Cognitive Design

Google released the specs for their new augmented reality glasses, called Glass,  two days ago.  The glasses come with a 5 mega pixel camera, contain 16 gigs of memory, send sound directly to you inner ear via vibration (no head phones or ear buds) and are synced with cloud storage, your phone and the web.

You speak to the glasses to take pictures, record video and send text messages. Even better you get information from the web that is projected into the transparent rectangle (mini-screen?) on the glasses  about location, directions, flight times and facts (e.g. how long is the golden gate bridge).  You can even do language translations.  To see them in action from Google’s perspective check out How it Feels and from the users perspective these customer videos.

They appear to be very tough and come in a variety of colors including tangerine, charcoal, shale, cotton and sky.  You can’t get a pair yet. They did an early release to 7000 explorers that paid $1500 each. They are slated to be in wide release later this year.

Google ventures has teamed up with several other venture capitalists to form the glass collective. The goal is to provide funding and accelerate the development of  ”new experiences” based on the glass platform.  A major opportunity for ambitious cognitive designers.

Source of images: Glass

For the last several months I have been collaborating with Jason Becker a former student and now COO of RICS software and co-founder of remember.com on developing an App  for using and publishing decks of knowledge cards.  We just launched NewHabits in Apple’s App store!

NewHabits runs on a micro-learning technique and delivers flash cards for behavior change on a wide variety of life, business and social challenges.  The decks are designed to make learning new skills and habits from experience much easier than other techniques.  There are 7 decks in the NewHabits store now, 2 are free and there are 6 more in the pipeline.   These are just seed decks. Many more are possible. We are actively recruiting new authors and offer royalties and free training and support on  how to write decks.  Check out the news release for more details.

If you don’t have an iPhone or iPad you can still get a detailed look at the App in this screen walkthrough.  I am very interested in hearing from readers with ideas on how to improve the App, use existing decks to meet specific challenges (e.g. organizational change and innovation) or that are interested in authoring new decks.   Knowledge cards are good for forging new personal habits, influencing group change and improving training and coaching.   Please contact me directly at mark.k.clare@gmail.com or 260-433-7923.

About a year ago I did an informal study of how university students use playlists to enhance everyday experiences and performances. This included listening to a personalized list of songs while studying, playing video games, exercising, doing something creative such as drawing or problem framing and relaxing.  I surveyed or interviewed 42 students at two major universities in the US Midwest.   The results were interesting and convinced me that playlist construction and use is a relevant area for cognitive designers. So I am always on the lookout for research into playlists.

For example,  Scientific American has a recent post about the role of playlist in the Psychology of Effective Workout Music.  They site research that reveals:

“Music distracts people from pain and fatigue, elevates mood, increases endurance, reduces perceived effort and may even promote metabolic efficiency. When listening to music, people run farther, bike longer and swim faster than usual—often without realizing it.”

They also provide some advice on how to construct a playlist.  Focus on songs you like,  have a beat that makes your body want to move and that invoke a strong emotional response.  No surprises here but it can take some effort to find music that puts and keeps you in the zone for exercising.  Just Google  ”workout playlist” if you want some examples.

I am interested to hear from readers that have examples of how playlists can enhance experience and performance.

Source for icon:  Findicons.com

The Chief Learning Officer magazine ran a recent article on microlearning - In Learning, Size Matters.   The idea is to deliver bite-sized learning experiences when needed that are fully integrated into work.  The emphasis is on improving performance by learning from immediate experience.  While this may remind some of learning objects, we are now in the era of posts, tweets and smart phone reminders.

The article includes comments from readers, for example:

Parul Gupta: Bite-sized learning is what sticks with learners. Learners are so overloaded with content that a clear, concise and crisp bite of learning is what they cherish. I saw these bites catch fire in a leader-led development program. The small bites of learning should consist of a single topic and need to be extremely well designed.

I’ve seen that too but how do we design microlearning experiences?  One way is the knowledge card model.  In this approach,  we take a particular performance or learning goal and break it down into a set of techniques and behaviors that need to be mastered.  Each card offers a microlearning script for practicing a technique or behavior.  Participants that want to improve get a small deck of cards and start their day by picking one to play. They pick a card that is sure to fit their circumstances.

For example, I recent developed 5 decks that support microlearning the competencies of innovation.   One deck is focused sharpening your observation skills to deepen and broaden what you learn from experience.  An example card:

Something that takes only a few minutes and can easily be integrated into snack or meal time.  This is a microlearning from experience.  Imagine now 24 other such experiences designed to open all five of your senses to drive deeper learning and innovation. Micro changes that accumulate into macro effects, all designed for how our minds naturally work.

Knowledge cards are one way to design and deliver microlearning on a wide variety of topics.  I am interested to hear from readers that are using different designs.

The mighty beverage maker is bringing some of their marketing and branding magic to work on the problem of obesity. Check out their Coming Together video and website.  While the video stresses the many things the company has already done to address obesity – created lower calorie versions of nearly all beverages, made calorie count more visible, restricted beverage offerings in schools to water, juice and low calorie choices, and so on –  it looks to be just the start of a broader campaign.  Check out the get involved and newsletter options in Where do we go from here?

