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User behavior. There are some interesting known differences between men and women in the psychological literature. For example, women tend to be better judges of emotion when looking at faces for just 0. 2 of a second[pdf]! And across many measures of ability, while both men and women tend to exhibit overconfidence, men are generally more overconfident than women and this is especially the case when men do things incorrectly.
User behavior. In a comment on my last post, Thomas McGee made a good observation about people who complain about design changes in software. He pointed out that those complaining about a change are the ones who know exactly what’s being changed, and how everything works before and after the change. This means that the people criticizing the change are actually not going to be confused by the new interface.
User behavior. The premise of Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking, Fast and Slow is that we employ two very different ways of thinking. The book is very dense, and a highly recommended read. Kahneman says that the main goal of his book is to arm people with a better vocabulary about thinking, which in turn allows them to understand our biases, decisions and behavior better. While that is great for everyone, I think it’s especially valuable for designers.
User behavior. Our field is moving slowly but steadily into the world of behavioral psychology. We’ve started to realize that it’s not just about designing good-looking products with usable interfaces, but about a deeper level of involvement. Dan Lockton has been thinking about that area for quite some time, with his Design with Intent toolkit as the highlight.
User behavior. Browsing Quora recently, a question on product design caught my eye: "What are the key differences between ‘Normals’ (normal mainstream users) and tech early adopters?” It's a common concern of people working on new products — most of you have probably seen variations on this graphic: By definition, early adopters make up only a small percentage of the typical-user base of a successful product.
User behavior. As I sat in my local co-working space, shoulder-deep in a design problem on my MacBook Air, I could hear him. He was on the phone, offering screen-by-screen design recommendations to his client for the project they were working on.
User behavior. On the Quora, Alexia Tsotsis asked an interesting question: What are the key differences between “Normals” (normal mainstream users) and tech early adopters? Here’s the answer I posted: I’ve been thinking about this question for a while now. Something was bothering me and I think I’ve figure it out.
User behavior. A recent Cozi usability study offered an interesting example of the paternalism latent in the task of designing something for someone else. In short, a designer is often required to make decisions which are directly counter to the requests of some of their users. The usability subject in this study was an avid user of Apple iCal. A particular iCal feature which they repeatedly praised was its ability to show color-coded appointments in Month view.
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User behavior. Muscle memory turns repetitive physical tasks into an unconscious process. In other words, when we perform a physical action enough times, we don't really have to think about the process of doing it. With muscle memory, our body just does things automatically. Our actions require less attention and we get "maximum efficiency within our motor and memory systems".
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