The Hinges of Madness: Information Overload

Information overload, as defined by Robert Theobald in an article called, “Should Men Compete With Machines,” in The Nation in April of 1966, is, “an inability to absorb more than a certain amount of experience in a given time,” although the concepts of sensory overload are traced back to Georg Simmel’s influential article, “The Metropolis and Mental Life,” which he wrote in 1903. In it Simmel wrote, “…we’ll cope with the onrush of ‘violent stimuli’ by becoming more head than heart, by becoming indifferent, by becoming numb.” Later still, Alvin Toffler wrote in Future Shock about when, “The amount of information we’re given in the modern world can exceed our ‘channel capacity’ and our brain’s processing power – we become unhinged…, Sanity itself thus hinges” on avoiding information overload.

David Weinberger in KMWorld Magazine posted his perspective on information paranoia thusly, “This is a remarkable story of adaptation. What we thought as a predicament that would destroy our ability to make rational decisions and might even drive us mad has now become simply our environment. It’s where we live. Rather than fleeing from the overload of information, our concern is that we’re not getting enough of it. We have adapted well.”

It’s a point well-taken. We have, in a very short time, adapted our eye-tracking, scanning and recognition behaviors, information processing times, and developed new physical and social behaviors (as well as hardware and software developments!) to manage the onslaught of information. All of this development as a species around information processing makes each of us painfully aware of interactive experiences that have not kept up with the pace of change. We are not “passive receptacles” on which information overload is inflicted as Barry Schwartz pointed out in Social Psychology in March of 1978, rather we are learning extremely fast what constitutes good user experience, trusted content, and proper information mapping.

Even when we are outside of or ignorant to the formal research being done in these fields – we base our experiences on simple definitions, like we do at the eye doctor, “Better one or better two.” By offering and creating smart choices for the interactive user, we coach the visitor on a very subtle, nonlinear level to move backwards, forwards or sideways – these really are the choices. At some point, you must understand your interactive design on this primary level from one end to the other.

37signals-redesigned-home-page

Below are some of the noteworthy aspects for designforseo’s readers of Luke Wroblewski‘s blogging on the Web App Masters Tour session where Jason Fried shared the design solution process at 37signals and how collaboration works within 37signals by revealing chat transcripts from an ongoing redesign project at 37signals.

• When looking at customer surveys, 37signals does not implement product ideas from users but instead tries to get an understanding of the problems people are having.
• 37signals does not use documentation, schematics, or traditional user testing. They try to design the real thing right away and iterate until they get what they want.
• It’s very easy to get stuck on things that don’t matter. Try to get the big picture ideas in place first, then work through the (details).
• One of the best ways to respond to a design is with another design – working back and forth with pictures helps to remove misinterpretation.
• Look for small, but impactful changes when you redesign (or design) something – what is the least amount you can change in a design to have the biggest effective difference?
• Always try to use real information in your designs. Use real numbers, data, and names so you can think through the way a design will support actual content.
• Solving your own (design) problems allows you to effectively judge them. Design (and redesign) for yourself if you can.
• Kicking off projects with loose requirements and allowing the project to evolve, yields more insights as things progress.

I have always found moving from the information gathering stage to the creative postulation stage to be an important one, especially when I’m the one asking the questions or compiling the surveys. The reason is clear – it’s easy to respond to an impassioned plea from a user, to “hear” a groundswell for a kind of application/function a group wants to see, and to key on an desire defined at the executive level.

It’s much harder to read between the lines and hear the messages being delivered to you in subtler ways. It’s much more difficult to propose an solution that is more complete or more forward-thinking than what’s required. It’s tougher to say no and stick to your guns.

These are my thoughts on the highlights above from my experience:

• Learn to think like a detective – when collecting information about an interactive design project, ask yourself, “Why are they telling me this?”
• Shape your ear to hear disconnect – more great interactive design solutions come from what’s missing than from what’s already there.
• You work in a visual medium – get used to doing your thinking and convincing with pictures.
• As far as content is concerned, interactive design is not really much different from annual report design – you need to have it all before you can make realistic systems.
• It’s not enough to “define” the users and visitors, you need to become one, think like one, understand their motivations.
• Answering questions like, “What kind of information does the sales force need?” is better than starting with a statement like, “We need a form for lead generation.” Questions allow for more discussions at the margins – a form might not be the answer at all.

Whether you are designing interactive or redesigning interactive, time and energy should be allotted for “the discovery phase.” Rushing through or past this stage invariably leads to incomplete data, bad solutions, wasted budget, or worse, outright failure of the interactive design solution sometime in the future.