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Writing Short Stories
Bruce Holland Rogers
Willamette Writers June 2012
  • Metaphors of length
    • a novel is like a house, where you can explore all the rooms, even the closets
    • a short story is intended to deliver the reader to a single effect: one specific idea or feeling. 
      • a short story invites the reader to stand outside of one the window of one room, and look in and see what is going on.
    • a short short story
      • requires the reader to kneel outside the door the peer through the keyhole.
      • it is also a story of a single effect, but… the story gains something by the effect of being so short.
  • the short short allows you to take advantage of the fact that a reader will read a page or two of almost anything.
    • so if you want to do something experimental, something demanding of the reader, then do it as a short short.
    • if you did it as a longer work, they might punt by page 3.
  • terminal pleasure. 
    • not the pleasure that kills you, the pleasure you get as you read the last words of a book.
    • if all if you have to end with is a clever pun or a small idea, then you can’t write a novel. you have to write something short.
    • conversely, if you have a terminal pleasure that is vast and life changing, then you probably can’t get there with anything less than a novel.
  • short story structure
    • google “budrys seven part story”
    • beginning
      • character in a context with a problem
        • who is this person? where is the person in space and time and socially? what is the characters problem? ideally the problem is the biggest problem this character has faced in life up until now.
    • middle
      • character trying to solve the problem and failing through most of the middle
        • if there character tries and fails just once, that’s maybe just bad luck.
        • if they try two times and fail, that’s raising the stakes: this is a serious problem
        • if they try three times and fail, the reader starts to recognize the pattern of their failures
    • end
      • fourth attempt:
        • if they are the hero: the character assesses themselves, the problem, arrive at some insight, and change the approach to solving the problem. they trying again and succeeding.
        • if they are the villain: the character tries the same approach again, and fails.
      • validation: the character succeeded, but now we need to signal to the reader that the character really did succeed, and now we’re at the end of the story: “Who was that masked man? I want to thank him.”
        • for horror: it’s the anti-validation: the villain’s hand coming up through the dirt.
  • momentum lines
    • we assume, for people and for characters, that people stay on the line they are. if suddenly they depart from that line, we want to know why.
    • tell your story by writing three scenes:
      • a scene which establishes their momentum
      • a scene which could knock someone off in life. it shouldn’t show the character being knocked off, just that it could happen to someone.
      • a scene in which the character got knocked off their line: proof of the new direction.
  • the market for short stories
    • In the past there was a market that was lucrative, diverse, and large. Then came television.
    • There are remnants of this past: digest magazines in the science fiction and horror genres. But even ten years ago, the list was longer.
    • There are still a few oddball markets: the grocery store checkout stand magazine; woman’s world(?)
      • but they are shrinking and fading
    • It’s still possible, but it involves being flexible.
    • I sell 3 short stories a month by annual subscription, delivered by email.
    • Most of the short story collections being published are by novelists, and the publisher does it mostly as a gift to the author to keep the relationship.
    • Most of the markets today are on the web. Mostly for short short stories. Some of them pay reasonably well.
    • (And I don’t think this is a sign of shortening attention span, but simply more fragmented days.)
    • Edward Hock: the last full-time short story writer. He’d have two or three stories in a given magazine, under his name as well as several pseudonyms.
    • ebooks is another new market.
    • Some of the people who subscribe want more than just to read short stories: they want to feel that they are a patron of the arts. 
    • educational publishers
      • they might want a short story to put into an educational text
      • they are increasingly putting them online
      • (they have a captive audience, so it’s one segment that is not diminishing.)
  • Questions
    • Have you looked into graphic novels as avenue?
      • It brings the added challenge of finding someone talented to work with.
      • BTW: check out Scott McCloud’s graphic novel about the history of comics.
      • It is expensive to generate and share a graphic novel.
      • You might see this happen more with the kindle fire.
    • Are you publishing on kindle? What do you do once you exhaust your list of Facebook friends?
      • If you go with a traditional publisher, they always ask: “What is your platform?”
      • Anywhere I go, anywhere I talk, I’m hopefully leaving my name as a vibration in the air that maybe people will pick up.
      • You have to build a platform no matter what. But: If you do it as an independent writer, then you’ll keep more of the money.
        • BTW: even if you lose work through piracy, you’re still getting exposure.
    • What about people who write a short story and put it up on kindle for 99 cents?
      • Why are we writing? For more than just the money. reputation, satisfaction, etc.
      • The real question: Is the work good?
      • Content is now coming at us like firehoses. How do we select which 99 cents works to read?
      • you kind of have to risk the 99 cents occasionally, and see if you like the work, and if you do, then you are finding new authors you like, and if you don’t, then 99 cents is the price you have to pay to find out.
    • What role do contests and awards play, where do you find out where they are?
      • If part of building your platform is winning awards, then which awards do you pursue to help?
      • That’s a little bit tricky. 
      • Some contests are really good, but not well known.
      • Some contests are mostly money making.
      • Sometimes looking at who is winning the contests is good.
      • Look at Poet’s and Writers: not the advertisements, but their editorial content.
      • What are the awards that have high visibility?
        • Google it: do lots of people know it and use it and discuss it?
      • “Micro Award”: did work to get it well represented on wikipedia.
    • Short short short
      • If I could get 4 subscribers I would write 1 story that year
      • If I could get 12 subscribers I would write 3 stories a year
      • Had a scheme to go all the way up to the a story a week
      • (but maxed out at 3 stories a month.)
      • Tried a gift subscription package, with a discount, as a way to get friends of friends

