“Curiosity is the capacity to live in the unknown, because that’s when the magic happens.”

Indeed.

I actually have your piece in my reader and have been meaning to get to it. Still playing catch up as I’m returning from a vacation. I’ll look forward to seeing the parallels.

Cheers.

As we know, that’s the work that should uncover all this gooey behavioral stuff. When that data leads to persuasive design, it should immediately impact the content that fills it.

Cheers to you and Mr. Crumbles.

The “reading aloud” in your head is one way we help make content “sticky.” Words, images and connections (spatial, emotional or otherwise) seems to be the magic formula.

Playing to emotions on the connections seems to be the most effective in my opinion, so when we create content that uses the language and tone that our audience adopts and structure our work in a way that they can most easily identify with, there is far greater chance for comprehension.

I spend a lot of time digging through in site search queries for that very reason. It’s a treasure trove of data when it comes to crafting content that speaks the same language as a typical user.

Thanks for reading and commenting. I’m glad the first column is sparking some conversation.

All the cool kids in the UX world have been talking about Persuasive Design and other ways to incorporate understanding of how we’re all wired to create better online experiences. Unfortunately, this is often done using devices that aren’t normally construed to be “content”.

I love how you show that even though content is often seen as influencing our logical mind, we can find ways for it to stimulate deeper parts of our minds. I look forward to you and others in the content world introducing new techniques to do so!

(It should go without saying Mr. Crumbles is in heaven. I would not suggest, however, trying to understand how he’s wired.)

It is easy to lose sight of our audience’s feelings. To be honest, had I not received some recent and very helpful critique regarding my writing style (hat tips to Sara Wachter-Boettcher and Corey Vilhauer) this column would have been a much more sterile read. Even though I know the emotional brain is crucial to comprehension I constantly need to remind myself to go further than “just the facts.”

The mushy stuff really is incredibly powerful when it comes to comprehension. Can’t wait to see the new “feely” BrainTraffic.com.