Interesting Facts

This is an example of what is called “inattention blindness” or

“change blindness.” The idea is that people often miss large
changes in their visual field. This has been shown in many
experiments.
So what does this mean if you are designing a website or
something on a computer screen? It means that you can’t
assume that just because something is on the screen that people
see it. This is especially true when you refresh a screen and
make one change on it. People may not realize they are even
looking at a different screen. Remember, just because
something happens in the visual field doesn’t mean that people
are consciously aware of it.
#2 — You READ FASTER With a longer Line Length But PREFER Shorter
Have you ever had to decide how wide a column of text you should use on a screen? Should you use a
wide column with 100 characters per line? or a narrow column with 50 characters per line?
It turns out that the answer depends on whether you want people to read faster or whether you want
them to like the page!
Research (see reference below) demonstrates that 100 characters per line is the optimal length for on-
screen reading speed; but it’s not what people prefer. People read faster with longer line lengths (100
characters per line), but they prefer a short or medium line length (45 to 72 characters per line). In the
example above from the New York Times Reader, the line length averages 39 characters per line.
The research also shows that people can read one single wide column faster than multiple columns,
but they prefer multiple columns (like the New York Times Reader above).
So if you ask people which they prefer they will say multiple columns with short line lengths.
Interestingly, if you ask them which they read faster, they will insist it is also the multiple columns with
short line lengths, even though the data shows otherwise.
It’s a quandary: Do you give people what they prefer or go against their own preference and intuition,
knowing that they will read faster if you use a longer line length and one column?
What would you do?
#3 — You Imagine Objects From Above and Tilted (The “Canonical Perspective”)
Why you should believe the research in this blog post even though it’s from 1981 — Whenever I talk
about “old” research some people start right away to dismiss it. It’s easy to think that research done in the
1990s or 1980s, or heavens! the 1970s! couldn’t hold any interest for us now. I heartily disagree. If the
research is sound and it’s about people, then the chances are high that it still has relevance. Certainly if you
are talking about research from the 1980s showing that it is hard to read text on a computer screen, then
more recent data is important –  the quality of computer monitors has changed so dramatically from the
1980s till now (believe me on this one, as I was around to see the screens of the 1980s. I am aware that
many of you reading this blog have only seen a screen from the 80s in the Museum of Modern Art in
Manhattan, or maybe you saw it in an old black and white movie (joke), or, as my daughter likes to say to
me, “that must have been when you were younger and the dinosaurs roamed”).
Have an Open Mind — So the purpose of the above long preamble is to ask you to have an open mind
about the following research that was done and written up in a book from 1981.
Draw a Coffee Cup — If you ask someone to draw a picture of a coffee cup, chances are they will draw
something that looks like this:
Everyone Drew A Similar Picture — In fact, a researcher
named Palmer went all around the world and asked people to
draw a coffee cup and the pictures above were what people
drew. Notice the perspective of the cups. A few of them are
“straight on”, but most are drawn from a perspective as if you
are slightly above the cup looking down, and offset a little to
the right or left. This has been dubbed the “canonical
perspective”.
Why Not This? — No one he studied drew this:
which is what you would see if you were looking at a coffee cup from way above and looking down. Of
course not, you say, but…. why not? And if you are going to say that the first perspective is the one that
we actually see most of the time, when we look at a coffee cup… that it is the angle we are used to
seeing the cup on our kitchen tables, I will tell you that this research has been done on many objects.
For example, people were shown pictures of horses from various angles and perspectives and they most
quickly recognized it as a horse when it was from this same canonical perspective. Yet I am fairly sure
that most of us have not looked at horses from above most of the time. And the research was done with
people recognizing a very small dog or cat. The canonical perspective still won out, even though when
we see cats or very small dogs we are mainly looking at them from high above, not just slightly above.
In fact the research shows that when we imagine an object we imagine it from this canonical
perspective.
So, Why Care? — It seems to be a universal trait that we think about, remember, imagine and recognize
objects from this canonical perspective. Why care? Well, if you want to use icons at your web site or in
your web or software application that people will recognize, then you might want to use this
perspective. This is probably not so critical if you are using a well known logo, for example, the logo for
itunes or Firefox, but becomes important if the icon is not as familiar, such as recognizing below that
one of the logos is of a truck, or a photo printer.
#5 — You Make Most of Your Decisions Unconsciously
You are thinking of buying a TV. You do some research on what TV to buy and then you go online to purchase one. What factors are
involved in this decision making process?
It’s not what you think — I cover this topic in my book "Neuro Web Design: What makes them click?" You like to think that when you make
a decision you have carefully and logically weighed all the relevant factors. In the case of the TV, you have considered the size of TV that
works best in your room, the brand that you have read is the most reliable, the competitive price, whether you should get blu-ray, etc etc. But
the research on decision-making, especially the recent research, shows that although you want to think that your decision-making is a
conscious, deliberate process, it’s not. Most decisions are made through unconscious mental processing.
Unconscious decision-making includes factors such as:
What are most other people buying (social validation): “I see that a particular TV got high ratings and reviews at the website”
What will make me stay consistent in my persona (commitment): “I’m the kind of person that always has the latest thing, the newest
technology.”
Do I have any obligations or social debts that I can pay off with this purchase (reciprocity): “My brother has had me over to his house all year
to watch the games, I think it’s time we had them over to our place to watch”
and on and on.
Don’t Confuse Unconscious with Irrational or Bad. I take exception with Dan Ariely and his book, "Predictably Irrational." Most of our
mental processing is unconscious, and most of our decision-making is unconscious, but that doesn’t mean it’s faulty, irrational or bad. We are
faced with an overwhelming amount of data (11,000,000 pieces of data come into the brain every second!) and our conscious minds can’t
process all of that. Our unconscious has evolved to process most of the data and to make decisions for us according to guidelines and rules of
thumb that are in our best interest most of the time. This is the genesis of “trusting your gut”, and most of the time it works!
You Actually Can’t Multi-Task

I know it’s popular to think that you are multi-tasking, but the research is clear that people actually can’t multi-task, with one
specific exception.
One thing at a time – For many years the psychology research has shown that people can only attend to one task at a time.
Let me be even more specific. The research shows that people can attend to only one cognitive task at a time. You can only
be thinking about one thing at a time. You can only be conducting one mental activity at a time. So you can be talking or you
can be reading. You can be reading or you can be typing. You can be listening or you can be reading. One thing at a time.
We fool ourselves – We are pretty good at switching back and forth quickly, so we THINK we are actually multi-tasking,
but in reality we are not.
The one exception — The only exception that the research has uncovered is that if you are doing a physical task that you
have done very very often and you are very good at, then you can do that physical task while you are doing a mental task. So
if you are an adult and you have learned to walk then you can walk and talk at the same time.
Then again, maybe there isn’t an exception –  Even this doesn’t work very well, though. A study being published in
December shows that people talking on their cell phones while walking, run into people more often and don’t notice what is
around them. The researchers had someone in a clown suit ride a unicycle. The people talking on a cell phone were much
less likely to notice or remember the clown.
But the millennial generation can multi-task, right? – A study at Stanford University demonstrates well that multi-tasking
doesn’t work, even with college students. Clifford Nass’s study (published in August of 2009 in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences), found that when people are asked to deal with multiple streams of information they can’t
pay attention to them, can’t remember as well, and don’t switch as well as they would have thought.