Author: Susan Weinschenk

Try for 30 seconds to multiply these two numbers in your head, not using pen and paper or a calculator: 17 x 24 It’s difficult to do in your head—most people I ask this of give up after a few seconds. Here’s another task. Look at the photo in Figure 10.1 and decide what it’s…

In-Person Workshops are back! We’re excited to announce that we are having an in-person Behavioral Design Workshop in Columbus Ohio open to the public on May 16, 2024. Learn how to apply recent research in brain and behavioral science to engage, encourage, and persuade the people that use your products and services. This will be…

It’s ironic. You spend hours, days, weeks, or even months working on the visual design of an infographic or a website. Yet research by Katharina Reinecke, Lane Harrison, and the team at the University of Michigan shows that people make lasting judgments about the design’s appeal in 500 ms (one-half of a second) or less.…

If you’ve ever worked with a coach to improve your ability to communicate persuasively, you probably learned how important it is to look directly at people when you’re talking to them. The rule of thumb is that looking at someone directly when you’re speaking makes you appear confident. It makes your message more persuasive. It…

Imagine you’re looking at a screen showing a picture of a person looking at a product, like the picture shown in Figure 7.1. FIGURE 7.1 An image of a person looking at a product. Will your gaze go to the same place as the gaze of the person in the picture? The answer is yes.…

You’re at home in front of your laptop browsing the Internet. If I ask you what you’re seeing in your central vision at any particular time, you could probably describe it fairly well. You might say, “I’m looking at text on a page. I’m reading the word ‘The’ and I see that the capital T…

Think about all the things you see during a typical day. Your eyes are constantly taking in visual stimuli. But you don’t react to everything you see. A lot of it goes by without your brain or body reacting. Yet certain things do produce an immediate and strong reaction. If you see something that’s potentially…

It’s 11:00 a.m. on a Saturday and you’re at home in front of your laptop, browsing the Internet. You open your favorite news site and scan the headlines. You click on a story and read for a bit, then go back to the main page and scan some more. You choose another story, look at…

In 1948, H. L. de Vries was studying the eyes of men who were color blind. He made an amazing discovery that he mentioned only in passing, on the last page of the paper he wrote about his research. His discovery went virtually unnoticed for more than three decades. Before I tell you about the…