Designing with the mind in mind free pdf download

The insights of ancient mystics, practical philosophers, and cognitive scientists have been integrated into a mindset and method for reprogramming your own psychological software. Designing the Mind is your digital handbook for mastering your behavior, cognition, and emotions, one algorithm at a time. We have all heard that our sense of self is the root of our problems. The ego is the enemy. L Morphemes combine to form patterns that we recognize as words, e.

L Words combine to form patterns that we learn to recognize as phrases, idio- matic expressions, and sentences. L Sentences combine to form paragraphs. To see what text looks like to someone who has not yet learned to read, just look at a paragraph printed in a language and script that you do not know see Fig. Alternatively, you can approximate the feeling of illiteracy by taking a page writ- ten in a familiar script and language—such as a page of this book—and turning it upside down.

Turn this book upside down and try reading the next few paragraphs. This exercise only approximates the feeling of illiteracy. You will discover that the inverted text appears foreign and illegible at first, but after a minute you will be able to read it, albeit slowly and laboriously. Is reading feature-driven or context-driven? A Amharic, B Tibetan. As stated earlier, reading involves recognizing features and patterns.

Pattern recogni- tion, and therefore reading, can be either a bottom-up, feature-driven process or a top-down, context-driven process. In feature-driven reading, the visual system starts by identifying simple features—- line segments in a certain orientation or curves of a certain radius—on a page or display and then combines them into more complex features, such as angles, mul- tiple curves, shapes, and patterns. Then the brain recognizes certain shapes as char- acters or symbols representing letters, numbers, or, for ideographic scripts, words.

In alphabetic scripts, groups of letters are perceived as morphemes and words. In all types of scripts, sequences of words are parsed into phrases, sentences, and para- graphs that have meaning. In contrast, recognition of morphemes, words, and phrases has to be learned. It starts out as a non-automatic, conscious process requir- ing conscious analysis of letters, morphemes, and words, but with enough practice it becomes automatic Sousa, Obviously, the more common a morpheme, word, or phrase, the more likely it is that recognition of it will become automatic.

With ideo- graphic scripts such as Chinese, which have many times more symbols than alpha- betic scripts have, people typically take many years longer to become skilled readers. Context-driven or top-down reading operates in parallel with feature-driven read- ing but it works the opposite way: from whole sentences or the gist of a paragraph down to the words and characters.

It then uses that knowledge to figure out—or guess—what the components of the high-level pattern must be Boulton, But there are exceptions, such as idiomatic expressions.

What did the text say? Now look at the same sentence again more carefully. Do you read it the same way now? It has been known for decades that reading involves both feature-driven bottom-up processing and context-driven top-down processing. In addition to being able to figure out the meaning of a sentence by analyzing the letters and words in it, people can deter- mine the words of a sentence by knowing the meaning of the sentence, or the letters in a word by knowing what word it is see Fig.

The question is: is skilled reading primarily bottom-up or top-down, or is neither mode dominant? Which type of reading is preferred?

Educational researchers in the s applied information theory to reading, and assumed that because of redundancies in written language, top-down, context- driven reading would be faster than bottom-up, feature-driven reading. This assump- tion led them to hypothesize that reading in highly skilled fast readers would be dominated by context-driven top-down processing.

This theory was probably responsible for many speed-reading methods of the s and s, which suppos- edly trained people to read fast by taking in whole phrases and sentences at a time. Mray had a ltilte lmab, its feclee was withe as sown. And ervey wehre taht Mray wnet, the lmab was srue to go.

Skilled and unskilled reading uses different parts of the brain 37 However, empirical studies of readers conducted since then have demonstrated conclusively that the truth is the opposite of what the earlier theory predicted.

Context-driven reading is today considered mainly a backup method that, although it operates in parallel with feature-based reading, is only relevant when feature- driven reading is difficult or is insufficiently automatic. Skilled readers may resort to context-based reading when feature-based reading is disrupted by poor presentation of information see examples later in this chap- ter. Also, in the race between context-based and feature-based reading to decipher the text we see, contextual cues sometimes win out over features.

