Cognitive Design

Prospective memory or remembering to remember is an important cognitive function especially in an interrupt driven, complex, demographically aging world.

For example, you are driving home from work and  remember that you need to water the plants. How will you remember to do that when you get home? 

We typically think about memory retrospecitively as the encoding, storage and recall of past events. Prospective memory is about the encoding, storage and recall necessary for carrying out intended actions at the right time in the future.   We are trying to set an internal reminder for ourselves.

Of course there are more serious examples – a nurse remembering to double check the type and dose of a medication before administering it to a patient, remembering to buckle your seat belt up before driving your car and remembering to file your taxes on time.  

Defining artifacts that support and enhance the prospective memory of users in everyday situations at home and at work is fundamental to good cognitive design.   

And it is happening everywhere. To bring this point home one of the things we ask students to do in the Cognitive Design course at Northwestern University is to go out and look and make a list of the artifacts they find that support prospective memory. Here is what they bring back:

Built into artifacts I otherwise use:

• -Dryer and oven alarms

• -Low battery alerts in smoke alarms, cell phone, computers

• -Seat belt, required maintenance and low fuel alerts in your car

• -Show reminders in digital TV

• -Formal or inform bulletin boards (posting items on the fridge)

• -Vendor reminders (service your car, furnace, etc.)

• -Electronic health reminders from physician’s office

Artifacts dedicated to supporting prospective memory:

• -To do list
• -Calendar or planner (paper or electronic)

• -Programmable reminders on your watch, phone and PDA

• -Programmable reminders in exercise equipment

• -Medication/pill organizer and dispenser

• -Electronic memory aids for Alzheimer or brain injury patients 

There are even Internet-based general purpose reminder service (e.g. Memo to Me) that will automatically remind you about birthdays, anniversaries and other important dates. Check it out, the basic service is free.

So what can cognitive science tell us about how to design artifacts to better manage the prospective memory load for users? Fortunately, there were several books published in 2007 that review the state of the art of prospective memory research. We  will discuss them in this blog with a special eye towards design implications.  And there are some very provocative ideas.

BTW – with a simple sensor, alarm and tiny never-die battery we can invent “the remember to water me” flower pot so that you will never forget to water the plants again.

Purposefully putting a user in a state of cognitive dissonance can be a design masterstroke. Doing it accidentally can be a disaster.

We enter a mental state of dissonance when we become aware of two or more conflicting beliefs at the same time. It can also happen we perceive a conflict between a belief and action or a thing.  For example,  telling someone a lie when you strongly believe in telling the truth.  Or reflecting on the belief that you are a really smart and accomplished professional while fumbling around trying to learn to operate the latest consumer electronics gadget designed (supposedly) to improve your productivity.

Trying to hold conflicting beliefs in our head hurts. It is hard to do and so we actively seek relief in a number of ways.  In general, we tend to revise (relative importance and/or content) one of the conflicting beliefs until the pressure goes away. Or we laugh — especially if their is a punchline or realization of one — that suddenly releases the tension.  Sometimes dissonance leads to creative insight or even a transformational experience for the user as new consonant (supporting beliefs) are added because the tension causes us to reframe our thinking. Finally, dissonance can be like a permanent link on a web page,  pushed into the background but remaining ready to activate under the right circumstances. “Every time I look at that gadget I get mad”

Some examples that have positive outcomes (usually):

- Gag gifts

- Being videotaped during practice or performance as part of a training program (the artifact) you are taking 

 - A bathroom scale

 As William Lidwell and others point out in their excellent book on Universal Design Principles, cognitive dissonance is a powerful tool to use when designing marketing and advertising materials. They offer the example of AOL free hours campaign as one of the best examples in history. Users are mailed a free CD which they use to set up the service which takes time and energy. This creates lockin at the time the free subscription expires compelling users to form a positive belief about the service (and paying for the subscription).  Why would I invest time and energy (for no compensation) in a crappy service?

So conflicting beliefs properly framed can lead to surprise, humor, flashes and insight, influence decision making or even lead to a change in world view (paradigm shift).  Cognitive dissonance grabs attention, generates arousal (emotional energy) and provides an opportunity to orchestrate high impact experience.  In terms of level of cognitive fit artifacts that make good use of  dissonance often accelerate user cognition (level 4 fit) and those that trigger it accidentally tend to just agitate users (level 1 fit) and fail.

Neuroergonmics is an emerging field intent on combining neuroscience with human factors to design technologies that better fit our brain.  Similar in spirit to cognitive design but more focused on the biological (neuro) then the psychological (cognitive) and narrower in scope (technology versus any artifact).  No matter, it is an important related field and will get coverage in this blog.

The principle text in the field Neuroergonomics: How the brain works, describes the field this way:

 ”It combines two disciplines–neuroscience, the study of brain function, and human factors, the study of how to match technology with the capabilities and limitations of people so they can work effectively and safely.  The goal of merging these two fields is to use the startling discoveries of human brain and physiological functioning both to inform the design of technologies in the workplace and home, and to provide new training methods that enhance performance, expand capabilities, and optimize the fit between people and technology.”

Not surprisingly, most of the methodology involves brain scanning techniques (EEG, ERP fMRI, Optical, trans-cranial Doppler) but there are also chapters on eye movement (link between neuro and cognitive) and most importantly (for cognitive designers) a chapter on “Brains in the wild” or tracking brains outside the lab.

There is an entire section on perception, cognition and emotion as well as a section that covers applications on brain computer interfaces and related devices 

Neuroergonomics, with an emphasis on brain-machine fit lays a scientific foundations for work on the 5th level of cognitive design where the artifact integrates with or mediates human cognition.  

I will provide a more detailed review each section of the book (with emphasis on implications for cognitive designers) later in the year.