Fitts’ Law refers to the relationship between the time needed to move to a target and the target size and distance. The smaller and more distant the target, the longer it takes to move to a resting position over it. The law also states that the faster the movement and the smaller the target, the greater is the error rate due to the trade off between speed and accuracy. Fitts’ Law is important in the design of controls, layouts and any device which functions to facilitate movement towards a target. Read more »

Making more sense of brand experiences

A recent post on Making Sense of Brand Design (link here) shares some great examples of creating sensory signatures to create short term impact and long term brand identity, and recent reading (see references) has revealed more ways in which the senses can be leveraged to create great brand experiences.

The most interesting overall finding revealed in Helmut Leder’s Scientific American article is that in the short term how a product or experience looks is very important to its appeal, but after a month of use how it feels comes to be much more important than how it looks. It’s great to wear a really fancy pair of shoes for the first time, but we won’t wear them very often unless they are really comfortable on our feet. Read more »

Tip of the tongue

Our ability to recognise things that we have previously experienced is much better than our ability to recall the same things from memory. Recognition is much easier because recognition provides cues which helps us sort through our vast memory and find the most relevant information. We all find multiple choice questions easier than short answer questions, because the list of possible answers makes it easier and quicker to find the right one, as we can narrow down options very efficiently unlike short answer questions which leave a much greater range of possibilities for us to search. Read more »