In less skilled readers, feature-based reading is not automatic; it is conscious and laborious. Therefore, much more of their reading is context based. Their involun- tary use of context-based reading and nonautomatic feature-based reading consumes short-term cognitive capacity, leaving little for comprehension. That is why poor readers can read a passage aloud but afterward have no idea what they just read. Why is context-free bottom-up reading not automatic in some adults?

As they grow up, they find read- ing mentally laborious and taxing, so they avoid reading, which perpetuates and compounds their deficit Boulton, For example, in the mids, doctors found that 1 Chapter 10 describes the differences between automatic and controlled cognitive processing. For present purposes, we will simply say that controlled processes burden working memory, while automatic processes do not.

In recent decades, several new methods of observing the operation of function- ing brains in living people, enhancing noninvasive scanning methods with comput- er-based analysis techniques, have been developed: electroencephalography EEG , functional magnetic resonance imaging fMRI , and functional magnetic resonance spectroscopy fMRS. Using these methods, researchers have discovered that the neural pathways involved in reading differ for novice versus skilled readers.

Of course, the first area to respond during reading is the occipital or visual cortex at the back of the brain. For ideographic languages, where symbols represent whole words and often have a graphical correspondence to their meaning, sounding out of words is not part of reading.

Poor information design can disrupt reading 39 L Advanced: The word analysis area is skipped. Instead the occipito-temporal area behind the ear, not far from the visual cortex becomes active. In unskilled readers, poor text presentation can block reading altogether.

Please reauthenticate. The application was for finding resources—rooms, equipment, etc. Its users included receptionists, accountants, and managers as well as engineers. Reading can also be disrupted by uncommon terms even if they are not com- puter technology terms. Difficult scripts and typefaces Even when the vocabulary is familiar, reading can be disrupted by hard-to-read scripts and typefaces.

Bottom-up, context-free, automatic reading is based on rec- ognition of letters and words from their visual features. Therefore, a typeface with difficult-to-recognize feature and shapes will be hard to read.

Outline typefaces complicate feature recognition. This example demonstrates both. For example, try to read the first paragraph of the U. Constitution in a seven-point font see Fig. We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Constitution, presented in a seven-point font. Developers sometimes use tiny fonts because they have a lot of text to display in a small amount of space. But if the intended users of the system cannot read the text, or can read it only laboriously, the text might as well not be there. Text on noisy background Visual noise in and around text can disrupt recognition of features, characters, and words and therefore drop reading out of automatic feature-based mode into a more conscious and context-based mode.

There are situations in which designers intend to make text hard to read. Of course, most text displayed in a user interface should be easy to read. Although well-intentioned, the decorated background made the calculator hard to read see Fig.

Later, when the Fed redesigned the mortgage calculator to add functionality, it also removed the decorative background see Fig. Information buried in repetition Visual noise can also come from the text itself. If successive lines of text contain a lot of repetition, readers receive poor feedback about what line they are focused on, plus it is hard to pick out the important information. For example, recall the example from the California Department of Motor Vehicles Web site in the previous chapter see Fig.

Another example of repetition that creates noise is the computer store on Apple. Centered text One aspect of reading that is highly automatic in most skilled readers is eye move- ment. In automatic fast reading, our eyes are trained to go back to the same hor- izontal position and down one line. If text is centered or right-aligned, each line of text starts in a different horizontal position. Automatic eye movements therefore take our eyes back to the wrong place, so we must consciously adjust our gaze to the actual start of each line.

This drops us out of automatic mode and slows us down greatly. With poetry and wedding invitations, that is probably OK, but with any other type of text, it is a disadvantage. An example of centered prose text is provided by the Web site of FargoHomes, a real estate company see Fig. Try reading the text quickly to demonstrate to yourself how your eyes move. Try scanning the list quickly. In some places it has insufficient con- trast between foreground and background.

In other places it has too much contrast, e. It also has centered prose text and text on patterned backgrounds. All of the above combine to make this site very hard to read see Fig. Skilled fast reading is mostly automatic and mostly based on feature, character, and word recognition. The easier the recognition, the easier and faster the reading. Less skilled reading, by contrast, is greatly assisted by contextual cues.

