Let’s say you have to make a presentation to several department heads at work about your latest conversations with your customers. You interviewed 25 customers and surveyed another 100, and have lots of important data to share. Your first thought might be to present a summary of the data in a numerical/statistical/data driven format, for…
Tag Archive: decision-making
100 Things You Should Know About People: #64 — Groups Are Swayed By A Dominant Personality
In the last blog post I talked about how groups end up making faulty decisions. How many times have you been part of a group discussion and decision-making process and there is one person who is dominating the conversation and the decision. Just because decisions are made in a group setting doesn’t mean that the…
100 Things You Should Know About People: #47 — People Value A Product More Highly If It Is Physically In Front Of Them
You go online to re-order a box of your favorite pens. Will you value the product more if the product page has a picture of the pens versus just a text description? Would you think the pens are worth more if you were in the office store and the pen was right in front of…
100 Things You Should Know About People: #36 — People are Inherently Lazy
Ok, I’ll admit it, I am exaggerating a little bit when I say people are inherently lazy. What I really mean is that people will do the least amount of work possible to get a task done. Is lazy another word for efficient? – Over eons of evolution humans have learned that they will survive…
100 Things You Should Know About People: #31 — The Desire For Control And Choice Is Built In
I’ve just started reading Sheena Iyengar’s new book, The Art of Choosing. I’ve been a fan of Dr. Iyengar’s work for a while. She’s the author of the famous “jam study”, that I talked about in a previous blog. (I’ll do a book review of the new book in a future post). Early in the…
100 Things You Should Know About People: #29 – Brand Names Talk To Our “Old” Brains
You are planning on buying a new TV. Will you buy a brand you recognize? Or will you go for the unfamiliar “no name” brand that is less expensive? What if you are buying luggage? Talking to the “old brain” – In my book, Neuro Web Design: What makes them click? I write about the…
100 Things You Should Know About People: #25 — Trust Your Gut or Be Logical? It Depends On Your Mood
In a previous post on how mood affects your reaction to brands you know (see You Are Most Affected By Brands And Logos When You Are Sad And Scared), I talked about the research from Marieke de Vries of Radboud University Nijmegen, in the Netherlands. De Vries also did research on two types of decision…
10 Best Posts of 2009
It’s that time of year — so here is my list of the 10 best posts from my blog in 2009. I chose the 10 that I believe have had the greatest impact/most thought provoking/most interest from my readers. #1: Dopamine Makes You Addicted to Seeking Information — I thought this was an interesting post…
100 Things You Should Know About People: #17 — Your Unconscious Knows 1st
You are shopping for a new computer and the salesperson you are talking to is offering you what seems to be a good deal. And yet there is a part of you that feels uncomfortable and isn’t sure if this is the right computer, or the right deal, or the right store for you. If…
100 Things You Should Know About People: #10 — You Want More Choices and Information Than You Can Actually Process
If you stand in any aisle in any retail store in the USA you will be inundated with choices. Whether you are buying candy, cereal, TVs, jeans, you name it, you will likely have a huge number of items to choose from. This is because people want lots of choices. If you ask someone whether…