Making Connections

Don't you just love making connections in your life. I am a big fan of innovation and ideas and this morning I was reading my email a general newsletter from Martin Lindstrom (teaching major companies how to market their brand, see "Brandflash") promoting his new book "Buy.ology" the Truth and Lies About Why We Buy. Sound interesting! well for me blood starts rushing to my brain, why? because I am making a connection that's why, brain to perception back to brain.

Okay before you start believing this girl has really lost the plot, please read the synopsis of the book
Quote: Reveals what actually goes on inside our heads, it shows factors as varied as childhood memories and religious belief come together to influence our decisions and shape our tastes.Unquote
(Lindstrom conducted a three-year, $7 million neuromarketing study (sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline and Bertelsmann, among others that measured the brain activity of 2,000 volunteers from around the world. Some of the results confirmed marketing-industry hunches; others flew in the face of conventional wisdom).
Are you seeing what I am seeing, from a designers eye? Connections, no matter how irrelevant at the time, are vitally important to the big picture.

Disclaimer: I have no financial interest in this book.

Help! Hidden Data

While designing material for Special Needs I am faced with trying to put myself in the minds of the users ...... just look briefly at the importantance of perception.

We know that perception means having an awareness of or understand sensory information. So where does one begin? Let us look very briefly, in clear English, at the 5 main stimuli input zones that build our perception; Visually from our eyes; Hearing, sounds from our ears; Taste, from the receptive buds on our tongue; Smell from the receptors in our nose; Touch, from the nerve endings in our skin.

Then there are the hidden sensors, mentioning just a few of the many; from the inner ear, vibrations felt through the body; balance, feeling the body movement; heat and cold; pain (the 3 types); fear; emotions; joy, comfort etc. etc.

Okay let's imagine a super high-tech computer database that has just been created, let’s call it “My Personal Perception A”, slowly that database A will to fill up with masses of stimuli data, it will takes years, continuously making new connections, logically the more data inputted and large variance produces a wider more knowledgeable Personal Perception A.

Now when it comes to the second super high-tech database of “My Personal Perception Special Needs B”, firstly we know from the specialists that this database B has interference signals for example overload and/or lose of some connections which interfere with the initial process. So again it is logical to assume that the data input for Database B will differ in some respect to that of Database A.

What is the solution?

Firstly, we will need lots and lots of patience with database B it really is special. Some of the data will input easily, especially the visual data, usually resulting in millions of stored images, whereas other data for example the touch data might well temporary block Database B, objecting strongly to certain codes and therefore new codes and inventive methods will need to be implemented to enable the data to entered correctly.

Be pre-warned, Database B will always look for the “comfort” zone going on energy save and generally speaking database B will take longer because it often uses a different route than the database A.

Also expect with database B to use the “Enter” key again, again and again and might need to be pushed to overload on some occasions to achieve the desired activity.

However, database B is full of surprises and will hold lots of additional “hidden data", quite often filed incorrectly, usually surfacing at a later date or when focused and maximised.

What intrigues me is how much data is passed and stored in our personal database before we are born?

Are you left or right handed?

I've been looking into the subject area of left and/or right-handed users and the theory of Norman Geschwind's in relation to learning disorders, dyslexia and stuttering as well as increased spatial ability. It is such an immense topic and truly fascinating. I came across these interesting statistics on wikipedia.org

Quote:Though constituting less than 10% of the general population, 60% of U.S. presidents in the last 30 years have been left-handed, including Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain also happen to be left-handed. Unquote

I could not resist researching more under the heading "Left-handedness and intelligence", if you have time do click on the link below and have a quick browse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_handed. Lots of food for thought.

Next week I will be posting my notes on perception and different ways of thinking.