“…infrastructures simultaneously shape and are shaped by – in other words, co-construct – the condition of modernity… To be modern is to live within and by means of infrastructures, and therefore to inhabit, uneasily, the intersection of these mul

Barry Schwartz on defaults and choice architecture. Clever cartoon too.

“So designers, choose the choices carefully. Whatever users get when they don’t make a choice is probably what most people will end up with. And contrary to popular belief, most people don’t actually want to make more choices.”

“Recency bias is a tool we can use to improve user comprehension and overall satisfaction. By considering the sequence of information… and the (intentional?) placement of distractors, we can avoid common pitfalls in user judgments and decision making.”

When will the entertainment industry learn?

“Today, if you’re an urban dweller in a city like London, New York or like me, living here in Tokyo you probably make a conscious effort to disconnect.” Thanks to Mayo for the link.

“Tapping into young people’s already considerable status anxiety and offering rewards that can only be realised by shopping is a recipe for a lifetime of misery, not… adults whose instinct is to ask, “How can I help?” rather than, “What’s in i

Extremely interesting wide-ranging article by Ralph Caplan about signage, correcting errors in design, usability, perceived affordances, and so on. Thanks to Mayo for the link.

“We want to avoid, or at least minimize, the startling systematic mistakes that science is discovering. If we know the common patterns of error or self-deception, maybe we can work around them ourselves, or build social structures for smarter groups.”

“In Japan, the camera on mobile phones can be as high as 5.2M Pixels and they could be used for sneak shots such as spy shots and/or dirty pictures… Japanese manufacturer have stopped the disabling of shutter sound in silent mode” Via dev.null.org

Appalling usability, use/damage marks and an officious anti-photography security guard – so many interesting things rolled into one story!

“When people are made to be self-aware, they are likelier to stop and think about what they are doing… a shift away from acting on autopilot toward more desirable ways of behaving.” Via nudges.wordpress.com