100 Things: Every Designer Needs to Know About People

1. How People See

1.1. 1. What You See isn’t What Your Brain Gets

1.2. 2. Peripheral Vision is Used More Than Central Vision to Get the Gist of What You See

1.3. 3. People Identify Objects by Recognizing Patterns

1.4. 4. There’s a Special Part of the Brain Just for Recognizing Faces

1.5. 5. People Imagine Objects Tilted and at a Slight Angle Above

1.6. 6. People Scan Screens Based on Past Experience and Expectations

1.7. 7. People See Cues that Tell Them What to Do With an Object

1.8. 8. People can Miss Changes in their Visual Fields

1.9. 9. People Believe that Things that are Close Together Belong Together

1.10. 10. Red and Blue Together are Hard on the Eyes

1.11. 11. Nine Percent of Men and One-Half Percent of Women are Color-Blind

1.12. 12. The Meanings of Colors Vary by Culture

2. How People Read

2.1. 13. It’s a Myth that Capital Letters are Inherently Hard to Read

2.2. 14. Reading and Comprehending are Two Different Things

2.3. 15. Pattern Recognition Helps People Identify Letters in Different Fonts

2.4. 16. Font Size Matters

2.5. 17. Reading a Computer Screen is Harder than Reading Paper

2.6. 18. People Read Faster with a Longer Line Length, but they Prefer a Shorter Line Length

3. How People Remember

3.1. 19. Short-Term Memory is Limited

3.2. 20. People Remember Only Four Items at Once

3.3. 21. People Have to Use Information to Make It Stick

3.4. 22. It’s Easier to Recognize Information than Recall It

3.5. 23. Memory Takes a Lot of Mental Resources

3.6. 24. People Reconstruct Memories Each Time they Remember Them

3.7. 25. It’s a Good Thing that People Forget

3.8. 26. The Most Vivid Memories are Wrong

4. How People Think

4.1. 27. People Process Information Better in Bite-Sized Chunks

4.2. 28. Some Types of Mental Processing are More Challenging than Others

4.3. 29. Minds Wander 30 Percent of the Time

4.4. 30. The More Uncertain People are, the More they Defend their Ideas

4.5. 31. People Create Mental Models

4.6. 32. People Interact with Conceptual Models

4.7. 33. People Process Information Best in Story Form

4.8. 34. People Learn Best from Examples

4.9. 35. People are Driven to Create Categories

4.10. 36. Time is Relative

4.11. 37. There are Four Ways to be Creative

4.12. 38. People can be in a Flow State

4.13. 39. Culture Affects How People Think

5. How People Focus Their Attention

5.1. 40. Attention is Selective

5.2. 41. People Filter Information

5.3. 42. Well-Practiced Skills don’t Require Conscious Attention

5.4. 43. Expectations of Frequency Affect Attention

5.5. 44. Sustained Attention Lasts About Ten Minutes

5.6. 45. People Pay Attention Only to Salient Cues

5.7. 46. People can’t Actually Multitask

5.8. 47. Danger, Food, Sex, Movement, Faces, and Stories Get the Most Attention

5.9. 48. Loud Noises Startle and Get Attention

5.10. 49. For People to Pay Attention to Something, they Must First Perceive It

6. What Motivates People

6.1. 50. People are More Motivated as they Get Closer to a Goal

6.2. 51. Variable Rewards are Powerful

6.3. 52. Dopamine Makes People Addicted to Seeking Information

6.4. 53. Unpredictability Keeps People Searching

6.5. 54. People are More Motivated by Intrinsic Rewards than Extrinsic Rewards

6.6. 55. People are Motivated by Progress, Mastery, and Control

6.7. 56. People’s Ability to Delay Gratification (or Not) Starts Young

6.8. 57. People are Inherently Lazy

6.9. 58. People Will Look for Shortcuts Only if the Shortcuts are Easy

6.10. 59. People Assume it’s You, Not the Situation

6.11. 60. Forming a Habit Takes a Long Time and Requires Small Steps

6.12. 61. People are More Motivated to Compete When there are Fewer Competitors

6.13. 62. People are Motivated by Autonomy

7. People are Social Animals

7.1. 63. The “Strong Tie” Group Size Limit is 150 People

7.2. 64. People are Hard-Wired for Imitation and Empathy

7.3. 65. Doing Things Together Bonds People Together

7.4. 66. People Expect Online Interactions to Follow Social Rules

7.5. 67. People Lie to Differing Degrees Depending on the Media

7.6. 68. Speakers’ Brains and Listeners’ Brains Sync Up During Communication

7.7. 69. The Brain Responds Uniquely to People You Know Personally

7.8. 70. Laughter Bonds People Together

7.9. 71. People can Tell When a smile is Real or Fake More Accurately with Video

8. How People Feel

8.1. 72. Seven Basic Emotions are Universal

8.2. 73. Emotions are Tied to Muscle Movement and Vice Versa

8.3. 74. Anecdotes Persuade More than Data

8.4. 75. Smells Evoke Emotions and Memories

8.5. 76. People are Programmed to Enjoy Surprises

8.6. 77. People are Happier When They’re Busy

8.7. 78. Pastoral Scenes Make People Happy

8.8. 79. People Use Look and Feel as their First Indicator of Trust

8.9. 80. Listening to Music Releases Dopamine in the Brain

8.10. 81. The More Difficult Something is to Achieve, the More People Like It

8.11. 82. People Overestimate Reactions to Future Events

8.12. 83. People Feel More Positive Before and After an Event than During It

8.13. 84. People Want What is Familiar When They’re Sad or Scared

9. People Make Mistakes

9.1. 85. People Will Always Make Mistakes; There is No Fail-Safe Product

9.2. 86. People Make Errors When they are Under Stress

9.3. 87. Not All Mistakes are Bad

9.4. 88. People Make Predictable Types of Errors

9.5. 89. People Use Different Error Strategies

10. How People Decide

10.1. 90. People Make Most Decisions Unconsciously

10.2. 91. The Unconscious Knows First

10.3. 92. People Want More Choices and Information than they can Process

10.4. 93. People Think Choice Equals Control

10.5. 94. People May Care about Time More than They Care about Money

10.6. 95. Mood Influences the Decision-Making Process

10.7. 96. Group Decision Making can be Faulty

10.8. 97. People are Swayed by a Dominant Personality

10.9. 98. When People are Uncertain, They Let Others Decide What to Do

10.10. 99. People Think Others are More Easily Influenced than they are Themselves

10.11. 100. People Value a Product More Highly When it’s Physically in Front of Them