Category: Social science
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Nudge in user experience — Website and Communications Blog
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Over the summer my user experience team at the University of Edinburgh had the wonderful opportunity to work with a Behavioural Insights (Nudge) Intern. There are lots of parallels between behavioural science and human-centred approaches. Nudge models give us the opportunity to bring an extra level of formality to our approaches. Working with a behavioural […]
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Could you be our nudge intern?
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We have a fascinating opportunity for a University of Edinburgh undergraduate student to join our team as an intern this summer. The job has a cool title: nudge intern.
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Design approaches aren’t sufficient to be human-centred
Many designers talk about user-centred design. But design approaches alone aren’t sufficient to ensure we are human-centred. Design approaches can be used carelessly — or even maliciously — to centre the designer and sideline the user.
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Pace layers in experience design — Stabilise innovation by understanding people’s needs
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Innovation falls flat when it doesn’t respond to a human need. Use human-centred approaches to understand people’s fundamental motivations and needs. These are the stabilising forces for innovation.
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There will be no “back to normal” — Nesta
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This is more than a month old. In terms of the coronavirus outbreak, that’s an eternity. But I still found this list of possible future scenarios interesting and thought-provoking. It also comes with the major caveat that predicting the future is a mug’s game at the best of times, never mind during these times. This […]
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In storytelling and service design, easy is boring — Daniele Catalanotto — Enigma
Why it may not always be right to design as smooth a journey as possible. This idea seems counter-intuitive at first, but makes perfect sense on further reflection. …people who had an issue with a service that was later resolved gave a better rating to it than people who didn’t have any. It reminds me […]
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Why being kind could help you live longer — Lauren Turner — BBC News
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It has long been known that being kind to others makes you feel good and can improve your mental health. Now it seems there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that it can increase your life expectancy. “Living with people who treat you, at best, with disregard or a lack of concern, and at […]
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Why did the UK become a failed state? — Simon Wren-Lewis — mainly macro
This post is about how a policy (crashing out of the EU) that will do nearly everyone harm and some great harm seems to have considerable, albeit still minority, support… You either have to assume that a third of the population has gone mad, or instead see this as a fundamental failure of information. The […]
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Own it! — Matt Jukes — Notbinary
On the incredible story about Hertz suing Accenture for a failed “digital transformation project”. Alarm bells ring at the best of times when website redesigns are described as “digital transformation”. But to then completely outsource the product owner role — to the same management consultancy firm that was carrying out the redesign — underlines just […]
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The weird machine that measured radio audiences in the 1930s and 1940s — Matt Novak — Paleofuture
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If you think the way they measure radio audiences is primitive now (and, by the way, it is), then wait until you read about the Audimeter. A great look at the history of radio ratings, and the early days of trying to measure the impact of advertising.
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Are users rational? It depends on what you mean by rational
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It’s fashionable to dismiss rational choice theory out of hand. But contrary to what you may have been told, aspects of rational choice theory can still be helpful in understanding the world. And I find it a useful way to think about user experience.
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On blogs in the social media age — Cal Newport, Study Hacks
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On blogs in the social media age — Cal Newport, Study Hacks Putting into economic terms the distinction between blogging and social media, and articulating what we have lost through the decline of blogging. If you want attention for your blog you have to earn it through a combination of quality, in the sense that […]
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Younger Americans better at telling factual news statements from opinions
Younger Americans better at telling factual news statements from opinions About a third of 18- to 49-year-olds (32%) correctly identified all five of the factual statements as factual, compared with two-in-ten among those ages 50 and older. A similar pattern emerges for the opinion statements. Among 18- to 49-year-olds, 44% correctly identified all five opinion […]
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Lottery math is human math
Lottery math is human math It’s irrational to buy a lottery ticket. And yet, millions do, even more when the prize is huge. As economists will point out, people don’t buy a lottery ticket for an x% chance of winning millions. They buy a lottery ticket for to dream of winning millions.
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How Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman has supported my career
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Last week I attended the Public Sector Design Community Meet-up. Attendees were invited to share a book, podcast or talk that has influenced or supported their career.
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The danger of relying on natural talent
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Believing you are naturally talented at something may in fact be detrimental to your development.
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Economists have lost the trust of politicians
Economists have lost the trust of politicians It’s always good to read/see/hear Stephanie Flanders. Here she asks why politicians no longer have a favourite economist, in the way that Margaret Thatcher liked Milton Friedman and John F Kennedy admired John Kenneth Galbraith. In one sense, this feels like a concern I have been reading about […]
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Sin taxes are less efficient than they look
Sin taxes are less efficient than they look Very interesting piece on the pros and cons of sin taxes (taxes on things like tobacco, alcohol). Implied, but not quite explicitly mentioned here, is the fact that because such items tend to have low price elasticity of demand (in other words, price rises don’t change consumption […]
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The endowment effect: Why you can’t let go of your possessions
The endowment effect: Why you can’t let go of your possessions Insights from behavioural science on why people overvalue possessions they already own. Psychologists have also concluded that this overvaluation may stem from our sense of ownership itself. We value something more simply because it is ours. If we own a car, laptop, or watch […]
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The amazing psychology of Japanese train stations
The amazing psychology of Japanese train stations How Japan uses behavioural science (nudge theory) to keep its railways flowing efficiently. Tokyo is home to the world’s busiest train stations, with the capital’s rail operators handling a combined 13 billion passenger trips annually. Ridership of that volume requires a deft blend of engineering, planning, and psychology. […]
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Bertrand Russell’s chicken (and why it was not an economist)
Bertrand Russell’s chicken (and why it was not an economist) How introspection can lead to greater understanding — and how it may not. The chicken that is fed by the farmer each morning may well have a theory that it will always be fed each morning – it becomes a ‘law’. And it works every […]
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The dark art of stealing from self-checkouts
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The dark art of stealing from self-checkouts Anyone who pays for more than half of their stuff in self checkout is a total moron. I have long wondered how much stealing goes on at self-checkouts. It turns out, quite a lot — but presumably not enough to make many retailers think twice about having them. […]
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Why Microsoft Office is a bigger productivity drain than Candy Crush Saga
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Why Microsoft Office is a bigger productivity drain than Candy Crush Saga Computers can certainly continue the process of specialisation, parcelling out jobs into repetitive chunks, but fundamentally they are general purpose devices, and by running software such as Microsoft Office they are turning many of us into generalists.
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AI don’t kill people, people do
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AI don’t kill people, people do Reflections on whether technological advances will ‘take our jobs’. …[I]n Western societies, technical advancement has allowed many of us to extricate ourselves from physical, dangerous and demeaning forms of work, and to create careers that are fulfilling beyond renumeration: creatively, intellectually, socially… “job satisfaction”. Historically, technological advances haven’t meant […]
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Nobel economics prize: Richard Thaler and behavioural economics
Richard Thaler has won the Nobel economics prize for his work in behavioural economics. Knowing about this area is essential if you are a designer, to help you gain an understanding of what makes people tick.
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The bumpy road to autonomy
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Autonomous vehicles — driverless cars — are coming. There will be bumps in the road along the way. But they are essential to fix our cities.
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Not voting is a valid democratic act
People often claim that if you do not vote then you automatically lose your right to have a say in any way. This idea is dangerous and wrong.
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Ignorance is inevitable
A survey showed that the British public is “wrong about nearly everything”. But the main lesson is not that so many people are stupid. It is that we are all ignorant, no matter how well-informed we like to think we are.
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Living your life at random
A shortage of spare time has seen me deciding how to spend my spare time by using a random number generator. An experiment by Steve Levitt of Freakonomics fame has got me wondering if I could make even bigger decisions at random.