Understanding the User Experience

Here is a usability testing strategy that I bet few of you have tried. Have someone who doesn’t speak the language observe the user. It’s amazing what you will learn when you have to focus 100% on body language and tone because you can’t be distracted by what the user is saying. We all have experienced the principle that users often can’t articulate what they are thinking and often are downright wrong. The reasons for this are fascinating and worthy of a different blog post. But given that it is true, having at least one observer who can’t listen to the words, even if he/she wants to, is very insightful.

Unexpected responses ruin good ideas

This is a great example of why I am fascinated with human behavior. A recent study on low-salt potato chips found some unexpected results. Good news for those of you who would rather eat the real thing.

First, they looked at people who switched to low-salt chips. Some ate more of them because the chips were less satisfying individually. So their total salt didn't go down and their junk food consumption actually went up. Some people who would have switched to other non-junk food snacks if low-salt chips weren't available felt enabled to eat these instead. So their salt AND junk food consumption went up.

Then they looked at a new invention called Crystal Salt. Because it has smaller crystals, you can use less of it and get the same salty taste. The hope was that this would prevent the first finding of the first study (snackers would need to eat more to feel satisfied). But just knowing that these had less salt made people who were trying to cut down on salt feel enabled to eat more of them, so again salt didn't go down and junk food consumption went up. And again, some people that would have switched to other snacks ate these instead - so salt AND junk food consumption went up. A third group that were used to less salty snacks got used to the salty taste and started needing more salt on their other foods because they habituated to the higher level of salt.

In all fairness, there were people who ate less salt in both studies. But there were enough people who ate more (salt or junk food) that it gave them serious second thoughts on the benefits of either low-salt chips or chips made with Crystal Salt.

Radio Lab - simple fixes for intractable problems

Very interesting Radio Lab this week. They described four stories that had really challenging problems and the simple (although perhaps not 100% ideal) solutions that were developed for them. It's a great example of what creativity can accomplish.

One was a gay couple who lived in a state that didn't even have civil unions let alone same sex marriage. They wanted to make sure that they could make medical decisions and financial decisions for each other, especially as they aged. So one legally ADOPTED the other one. Not exactly marriage, but if you look at the nuances of the law, it gave them just about the same legal rights (except for social security benefits).

They also talked about a mental care facility that had a problem with residents wandering off. They didn't want to turn the place into a jail by adding security. So instead, they built a fake bus stop in the front of the building. They found most of the future wanderers sitting at the bus stop waiting for a bus. After a few minutes of conversation, they forgot where they thought they were going and came back inside. No security, no force, just a little glass and wood.

The third one I liked was about a guy who had rage issues. Whenever anyone told him to calm down, no matter how they said it/did it, he would just get madder and sometimes assault the poor good Samaritan. So he got a gray parrot and trained it to say "Calm Down, everything will be OK" whenever it sensed him getting mad. He couldn't rage against this little bird, especially one he trained himself. He calmed down, saved himself thousands in therapy, and kept himself out of jail.

Creativity and Innovation - that is what will save the world. Not tax cuts and government regulations.

Food size labels

This is why you read my blog. Here is a great example of the value I give you for your time!

A recent study found some results that all of you NEED to know. It's subtle, but powerful - and may explain the obesity epidemic we are facing.

When a food item is labeled "large" it increases how big we perceive it to be. So our internal schema is that it is "a lot of food" so we eat a smaller percentage of it before being satisfied (this satisfaction is some combination of physical satiety and psychological hedonic feelings).

When it is labeled "small", the opposite happens. We perceive it to be smaller, so we eat more of it before being satisfied.

This effect was so powerful that it caused full reversals. People estimated the size of an 8-oz package of nuts (or oreos or sandwiches) that was labeled "large" as being bigger than a 10-oz package of the same item labeled "small."

The presence of nutrition labels or volume labels (quantitative labels such as 8-oz) didn't eliminate the effect. We ignore those. We also ignore more reliable indicators when we have low motivation to be correct or when we are in a rush.

