marianne talbot's talk at ux brighton
DESCRIPTION
The slides for Marianne Talbot's talk on Action Theory at UX BrightonTRANSCRIPT
1
Thank you for inviting me to speak
2
In designing a website one of your aims is
to stimulate action
This is almost certainly the main aim of
your employer
3
There are all sorts of different actions you might want to
stimulate
• buying
• following
• liking
• clicking through
• recommending
• reviewing
often you’ll want to stimulate several actions
4
Well action is something that philosophers
know a lot about
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Distinguish tripping over a carpet and
pretending to trip over a carpet – which is
an action and why?
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Pretending to trip over a carpet is an
action because:
• it is chosen
• it is performed intentionally
• it is performed for reasons
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When human beings act they make
choices
When human beings make choices they do
so for reasons
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If we want to understand action,
therefore, and how to stimulate it, it
is necessary to understand reason
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To be rational is to be such that some of your behaviour is reason-driven
Most rational things are such that most of their behaviour is non-rational
To be rational is to be capable of being irrational
Non-rational things are neither rational nor irrational
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What is a reason?
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A reason-driven behaviour (an
action)…
… is a behaviour caused by a
combination of desires and beliefs
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Desires and beliefs are both mental
states…
… but they differ from each other
quite radically
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Desires and beliefs play different
roles in the production of action
Desires and beliefs have a different
relation to reason
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Desires motivate action
Beliefs guide action towards its goal
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It is not possible to reason anyone
into a desire
It is only beliefs that we can be
reasoned into
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I understand that ‘UX’ stands for ‘User
Experience’…
… and that it was born because your
main aim in designing a website…
… is to provide the user with
whatever he or she wants
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Unless you are offering something the
user wants you’ll never get anywhere
But the user’s wants – desires – are only
half the picture
The user’s beliefs about how to fulfil his
desires are the other half
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In fact given that there is little you can do
about your users’ desires…
… your main aim (I respectfully
submit!)…
… should be to give your user the
belief that…
…by using your website he can fulfil
(some of) his desires 19
So let’s consider the nature of beliefs
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• all beliefs have contents
• the contents of beliefs are constituted of
concepts
• every belief is related to every other belief
• beliefs admit truth and falsehood
• beliefs are expressed in sentences
• human beings care (to some extent) about
the truth of their beliefs21
Relations between beliefs can be:
• rational
• irrational
• non-rational
22
A rational relation between beliefs:
Belief one: Marianne always wears jeans on a Friday
Belief two: It is Friday
Belief three: Marianne is wearing jeans
The rational relation between these beliefs is entailment
If beliefs one and two are true, belief three must be true
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These beliefs amount to a deductive
argument
Premise one: Marianne always
wears jeans on a Friday
Premise two: It is Friday
Conclusion: Marianne is wearing
jeans
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All arguments are relations between beliefs such that…
…one belief is the conclusion…
… and the other beliefs are its premises …
…(the reasons given for the conclusion)
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There are two types of argument:
• deductive arguments
• inductive arguments
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Deductive arguments give us certainty
(conditionally on the truth of the
premises)
Valid deductive arguments are conclusive
Valid deductive arguments can be
evaluated a priori
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P1: All doodahs are whotsits
P2: All whotsits are green
C: This doodah is……
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Irrational relations between beliefs:
Premise one: Marianne always
wears jeans on a
Friday
Premise two: Marianne is wearing
jeans
Conclusion: It is Friday
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Non-rational relations between
beliefs:
Premise one: I want my spouse
to be faithful
Conclusion: My spouse IS
faithful
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Inductive reasoning takes us from observations of the past to predictions about the future:
P1: I have seen the sun rise every day in the
history of the universe
C: I expect the sun to rise tomorrow
Inductive reasoning is hugely important to human beings
Inductive argument is central to science
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Huge philosophical controversy: is
induction rational?
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The Scottish Philosopher David
Hume noted that…
… every inductive argument
contains a hidden premise…
… that nature is uniform (the
future will be like the past)
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This premise cannot be justified
• deductively (it generates no
contradiction to believe that nature is
not uniform)
• inductively (we’d be arguing in a
circle)
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Hume argued that induction is non-
rational
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But it is clear that we can distinguish between good inductive arguments and badinductive arguments:
Women who drink this brand of vodka are beautiful, rich and attract the most handsome men
If I drink this vodka I will become beautiful, rich and start attracting the most handsome men
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Philosophers live in hope of finding a
systematic way to distinguish
between good and bad inductions
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Summary:
• actions are reason-driven
• for an action to be reason-driven is for it to be:
• motivated by desire
• guided by belief
• it is not possible to argue anyone into a desire
• if you want to satisfy users’ desires it is their beliefs you need to address
• users’ beliefs can be changed and brought into being rationally, irrationally or non-rationally
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If you want to inspire trust it is
always better to change someone’s
beliefs by rational means!
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