[Sigia-l] Why Good Content Must Suck: Designing for the Scent of Information - Jared Spool

[Joe 10]

Interesting stuff persuasion.

One could do worse that reading "Influence: the Psychology of 
persuasion" by Robert Cialdini to see that the underlying concepts 
surrounding why people "convert" haven't changed too much in the last 
decade - probably not in the last several million years asfar as I 
can tell.

People do things because they:
  - are asked
  - see a benefit
  - feel obligated
  - feel committed
  - need to act like they think they are (cognitive dissonance in action)
  - follow group think (or social proof)
  - feel they detect scarcity (supply & demand)
  - And a few other interpersonal ego massages which escape me at this 
late of hour

As far as it being a new movement...well, it's a lot better than 
vapor-ware and misguided business plans, if that's the "old movement".

After a bunch of useless (and most likely unusable) shovel-ware was 
published through the mid to late 90's, we started realizing that the 
audience was a lot more discriminating then we gave them credit for

And when they clicked away, companies ran to HCI for the answer. but 
frequently people were disillusioned with the Web because of a basic 
mismatch between what was promised and what was delivered.

I think it's good that people are finally weighing in the needs of 
the business with respect to how it meets the needs of the user, if 
that's what they're doing with their persuasive techniques. There's 
nothing wrong with telling people what's in it for them if the wood 
behind the veneer holds up to pressure.

Of course, this is all as I see it being used in an ethical way...

later,
/Joe

At 3:45 PM -0800 1/12/03, christina wodtke wrote:
>>   Think of all the kinds of kewl new
>>  marketing buzzwords we can use to market ourselves and our discipline!
>>  Like 'information scent' and 'findability!'
>
>
>Information scent is an old HCI term coined at Parc an popularized by Jared
>Spool and it's an element of wayfinding, and a pretty important one too--
>the opposite of information giving scent is information begin hidden-- a bad
>way to go, and often sinister in its own right.
>
>As for the dark nature of IA, I think you are referring to our evil twin,
>persuasive architecture. Some links:
>http://www.grokdotcom.com/persuasive-architecture.htm
>http://www.clickz.net/sales/traffic/article.php/1500731
>http://www.clickz.com/sales/traffic/article.php/1479791
>http://www.digital-web.com/columns/ianythinggoes/ianythinggoes_2002-12.shtml
>
>
>I'd love to hear what the community at large thinks of this new movement.
>
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-- 
Joe Tennis
Information Design Honcho
Joe 10 Group
2430 5th Street
Studio L
Berkeley, CA 94710
510-649-1744
joe at joe10.com
http://www.joe10.com?cpn=sig
Interaction Design | Information Architecture | Usability Consulting
for Web, Wireless and Interactive Media
----------------------
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