Designers of interactive systems can support both reading methods by following these guidelines: L Ensure that text in user interfaces allows the feature-based automatic processes to function effectively by avoiding the disruptive flaws described above: diffi- cult or tiny fonts, patterned backgrounds, centering, etc. Much of the reading required by software is unnecessary 47 L Use restricted, highly consistent vocabularies—sometimes referred to in the industry as plain language3 or simplified language Redish, L Format text to create a visual hierarchy see Chapter 3 to facilitate easy scan- ning: use headings, bulleted lists, tables, and visually emphasized words see Fig.

Experienced information architects, content editors, and graphic designers can be very useful in ensuring that text is presented so as to support easy scanning and reading. Consider how much unnecessary text there is in a dialog box for setting text entry properties in the SmartDraw application see Fig. Even when text describes products rather than explaining instructions, it is coun- terproductive to put all a vendor wants to say about a product into a lengthy prose description that people have to read from start to end.

Compare Costco. Design implications: minimize the need for reading Too much text in a user interface loses poor readers, who unfortunately are a sig- nificant percentage of the population.

Too much text even alienates good readers: it turns using an interactive system into an intimidating amount of work. In instructions, use the least amount of text that gets most users to their intended goals. In a product description, provide a brief overview of the product and let users request more detail if they want it. Technical writers and content editors can assist greatly in doing this. For additional advice on how to eliminate unnecessary text, see Krug and Redish Some test- ing can be done early, using prototypes and partial implementations, but it should also be done just before release.

Fortunately, last-minute changes to text font sizes and formats are usually easy to make. Many of those strengths and limitations are relevant to user interface design: L Our vision is optimized to detect contrasts edges , not absolute brightness.

L Our ability to distinguish colors depends on how colors are presented. L Some people have color-blindness. You probably also learned that the rods detect light levels but not colors, while the cones detect colors. Finally, you probably learned that there are three types of cones, sensitive to red, green, and blue light, respectively, suggesting that our color vision is similar to video cameras and computer displays, which detect or project a wide variety of colors through combinations of red, green, and blue pixels.

What you learned in college is only partly right. We do in fact have rods and three types of cones in our retinas. The rods are sensitive to overall brightness while the three types of cones are sensitive to different frequencies of light.

They function only at low levels of light. They are for getting around in poorly lighted environments—the environments our ancestors lived in until the nineteenth century. Today, we use our rods only when we are having dinner by candlelight, feeling our way around our dark house at night, camping outside after dark, etc. In bright daylight and modern artificially lighted environments—where we spend most of our time—our rods are completely maxed out, providing no useful information.

Most of the time, our vision is based entirely on input from our cones Ware, So how do our cones work? Are the three types of cones sensitive to red, green, and blue light, respectively? In fact, each type of cone is sensitive to a wider range of light frequencies than you might expect, and the sensitivity ranges of the three types overlap considerably.

In addition, the overall sensitivity of the three types of cones differs greatly see Fig. L Medium frequency: These cones respond to light ranging from the high- frequency blues through the lower middle-frequency yellows and oranges. Overall, they are less sensitive than the low-frequency cones. L High frequency: These cones are most sensitive to light at the upper end of the visible light spectrum—violets and blues—but they also respond weakly to middle frequencies, such as green.

These cones are much less sensitive overall than the other two types of cones, and also less numerous. One result is that our eyes are much less sensitive to blues and violets than to other colors.

Compare a graph of the light sensitivity of our retinal cone cells Fig. Vision is optimized for edge contrast, not brightness 55 Given the odd relationships between the sensitivities of our three types of retinal cones cells, one might wonder how our brain combines the signals from the cones to allow us to see a broad range of colors.

The answer is: by subtraction. The brain then applies additional subtractive processes to all three color- opponent channels: signals coming from a given area of the retina are effectively subtracted from similar signals coming from nearby areas of the retina. To see this, compare the two green circles in Figure 5. They are the same exact shade of green—the circle on the right was copied from the one on the left—but the different backgrounds make the one on the left appear darker to our contrast-sensitive visual system.

The sensitivity of our visual system to contrast rather than to absolute brightness is an advantage: it helped our distant ancestors recognize a leopard in the nearby bushes as the same dangerous animal whether they saw it in bright noon sunlight or in the early morning hours of a cloudy day.

