I’m writing this post while attending Cognitive Psychology UX Bootcamp. This is an exercise that we’ve been set to do and I’m working with Tara and Jerome of Ribot. This is the incredibly laymans version after half a day of the two day program so don’t take any of this too seriously. If you disagree with any of this, you can take it up with our Bootcamp trainer, Joe Leech:)
Tips we’ve learned so far:
- Limit the line length to around 95 characters per line, allow plenty of space between lines, make sure the colour contrast is sufficient and be aware of the impact of colour choice and colour blindness
- Aim for a reading age of around 10yrs (using the Flesch-Kincaid readability test), especially if your audience is multitasking
- Write using upper and lower case unless you want people to read REALLY SLOWLLYÂ and find all your typos
- Don’t put lots of flashing stuff in the peripheral view but also don’t rely on something animating to grab attention in my field of focus
- Try to keep hyperlinks on the same line (not broken over two lines), and don’t put too many links off to other pages/sites if you want to keep people focused on your article (hyperlinks create a fixation point and draw attention)
- If you want to look smart on your blog, include a photo of yourself that is closely cropped around your face. If you’d rather look less intelligent (and possibly more sexy), include a photo with more of your body in it (Note to self: get new profile photo).
- Group similar things together, make use of established/known patterns.
- Make sure any buttons are sufficiently large targets (ref: Fitts Law)
- Encourage psychologists to do a lot more research about the effects of design on reading on the screen because there seems to be a lot of things we don’t really know for sure.
If u have real content or unique content nothing else matters.
Sigh! Sort of dead tips because
1) Microbloging has proved more effective than blogs – twitter and status.net
2) Facebook and Google Plus draws more crowd attention as well as select peoples’ attention rather than simple blogs
Its sad and death of internet that it has been facebookized. Slave followers make it more sad. Blogs need to do something really new and useful to bring back the true internet.
Good stuff Leisa. Top marks ;)
Another great post.
“Encourage psychologists to do a lot more research about the effects of design on reading on the screen because there seems to be a lot of things we don’t really know for sure”
Can you give some examples? I’m studying Cognitive Psychology at my school and I’m looking for research topics. Thanks.
Hello, Tri, sure! What our industry needs from the field of cognitive science:
1. More studies about attention mechanics and the idea of “relevancy” filters.
2. Contextual influence such as environmental, historic, etc. Models to help us understand what we need to be learning about the psychographics of our readers.
3. The changing landscape of brand psychology. How can massive brands like Gilette or Budweiser live in a world of Dollar Shave Club or Rogue beers?
4. Cutting the wheat from the chaff of the field of consciousness studies. Putting hard science into how we form our world view.
5. Ethics surrounding discoveries in cognitive science are very important.
Interesant post.
Blogs need to do something really new and useful to bring back the true internet.
“Encourage psychologists to do a lot more research about the effects of design on reading on the screen because there seems to be a lot of things we don’t really know for sureâ€
Thanks.
Good blog, thanks.
free webinar on: Creating relevant innovation within changing expectations.
http://web2present.com/upcoming-webinars-details.php?id=86
Appreciate the advice. Definitely keep it in mind for my blog.
Great Site and I like your color coded lists but I thought you might want to look at my lyuaot for the lists and maybe combine the ideas to a make a calendar to see the year at a glance. I would love to send you my file so you can use it.Thor’s Gal