Cognitive Design

One goal of cognitive design is to create artifacts (products, services, workflows, programs, events, etc.) that enhance mental processes such as perception, recall, learning, decision-making and even creativity.  The idea is to craft the features and functions of the artifact based on the latest cognitive science and best evidence from practice to measurably improve the mental process of interest.  Important stuff in a complex, knowledge-intensive minutes matter kind of world. 

So cognitive designers are always on the lookout for resources that describe the nature of cognition (how we think and feel) with authority and in enough detail to inform the selection of specific features and functions.  

For example, there is an urgent need to improve our designs to make them more learnable. This includes not only artifacts designed to teach (e.g. courses) but every artifact that requires some learning for use. Who wants to waste precious mental energy learning how to use something or sitting in a lecture hall when they are not designed for how we learn, think and feel?

Recently, I found a blog by Bill Brantley, Designing Knowledge, that appears to be a good source of sources on designing for learnability – or understanding cognition so that we can design more effective training and teaching materials.

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Had an interesting conversation with a healthcare executive recently.  She is working hard to build a new hospital.  The design team is arguing about seemingly small things like how to decorate the lobby. Should we make it look like a library, should there be a piano, large fish tank, silent waterfall and so on? All of this cost money and in a time of great concern over the cost of healthcare does it even make sense?

This is a good question to ask especially as health systems around the US are trying to build facilities that are more like five-star hotels or luxury malls than traditional hospitals.  

We did some design thinking to explore the issue. Specifically I asked questions about the four levels of functional impact every artifact, including a new hospital, has including:

1.      Utility or core functionality (engineering)

2.      Usability or how easy the artifact is to use (human factors)

3.      Look-and-feel or how the artifact impacts the five senses (sensorial design)

4.      Think-and-Feel or how the artifact impacts the thoughts, emotions and frame of mind (cognitive design).

A  shortened and somewhat fictionalized synopsis of the conversation follows. It holds a couple of lessons for any complex design project.

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In service delivery it is important to be polite especially when things are tense. Politeness reflects respect and commands respect.  Being treated with respect puts customers and employees in a positive and productive mental state. Politeness is key to building and holding effective relationships.

Designing for politeness is good business and is a clear example of cognitive design or designing to create a specific “think and feel”.

Your services may be polite but what about products? Do they treat your customers with respect or are they rude?  We don’t normally think about products (versus services) that way but we should or so it is argued in the post, Designing For Politeness, on the Interaction Design blog. 

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For $1.99 you can have an ad-free application that turns an iPhone into a fart machine – the iFart.  You can select from a  range of farting sounds (e.g. a wet one) and play them on-demand, on a delayed timer for a sneak attack, as a security alert or in other modes.

You can see and hear the iFart work on YouTube.

Sales have been brisk and news/blog coverage has been impressive. By why? 

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A core principle in cognitive design is that we seek to  create artifacts based on an understanding of how minds actually work.   Further, there are five distinct types of minds we can design for including the individual, extended, group, emergent and machine minds.  Designs that combine insights into three or more types of mind into a single solution are often on the forefront of innovation.

For example, the participatory sensing projects at UCLA uses cell phones, individuals, groups and computers to gather information on decisions, behaviors and conditions across a geographic region to support a new form of collective intelligence and problem solving. Check out their Participatory Urban Sensing: Vision Video.

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A typical assignment for a cognitive designer is to create a high-impact innovation program for a client organization. The goal is to design a socio-technical system made up of a coherent set of policies, rewards, management behaviors, development experiences, collaboration systems and even business models that will increase the ability of the organization to turn new ideas into products and services.  

 [Image source:  Jenni Idea Management]

The idea factory shown above may be the desired future state given the traditional view of mind in business but what do we know about how minds actually innovate at work and in the market? Recent commentary in the science journal Nature on The Innovative Brain, provides three potential insights for cognitive designers.

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As a cognitive designer using information technology (IT) to improve healthcare, I am always on the lookout for new applications that support or improve how clinicians, patients and family members think-and-feel.  

One very interesting approach in the news is PatientsLikeMe.   The site uses a social networking model to form online communities around specific conditions such as MS, Bipolar, Parkinson and HIV/AIDS.   Members create detailed profiles of their history, condition and treatments that is freely shared with other members in the community. To make money the member’s data is packaged (with permission) and sold to insurance, medical device and pharmaceutical companies to support clinical trials and health studies.

Asking patients to participate in their electronic care so extensively, sharing health information so freely (PatientsLikeMe has an openess philosophy as well as privacy statement on their website) and then selling the data  to “big brother” (insurance and drug companies) flies in the face of the traditional model that minimizes the role of the patient, locks health data in an electronic vault (privacy at all costs) and shuns selling it to vendors.

Patients help each other on a daily basis by providing information, advice, emotional support and even second opinions. The software provides each member a  powerful visual history of their condition that clearly shows progress or decline.

The cognitive design of PatientsLikeMe is unique not only in the way it presents information but in the way it reshapes how patients think-and-feel about self care.  It is a platform for creating patient practitioners with all the promise and risk that entails.

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Emergency vehicles are often slowed by traffic or are involved in accidents because drivers in pedestrian vehicles cannot hear their sirens. Effective interior sound proofing in your car, some hearing loss due to age, ear phones, blaring radios and other conditions means we sometimes cannot hear an emergency vehicle coming. 

Not hearing sirens (a cognitive or sensory design problem) is the number one cause of accidents involving emergency and pedestrian vehicles.

Increasing the volume of sirens is likely not the answer but changing the frequency so the sound penetrates the car and vibrates the driver’s body so that they feel it could be.  This is the idea behind the Howler siren.

The new “feel me coming” siren is being put to use in Tulsa Oklahoma and South Fort Meyers Florida.  At a cost of $400 per siren they are expected to pay for themselves immediately by avoiding accidents.

Most people when they travel like to know what they are getting into even if it does not change what they do. Maps, cultural information, weather, exchange rates, terror alert levels and so on all help meet our “cognitive need” of being and feeling prepared for travel.

One big gap, until recently,  has been information on communicable diseases like colds and flu. You can now get a widget or mobile phone application from Zicam that tracks and reports on five different levels of cold and flu symptoms in a given location. To get an example alert go here and type in the zip code for the area of interest.

In addition to an alert level, the mobile service provides cold and flu news, coupons and the location of the nearest retailer.  

[Source: Zicam.  CLICK IMAGE for more readable version] 

Like Yahoo weather and Google maps, I now use the Zicam Cold and Flu widget to plan trips in the winter.  It lets me know if I am going into a hot zone or not.  This helps me be more vigilant (more hand washing less eye/face rubbing) and avoid unnecessary worry. Most of all it helps meet my cognitive need to feel more prepared for the uncertainties and risks of travel.

Good cognitive design!

When people have to wait in line you have a cognitive design problem.  If you have customers (or employees) waiting in line you must attend to how they think-and-feel if you want a successful service experience.

The Psychology of Waiting Lines by David Maister, a well-known expert on the management of professional services firms,  offers these insights (taken directly from the article):

1. Occupied time feels shorter than unoccupied time

2. People want to get started

3. Solo waits are longer than group waits

4. Anxiety makes the wait seem longer

5. Uncertain waits are longer than known finite waits

6. Unexplained waits are longer than explained waits

7. Unfair weights are longer than equitable waits

8. The more valuable the service the longer the customer will wait

Donald Norman from Northwestern University has recently reviewed and updated (2008) Maister’s original work on the Psychology of Waiting Lines .

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