designing for real-live brains

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

YES, we’re all

UNIQUE AND

SPECIAL SNOWFLAKES

NEW BRAIN thinking thoughts

MID BRAIN makes you

feel

OLD BRAIN concerned with survival

consciousunconscious

but ACTUALLY OUR BRAINS ARE VERY similar

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

Neuroscientists estimate that our five

senses take in !

11 million pieces of information

!

every second

how many do we process

consciously?

only FORTY

PIECES OF INFO PROCESSED CONSCIOUSLY

PIECES OF INFO PROCESSED UNCONSCIOUSLY

40 10999960

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?

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

some tips on designing for 3 brains

use faces

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.

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:

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)

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!)

use pictures

and stories

“let me tell you a story”

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

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

when we read/hear a story, our brains are

partly reacting as though we are experiencing the story ourselves.

-singer, 2004

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

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

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

vs

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

make it all about ‘you’

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

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

MASTER MEMORY

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.

so, how can you make stuff stick?

REPEAT IT A LOT

CONNECT IT TO SOMETHING THEY ALREADY KNOW

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.

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

but remember (ha!) !

it still takes a lot of mental resources to !

think about, remember, process, represent and encode !

information.

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.

BUY THESE BOOKSSUSAN WEINSCHENK:

100 THINGS EVERY DESIGNER NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT PEOPLE AND

NEURO WEB DESIGN: WHAT MAKES THEM CLICK

THANKS

@@YAELLEVEY !

WWW.BADROBOTDESIGN.COM