Cyan of the Times

Just a little typography exercise for fun!

photo by Katarina Smuraga

http://www.flickr.com/photos/katarina_smuraga/

Life is like walking on a trail through the woods in the dark. There are many different paths you can choose (this is where free will comes in) but there may be paths that are easier (less resistance) than others. Since you’re in the dark, you really can’t see where you’re going, and you have to feel your way along. You know when you’ve strayed off the path when branches start hitting you in the face. You can either keep going – even though you’re stumbling and probably walking through spider webs – you’re still going to get somewhere, or you can make gradual changes and adjust your path until the going gets a bit easier and a bit easier. Life will send you little signs that your on the path of least resistance. Then you will possibly make it further in life, more comfortably.

Some people may stop walking, or simply wander aimlessly, abandoning the hope of even finding direction. Some people may run – rushing through and failing to feel their surroundings and make informed decisions about where they are going. It is important to remain calm, aware and sensitive using our gut and our minds to choose our path.

This is my analogy that I use to understand free will and destiny. I think both are possible.

taken from my March Beacon Blog

It’s often common to put majority of the emphasis on the functionality of a site. While this is important, the value of good design needs to be recognized. It is possible to overlook the design and the value of content above and beyond what is strictly needed. We see that this type of extraneous content can be very important when we look at how human beings engage with the websites they use.

In psychology, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a food pyramid of human needs. The base of this pyramid is “physiological” needs. Before any other needs can be met, physiological needs have to be taken care of. The next level is “safety”, then “love/belonging”, and “esteem”. Only when all these more basic needs are met can we being to attend to the highest need, “self-actualization”.

A similar hierarchy of needs can be applied to web interface design. The base of the pyramid and most fundamental need is that a site be “functional”. It has to enable a user to complete a specific task. The next element is “reliability”. The site has to be online and working whenever a user attempts to access it. After this we have “usability”. Things have to make sense and the user should be able to figure out the site without to much learning. Up until recently, this was a high as the pyramid went. But now we have learned that the actual “pleasure” that is derived from a site contributes very much to how effective the site is.

Looking at some basic info about how brains process information, we can see how the pleasure factor when viewing a site can be very important. Emotionally charged events last much longer in our memories. They are also recalled with greater accuracy than neutral memories. Part of this is due to the fact that when we experience something that speaks to us more emotionally, the brain releases dopamine. Dopamine actually acts as a type of marker, signifying that what we are experiencing is important and this allows the information to be more robustly processed with more detail and a greater ability for recall. You can see how this would be incredibly useful to engaging your users and enabling the content of your site to be stored in their memories with greater strength and accuracy.

Another aspect of how good emotional design can contribute to the user experience is emotional stimuli is disarming and engaging. It makes us comfortable and signifies that this is something we should be interacting with on a deeper level. Molecular Biologist and author, John Medina states that using emotional stimuli to build positive memory is actually a very effective brain hack and a great way to engage the users ability to learn.

Our perceptions are critical. Usability is absolutely necessary but not everything, and the value of pleasure in a design should not be disregarded.