Search results for: “100 Things You Should Know About People”

  • 7 Best UX (User Experience) Design Books

    7 Best UX (User Experience) Design Books

    Every few years I update my list of favorite UX (user experience) design books, and it’s that time again. So here’s my latest list. Let me know if you have some favorites that you think should have made it on my list but didn’t. (These are in no particular order, i.e., #1 doesn’t mean it’s…

  • Episode 16: How To Induce Compliance

    Episode 16: How To Induce Compliance

    Let’s assume I’m evil.  What I want to do is INDUCE COMPLIANCE. I want people to do what I want. Well that might be hard to do. But what if I could get people to comply with a request? That may be simple and effective.  Dr. Susan Weinschenk wrote a whole book on how to…

  • Episode 10: How Sunk Costs Work

    Episode 10: How Sunk Costs Work

    One of, if not the most, important motivator in behavioral economics is the fear of loss. We’ve talked about this extensively and it takes many different shapes. One of my personal favorites is what’s known as a “sunk cost”. Compared to a lot of behavioral economics terms this is pretty popular and well known, but…

  • Episode 17: Cooperation and Punishment

    Episode 17: Cooperation and Punishment

    Did you go to college? Hopefully a liberal arts college? Even if you didn’t, think back to some late night with your buddies, maybe a little weed was smoked. Or in some dopy poly-science class with the one know-it-all jerk who would always shoot up their hand to give some long running opinion about society?…

  • Episode 4: How trying to avoid regret changes our behavior

    Episode 4: How trying to avoid regret changes our behavior

    Let’s talk about regret aversion. Again, fancy phrase, simple idea. Let’s go on a mind-journey! Imagine this. You’re at home cleaning out an old shoe box of junk. I mean, you’ve had this stuff forever since you were a kid. But do you really need that candy bar from 17 years ago that you’ve been…

  • Flashbulb Memories: Vivid But Wrong

    Flashbulb Memories: Vivid But Wrong

    In this podcast episode we talk about a type of memory called “flashbulb” — strong, vivid memories of emotionally charged events that are often inaccurate. And we discuss how collective memories might be changing as media technology changes. (If you want to read more about memory, check out this blog post on the topic.) You…

  • Revisiting ALL UPPERCASE LETTERS vs. Upper And Lower Case

    Revisiting ALL UPPERCASE LETTERS vs. Upper And Lower Case

    I’m sometimes surprised by which of my blog posts people get passionate about. Take, for example, my post on whether all uppercase letters are inherently harder to read than upper and lower case. I wrote the post back in 2009, yet someone posted a comment on it today, 8 years later. And last week someone…

  • Mental And Conceptual Models

    Mental And Conceptual Models

    I’ve been designing stuff for decades, and in my experience there is no more powerful design idea than that of mental models matching conceptual models. In this podcast episode we talk about mental and conceptual models , what they are, and why they are important to design. And if you want to read about them…

  • The Neuro-Aesthetics of Hillary’s Campaign Logo

    The Neuro-Aesthetics of Hillary’s Campaign Logo

    Yesterday Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy for President of the US, and before 24 hours went by I had a media request to talk about why people were reacting so strongly (in a negative way) to her logo. I’m in the middle of writing my next book (100 MORE Things Every Designer Needs to Know About…

  • What Would Make An Animated Character Appear “Creepy”?

    What Would Make An Animated Character Appear “Creepy”?

    Have you ever stopped to think about animated characters? With the capabilities of graphics these days it’s possible for an animated character to look just like a real person. And then there are still cartoon characters created that look nothing like real people. Have you ever experienced an animated character that “creeped” you out? Animators…