Unit 5: How People Focus Their Attention

40: IF they are told to do something, people will focus on that task and not anything else. People are always scanning their environment for their own name, food, sex, or danger.

41: People will not always pay attention to the information provided to them and never assume anything. Because assume means to make an ass out of you and me. Using color, size, animation, video or sound can be used to draw attention to information. Anything that is really important needs to be 10 times more noticeable.

42: Repetition of an action will cause the action to become automatic. If a sequence needs to be repeated, it needs to be easy to do, however people may make errors because they are not paying attention to what they are doing. While making the sequence easy, the sequence needs to be able to be undone just as easily. Making a design where someone can choose to do one action on multiple items at once is a benefit.

43: People tend to make up their minds on how often something should happen. If that something happens outside of their expectations they may miss it. To make sure people pay attention use a strong signal to get their attention.

44: People have problems with paying attention to anything over 7-10 minutes, even if they are highly interested in the subject. To combat it, interrupt the information with a small break.

45: People do not necessarily pay attention to things they do or objects everyday. instead they tend to use vague clues also called salient clues to interact with them. Design objects so people will use salient clues to interact with them.

46: People can not multitask, they simply switch back and forth between tasks very quickly. They can only pay attention to one task at a time. While multitasking people will make mistakes.

47: People's brains have 3 different levels of awareness. The 1st level is decision making, the 2nd level is emotional, and the 3rd level is instinct. The 3rd level can be boiled down to Food, Sex and Danger, as people pay the most attention to it. People will not always act on their 3rd level of awareness but they will notice those things. People also pay a lot of attention to faces.

48: Sounds will get a person's attention but they need to match the application in which they are being used.

49: Using the proper signals, light or sounds, need to be taken into consideration when designing.