tag: psychology

Power Bends Light | honkathon Here are some things I wish I’d known at the time: Power bends taste. … [because] Power defines what’s normal … Power bends accountability. … I started to notice that the thing most strongly correlated to their treatment was their power on the team … Power bends meaning. … it can change the meaning of everything you do and say. … Once I started watching for how newly-acquired power distorts the meanings of everything, I started seeing examples everywhere … To help organize my thoughts, I started abbreviating this phenomenon with a phrase: power bends light....

Cheat Sheet Finder | finders This page provides links to and short descriptions of content that provides succinct guidance on many different topics, which fall under domains such as Agile software development, and working in teams. The Cheat Sheet Finder includes the following categories: Flow/Getting Stuff Done Psychological Safety Kanban, eXtreme Programming (XP), Scrum Software Development

The Wilderness It’s a period of time where I’m pretty lost, and I don’t know what to do. I have feature lists, I have open bugs to fix, and I have an outline of where the app is going. But I feel mentally incapacitated, like I’m getting nothing done. I call this “The Wilderness”.

The way to mitigate these unintended effects is to replace Personas with models that enable cohesive stories. These models are called Characters . What would make sense for the brain is a believable story which explains that purchase. This is what we can use Characters for. A Character is someone who: Has anxieties & motivations. Experiences purchase-progress events. Encounters purchase-progress situations. (via Replacing Personas With Characters — Medium )

Knowing how to not give a shit doesn’t mean you never give a shit about anything. It just means that when you give a shit, it’s voluntary. You have a reason. (via The elegant art of not giving a shit )

10 Surprising Pricing Strategies That Can Boost Sales Similarity can cost you sales Utilize price anchoring The secrets of Weber’s Law Reduce pain points in the sales process Reframe the product’s value Bundle commonly bought items Sweat the small stuff Appeal to utility or pleasure It’s either free or it isn’t Try out an old classic: ending prices with the number 9 Emphasize time spent vs. saved Never compare prices without a reason Utilize the power of context Test different levels of pricing Keep prices stupidly simple

(via Hakiri » Was Huxley right? ) I stumbled upon the following cartoon on twitter. I have read " 1984 " [ George Orwell , 1949] but not " Brave New World " [ Aldous Huxley , 1931 ]. Will be visiting the local library soon. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared taht what we love will ruin us. Further work by Aldous Huxley:...

Gross National Happiness (GNH) The assessment of gross national happiness was designed in an attempt to define an indicator and concept that measures quality of life or social progress in more holistic and psychological terms than only the economic indicator of gross domestic product (GDP). (via Chip Conley: Measuring what makes life worthwhile | Video on TED.com )

This brings us to the magical three step process for becoming an expert at anything: Watch someone Try it yourself and experiment Teach someone else (via Programming Your Brain: The Art of Learning in Three Steps | BitNative ) See also another image representation:

(via 6 Proven Ways to Boost the Conversion Rates of Your Call-to-Action Buttons ) So let’s cut the excuses and start using techniques we know will work, like the six data-backed methods for improving conversions explained below. Entertain the lizard brain Focus visitors on simple calls to action Make buttons look like buttons Write button copy in the first person Boost your buttons with “click triggers” When visitors are ready, unleash the awesome

(via Dan Ariely: Are we in control of our own decisions? | Video on TED.com) Behavioral economist Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational, uses classic visual illusions and his own counterintuitive (and sometimes shocking) research findings to show how we’re not as rational as we think when we make decisions. See also images from this talk in 6 Proven Ways to Boost the Conversion Rates of Your Call-to-Action Buttons

crankyangela: Which Personality Type Are You? This test is devised using Carl Jung’s and Isabel Briggs Myers' definitions of sixteen varying personality types.

Anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise. (via Seth’s Blog: Millions of words and only six emotions )

Willpower and cognitive processing draw from the same pool of resources. (…) Since both willpower/self-control and cognitive tasks drain the same tank, deplete it over here, pay the price over there. One pool. One pool of scarce, precious, easily-depleted resources. If you spend the day exercising self-control (angry customers, clueless co-workers), by the time you get home your cog resource tank is flashing E. (via Your app makes me fat — Serious Pony )

People like us do stuff like this Seth’s Blog “There is no more powerful tribal marketing connection than this.”

Part 1: Why Microsoft’s reorganization is a bad idea Part 2: The uncanny valley of a functional organization Part 3: Services, Not Devices is the best way forward for Microsoft (via stratēchery by Ben Thompson )

Scientists have been studying the way we react to colors for many years. Certain colors make us feel a certain way about something. As long as the designer knows what these colors and emotions are, the designer can use that information to help present the business in the right way. These are not hard and fast rules but smart designers use the information to their clients advantage. (via The Psychology Of Color In Logo Design )...

[BJ Fogg’s] Behavior Model shows that three elements must converge at the same moment for a behavior to occur: Motivation , Ability , and Trigger . When a behavior does not occur, at least one of those three elements is missing. (via BJ Fogg’s Behavior Model )

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1 BJ Fogg explains “Behaviour Design” ( Source: http://c.brightcove.com/ )

Put hot triggers in the path of motivated people. BJ Fogg (“the most important 9 words in behaviour design are: …”)