Cognitive Design

BumpTop has released an amazing new way to transform your Window’s desktop into a true-to-life 3D, gesture-based desktop complete with a physics engine, widgets and social networking. The idea is to make your computer desktop be more like your real desktop… only computer enhanced. You can get a fully functional but limited use version for free or pay $30 for the real deal. The file is 10 Megs.

BumpTop is geared much more for how minds work and therefore may be a big step forward in the cognitive design of PC interfaces. To see this clearly watch a three minute YouTube demo on Desktop Zen.

Although optimized for touch-screen technology and Windows 7, I was able to see immediate high-cognitive impact effects on my point-and-click machine.   It will be interesting to see how people use this – it could reveal a lot about how with think about information.  They have half a million downloads so far.

Thanks to Gina for pointing this out and sharing a link to a Fast Company blog post on  BumpTop.

I’ve included some example desktops on the next page.

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Many have argued that one of the root causes to the recent rout in the global capital markets was overtly simplistic risk models.   Making them more accurate may require factoring in cognition. As pointed out in the New York Times:

“That failure suggests new frontiers for financial engineering and risk management, including trying to model the mechanics of panic and the patterns of human behavior.”

This means our new quantitative models of the capital markets will need to take into account how the minds of investors and consumers actually work.   It may be possible to apply core ideas from cognitive design such as, people make decisions and behave to maximize their mental energy, to the development of a 21st century approach to the capital markets.

How we think-and-feel about animals will strongly determine the success of any product or service that is developed for pet owners. Said another way, cognitive design can be a real differentiator in the pet industry.

But how do we think and feel about animals? Recent research by Indiana University sociologist, David Blouin, sheds some interesting light on the mental model of dog owners. As reported in ScienceDaily, he argues:

“Dog ownership attitudes fell into three categories: Humanist, where dogs were highly valued and considered close companions, like pseudo people; protectionists might be vegetarians and they greatly valued animals in general, not just as pets; dominionists saw animals as separate and less important than people, often using the dogs for hunting and pest control and requiring them to live outdoors.”

He has done additional research on Animal Meanings, that has produced interesting findings as well:

“I describe various attitudes and treatments of dogs and explain some of their important determinants. Contrary to previous research, I find no relationship between gender, race, age, area of residence, or income and attitudes. Also contrary to previous research, I find that education is negatively associated with attitudes.”

A lack of correlation between demographics and the mental model of dog owners signals the need to do more cognitive modeling than traditional market research.

Recently, a group of cognitive design students at Northwestern University set about the task of creating behavior change programs aimed at lowering the carbon footprint of the typical American home.   A fascinating array of programs were developed which I will blog on later.

Just saw an announcement from EurekAlert! on how Psychological factors help explain the slow reaction to global warming.  It provides strong support for the approach the students took, namely, focusing on unmet cognitive needs.  A task force from the American Psychological Association (APA) looked at decades of psychological research and isolated these cognitive factors (and I quote): 

• 1. Uncertainty – Research has shown that uncertainty over climate change reduces the frequency of “green” behavior.
• 2. Mistrust – Evidence shows that most people don’t believe the risk messages of scientists or government officials.
• 3. Denial – A substantial minority of people believe climate change is not occurring or that human activity has little or nothing to do with it, according to various polls.
• 4. Undervaluing Risks – A study of more than 3,000 people in 18 countries showed that many people believe environmental conditions will worsen in 25 years. While this may be true, this thinking could lead people to believe that changes can be made later.
• 5. Lack of Control – People believe their actions would be too small to make a difference and choose to do nothing.
• 6. Habit – Ingrained behaviors are extremely resistant to permanent change while others change slowly. Habit is the most important obstacle to pro-environment behavior, according to the report.

They also reviewed interventions that worked including, for example,  providing immediate feedback on energy use rather than waiting for a monthly bill and combining financial incentives with other forms of behavioral influence (e.g. peer pressure). For those that want to dig deeper there is a 230-page PDF covering the research available from the APA.

Recently asked a group of cognitive design students to tackle the texting while driving problem.  I know a few are still working on it. Check out the excellent article in the NY Times, Drivers and Legislators Dismiss Cell Phone Risks.  They confirm it is as bad as DWI and that going hands free does not help. More interestingly, they put cognitive science right at the center:

“Scientists are grappling, too, with perhaps the broadest question hanging over the phenomenon of distracted driving: Why do people, knowing the risk, continue to talk while driving? The answer, they say, is partly the intense social pressures to stay in touch and always be available to friends and colleagues. And there also is the neurological response of multitaskers. They show signs of addiction — to their gadgets.”

Serious clues for the cognitive designer.

Also check out this game that measures your change in reaction time while distracted.  Would such a device be useful for changing the mental model of texting drivers?

Source:   Student Design Project

The Fire Pit: Making Cognitive Sparks 

Modern living has gotten so complex that we now have a pronounced prospective memory challenge.  The demands on prospective memory, or remembering to remember something (calling your spouse before leaving work, watering your plants, or checking your calendar when you get into work, etc. ) have exploded over the last 30 years. I post from time to time on the latest cognitive science research and techniques for managing prospective memory.

Just found a relevant post on The Human Factors Blog, Smart Phones as Event-Based Prospective Memory Aids.  Simple but effective, check it out especially if you have a smart phone.

Wow has our view of how minds work changed – even in my lifetime. We have gone from rational calculating machines that carefully consider alternative solutions and seek to maximize economic utility to metaphor-driven, evolutionary kludges of cognitive biases that blink our way through hard problems and seek to maximize our personal mental energy.  

I especially like the emphasis on seeking to maximize personal mental energy.  Mental energy is a fundamental resource so we should be naturally wired to seek objects, relationships and experiences that replenish rather than deplete it.  Fireworks, setting them off or watching a professional delivered display, are great examples. They generate tons of excess mental energy in us.

Watching fireworks triggers meaning, emotion and a wide variety of specific mental states from expectation and surprise to awe.  We anticipate the grand finale, we are pulled into “the now” by powerful sensory effects and we can reminisce and even socialize.  Of course fireworks on the 4th of July are a public expression of our independence as a nation.  The joy of freedom, the pride of accomplishment and the deep psychological power of solidarity release a river of mental energy.

We get this for very little mental effort – all we have to do is look up and watch.  Fireworks are an explosion of mental energy. Millions flock to fireworks displays, like moths to a mental energy flame. 

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Quick, how many tables do you have in your house? How many tables do you interact with throughout the day? For most of us the answer is lots. Desks, kitchen tables, restaurant tables, work tables, benches, coffee tables, bars and so on. The fact is you spend a lot of time “at the table” and more to the point of this blog, a lot of your cognition (perceiving, remembering, thinking, deciding, feeling, interrelating, etc.) happens at a table.  

Yet, with the rare exception, tables have been left out of the cognitive design revolution. They are functional, easy to use and delight our senses but we have not taken the next step to design tables that enhance how we think and feel.

What an opportunity!

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Learning the basics of how to manage our personal finances is an area that has cried out for reinvention for sometime. We don’t learn or practice the basics well in the US.  Given the level of consumer credit card debt and the recent sub-prime mortgage meltdown it is clear we are in trouble.

As much of the problem has to do with poor cognitive design – that is, financial products and services that ignore how our minds really work, I am always on the look out for innovations that seem to get it.

Take for example, EverFi, a start-up that is focused on teaching Generation Y about personal finance. There offering has two powerful innovations from a cognitive design perspective.

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