Similarly, being sensitive to color contrasts rather than to absolute colors allows us to see a rose as the same red whether it is in the sun or the shade. Those cones are so insensitive that their contribution to the total would be negligible, so omitting them makes little difference.

As difficult as it may be to believe, square A on the checkerboard is exactly the same shade as square B. Because of how our visual system works, three presentation factors affect our ability to distinguish colors from each other: L Paleness: The paler less saturated two colors are, the harder it is to tell them apart see Fig.

L Color patch size: The smaller or thinner objects are, the harder it is to distin- guish their colors see Fig. Text is often thin, so the exact color of text is often hard to determine. L Separation: The more separated color patches are, the more difficult it is to distinguish their colors, especially if the separation is great enough to require eye motion between patches see Fig.

Several years ago, the online travel Web site ITN. Small color patches are often seen in data charts and plots. Many business graphics packages produce legends on charts and plots, but make the color patches in the legend very small see Fig. Color patches in chart legends should be large to help people distinguish the colors see Fig. Furthermore, the two colors are shades of blue, the color range in which our eyes are least sensitive. Can you spot the two followed links?

The answer is below. Color-blindness 59 color-blindness. Figure 5. The home finance application MoneyDance provides a graphical breakdown of household expenses, using color to indicate the various expense categories see Fig. A total inability to see color is extremely rare. If you are not color-blind, you can get an idea of which colors in an image will be hard to distinguish by converting the image to grayscale see Fig.

For example: L Variation among color displays: Computer displays vary in how they dis- play colors, depending on their technologies, driver software, or color settings. Even monitors of the same model with the same settings may display colors slightly differently.

Something that looks yellow on one display may look beige on another. Colors that are clearly different on one may look the same on another.

L Grayscale displays: Although most displays these days are color, there are devices, especially small hand-held ones, with grayscale displays. L Display angle: Some computer displays, particularly LCD ones, work much better when viewed straight on than when viewed from an angle. L Ambient illumination: Strong light on a display washes out colors before it washes out light and dark areas, reducing color displays to grayscale ones, as anyone who has tried to use a bank ATM in direct sunlight knows.

In offices, glare and venetian blind shadows can mask color differences. Distinguish colors by saturation and brightness as well as hue. Avoid sub- tle color differences. Make sure the contrast between colors is high but see guideline 5.

One way to test whether colors are different enough is to view them in grayscale. Use distinctive colors. The colors that people can distin- guish most easily are those that cause a strong signal positive or negative on one of the three color-perception channels, and neutral signals on the other two channels. Not surprisingly, those colors are red, green, yellow, blue, black, and white see Fig.

All other colors cause signals on more than one color channel, and so our visual system cannot distinguish them from other colors as quickly and easily as it can distinguish those six colors Ware, Each color causes a strong signal on only one color-opponent channel. Avoid color pairs that color-blind people cannot distinguish. Such pairs include dark red versus black, dark red versus dark green, blue versus pur- ple, light green versus white.

Instead, use dark reds, blues, and violets against light yellows and greens. Use Vischeck. Use color redundantly with other cues. If you use color to mark something, mark it another way as well. Separate strong opponent colors. Placing opponent colors right next to or on top of each other causes a disturbing shimmering sensation, and so should be avoided see Fig.

As mentioned above, ITN. A simple way to strengthen the marking would be to make the current step bold and increase the saturation of the yellow see Fig. But ITN.

A graph from the Federal Reserve Bank uses white and shades of green Fig. This is a well-designed graph. Any sighted person could read it, even on a grayscale display. Our visual system also differs from a camera in its resolution. The human visual system is not like that. L Motion in the periphery is usually noticed.

Each eye has approximately six million retinal cone cells. They are packed much more tightly in the center of our visual field—a small region called the fovea— than they are at the edges of the retina see Fig. Furthermore, foveal cone cells connect to the ganglial neuron cells that begin the processing and transmission of visual data, while elsewhere on the retina, multiple photoreceptor cells cones and rods connect to each ganglion cell. In technical terms, information from the visual periphery is compressed with data loss before transmission to the brain, while information from the fovea is not.

