vikramrojo

UX researchers often encounter a gap between the preferences people express and their behavior—inconsistencies that occur depending on context, frame of mind etc. Why does this gap exist?

1. Social Desirability & Conformity-We're likely to respond with a societally correct answer, known as "social desirability bias." This bias can be minimized by asking questions in a neutral tone, framing them to be as open as possible where there are no clear socially "better" answers. The herd effect can also be reduced with one-on-one interviews.

2. Wishful Thinking-We tend to overvalue our abilities and see what we'd like to be true vs what is true. We see ourselves optimisitcally whereas in reality, we overlook our shortcomings and are less self aware than we think. It's hard to combat this as users honestly believe in their optimism, try to focus on what users actually do vs what they would do.

3. Differing Contexts & Mindsets-We respond differently in different contexts, both internal and external contexts. We resp

vikramrojo

A healthy creative culture requires the open sharing of ideas, which itself requires candor. Pixar uses a braintrust to embrace candor. Still, people are prone to block candor, and instead return to fear, intimidation, retaliation—the braintrust is intended to address that squarely and protect the compact of collaborative meetings.

Braintrust's working groups only requirement is a knack for storytelling and a demand for candor. At first, every idea, every film sucks, and it is the team's job to make a project not suck. A creative idea has to start somewhere and through bracing, candid feedback and iteration, a product finds it's meaning and form.

Why a braintrust? Because people get lost in complicated projects. How do you get leaders to address problems they cannot see? How do you see what a person sees only in their head? How do you address what will technically work and what won't? Finding such clarity takes patience and candor.

How does this process work? First, it's important to hear each other's idea

vikramrojo

People are naturally defensive when their biases and prejuidices are highlighted, leading to the trend of softening the blow with "everyone stereotypes" sentiment. However, this is quite dangerous as it only reinforces the biases, after all, as humans, we're more likely to continue our behaviors if others act the same. Likewise statistics might skew behaviors, where showing inherent discrimination may either galvanize or encourage offender to continue their behaviors. Framing messages however towards a solution rather than an unwanted solution however might lead to desired outcomes—women deserve the same pay OR black people are just trying to live.

http://digest.bps.org.uk/2015/04/why-message-that-were-all-prone-to.html

vikramrojo

Individuals are more productive than groups, especially large groups, it's shown that working alone is almost 30% more productive—but is it fun? “Group brainstorming, over a wide range of group sizes, inhibits rather than facilitates creative thinking.” It's not just that groups produce fewer ideas, they result in fewer good ideas. Equally so with suspending judgement vs critiquing at the end, while suspending judgement produces more ideas, both produce the same number of good results. Lastly, creativity is not original—ask a bunch of independent groups to brainstorm on the same topic and you will likely get many of the same ideas.

https://medium.com/galleys/brainstorming-does-not-work-6ad7b1448dcf

vikramrojo

The number of messages or interactions people get on OKCupid is highly correlated to the variance of their rankings. Profiles that were highly polarizing got about 70% more messages than average profiles. The same is true of societies rankings of beauty and competence. To get a middle ranking by polarization is extraordinary.

http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/13/dataclysm-christian-rudder-extraordinary/

vikramrojo

Love, like life is filled with patterns, where Mathematics is the language of nature. If you're destined to date 10 people in your lifetime, test the market, reject the first four. You have the highest probability of finding the one after that.

http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/02/18/hannah-fry-the-mathematics-of-love/

vikramrojo

Nietzsche has laid out a two-pronged attack against regret. One: If you choose wrong, forget about it, just accept it and love it. Two: From this point on, live with constant awareness of your mortality.

http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/its-our-party-we-can-do-what-we-want-until-we-die-so-lead-a-meaningful-life-okay