Cognitive Design

A reader offered interesting new research from Washington State University on the use of cues in advertising designed to invoke “nostalgic reflection” in consumers. Key finding:

“… personal thought patterns are, indeed, inspired among those presented with an ad containing nostalgic cues. Further, the researchers found that those who experienced nostalgic thoughts tended to exhibit more favorable attitudes toward the advertised brand than those who did not.”  

The research also provides some evidence for the “aestheticization of nostalgia” (experiencing nostalgia even if the artifact is not part of my personal past) mentioned in the previous post.

Designs that return us to the past are having a growing impact. Retro design intentionally resurrects or recycles an artifact from the past feeding nostalgia and triggering reminiscing in consumers.  We see retro designs in cars, buildings, furniture, websites, movies, fashion, restaurants, advertising and almost everything in our culture. Retro design shows no signs of being a fad but is morphing and expanding, reflecting a fundamental and perhaps unquenchable consumer need.

This consumer need is infact a cognitive need generated from  the longing for the past often in a romanticized or idealized form (nostalgia). As an emotional state, nostalgia serves several important psychological functions including: reinforcing our sense of self, regenerating meaning and strengthening social connections (see this excerpt from the handbook of experimental existential psychology).

Remembering the past – even if we reconstruct it a bit to meet psychological needs – can be a bittersweet experience. Invoking it can create a state of cognitive dissonance (holding two or more conflicting beliefs or emotions at once). For example, a product might be designed to remind you of the happy times you had with your grandparents but at the same time remind you that they are no longer alive.

Retro design plays off of (paternalistically we hope) a strong cognitive bias held by most people – “remember the good old past”.  Longing for the past, seems to be so strong that we will buy into any past even if it is not part of our experience. Specifically, younger people will buy retro products rooted in artifacts from earlier generation’s experience. This means I will be pulled in by the retro effect even if what is being recycled was not part of my personal childhood or earlier life experience.  Paul Grainge calls this the “aestheticization of nostalgia”. Something satisfies my longing for the past  if I can recognize that it comes from a stylized past - it does not need to be part of my personal past.

Reminiscing goes a step further in that it allows me to relive or remember personally experienced episode from my past. So the retro design of the new Ford Mustang might remind me of my first car and the time I….  This invokes another powerful cognitive effect – Savoring. In this case I am savoring the past which can put me in a state of pleasure, pride, gratitude or even awe.  

So what are the implications for the cognitive designer? When using retro effects we should:

1. Be clear what unmet cognitive need we are trying to satisfy (opportunity to tell my story, relive sense of pride from earlier time, discharge longing for the past, etc.)

2. Decide between reminding users of “the past”, something in the past, or something in their past

3. Support the reconstructive aspects of memory (romanticizing the past) in ways that lead to optimal cognitive functioning

4. Manage potential cognitive dissonance (bittersweet memories) to ultimately help the user savior the past 

Retro design hold the potential for creating rich cognitive states that transform otherwise ordinary artifacts into vivid personal experiences.

A recent essay in Wired,  When reality feels like playing a game a new era has begun,  points out that the “gaming mindset has now become pervasive. We use game models to motivate ourselves, to answer question, to find creative solutions.” And why not? Games move our hearts and minds, they are powerful cognitive stuff. Mimicking excellent cognitive designs is a great way to innovate.

And it works for anything not just games.  The key is to deconstruct or reverse engineer the design to understand what makes it tick from a cognitive science standpoint. Then you can replicate the effect by adding new features and functions to your product. Last year I ran a two-day cognitive design workshop focused on this technique.  Attracted participants from several industries and we deconstructed high impact cognitive designs including lottery tickets, video games, life saving services, idea viruses, works of art and the like. Out of the box thinking was the goal.

For example, leveraging the design of lottery tickets that offer hope (but not a rational chance) of “making it big” an insurance agent developed a provocative idea for longevity insurance. Many are worried about outliving their financial assets. This creates what insurance professionals call a longevity risk (risk of living to long).  For a very small monthly premium (say $10/ month) it might be possible to offer a very large payout benefit (say a million dollars) if the policy was designed to payout at a very advanced age (say 90 years old). Chances are nearly everyone buying the product won’t get the benefit but very few will and they get the big pay day (just like a lottery ticket).  Needless to say this idea generated a storm of debate in the workshop. And it should.