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Amped is the new technothriller by Daniel H. Wilson, author of Robopocalypse.

I don’t like to give away spoilers, and I’m not very good at traditional book reviews, so I’ll just give you the highlights about what I liked about Amped:

While the characters in the novel have a wide range of implants, it’s an intriguing thought that even relatively simple intercessions in how our brain works can have big effects: “an exquisitely timed series of electrical stimulations, gently pushing her mind toward the Beta One wave state…massively amplified her intelligence”.

The brain implants themselves are both futuristic and yet decidedly retro. On one hand, they interact with the neurons of the brain, and on the other hand, they are adjusted via a maintenance port using tools that sound similar to a set of dental picks.

Society itself is essentially the civilization of today. Other than brain implants, there’s no new technology. This increases the immediacy of the book: This isn’t some shiny, far off future. This is what our world would look like today with the addition of implants.

I love the structure of the book. I’m a sucker for the interchapter news articles.

Fans of cyberpunk will notice some similarity to the tradition of setting stories in the seedy underbelly of society. Gibson had the slums of Tokyo, Walter Jon Williams had an old Nevada ranch, and Wilson has Oklahoma (which appeared prominently in both Robopocalypse and Amped).

Although his background is a PhD in robotics, Wilson obviously loves writing human characters. This isn’t a technology story, this is a human story.

I hope you enjoy it.

Wilson and I were on a panel together at SXSW Interactive talking about the future of artificial intelligence this summer. He and I differed in our point of view: He believes that human-level, general-purpose AI is a far-off possibility, while I think it’s definitely coming and has a very predictable timeframe. This doesn’t stop him from writing about AI: some of the character’s neural implants have strong AI capabilities.

And this leads to one of the areas of the book I have some trouble with. The technology that it takes to deliver that “exquisitely timed series of electrical stimulations” to push someone toward Beta One wave state is not going to be the same level of technology that it takes to deliver strong AI capability in a computer implant in someone’s head.

The former is something that, if it were feasible, could be created in the near-future in a world we would recognize as our own, while the latter is something that will exist further out, in a time in which we’ll be surrounded by strong AI in the form of robots and life in the cloud. It’ll be a very different world than ours. (It stands to reason that it would be technically feasible to deliver strong AI capability in a cluster of servers sooner than we would be able to in a tiny lump of computing power that has to fit inside someone’s head. It’s like running a high-powered computer game on a desktop PC vs. a smartphone.)

Of course, every author gets to choose their world and the topics they want to address, so don’t take this as a negative statement: it’s just an interesting reflection on what our future will look like.

Amped is available on Amazon, and I’m sure it will be in bookstores everywhere.

