Comments on Cognitive Psychology & IA: From Theory to Practice

Gigi Rusu — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:25 GMT

Very good article! I think the most interesting point is visual perception.

Gigi

Benjamin Birkenhake — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:37 GMT

Hi Jason Withrow, hi everybody else here,

this is a great article, no question, especially, because the topic of my dissertation “ArchiText”, is almost exactly on this topic. So I have a few questions.
Does anyone have some good literature on this topic [especiall Gestaltpsychology and IA]? Or is this a brand new field of scientific investigation?
Are there a few other great websites concering topics like these?

Thanks a lot
Benjamin

David Dunkle — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:37 GMT

Peter,
That’s a pretty tall order; asking dissenters to read a 200+ page paper prior to responding to your outlandish comment. I, for one, still believe that cognitive psychology is on a valid track in at least a couple of areas. For one tiny example, the effects of primacy and recency in remembering list items are well established, and applicable to all sorts of dynamic lists. However, I imagine that it is possible that this paper you’ve cited will challenge some aspects of cognitive psychology, and I will withhold further comment until I review it.
It better be good.

Dino DRomero — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:37 GMT

Spelling is: Henrik Gedenryd

URL: http://lucs.fil.lu.se/People/Henrik.Gedenryd/HowDesigners…

peter — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:37 GMT

i don’t want to be the killjoy, but i have to say that i think that most of the article is actually pretty besides the point.

for everyone still believing that cognitive psychology is on a valid track about anything i recommend a good read in hendryk gedenryds excellent dissertation “how designers work”. it does a very, very thorough job in dissecting the claims of contemporary cognitive science, to the point where i get goosebumps (being a former cogsci devotee myself). you can find it by googling “how designers work” (don’t have the url ready).

regards
peter

ps: before flaming me, please give gedenryds work a look.

Kyle Pero — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:37 GMT

This was a great article! I think the most important point was the section on transference.

I find that everyone wants to be different when they design websites. Marketers don’t want “boring” labels that everyone else uses on their sites. People always want to break new ground when they launch a site.

I think that these people in the industry just don’t understand how important it is to use common GUI standards and guidelines in order to have a usable website.

A truely talented designer can utilize standard architecture and still have a unique or creative interface… that is the challenging part.

- Kyle

Claudio Aguirre-Bianchi — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:37 GMT

These are very relevant and yet neglected issues.

I enjoyed reading this article and I would suggest to go further by exemplifying cultural determinants of perception.

In the perspective of design for all, this is a very important issue. Are there archetypes that can function basis for ellaborating rules of general (or broad) validity for enhancing adequate perception?

Clau

Mark Geljon — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:37 GMT

Very good article!... An article on mental models would be great! In my opinion is the paradigm clash (differences between mental models) the source of many many business problems… (and design issues, off course)

- Mark

Richard Dalton — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:37 GMT

Excellent article Jason! Very, very relevant to IA – It would have been great if you could have expanded on some techniques to build semantic networks or mental models – maybe in the next article? ;-)

- Richard