The only time we take care is when we have a specific reason for accuracy (a strict diet) and even then the effect is reduced - not eliminated.

So ignore the size label. Assume everything is large. That popcorn you get at the movie theater - it has 2000 calories of butter, even if it is labeled "medium."

Relaxed Parenting

Bryan Caplan, one of my favorite bloggers and Economics Prof at George Mason has a new book out with some findings that may seem counterintuitive. He did a meta-analysis of parenting research – looking at all the research that investigated the effects of parents’ engagement with the kids, stress on education, discipline, and other variables. What he found is that when you put it all together, these things can have large short term effects but over the long term they had no impact on the future career success, financial success, or happiness of the kids. Genetics and the external environment were much more important. So he recommends just chilling out and enjoying your children. If we want to improve the world, we are better off encouraging parents with good genes to have more kids.

I know this will be controversial to many of you. But the book is based on solid research methods. And the good news is that being a parent should actually be less work than most of us put in.

Primed Placebo

Here is a variation of my favorite medical intervention – the placebo. There is a chemical that causes people to have violently ill and painful reactions to alcohol. It was discovered by accident in the rubber processing industry. The workers found themselves unable to drink any alcohol without feeling intense pain – like they were exploding. It stays in your body up to a couple of days if you are exposed.

So the variation on the placebo is to turn this into a cure for alcoholism. They told the patient that they were implanting under their skin a 3 year dose (which doesn’t really exist). Then they said to test it they put a drop of the drug and a drop of alcohol on their tongues. They felt this violent, extreme pain for a brief time (it was only a drop). They were told that the impland had 100 times that amount of the chemical, so if they drank any alcohol during those three years they would feel 100 times the pain. Fear of this pain was supposed to keep them on the wagon.

If the patient fell off the wagon within a day or two, they would still get sick because of the residual effects of the test dose. And most people who did fall off, did so within the first few days. Those who had enough fear to get through those first few days made it through the three years and went back for another placebo implant.

The value of Bubbles

Great article in Bloomberg BWeek this week (4/18-4/24 issue) by Peter Coy. The gist is that financial bubbles can be good or bad. I always that this was true depending on who you are. If you are employed in the sector, you take your money home with you. If you sell before the bubble bursts, then you get a good (although perhaps undeserved) return. But if you are stuck holding shares when the music stops, you lose your shirt.

But they divide it up another way also. It depends on part on what is being bought and sold. If it is something with durable value, then the bubble can be good for society. The tech bubble created a lot of dotcom crashes, but also a lot of bandwidth all over the world that was eventually exploited by Amazon, Google, YouTube, etc.

If it is something that keeps a constant value, then it just transfers money from bad investors to good investors. For example, trading in gold right now. If you buy it at $300, sell it to me at $1500, and then I have to sell it later for $300, there is still an ounce of gold sitting in a vault somewhere. No net net change on society except for the temporary stress on the economy if the bubble is a big one.

It's when the bubbling asset loses value that bubbles really hurt. All of the extra housing that was created in 2000-2006 is the wrong size, in the wrong place, and getting moldy. So in addition to the short term stress on the economy, there is also a loss of real value in the asset. These are the bubbles that we really have to watch out for, and that perhaps Central Banks around the world should prick early.

Govt Regs v Darwinist selection of business models

There was a fantastic debate on the Smirconish show last night (I think it was a repeat broadcast from Friday). Some concert venues/bands have created a new way of selling concert seats. In one sense, it is environmentally friendly. Instead of a ticket, you just swipe the credit card you used to pay for it at the venue entrance. No paper needed.

Scalpers hate this because they can’t resell tickets. Stubhub and Ticketbroker also hate it. The only way you can have someone else use your seat is if you trust them with your credit card for the evening. Kids yes, good friends yes, but EBay – probably not. So they are lobbying to get this made illegal.