All of this causes our vision to have much, much greater resolution in the center of our visual field than elsewhere Lindsay and Norman, ; Waloszek, Lindsay and Norman, To visualize how small the fovea is compared to your entire visual field, hold your arm straight out and look at your thumb.

While you have your eyes focused on the thumbnail, everything else in your visual field falls outside of your fovea on your retina. Instead, we seem to see our surround- ings sharply and clearly all around us. Our brain fills in the rest in a gross, impressionistic way based upon what we know and expect. B Image from Vision Research, Vol. For example, as you read this page, your eyes dart around, scanning and reading. No matter where on the page your eyes are focused, you have the impression of viewing a complete page of text, because, of course, you are.

But now, imagine that you are viewing this page on a computer screen, and the computer is tracking your eye movements and knows where your fovea is on the page. Imagine that wherever you look, the right text for that spot on the page is shown clearly in the small area corresponding to your fovea, but everywhere else on the page, the computer shows random, meaningless text. As your fovea flits around the page, the computer quickly updates each area where your fovea stops to show the correct text there, while the last position of your fovea returns to textual noise.

Amazingly, experiments have shown that people do not notice this: not only can they read normally, they still believe that they are viewing a full page of meaningful text Clark, Related to this is the fact that the center of our visual field—the fovea and a small area immediately surrounding it—is the only part of our visual field that can read.

The rest of our visual field cannot read. What this really means is that the neural networks starting in the fovea, running through the optic nerve to the visual cortex, and then spreading into various parts of our brain, have been trained to read, but the neural networks starting elsewhere in our retinas cannot read. All text that we read comes into our visual system after being scanned by the central area, which means that reading requires a lot of eye movement.

Of course, based on what we have already read and our knowledge of the world, our brains can sometimes pre- dict text that the fovea has not yet read or its meaning , allowing to us skip reading it, but that is different from actually reading.

We can discriminate colors better in the center of our visual field than at the edges. Another interesting fact about our visual field is that it has a gap—a small area in which we see nothing. The gap corresponds to the spot on our retina where the optic nerve and blood vessels exit the back of the eye see Fig. People sometimes experience the blind spot when they gaze at stars. As you look at one star, a nearby star may disappear briefly into the blind spot until you shift your gaze.

You can also observe the gap by trying the exercise in Figure 6. Some people have other gaps resulting from imperfections on the retina, retinal damage, or brain strokes that affect the visual cortex, but the optic nerve gap is an imperfec- tion everyone shares. The will disappear at some point. It seems that the fovea is better than the periphery at just about everything. One might wonder why we even have peripheral vision. What is it good for? The answer is that our peripheral vision exists mainly to provide low-resolution cues to guide our eye movements so that our fovea visits all the interesting and cru- cial parts of our visual field.

They move so as to focus our fovea on important things, the most important ones usu- ally first. The fuzzy cues on the outskirts of our visual field provide the data that helps our brain plan where to move our eyes, in what order. If we are browsing a produce mar- ket looking for strawberries, a blurry reddish patch at the edge of our visual field draws our eyes and our attention, even though sometimes it may turn out to be radishes instead of strawberries.

If we hear an animal growl nearby, a fuzzy animal- like shape in the corner of our eye will be enough to zip our eyes in that direction, especially if the shape is moving toward us see Fig.

That brings us to another advantage of peripheral vision: it is good at detecting motion. Anything that moves in our visual periphery, even slightly, is likely to draw our attention—and hence our fovea—toward it. The reason for this phenomenon is that our ancestors—including pre-human ones—were selected for their ability to spot food and avoid predators. As a result, even though we can move our eyes under conscious, intentional control, some of the mechanisms that control where they look are preconscious, involuntary, and very fast.

What if we have no reason to expect that there might be anything interesting in a certain spot in the periphery,2 and nothing in that spot attracts our attention? Our eyes may never move our fovea to that spot, so we may never see what is there. When some- one clicks a button or a link, that is usually where his or her fovea is positioned.

Everything on the screen that is not within 1—2 centimeters of the click location assuming normal computer viewing distance is in peripheral vision, where resolu- tion is low.