There was also an engineer that developed an idea for playing a game over a GPS system for commuters caught in traffic. The game was designed to naturally keep the drivers attention focused on the traffic (avoiding safety concerns and perhaps even helping to solve a current safety issue) and had a strong element of competition built in (so as to engage cognition).  Again objections from other workshop participants but that stimulated refinements.

It is fun to think about lotterizing or gamifying your products and services and that may even generate some actionable ideas if you understand the cognitive science at work. But for most firms that would not play well with their brand image. Fortunately, high-impact cognitive designs abound and so there are plenty to mimic no matter what your brand or target market.

EEG Technology for “reading out” the mental states (thoughts and feelings) of users as they react to the design of a message, video game or other artifact is becoming more accessible.  Earlier we highlighted the work of Emotive systems in this area. Check out EmSense a neuromarketing company with 22 patents pending .  A good overview of their approach including pictures of the technology can be found at VentureBeat.

Yes you can through cleverly designed artifacts called commitment devices.  A commitment device is anything you design to avoid anticipated lapses in self control. Using automatic withdrawals to pay yourself first, surrendering your keys to the bartender to avoid driving after drinking or promising (and being held accountable) to donate money to a worthy cause if you start smoking or overeating are all examples of “devices” designed to insure we follow through with our behavior change commitments.   

The key is to design it so there is no way (or at least no easy way) out and the emotion of the anticipated punishment is greater than the temptation to lapse.  A good way to make sure there is no way out is to relinquish control to others — or in short, outsource it.  

But outsource to whom?   Often we ask friends and family for help keep us on track but this can strain relationships. In extreme cases we can seek professional help (checking yourself into rehab is a commitment device so too is Bariatric surgery). Now there is a new alternative. Check out the website StickK. 

“stickK is a web-based company that helps you achieve your personal goals through “Commitment Contracts.” You create a contract obliging you to achieve a specific goal within a specific time-frame. By doing so, you put your reputation at stake. You may also choose to wager money to give yourself added incentive to succeed. If you do succeed, you get your money back. If you fail, the money is forfeited to charity, or to one of several causes, or to a person of your choosing. stickK’s services are absolutely free.”  

Interestingly, you can also put money at risk to go to an organization that you strongly oppose to avoid the trap of giving up because the money is going to help someone. If StickK works it will give cognitive designers a flexible new tool for building commitment devices into behavior change programs. After all, anticipating and engineering away potential fault states is good design.

   Modern science tells us cognition is pattern-driven, metaphoric, unconscious, biased, mostly emotional and embodied.   A far cry from the symbol manipulating computer seeking to maximize utility and juggling weighted alternatives that the more classical theory of rationality gave us.

This blog  will take the modern characterization of cognition and unpack it to expose the implications for designers.  For example, what does the fact that cognition is “embodied” mean to me as a designer?  How will it help me to design better products, services or organizations?

Just a few days ago the Boston Globe published a news story that brought some attention to the idea of embodied cognition.  The core idea is that we develop, learn and think using our bodies (motion, gestures eye movements). It is not just the brain but also our bodies that are the engines of thinking.  In this way, cognition is “of the body” or embodied.

From a design standpoint, this puts a premium on sensorial, interaction and experiential design approaches but with an important spin – how can we use these techniques to engage the sensorimotor capabilities of the user to support and enhance cognition?

Consider for example how well Apple’s ClickWheel (or scroll wheel) on the iPod connects thumb/finder motion to the cognition of searching large lists and making a selection.  

Engage the senses, engage the body and then engage the brain as a natural progression.  This is what we are hardwired to do.

This means every cognitive designer (no matter what project they are working on) must answer the question:

How do the users think with their bodies?

Not your typical design stance.

 The fact that we think with our senses and bodies and insist on doing so even when we a put in abstract situations (nearly all the metaphors we use are grounded in direct experience), creates some real challenges for design intangible products. Said another way, lack of embodiment is a major reason why the design of intangible artifacts fail.  For example, think about the design of financial products or organizational change programs.  They deal more with abstract concepts, delayed benefits and darn if I can hold one in my hand or even see it. Not very supportive of embodied cognition.

But you can change that through good design. My favorite example comes from the folks at the Institute of the Future and their work on prescient products .  These are products that don’t really exist (that is intangible) but might in the future per the forecasts developed by the institute. So the product here is potential product concept based on a research-based forecast.  Rather than just selling the intangible product as a written report, they mock them up and enhance the embodied cognition of their clients.  Prescient products can now be touched, manipulated, smelled and so on.  Check out the example of  pharmaceutically enhanced fruit

Or another (source Wired Magazine) of the concept of soft drinks that burn calories when we consume them:

 Imagine passing cans of this around to stimulate thinking and discussions on trends in nutrition, weight management and soft drinks. This reflects maximum respect for embodied cognition.

