Silicon Sycophants

I stumbled upon a study today from 1997 that really resonated titled Silicon Sycophants. In short, it claims that people respond better to flattery, even when they know it is automatically generated by a computer. This dovetails nicely into a long standing precept of mine that goes Language Matters, with the by-law of Have a Voice.

I have recently been playing a game online called Kingdom of Loathing. It has no animation, no colored shiny things, no exciting cutting edge technology. It is made up of simple html and stick figure drawings. What it does have is incredibly witty and clever writing, and that alone was enough to get me hooked.

UI Blogs

http://goodexperience.com/blog/
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/
http://uxmatters.com/
http://www.iqcontent.com/blog/
http://www.adaptivepath.com/blog/
http://speedbird.wordpress.com/

EmotoMeterModulator

Something silly and fun and completely unusable, for labor day.

Adaptive Design

This week I have been musing about Adaptive Design, and why you don't see more of it.

By Adaptive Design, I mean software and websites that respond and mutate to reflect user behavior over time. An example most people are probably familiar with is Microsoft Word's ability to recognize your most common spelling/typing mistakes and auto-correct them.

Simply put, I want more. I want my software to recognize the tools I use most and put them in the forefront. I want features I never use to be hidden. I want Facebook to realize I am actually single and not present dating ads to me. And I want a pony.

I think the reason adaptive design is not seen more often is that it is not a feature that can easily be put on a list as a bullet pount and checked off; it is not easily visualized, and often, it is difficult to program. Nonetheless, I think applications and websites that are designed to delight and capture users interest over time will have to integrate adaptive design principles.