designing for real-live brains
DESCRIPTION
I made this for a client a little while ago after being asked to make a short presentation about something that interested me! I had just finished reading Susan Weinschenk's amazing books (100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People and Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click?) and thought I'd introduce them to a few starter concepts from the books. Everything in the presentation comes from the books, I have just picked a few concepts and made some accompanying "drawings" (if you can call them that!) Thanks :)TRANSCRIPT
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BRAAAAINS
Some things I’ve learned FROM SUSAN WEINSCHENK’S
neuro web design: what makes them click and
100 things every designer needs to know about people
yael levey
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YES, we’re all
UNIQUE AND
SPECIAL SNOWFLAKES
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NEW BRAIN thinking thoughts
MID BRAIN makes you
feel
OLD BRAIN concerned with survival
consciousunconscious
but ACTUALLY OUR BRAINS ARE VERY similar
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we are not in
conscious control
of a lot of our
behaviour
or even really aware of the
reasons why we do things
source: a lot of research
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Neuroscientists estimate that our five
senses take in !
11 million pieces of information
!
every second
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how many do we process
consciously?
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only FORTY
PIECES OF INFO PROCESSED CONSCIOUSLY
PIECES OF INFO PROCESSED UNCONSCIOUSLY
40 10999960
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so, We want people to do things during a digital
experienceBUT! !
most behaviour and
decision making is
not conscious
AND We need to persuade them
TO DO THEM
so how can we make people do things?
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most effective apps/sites talk to all 3 brains to get people to engage
NEW BRAIN thinking thoughts
MID BRAIN makes you
feel
OLD BRAIN concerned with
survival
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some tips on designing for 3 brains
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use faces
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THERE’S A SPECIAL AREA OF THE
BRAIN JUST FOR reCOGNISING
FACES, close to our
emotional centre
'FUSIFORM FACE AREA’
-KANWISHER (1997)
THIS ALLOWS the brain TO
IDENTIFY faces FASTER.
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ALSO, WE ARE
BORN WITH A PREFERENCE FOR LOOKING AT FACES
!
!
!NEWBORNS
PREFER LOOKING AT FACES THAN OTHER OBJECTS
MONDLOCH ET AL (1999)
loves: hates:
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eyetracking shows that if a picture of a face looks away from us and towards
a product,
WE tend to also look at the product
(this doesn’t necessarily mean they are paying attention though)
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IMPLICATIONS for designing
• People recognise and react to faces on your page faster than anything else on the page
!• Faces looking right at
people will have the greatest emotional impact
!• If a face on your page
looks at a product, people will also tend to look at it (but, this doesn’t mean they’re actually paying attention to it!)
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use pictures
and stories
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“let me tell you a story”
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we are all storytellers • “Let me tell you what
happened to me last night!”
!• “So, Jack looked and her,
and he said..” !• “She totally deserved that
promotion. Remember when she saved the day last month?”
most communication in our daily lives is in the form of
a story
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stories are a great way for
us to process and
store information
they help us break down events into
smaller chunks to we can understand
information better
many scientists think our brains are wired to process the world around us
as a story
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when we read/hear a story, our brains are
partly reacting as though we are experiencing the story ourselves.
-singer, 2004
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stories involve many parts of the brain
including the emotional part of the
mid-brain
stories allow us to feel what the
character in the story feels
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when we think about a story, or about anything at all, we are actually thinking in pictures.
(- pictorial superiority effect -
images are the main content of our thoughts regardless of the sensory modality in which they are presented
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stories and pics on apps and sites
are a powerful way to get and hold our attention
so, we process info as stories
then, we turn stories into mental images
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vs
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IMPLICATIONS for designing
• We are programmed to think in stories. Sites and apps with stories will grab our attention
!• We pay attention to and
remember pictures better than words
!• Combining pictures and stories
together is an unbeatable combination to grab our attention, hold our attention and help us remember
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make it all about ‘you’
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YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU
NOT YOU NOT YOU
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YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU
YOUR PRIMITIVE OLD BRAIN IS WIRED TO CARE ABOUT YOUR
SURVIVAL. !
YOU ARE ALL THAT MATTERS.
!
IT IS ALWAYS SCANNING FOR CHANGES IN YOUR ENVIRONMENT AND EVALUATING THEM.
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ANYTHING THREATENING YOUR SURVIVAL WILL GET YOUR OLD BRAIN’S ATTENTION. !
even WATCHING A SCARY MOVIE WILL SOUND AN ALARM TO YOUR OLD BRAIN. !
WHEN THE ALARM GOES OFF, YOUR INFO-PROCESSING SYSTEMS ARE HIGHLY FUNCTIONING.
!ANYTHING HAPPENING WHEN WE ARE ON HIGH ALERT GETS PROCESSED DEEPLY.
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BECAUSE YOUR OLD BRAIN IS CONSTANTLY SCANNING FOR
THREATS, !
ANY CHANGE ALSO GRABS
ITS ATTENTION. !
MOVEMENT ON A WEBSITE DRAWS ATTENTION VERY
WELL.
(use judiciously otherwise everyone will hate you)
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YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU
BUT, SIMPLY USING THE WORD
YOU
WILL GET THE ATTENTION OF YOUR
OLD BRAIN.
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IMPLICATIONS for designing
• Stimulating emotions means your content will get processed at a deeper level as we are on high alert.
!• Movement on a website/app draws
our attention successfully as we are continually scanning our environments for change. It’s why banner ads are so annoying. Use this judiciously.
!• Anything that references YOU
automatically gets noticed by our brain. Using words like ‘you’ and ‘your’ get our attention.
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MASTER MEMORY
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SHORT TERM MEMORY IS LIMITED
THERE’S ONLY SO MUCH PEOPLE CAN HOLD IN THEIR WORKING MEMORY
BEFORE THEY fORGET IT.
!THIS IS BECAUSE YOUR ABILITY TO REMEMBER
SOMETHING IS TIED TO YOUR
ABILITY TO KEEP YOUR FOCUS ON IT.
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so, how can you make stuff stick?
REPEAT IT A LOT
CONNECT IT TO SOMETHING THEY ALREADY KNOW
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so, how can you make stuff stick?
REPEAT IT A LOT
repetition changes the brain.
!
repeating stuff strengthens the
connections between the two in the brain.
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so, how can you make stuff stick?
if people can connect new info to information that is already stored, its easier to make it
stick
CONNECT IT TO SOMETHING THEY ALREADY KNOW
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but remember (ha!) !
it still takes a lot of mental resources to !
think about, remember, process, represent and encode !
information.
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IMPLICATIONS for designing
• Don’t ask people to remember info from one screen to another. If you do, they’ll probably forget the info & get frustrated.
!• If you ask people to remember things
in working memory, don’t ask them to do anything else until they’ve completed that task. This prevents them from focusing their attention elsewhere.
!• Repetition makes people remember !• If people already have a point of
reference to the information you are providing, make sure you point it out. This will make it easier for them to learn and remember the information.
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BUY THESE BOOKSSUSAN WEINSCHENK:
100 THINGS EVERY DESIGNER NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT PEOPLE AND
NEURO WEB DESIGN: WHAT MAKES THEM CLICK