Psychology

Nobody tells you when things just sort-of suck

The users who viewed your website and didn’t trust it just left. The customers who saw your logo and didn’t understand it just moved on to the next company. You didn’t get an exit interview with each of them where they were interrogated on what worked and what didn’t.

August 15, 2022

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Skeuomorphism strikes back

Looking back, iOS 6 was wild. Between 2007 and 2013 we were so collectively enamored by the glossy sheen of high-res touch screens that we went absolutely nuts.The notes app was a yellow legal pad with leather binding.Game Center had a green felt background and wood trim. But everything old is new again...

January 25, 2022

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Love and hate are closer than apathy and passion

Red Bull routinely scored miserably on taste tests, but has built a devoted following as one of the top beverage brands in the world. The Eiffel Tower was called “A half-built factory pipe, a carcass waiting to be fleshed out with freestone or brick, a funnel-shaped grill, a hole-riddled suppository” and is now the most visited monument on the planet.

June 11, 2021

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Perception is Reality: Or, What the Muppets Taught Me About Life and Business

There’s a strong argument that most of reality isn’t real. What our consciousness perceives as “now” is as much as 400 milliseconds behind actual events. We never actually touch anything, since the pesky electrons that make up us and the world repel each other. We have literal blind spots in our vision that our brain makes up for with some fancy footwork.

March 22, 2021

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Ben Guttmann