If, after the click, an error message appears in the periphery, it should not be surprising that the person might not notice it. The page redisplays with blank fields. Did I hit the wrong button? The page redisplays with empty fields again. Now the user is really confused.

The user sighs or curses , sits back in his chair and lets his eyes scan the screen. Has that error message been there all along? For exam- ple, until recently the Web site of Airborne. Can you think of any reasons why people might not initially see this error message?

The fovea is small: just a centimeter or two on a computer screen, assum- ing the user is the usual distance from the screen. A second reason is that the error message is not the only thing near the top of the page that is red.

The page title is also red. In Western societies, people tend to traverse forms and control panels from upper left to lower right. While moving the screen pointer, people usually look either at where it is or where they are moving it to. When people click a button or link, they can usually be assumed to be looking directly at it, at least for a few moments afterward. Designers can use this predictability to position error messages near where they expect users to be looking.

L Mark the error: Somehow mark the error prominently to indicate clearly that something is wrong. Often this can be done by simply placing the error mes- sage near what it refers to, unless that would place the message too far from where users are likely to be looking. L Use an error symbol: Make errors or error messages more visible by marking them with an error symbol, such as or , , ,. L Reserve red for errors: By convention, in interactive computer systems the color red connotes alert, danger, problem, error, etc.

Using red for any other information on a computer display invites misinterpretation. But suppose you are designing a Web site for Stanford University, which has red as its school color. Or suppose you are designing for a Chinese market, where red is consi- dered an auspicious, positive color. What do you do? Use another color for errors, mark them with error symbols, or use stronger methods see below.

An improved version of the InformaWorld sign-in error screen uses several of these techniques see Fig. Data fields with errors are marked with red error symbols. Error messages are displayed in red and are near the error. Furthermore, most of the error messages appear as soon as an erroneous entry is made, when the user is still focused on that part of the form, rather than only after the user submits the form.

It is unlikely that AOL users will miss seeing these error messages. However, these methods, while very effective, have significant negative effects so they should be used sparingly and with great care. That is good if the error message signals a critical condition, but it can annoy people if such an approach is used for a minor message, such as confirming the execution of a user-requested action.

The annoyance of pop-up messages rises with the degree of modality. Nonmodal pop-ups allow users to ignore them and continue working. Application-modal pop- ups block any further work in the application that displayed the error, but allow users to interact with other software on their computer. System-modal pop-ups block any user action until the dialog has been dismissed. Application-modal error pop-ups should be used sparingly, e. System-modal pop-ups should be used extremely rarely—basically only when the system is about to crash and take hours of work with it or if people will die if the user misses the error message.

On the Web, an additional reason to avoid pop-up error dialog boxes is that some people set their browsers to block all pop-up windows. If your Web site relies on pop-up error messages, some users may never see them. Use sound e. This can allow the user to notice an error message that is someplace other than where the user was just looking, such as in a standard error message box on the dis- play. That is the value of beeping. However, imagine many people in a cubicle work environment or a classroom, all using an application that signals all errors and warnings by beeping.

Such a work- place would be very annoying, to say the least. In noisy work environments, e. Therefore, signaling errors and other conditions with sound are remedies that can be used only in very special, controlled situations. Heavy artillery for making users notice messages: use sparingly 75 Flash or wiggle briefly As described earlier, our peripheral vision is good at detecting motion, and motion in the periphery causes reflexive eye movements that bring the motion into the fovea.

User interface designers can make use of this by wiggling or flashing messages briefly when they want to ensure that users see them. Millions of years of evolution have had quite an effect. However, motion, like pop-up dialog boxes and beeping, must be used sparingly. Most experienced computer users consider wiggling, blinking objects on screen to be annoying. Most of us have learned to ignore displays that blink because many such displays are advertisements.

Conversely, a few computer users have attentional impairments that make it difficult for them to ignore something that is blinking or wiggling. Therefore, if motion or blinking is used, it should be brief: it should last about a quarter- to a half-second—no longer. Otherwise, it quickly goes from an uncon- scious attention-grabber to a conscious annoyance. Our brain pays less and less attention to any stimulus that occurs frequently.

