100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People

by Susan Weinschenk

Overview

Behavioral science leader and CEO at The Team W, Inc., Susan M. Weinschenk, provides a guide that every designer needs, combining real science and research with practical examples on everything from font size to online interactions. With this book you'll design more intuitive and engaging apps, software, websites and products that match the way people think, decide and behave.

Here are some of the questions this book will answer:

• What grabs and holds attention?
• What makes memories stick?
• What motivates people?
• How does listening to music make people feel?
• How do you engineer a decision?
• What line length for text is best?
• Are some fonts better than others?

We design to elicit responses from people. We want them to buy something, read more, or take action of some kind. Designing without understanding what makes people act the way they do is like exploring a new city without a map: results will be haphazard, confusing, and inefficient. Increase the effectiveness of your designs by using science-backed examples on human behavior.

"Every once in a while, a book comes along that is so well-written, researched, and designed that I just can't put it down. That's how good 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People is!"

—Lynne Cooke, Clinical Assistant Professor at Arizona State University

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780132658607
Publisher:	Pearson Education
Publication date:	04/14/2011
Series:	Voices That Matter
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Susan M. Weinschenk has a Ph.D. in Psychology and is the Chief Behavioral Scientist and the CEO at The Team W, Inc. She is a consultant to Fortune 1000 companies, start-ups, governments and non-profits. Dr. Weinschenk is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Wisconsin.

Table of Contents

How People See



1. What You See Isn't What Your Brain Gets


2. Peripheral Vision Is Used More Than Central Vision to Get the Gist of What You See


3. People Identify Objects by Recognizing Patterns


4. There's a Special Part of the Brain Just for Recognizing Faces


5. There Is a Special Part of the Brain for Processing Simple Visual Features


6. People Scan Screens Based on Past Experience and Expectations


7. People See Cues That Tell Them What to Do with An Object


8. People Can Miss Changes in Their Visual Fields


9. People Believe That Things That Are Close Together Belong Together


10. Red and Blue Together Are Hard on the Eyes


11. Nine Percent of Men and One-Half Percent of Women Are Color-Blind


12. The Meanings of Colors Vary by Culture How People Read





How People Read



13. It's a Myth That Uppercase Letters Are Inherently Hard to Read


14. Reading and Comprehending Are Two Different Things


15. Pattern Recognition Helps People Identify Letters in Different Fonts


16. Font Size Matters


17. Reading a Screen Is Harder Than Reading Paper


18. People Read Faster with a Longer Line Length, But They Prefer a Shorter Line Length





How People Remember



19. Short-Term Memory Is Limited


20. People Remember Only Four Items at Once


21. People Have to Use Information to Make It Stick


22. It's Easier to Recognize Information Than Recall It


23. Memory Takes a Lot of Mental Resources


24. People Reconstruct Memories Each Time They Remember Them


25. It's a Good Thing That People Forget


26. The Most Vivid Memories Are Wrong





How People Think



27. People Process Information Better in Bite-Sized Chunks


28. Some Types of Mental Processing Are More Challenging Than Others


29. Minds Wander 30 Percent of the Time


30. The More Uncertain People Are, the More They Defend Their Ideas


31. People Create Mental Models


32. People Interact with Conceptual Models


33. People Process Information Best in Story Form


34. People Learn Best from Examples


35. People Are Driven to Create Categories


36. Time Is Relative


37. People Screen Out Information That Doesn't Fit Their Beliefs


38. People Can Be in a Flow State


39. Culture Affects How People Think





How People Focus Their Attention



40. Attention Is Selective


41. People Habituate Information


42. Well-Practiced Skills Don't Require Conscious Attention


43. Expectations of Frequency Affect Attention


44. Sustained Attention Lasts About Ten Minutes


45. People Pay Attention Only to Salient Cues


46. People Are Worse at Multitasking Than They Think


47. Danger, Food, Sex, Movement, Faces, and Stories Get the Most Attention


48. Loud Noises Startle and Get Attention


49. For People to Pay Attention to Something, They Must First Perceive It





What Motivates People



50. People Are More Motivated as They Get Closer to a Goal


51. Variable Rewards Are Powerful


52. Dopamine Stimulates the Seeking of Information


53. Unpredictability Keeps People Searching


54. People Are More Motivated by Intrinsic Rewards Than Extrinsic Rewards


55. People Are Motivated by Progress, Mastery, and Control


56. People Are Motivated by Social Norms


57. People Are Inherently Lazy


58. People Will Look for Shortcuts Only If the Shortcuts Are Easy


59. People Assume It's You, Not the Situation


60. Forming or Changing a Habit Is Easier Than You Think


61. People Are More Motivated to Compete When There Are Fewer Competitors


62. People Are Motivated by Autonomy





People Are Social Animals



63. The “Strong Tie” Group Size Limit Is 150 People


64. People Are Hard Wired for Imitation and Empathy


65. Doing Things Together Bonds People Together


66. People Expect Online Interactions to Follow Social Rules


67. People Lie to Differing Degrees Depending on the Medium


68. Speakers' Brains and Listeners' Brains Sync Up During Communication


69. The Brain Responds Uniquely to People You Know Personally


70. Laughter Bonds People Together


71. People Can Tell When a Smile Is Real or Fake More Accurately with Video





How People Feel



72. Some Emotions May Be Universal


73. Positive Feelings about a Group Can Lead to Groupthink


74. Stories and Anecdotes Persuade More Than Data Alone


75. If People Can't Feel, Then They Can't Decide


76. People Are Programmed to Enjoy Surprises


77. People Are Happier When They're Busy


78. Pastoral Scenes Make People Happy


79. People Use "Look and Feel" as Their First Indicator of Trust


80. Listening to Music Releases Dopamine in the Brain


81. The More Difficult Something Is to Achieve, the More People Like It


82. People Overestimate Reactions to Future Events


83. People Feel More Positive Before and After an Event Than During It


84. People Want What Is Familiar When They Are Sad or Scared





People Make Mistakes



85. People Will Always Make Mistakes; There Is No Fail-Safe Product


86. People Make Errors When They Are Under Stress


87. Not All Mistakes Are Bad


88. People Make Predictable Types of Errors


89. People Use Different Error Strategies





How People Decide



90. People Make Most Decisions Unconsciously


91. The Unconscious Knows First


92. People Want More Choices and Information Than They Can Process


93. People Think Choice Equals Control


94. People May Care About Time More Than They Care About Money


95. Mood Influences the Decision- Making Process


96. You Can Engineer Better Group Decisions


97. People Make Habit-Based Decisions or Value-Based Decisions, but Not Both at the Same Time


98. When People Are Uncertain, They Let Others Decide What to Do


99. People Think Others Are More Easily Influenced Than They Are Themselves


100. People Value a Product More Highly When It's Physically in Front of Them