When you read an original book, in full, you expect to get the full benefit of the author’s thinking process and have their ideas spelled out in detail. When you are just reading a summary, then you can expect something less. An in this case, my review is of the Blinkist summary. When I’ve had the chance to check a Blinkist summary against the original book, the summary has come out pretty well. And life is short; so I’ve been reading a lot more of the summaries recently. If they really grab me, I will seek out the original. Meantime, here are a few snippets from the summary that caught my attention:
To understand the world, people use their central and peripheral vision, and look for visual patterns......In our humble attempts to navigate the world, we humans use our peripheral vision more than our central vision....For the most part people use their peripheral vision to gather information about a scene. That’s why advertisers place ads at the sides of a web page......Our ancestors needed to be hyperaware of their surroundings. And peripheral vision enabled them to stay alert
Our central vision works differently. When looking directly at individual objects, humans find patterns......Patterns make it easier to sort out all the new sensory information we’re constantly bombarded with.......Basic shapes like rectangles and spheres are identified in everything you look at in order to make sense of what you’re observing. [I thought it was more like vertical or slanting lines etc.....Maybe I need to check this out].
Every second of every waking moment, your subconscious is dealing with roughly 40 billion pieces of information. However, only 40 percent of this information makes it to your conscious brain. What makes certain knowledge stick, then?......Your brain is only capable of processing information in bite-sized chunks.....Studies have found that four is the magic number..... So it’s always a good idea to split up whatever you’re trying to communicate into groups that contain no more than four elements.
Another good method for making information more digestible is progressive disclosure.
So a website using progressive disclosure might feature a list of categories that allows people to click on each category for more information, then click on other subcategories for further details.
If you design with forgetfulness in mind, you’ll make sure to include the important information, weaving it into the design or making it easy for people to look up......In order to remember information, people have to use it.......The act of repetition actually physically changes the brain. If information is repeated frequently enough, the neurons in the brain form a trace so that it’s easier to retrieve memories at a faster rate.
In order to process information, people also tend to create categories.....Categorizing content into manageable chunks is one way to deal with the modern overload of information,
However, information is best processed in story form. Telling a story is an effective way of capturing your audience’s attention.......Over 2,000 years ago, the poet Aristotle [Well Aristotle, might have written some poetry but that’s not what he’s know for...he was more a scientist and philosopher].......He came up with the three-act story structure. The beginning sets the scene by explaining the characters and situation; the middle provides obstacles for the characters and a means of resolution; and the end shows the climax and conclusion.
When you see someone performing an action, the premotor cortex in the front section of your brain activates mirror neurons. As a result, you mirror that person’s behaviour. When you see an individual smile, your premotor cortex is responsible for causing you to smile, too...;.....Mirror neurons are also involved in the process of empathizing,
Stories are important because they create images in the mind that may trigger the release of mirror neurons, which, in turn, lead people to experience empathy.
People think their minds tend to wander 10 percent of the time, when, in actuality, it’s more like 30 percent of the time. It can even be as high as 70 percent–say, if you’re driving on an empty highway......When you’re in the process of designing, it’s vital to remember that people’s minds wander and that they’ll only focus on something for a limited period of time.
if you’re designing a website, it’d make no sense for the welcoming page to be dominated by dense blocks of text.
The polar opposite of the wandering mind is the flow state. When in this mode, you’re almost always working toward a specific, doable goal.......If you want people to experience a flow state while using your design, you have to provide constant feedback.
The goal-gradient effect: people accelerate their behaviour the closer they get to reaching a goal........So with two stamps already marked on your coffee reward card, you’ll feel as though you’re closer to achieving it.
It’s smart to provide people with the illusion of plentiful choice (but limit the choices). That way, they’ll feel that they have to make a decision but the end outcome will remain the same.
The key message in this book: When designing a product, it’s vital to consider how people’s minds work. From vision to the mechanics of memory and unconscious decision-making, the creation of a successful product requires that human psychology come first. Your design has to be tailored toward your specific _target audience and communicate to them effectively.
Actionable advice Incorporate unpredictability into your designs. Unpredictability stimulates the production of dopamine, which makes people more likely to engage in the dopamine-inducing behaviour again. That’s what makes an app like Twitter so exciting and addictive–you never know who’ll retweet or respond to you. Therefore, it’s essential to incorporate surprising elements like sound cues when your user is using your product to keep them coming back.
My take on the book. I Iiked it. It did what it said it was going to do: to give neurological and psychological insights into design. And I learned a lot. OK I already knew much of this but it was put together in a clear, structured way and the practical impact of the insights was pointed out to website designers etc. I wasn’t aware of the “goal-gradient” effect.....that the closer you get to your goal , the more you accelerate. (Though I observe it with my wife as we get closer to a bus stop). A bit disappointed with the clumsy denomination of Aristotle as “a poet”....was that in the original or is it a Blinkist error? And the information about peripheral vision and placement of ads at the side of web pages was new to me....and interesting. Four stars from me. ( )

Would recommend this one for designers, marketers. Yet, it should be a good book for everyone who want to understand about human behaviors and thought process. ( )

Should probably read it again, some pretty great facts about people. ( )

An interesting read with lots of good insights to take away, but I'm not a fan of the '100 things' format: despite the structure, it reads a lot like a list. ( )