It is hard to miss, but perhaps overkill. Overuse of strong attention-getting methods can cause important messages to be blocked by habituation.

The message is displayed when someone who is registering as a new cus- tomer omits required fields in the form see Fig. Is this an appropriate use of a pop-up dialog? Examples of more appropriate use of error dialog boxes come from Microsoft Excel see Fig.

In both cases, loss of data is at stake. Computer games use sound a lot to signal events and conditions. Its use in games is widespread, even in game arcades, where dozens of machines are all banging, roaring, buzzing, clanging, beep- ing, and playing music at once. The most common use of blinking in computer user interfaces other than adver- tisements is in menu bar menus.

When an action—e. This use of blink- ing is very common. Because, after all, the motion in the corner of your eye might be a leopard. This chapter describes some of those strengths and weaknesses as background for understanding how we can design interactive systems to support and augment human memory rather than burdening or confusing it. We will start with an over- view of how memory works. Short-term memory covers situations in which information is retained for very short intervals ranging from a fraction of a second up to several seconds— perhaps as long as a minute.

Long-term memory covers situations in which informa- tion is retained over longer periods, e. It is tempting to think of short-term and long-term memory as separate memory stores. Indeed, some theories of memory have considered them separate. After all, in a digital computer, the short-term memory stores central processing unit data- registers are separate from the long-term memory stores random access memory or RAM, hard disk, flash memory, CD-ROM, etc.

This book will argue that it is possible for you to unplug from your own mind, identify its patterns, and become the architect of your own enlightenment. A bold and fascinating dive into the nuts and bolts of psychological evolution, Designing the Mind: The Principles of Psychitecture is part inspiring manifesto, part practical self-development guide, all based on the teachings of thinkers like Marcus Aurelius, Lao Tzu, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Abraham Maslow.

The ideas and techniques it offers are all woven together into a much-needed mindset to help people lead better, happier lives. It is that you lack an understanding of the patterns that make up your mind and the methods for reprogramming them. Whether fear prevents you from pursuing your ambitions, jealousy ruins your relationships, distractions rule your life, or you have an inner critic whose expectations you are never able to meet, this handbook will teach you how to reprogram your own psychological software, one algorithm at a time.

Perkins, Executive Leadership Coach Psychitecture, the process of designing your mind, is a brand new framework for understanding and rewiring the hidden patterns behind your biases, habits, and emotional reactions. The core principles will enable you to unplug from your own mind, examine it from above, and modify the very psychological software on which you operate, sculpting your mind into a truly delightful place to reside.

Award-winning systems designer and leading expert on psychitecture, Ryan A Bush, has compiled ancient insights from Stoicism, Bu.

There is, however, a risk that neuroarchitecture will become just another buzzword, a passing architectural fashion or a marketing exercise just as 'eco', 'green' and 'sustainable' have become. This issue of AD offers the reader an alternative to 'neuro' sound-bites and exposes them to the thinking which led to the design of the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour SWC , a pioneering medical research facility designed to foster collaboration between researchers.

Multi award winning, the SWC was one of the first buildings in the world designed to take into account what has been learned about how the work space affects behaviour and is a highly effective building in which to work.

Readers will gain a richer, deeper insight into the complex mental and existential aspects of architecture, design, and our many senses, how they interact and might interact in the future, and how that knowledge can be used to design more effective buildings and built environments. However, many people forget that various psychological factors also play an important role when making design decisions. Psychology of Web Design gives you insights on how the human brain deals with different elements, colors, contrast, symmetry and balance.

Combining the usability guidelines from Maslows pyramid will surely help you design closer to your audiences desires. Score: 4. A large part of what is missing is quality; a primary component of the missing quality is usability.

The Web is not nearly as easy to use as it needs to be for the average person to rely on it for everyday information, commerce, and entertainment. In response to strong feedback from readers of GUI BLOOPERS calling for a book devoted exclusively to Web design bloopers, Jeff Johnson calls attention to the most frequently occurring and annoying design bloopers from real web sites he has worked on or researched. Not just a critique of these bloopers and their sites, this book shows how to correct or avoid the blooper and gives a detailed analysis of each design problem.