8 Things You Don’t Know Are Affecting Your Decisions Every Day: As a follow-up to the article I posted yesterday, here’s another article about cognitive load, and how we end up making worse decisions over time, over at Buffer. The more choices the user has to make, the more likely they’ll simply choose the default/easy/safe (but not necessarily correct) choice as time progresses. (Hat tip to Felicia Day for linking to it.)
Links
Depleting Cognitive Resources
Your App Makes Me Fat: a neat essay over at Serious Pony discussing research into cognitive load and why it makes sense to avoid branding noise in your user experience.
But if it’s “content” designed solely to suck people in (“7 ways to be OMG awesome!!”) for the chance to “convert”, we’re hurting people. If we’re pumping out “content” because frequency, we’re hurting people.
Next XOXO
As a follow-up to last week’s post about the XOXO Festival, it’s worth noting that a few days later, they officially announced the next one. Tickets are not yet on sale — it’s more of a “Save the Date” card at the moment — but do keep an eye out. Wicked good event, well worth attending.
Plagiarism as a Moral Choice
Why Does Problem Hiding Occur?
Why Does Problem Hiding Occur? Worthwhile post for those involved in QA or project management.
How to Get Better at Presenting
Why I Don't Drink
John Scalzi pretty much summing up my thoughts on not drinking alcohol. I’ve chosen a slightly stricter path — I’ve not even tried the stuff — but otherwise completely spot on in sentiment and rationale.
The Broadcast of Comics
Warren Ellis discussing The Broadcast of Comics. Worth the read.
On Being an Introvert at Big Conferences
On Being an Introvert at Big Conferences (Aaron Hockley)
I completely agree with his summation: as an introvert, I still enjoy and appreciate the conferences I attend, still find the social element rewarding and valuable. But I have to pace myself, and make room for needing to withdraw and recharge from time to time.
Intel's Social Media Guidelines
In an excellent example of corporate social-transparency, Intel just posted their social media guidelines, which they expect their employees to follow when engaging the public. I think this is fantastic, and a great example of a major company “walking the walk” when it comes to social media and community interaction. For anyone engaging in online communities and social media interaction, they’re an excellent guide to go by.