The reason I found the debate so fascinating is that both sides claim the free market side. The concert venues and bands say that government has no business telling them how they can or can’t sell tickets. And it’s good for fans because without scalpers they can get tickets at regular price. So real fans show up at the concert. The scalpers say that once a customer purchases a ticket they should have the freedom to do whatever they want with it, including reselling it to a stranger.

My view on this would be familiar to anyone who reads my blogs. I am against government regulations that reduce freedom (unless there is a really good reason), but I am in favor of allowing companies to pursue whatever business models they want, even if it is a stupid one (with perhaps exceptions for anti-trust, safety, and truthfulness requirements). The free market will soon decide if they can be successful or not. If not, they will go out of business soon enough and the stupid behaviors will disappear. So I am on the side of the concert venues. Not because I think it’s a good idea, I think it is a bad idea actually. But I support their right to implement bad ideas between one private organization (the venue) and another (the customer).

I don’t think I know enough about peanut allergies to make a similar conclusion on whether peanuts should be banned from airplanes. I think it makes total sense for the airlines to switch to something less allergenic (pretzels or chips are fine). And they can have something during the ticketing process that asks whether anyone has a serious allergy so they can make an announcement before the plane leaves the gate asking people not to eat peanuts. This last thought is because I have heard that some people are so allergic that they can be four rows away from the peanut and still have a serious attack.

But while I think this is a smart business strategy, do I think the government should mandate it as a law? That’s tough. You can ban airlines from serving peanuts, but do you ban people from bringing peanut-containing products on the plane? If not, it doesn’t really help to ban airline peanuts. And what about international flights (and international passengers)?

I have heard of some public schools that are banning peanuts. They don’t serve any and tell the students not to bring anything with peanuts. This is a slightly different situation because you can find out about serious allergies ahead of time (when parents register their kids for school). Maybe there is a better solution than a ban. Especially since the kids attend the same school for years, so they would have to give up PB&J and Snickers bars for a long time.

Twitter Wars in Syria

Syria presents a great example of how controversies can be fought on Twitter. Although these are not solutions based on proving your ideas, they are more like denial of service attacks.

What is happening is that the protesters in Syria are using Twitter to communicate. They created a hashtag #Syriaprotest to send out notices about where they are going to demonstrate and other logistical coordination. The Syrian government wants to interfere with the protests, so what they are doing is spamming the hashtag. They have an automated system that sends thousands of messages containing pro-government propaganda to #Syriaprotest. No one believes the propaganda, but it makes it impossible to find the relevant tweets.

So the protesters have to create a new hashtag, communicate it to each other as secretly as possible, and then they have a few hours before the Syrian government figures it out and starts spamming that one too. Unfortunately, by the time a critical mass of protesters has learned the new hashtag, so has the government. And the cycle starts again.

Have you ever been wrong?

This Ted talk rocks!! Anyone interested in innovation, creativity, and complex decision making will get more out of these 17 minutes than any other I can think of.

The basic message is that if I asked you "what does it feel like to be wrong?" you would think of what it feels like when you REALIZE you're wrong. Not when you are wrong. When you ARE wrong, it actually feels like you are right. Except that there is some fool out there who disagrees with you.

Unless you are always right, please take a few minutes and watch this.

Human-like robots

Great article in the April Wired magazine. They report on a study (full PDF available) by some Stanford researchers who found that people who are operating human-like robots attribute the behavior to the robot a lot more than people who operate non-human-like robots, who see the robot as extensions of themselves.

This may sound esoteric, but it has lots of important implications. People remotely operating military robots that are human-like might become overly violent because they can attribute the behavior to the robot (rather than themselves). On the other hand, it might be useful to use human-like robots for search and rescue to minimize the amount of traumatic stress felt by the operator (because they can dissociate themselves from the work). Our brains are often fooling us by anthropomorphizing objects. It would be nice if we can learn from it and take advantage when appropriate.