In the introduction of Freakonomics – A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything, we are told that Steven D. Levitt is a young, successful, and serious–if controversial–economist. We should believe what Levitt writes because he has the right credentials: he is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago. But soon enough…

Often I hear these broad blanket statements on what people do or don’t do online: “people don’t read,” “people don’t scroll,” “people don’t wait.” It’s usually from those who have just enough knowledge of usability to be dangerous, but sometimes, alas, I’ve heard usability people uttering them. When I hear statements like this I’ll usually…

Why do people do make the life decisions they make? Why somebody decides to become a revolutionary and another a dictator? Why some people become doctors and go to Haiti to cure AIDS and others become Kenneth Lay? After watching Walter Salles‘ The Motorcycle Diaries I couldn’t stop thinking about empathy, compassion, and revolution. The…

I’ve just finished reading The paradox of choice by Barry Schwartz. The main thesis of the book is that having too many choices, together with feeling pressured to make the best choice rather than a “good enough” choice makes us unhappy. The more choices we have, the more time and effort we spend weighting and…

I’ve just finished listening for the second time to the audiobook version of Malcolm Gladwell‘s Blink. The book discusses psychological resesarch around rapid cognition and snap decisions and has plenty of findings and concepts relevant to usability and market research (with some good evidence of the limits of “just asking people what they feel or…