The design priority is to make the abstract concrete in a way that naturally engages the embodied brain.  

Video games and virtual worlds are great at doing this — they give us bodies (or let us create our own) in simulated worlds and where we interact flexibly in real-time in rich and engaging contexts.  A hyper-stimulant for the embodied brain.  Adapting this effect to design non-entertainment applications (training, self development, etc.) is what the “serious game” movement is about.  We will explore serious games and other techniques that promise to inspire superior designs for embodied cognition in future posts.

Cognitive design is about creating artifacts that support and accelerate our thinking and emotions. Check out this new video site Big Think designed to engage you with some of the leading thinkers and deepest questions of our time.

  The big think YouTube style! 

Here is a description from the site:

 ”When you log onto our site, you can access hundreds of hours of direct, unfiltered interviews with today’s leading thinkers, movers and shakers. You can search them by question or by topic, and, best of all, respond in kind. Upload a video in which you take on Senator Ted Kennedy’s views on immigration; post a slideshow of your trip to China that supports David Dollar’s assertion that pollution in China is a major threat; or answer with plain old fashioned text. You can respond to the interviewee, respond to a responder or heck, throw your own question or idea into the ring. ” 

 There was an excellent article yesterday by Shari Roan, a staff writer for the LA Times, Cue the Gluttony, on the role of environmental triggers in Americans’ overeating. 

Part of the argument is that we are hardwired to overeat so when we are in an environment that offers easy access to giant portions, a constant flow of snacks and drinks and specially designed flavors, smells, packaging and displays that say “eat” most of us will get fat.  Cognitive design has played no small role in getting us into this problem. Consumer research pulls on the latest findings in cognitive science to influence our behaviors and choices. It has been especially effective with food.   

Most of the experts quoted in her article call for changing the environment to help elevate the problem, after all as one expert said, “it is easier to change the environment than it is to change people.”  In this way we might be able to design our way out of obesity with the right regulations (e.g. portion size restrictions), package designs (e.g. 100 calorie packs) and environmental designs (e.g. no fast food outlets in High Schools).  

These ideas will in fact lower the mental work I have to do to influence and ultimately control my eating behaviors. Lowering cognitive load is good cognitive design. The concern is that it limits public choice and business freedoms (which we often do for the public good). It also does not really get at the core of the problem. 

The core problem is that many in the US are unable to influence their own behaviors (self-regulate) sufficiently to maintain health, happiness and financial security.  Not just eating but exercise, drinking/drugs, following treatment plans and other health-related behaviors are clearly outside of individual control. Indeed this is a driver the bulk of the cost problem in healthcare. Further, I over spend for a lot of the same reasons I over eat and therefore threaten my financial health.    When you stack all these up the strategy to re-engineer our environment to compensate for failures to self regulate becomes something we want to approach very cautiously. 

A complementing strategy is to use design to support and enhance the ability of consumers to self-regulate (influence their own behaviors) despite the well-engineered temptations that are everywhere in the environment.  I am not talking about designing healthly choice alternatives (although that is essential) but more about using a deep understanding of cognitive science to develop programs that build our self-regulatory strength.  We need to restore our capacity to act as captains of our own ships – that is how we design our way out of obesity and other lifestyle problems. 

The question is what is known about the cognition of self regulation and how can we use it to better influence our choices and behaviors in tough situations?

Check out the on-line encylopedia on interaction-design.org.  Clear writing on some of the cognitive aspects of design. 

Of particular interest is the article on Cognitive Ergonomics.

Cognitive ergonomics (sometimes called cognitive engineering) is focused on understanding and supporting the cognition of work especially when it is complex, time-constrained or related to public safety. The focus is on process or work redesign (e.g. to lower cognitive load), human-machine interfaces, training programs and technologies to augment cognition.

Cognitive ergonomics is about remaking work to better fit the human mind. One of the core pursuit of cognitive design.

In the US, cognitive ergonomics is now flying the flag of cognitive engineering and decision making (CEDM) a large technical interest group within the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

We will track CEDM in this blog and report on specific findings and tools useful for cognitive designers.

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.