The Multiple Self on dirtSimple.org
I found a very interesting article called "The Multiple Self" on dirtSimple.org. It has a number of interesting insights for those struggling with themselves...
"To really understand, you need to first understand that you are an animal. Most of us humans pretend our entire lives that we are something other than animals, and as a result we think our "animal nature" is something you can just ignore or somehow transcend -- preferably while ignoring it. We enter the false dichotomy of "man or beast", when the truth is actually "man and beast." We are not one - we are two. And the one of us who thinks he's running things is really just a recent software upgrade that runs atop a highly sophisticated operating system that's already had millions of years of performance tuning -- and can run just fine without you.
That's right. "You" are just a subroutine, and a recently-added one at that. You're like a user-mode driver that gets access to certain kernel data, but you only see and control what the kernel lets you. You have no direct access to the kernel's process space, but you can make calls into it, and you get notifications from it. The bulk of your nature as a human lies entirely outside your process space, outside your ability to directly perceive or control.
"The article is quite long, and has a ton of interesting comments following it, as well. The content, as you can see, is oriented toward people who have some knowledge of programming... but it is decipherable by anyone.
There are lots of people out there who will think it is complete rubbish. People are essentially in denial of the evolutionary implications for human behavior. Heck, they're in denial of evolution itself, despite its obviousness. Certainly this article is somewhat theoretical, but it really makes a hell of a lot of sense in the context of the established knowledge of the structure of the brain.
What does this have to do with information architecture? Ultimately IA is about structuring information for optimal processing efficiency, or to trick the mind to receive messages subtly delivered. Sometimes, both. The mission of IA is not necessarily just appealing to the intellectual... if we can layer in color, sound, smell, spacial arrangements, evocative images, motion... whatever can make the information we seek to present as effective as possible.
It is also important to recognize when savvy presenters of information are leveraging such techniques to persuade... often to persuade people to believe, often at the expense of truth (such as it is).
The positive message is, our minds respond to images like blue sky and puffy clouds, water, smiling babies, happy puppies etc., as calming. We react to night images, violence, people in pain, spiders and snakes, etc. by feeling stressed. We can attract the eye to a message with a pretty face, in incongruous image that requires our minds to investigate further, something sexy, or even something alarming. When that emotional response is addressed by, or related to, the message we seek to deliver, and a call to action, we get banner click-throughs, followup phone calls or site visits from a print ad, and a decision to purchase, or sign a petition, or listen to a pitch.
But we shouldn't squander that attention with a bait and switch. We need to turn that next step into a further opportunity to tell our story, to engage the buyer (generic here, to describe the audience, once the audience is converted, or engaged in, our story) and to build loyalty.
My message here is: don't just design an ad, or a banner, or a flyer. Design a chain of events to engage the customer. That's the difference between Information Architecture and "designing" or "writing" or "sales". It is the creation of a chain of knowledge and emotion, at its best.
"To really understand, you need to first understand that you are an animal. Most of us humans pretend our entire lives that we are something other than animals, and as a result we think our "animal nature" is something you can just ignore or somehow transcend -- preferably while ignoring it. We enter the false dichotomy of "man or beast", when the truth is actually "man and beast." We are not one - we are two. And the one of us who thinks he's running things is really just a recent software upgrade that runs atop a highly sophisticated operating system that's already had millions of years of performance tuning -- and can run just fine without you.
That's right. "You" are just a subroutine, and a recently-added one at that. You're like a user-mode driver that gets access to certain kernel data, but you only see and control what the kernel lets you. You have no direct access to the kernel's process space, but you can make calls into it, and you get notifications from it. The bulk of your nature as a human lies entirely outside your process space, outside your ability to directly perceive or control.
"The article is quite long, and has a ton of interesting comments following it, as well. The content, as you can see, is oriented toward people who have some knowledge of programming... but it is decipherable by anyone.
There are lots of people out there who will think it is complete rubbish. People are essentially in denial of the evolutionary implications for human behavior. Heck, they're in denial of evolution itself, despite its obviousness. Certainly this article is somewhat theoretical, but it really makes a hell of a lot of sense in the context of the established knowledge of the structure of the brain.
What does this have to do with information architecture? Ultimately IA is about structuring information for optimal processing efficiency, or to trick the mind to receive messages subtly delivered. Sometimes, both. The mission of IA is not necessarily just appealing to the intellectual... if we can layer in color, sound, smell, spacial arrangements, evocative images, motion... whatever can make the information we seek to present as effective as possible.
It is also important to recognize when savvy presenters of information are leveraging such techniques to persuade... often to persuade people to believe, often at the expense of truth (such as it is).
The positive message is, our minds respond to images like blue sky and puffy clouds, water, smiling babies, happy puppies etc., as calming. We react to night images, violence, people in pain, spiders and snakes, etc. by feeling stressed. We can attract the eye to a message with a pretty face, in incongruous image that requires our minds to investigate further, something sexy, or even something alarming. When that emotional response is addressed by, or related to, the message we seek to deliver, and a call to action, we get banner click-throughs, followup phone calls or site visits from a print ad, and a decision to purchase, or sign a petition, or listen to a pitch.
But we shouldn't squander that attention with a bait and switch. We need to turn that next step into a further opportunity to tell our story, to engage the buyer (generic here, to describe the audience, once the audience is converted, or engaged in, our story) and to build loyalty.
My message here is: don't just design an ad, or a banner, or a flyer. Design a chain of events to engage the customer. That's the difference between Information Architecture and "designing" or "writing" or "sales". It is the creation of a chain of knowledge and emotion, at its best.
1 Comments:
If you liked the Multiple Self, you'll probably like Captain Obvious even better, as it's more on topic for your blog.
By PJE, at 8:57 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home