Lately, I have been hearing a lot talk about design thinking and human-centered design. What are they? How are they different? Are they the same? It reminds me of the old debate around user experience and “usability. You may have missed that one… The usability folks felt that “usability” was a hard science with an … Read more
Mental models are psychological representations of real, hypothetical, or imaginary situations. They were first postulated in the late 1800’s by the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce but it was the Scottish psychologist, Kenneth Craik, in 1943, who describes mental models as the mind constructs “small-scale models” of reality that it uses to anticipate events, to … Read more
Humans are irrational. We think we make rational decisions but science tells us we are incapable of making rational decisions. We cannot make a decision without emotions. It is the emotional part of our brain that informs our rational part to make a decision. And if the feeling is strong enough, we will justify our decisions to … Read more
My wife called from the garden to my daughter asking for the time. My daughter replied three fifty (3:50). I immediately thought “why didn’t she say ten to four?” Then I realized that she rarely looks at an analog clock – she probably doesn’t even know what “ten to four” means. Or how about “half … Read more