Sublime

The most effective Web sites are Web sites that talk to all three brains. When the Web site engages all three brains, then we click.

The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web (New Riders Press, 2002), an excellent book by Jesse James Garrett.

Qualitative Interviews and Case Studies

The owners of the Web site might really be trying to get your opinion so they can improve the site. But whether they realize it or not, they also just got you to commit to the site.

If you ask people to remember things in working memory, don’t ask them to do anything else until they’ve completed that task. Working memory is sensitive to interference—too much sensory input will prevent them from focusing attention.

Keep online demos or tutorials under 7 minutes in length.

If you’re trying to design for, or induce, a flow state (for example, you are a game designer): • Give people control over their actions during the activity. • Break up the difficulty into stages. People need to feel that the current goal is challenging, yet achievable. • Give constant feedback. • Minimize distractions.

The next time you’re looking for new discoveries, instead of holding a focus group, why not focus a lens on real customers, gaining insight into how people interact with your products, your services, your spaces. Body language says a lot. Imagine what you might learn if you could capture in images the circadian rhythms of your organization, the