Most writing these days is done by typing on a keyboard. I write these blogs directly into my laptop using a keyboard, same thing with the…
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Top 10 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People: #1 – People learn best in 20 minute chunks
I’m wrapping up my new book, 100 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People (It’s available for pre-order and will ship on May 17th), so I thought I’d take some ideas from the book for some blog posts. I’ve picked my 10 favorites (always hard for me to pick only 10 when I love all…
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Experiences vs. Possessions: You Are What You've Done, Not What You Own
In the last few years psychology research (e.g. Carter & Gilovich, 2010) has proven what many of us have long suspected: that experiences (vacations, events with friends, etc) make people happier than buying and owning stuff (computers, clothes, etc). But more recent research by the same duo (Carter & Gilovich, 2012) shows that the experience…
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A Podcast On Website Content With Colleen Jones
Colleen Jones is the author of Clout: The Art and Science of Influential Web Content. I read Colleen’s book and then invited her to give a talk at a panel I was putting together at the HCI conference in 2011. Anyone involved in website design and development talks about how important content is, but how…
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"Bad Powerpoint Presentations Are A Serious Threat To The Global Economy"
In his TED talk, John Bohannon says that “bad powerpoint presentations are a serious threat to the global economy”. He estimates that: Each day $250,000,000 (USD) is spent on presentations, assuming each presentation is ½ hour long, with an average audience of 4 people that have an average salary of $35,000 USD. Each day there…
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The Science of Happiness, Part 3: What commuting, graduate degrees and being single have in common
WARNING: The following discussion is about the correlation between happiness and many other factors. But it’s just correlation. The factors below are correlated with happiness, but that does not mean they CAUSE happiness. “Correlation does not imply causation”. Now that I’ve posted the warning, I can talk about some of the interesting correlations between happiness…
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A Podcast on Affordances and Adaptive Interfaces with Justin Davis
Justin Davis of Madera Labs is a great speaker and a lot of fun to talk with. I met Justin in 2010 in Lisbon Portugal, where we were both speaking at the UXLX conference. I invited him to speak on a panel with me at the HCI conference in 2011. I think we talked non-stop…
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The Science of Happiness, Part 2: Do You Live In A Happy Country?
In Part 1 of this series on the Science of Happiness, I wrote about a happiness set point. This is Part 2, where we take a look at the relationship between happiness and geography. Is where you live correlated with how happy you are? — The answer is yes. But it is a complicated answer.…
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The Science of Happiness, Part 1: Everyone Has A Happiness "Set Point"
Are you a happy person? Is there such a thing as a happy person? Is happiness something that can be scientifically studied? Only you know the answer to the first question above, but the answer to the other questions is “yes”. This post is the first in a short series on the science of happiness. Your…
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Launching the User Experience Institute Today
Just a quick note to say that I’ve launched my new business today. I’ve left Human Factors International and have started a company dedicated to research and training in all things user experience. It’s called the User Experience Institute. I’ll be posting more information on it as well as getting a new website up and…
