Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Making them happy
Attractive Things Work Better
Donald A. Norman
I've heard about other studies with results that fall in line with what Norman is talking about.
- In his book, Blink, Malcolm Gladwell told about a study which found that surgeons who spent just three minutes longer with their patients were much less likely to be sued for malpractice. There was no significant difference in the quality or the amount of information the doctors provided their patients. Instead, the difference was in the way the doctors spoke with thie patients. The doctors that weren't sued were more likely to use use "orienting comments" and engaged in active listening. Basically, these doctors made their patients comfortable, put them at ease. And because the patients liked these doctors better, they were much less likely to sue for malpractice.
- I can't place the second study I'm thinking of, but basically the experiment had people rating strangers in a series of pictures. The people in the pictures were rated based on attractiveness, friendliness and intelligence (with different people providing rating based on different attributes). Essentially what they found is that pretty people were attributed as being both friendlier and smarter than their less attractive counterparts.
All of these studies show how our emotions effect our decisions. People love to see themselves as objective observers able to make decisions based solely on the facts at hand. But this just doesn't happen.
"Designers can get away with more is the product is fun and enjoyable," (p. 6). This is true no matter what kind of designer you are... As an instructional designer I've got to remember that we can't assume people with learn simply because the content is there... instead, we've got to aim to please the visceral as well as the reflective level.
Donald A. Norman
I've heard about other studies with results that fall in line with what Norman is talking about.
- In his book, Blink, Malcolm Gladwell told about a study which found that surgeons who spent just three minutes longer with their patients were much less likely to be sued for malpractice. There was no significant difference in the quality or the amount of information the doctors provided their patients. Instead, the difference was in the way the doctors spoke with thie patients. The doctors that weren't sued were more likely to use use "orienting comments" and engaged in active listening. Basically, these doctors made their patients comfortable, put them at ease. And because the patients liked these doctors better, they were much less likely to sue for malpractice.
- I can't place the second study I'm thinking of, but basically the experiment had people rating strangers in a series of pictures. The people in the pictures were rated based on attractiveness, friendliness and intelligence (with different people providing rating based on different attributes). Essentially what they found is that pretty people were attributed as being both friendlier and smarter than their less attractive counterparts.
All of these studies show how our emotions effect our decisions. People love to see themselves as objective observers able to make decisions based solely on the facts at hand. But this just doesn't happen.
"Designers can get away with more is the product is fun and enjoyable," (p. 6). This is true no matter what kind of designer you are... As an instructional designer I've got to remember that we can't assume people with learn simply because the content is there... instead, we've got to aim to please the visceral as well as the reflective level.
# posted by JLynn @ 9:06 PM 
