What makes them click?
I attended last week’s UPA MN meeting: Neuro Web Design – What Makes Them Click? Author Susan Weinschenk was charming and had some great facts and interesting perspectives to share with the group.
- The human brain has 40 million sensory inputs per second, but only 40 of them are processed consciously.
- Humans have “three brains” – the New Brain controls conscious thoughts, the Mid Brain is responsible for reacting to stories and pictures, the Old Brain is focused on survival (food/sex/danger). In Web design, we must appeal to all three brains.
- The old brain equates choice with control, so most people think they like more choices – but given too many choices, they either won’t choose or they’ll just pick the first option.
- People look to others to decide what to do in ambiguous situations. This “herd behavior” can be seen on Websites where customers will purchase items that have the most positive comments/reviews, despite what experts may say about a product.
- We think and communicate with one another via stories, and we should keep this in mind when designing for the Web.
If you want to learn more about the three brains and how our psychology affects our motivations, check out Ms. Weinschenk’s book What Makes Them Click? or visit her site.
posted by Jamie Unger on June 14th, 2010 at 7:56 am Permanent link to this post
One Response to “What makes them click?”
Thanks for the post, Jamie. Check out her running list of the #100 things you should know about people. I definitely have “Inattention Blindness”!