The power of consensus

Many designs are based on consensus building or group decision making including extensive iteration (referred to as ‘design by committee’).  Although many creative professionals have a romantic attachment to more authoritarian processes which sometimes produce more ‘individual’ and ‘creative’ outcomes, they also often produce rubbish and are much more prone to errors than more democratic processes.  Steve Jobs is very much the exception rather than the rule. Read more »

What’s the angle?

Humans have an innate tendency to prefer objects with smooth contours over those with sharp angles or points.  Objects with sharp and pointed features activate the amygdala, a region of the brain associated with fear processing, priming a subconscious mechanism which has evolved to detect external threats.  This fear response is therefore important in understanding how angular features influence the aesthetic appreciation of objects, and in experiments which compare rounded and angular versions of the same object, there are typically strong and consistent preferences for more rounded and contoured versions. Read more »

Ooohhh, behave yourself!

Operant conditioning is a technique mostly used to modify behaviour by reinforcing behaviours which are desired, and ignoring (and sometimes punishing) behaviours which are to be discouraged. Read more »

“In Confucianism there was no thought of knowing that did not entail some consequence for action.”  - Donald Munro

“The Greeks became slaves to the linear either-or orientation of their logic.”  - Robert Logan

Do Asians and Westerners think differently and why?

In The Geography of Thought, Richard Nesbitt provides a clear, detailed and researched explanation of many of the ways in which Westerners (most typically Americans and Western Europeans) and Asians (most typically East Asians from China, Korea and Japan) think differently and some of the reasons for these differences.   Read more »