They are already attracting critics that claim the approach is too simplistic or a matter of PR.   One thing is for sure, the changes they have made already avoided the consumption of many millions of calories.  Let’s hope they are serious about using their brand and influence to address our obesity crisis.

I am interested to hear from readers about specific actions Coca Cola can take that will fight obesity while simultaneously improving their bottom line.

Basis has designed a small-steps health behavior change program meant to fit into our daily lives.  You wear a wrist tracking device that  looks like a stylish watch. The device records optical blood flow to measure heart rate, the number of steps you take, perspiration to measure intensity of effort and skin temperature. All of these variables are tracked throughout the day and night, run through some algorithms and displayed in your personal health dashboard.  The dashboard reveals calories burned and other calculated values as well as trends in the physiological measurements.   From the patterns you can spot opportunities to add small-steps into your daily activities to get healthier.  For example:

Adopting simple but powerful healthy habits, such as taking a walk during a coffee break instead of sitting at your desk, are scientifically proven to improve your health.

Definitely an exciting idea from a Cognitive Design standpoint. Modifying existing daily activities rather than making significant and abrupt lifestyle changes has a much lower cognitive load. Plus there is plenty of data and many small-step options that you can experiment with – two essential features of learning new behaviors from experience.

I am interested to hear from any readers that are using Basis.

A lot of my consulting work centers on using cognitive design to encourage health behavior change. Using insights into how our minds actually work, I design messaging, programs, systems, incentives, environments and other artifacts that help people achieve lasting behavior change.  So I am always on the look out for new studies that shed practical light on the issue.

For example, the Customer Experience Matters Blog  has an interesting post that looks at who patients take advice from and what it takes to get them to act on it.   Some of the survey findings are what you would expect (e.g. we trust doctors more than insurance companies when it comes to taking medical  advice) but one surprise is:

“As it turns out, about half of consumers that are satisfied with their recent interactions with pharma companies and health plans are likely to follow medical advice from those firms.”

While about half might not seem like much that is up from less than 10% of those that are not satisfied.

The willingness to act on medical advice jumps up significantly when consumers feel satisfied with the interaction.

This holds true with taking medical advice from doctors too. The percentage increases over 50%!  An important finding as it means patient satisfaction scores play a key role in achieving health outcomes at least when it comes to conditions requiring continued compliance with a treatment plan.

Deloitte’s Center for the Edge has released a new report on how to achieve broad internal change. In a nutshell they argue we need to focus on the edges rather than the core, emphasize passion over skill, run lean on resources, seek funding externally and learn in fast iterative cycles.

Edges are not a place but a condition. They include any group/idea that is linked to fundamental shifts that are happening in the marketplace, take little initial investment, can generate new revenue (does not cannibalize) and has the long-run potential for transforming the core.  For example, think about cloud computing for an IT services company.

While edges may seem a bit radical to some readers, keep in mind we need some new ways of achieving organizational learning and change. As the report points out:

“Large companies that attempt to enact major change fail more often than not; in fact, only an estimated one-third of major change efforts accomplish the goal they originally  set out to achieve.”

One reason edges work is that they have good cognitive design. Focusing on passion, rapid learning and a non-threatening external orientation definitely moves hearts and accelerates minds.  In many ways, edges put the psychological needs of innovators first without entering into conflict with established projects, practices and revenue priorities.

I get that question a lot.  The expanded version is can we use cognitive design to create an online experience that is as rich and meaningful as face-to-face interaction?  While there are a few exceptions, my general answer is yes.  And in some ways we can create something much better!

To make the case I am always on the look out for scientific studies that explore the issue, especially ones that look at cognitively-deep interactions. For example, a recent article in the Journal of Internet Medical Research examined how well we can create the mental health therapeutic experience online.   How well does e-therapy work compared to in person treatment? Here is what the researchers found:

 ”Although the results do not allow firm conclusions, they indicate that e-therapy seems to be at least equivalent to face-to-face therapy in terms of therapeutic alliance, and that there is a relationship between the therapeutic alliance and e-therapy outcome.”

This is based on a review of 849 studies of which only 11 dealt  with the therapeutic relationship.  Not a big sample so the authors are calling for more research.  No matter, this finding is surprising given the importance of non-verbal information in conducting mental health therapy.

Adding game mechanics and features to products, services and work processes is a hot topic these days. It seems everyone wants to gamify something. For example, I recently completed a project for a client that combined dynamic pricing with a game model.  Customers can pay a fixed price or play a game of skill for an opportunity to win a much lower price or a chance to make a donation.  The twist is that you actually learn a lot playing the game of skill and that falls within the sponsored mission of the company.  The company can’t lose and the consumer gets an exciting learning/gaming experience and the chance to pay less. Matching wits to pay less is one example of the sweet spot for gamification.

Gamification is a major opportunity for cognitive designers so I am always on the lookout for good resources that provide practical insights. For example, if you are just getting started check out and consider joining the Ning network Gameful.  There are opportunities to collaborate with the likes of Nike, webinars on practitioner-focused topics such as game design and flow as well as multiple blogs and over 30 distinct groups you can join.

I am interested to hear from readers that are using games to solve non-entertainment challenges especially ones involving behaviors change or STEM education.