Get Focus with Signatures (03-16-11)
When consumers write their names before they begin shopping, even if they do so for reasons not related to the shopping trip, their shopping behavior is altered.
When consumers write their names before they begin shopping, even if they do so for reasons not related to the shopping trip, their shopping behavior is altered.
Wray Herbert, a well-respected science writer, discusses psychological heuristics in his new book, and some of them are useful to designers.
Designers often ask users questions during the programming process that require comparison, discussion, and selection of options that are either familiar or novel.
Recent work by Casasanto and Chrysikou supports previous work showing that “Right-and left-handers implicitly associate positive ideas like ‘goodness’ and honesty’ more strongly with their dominant side of space, the side on which they can act more fluently, and negative ideas more strongly with their nondominant hand.”
When people are asked for their opinion about the value of something and the evaluations of others (particularly friends and peers) are known, their opinions often agree with those others.
Researchers at the University of New Hampshire and Yale have determined that people place less monetary value on their possessions if they feel more secure interpersonally (i.e., feel accepted and loved by other people).
Designers are often called upon to create products and places for others, and new research indicates that their standard process of putting themselves in the users’ shoes may pay off in increased creativity.
Tali Hatuka, an architect who leads the Tel Aviv University Laboratory of Contemporary Urban Design, recently discussed aspects of public spaces that increase the likelihood of effective protests and productive civil participation.
Designers developing spaces that will be visited repeatedly by the same individuals may be interested to learn how perceptions of distances in those places will change over time.
Topolinski probed the psychological ramifications of dialing particular numbers on cell phones and his work illustrates how apparently minor aspects of our environments can significantly influence our lives.