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This was a highly visual presentation (as you’d expect), and so there’s only so much I could capture in notes. I suggest you check out Des Traynor’s blog: http://blog.intercom.io

Data Visualization
Des Traynor
  • hard to make visualizations better than text
  • especially hard to make them work good on mobile, desktop, etc.
  • Be clear first and clever second. If you have to throw one of those out, throw out clever. — Jason Fried
  • Lots of examples of bad graphics:
    • unemployment rate: sloping lines in the reverse direction of the data
    • gas prices: different units of time (year vs week)
    • gulf oil spill: 
  • Who’s the level?
    • CEO level: high level
    • Analysts: trends
    • Operations/logistics: Is anything going wrong? traffic going in the right direction?
  • What department?
    • Sales: leads, conversions
    • Marketing: impressions
    • Customer support: satisfaction rating, number of issues
  • These two (level and domain) together tell you what needs to be presented
  • Six Things to Communicate
    • A single figure: a bank balance, server status
    • Single figure with context: number plus sparkline
    • Analysis of a period: a good line chart
      • Never imply precision you don’t have. e.g. for four months of data, use a bar chart, not a line chart. 
    • A common error in visualization: to force the processing on the user. If we want to look at the delta between sales and target, don’t show the numbers for each, show the delta.
      • awesome example of using cycle charts to display user retention over time by cohort analysis
    • Breakdown Over Time
  • Lying with grouping
  • Lying with rotation
  • Bar charts aren’t sexy, but they rely on an innate skill: following a line
  • When picking visualizations, use innate skills
    • determining height
  • Tufte principles:
    • Chart junk: minimize anything that does change when the data changes
    • Data Ink ratio: how much of your ink is showing something useful?
    • Smallest effective difference: the least you can do to highlight
  • Ryan Singer: HTML has a strong tag, but no weak tag. As a result, we forget to think about what we need less of.
    • Remember to quiet down your less important parts
  • Visuals should say something: some narrative or point.
  • Visuals should all be created in HTML
    • Highcharts is a Javascript library is excellent and worth the money
    • Flotr2 is new, but popular
    • D3 is immense
    • Rickshaw
  • References:

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Crystal Beasley (@skinny)
#wvpdx webvisions 2012
  • “I’ve got this really great idea for a site.”
    • sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t.
    • The Post-It note: the innovation is the glue. But then design comes in and plays with it.
    • Observation of behavior: if we cut them smaller, they can be page flags. people won’t write on them, they’ll just place them in.
      • That’s not a technological innovation. it’s a design innovation.
  • “I’ve got this really great idea for a feature.”
    • For every feature you add, the UI complexity goes up (exponentially).
    • A simple cooking web site: shows one recipe, refresh to get a different recipe.
      • Very successful. Got a book out of the the deal.
  • “Let’s put a sentence under the button to explain.”
    • When you get to the point where you are trying to explain your way through a user interface, it’s time to back up.
  • “What we’re doing here is so novel.”
    • Not usually true.
    • Even when it is true, you want to make use of existing design patterns.
    • e.g. see the yahoo user experience guidelines for pagination.
  • “I think the button should be on the right.”
    • Too many decisions are made on gut decisions.
    • “I think” is the least effective way to make that decision.
    • Don’t be a slave to your data either… Use data to inform decisions.
  • “I don’t want the user to do the thing they want to do.”
    • It doesn’t usually sound as simple as this, but this is what it boils down to.
    • maybe it is because it is counter to what your business wants, maybe it is because it is technically challenging. but you can solve it.
    • Maybe it is contacting support. (because it costs money)
    • But you have to help your customer. you have to help them do what they want to do, or you are alienating them.
  • “Maybe we need a FAQ”
    • better: give them bite-size bits of content where they need it, instead of a huge data-dump.
  • “Can’t we just pop up a confirm dialog?”
    • They interrupt too much. They are too harsh.
    • Instead, just support “undo” for whatever the action is.
  • “Let’s split this up into different steps so it seems smaller.”
    • The better approach: cut everything that isn’t absolutely essential out of the forms so there is less information to complex.
    • Recommended book: Web Form Design
  • “Make it red so it will really stand out.”
    • Then it becomes impossible to delineate what really needs to be paid attention to.
    • If you really must use red on your site, then you can use yellow for errors.
  • Navigation
    • Information Architecture
      • really important, takes time, taking learning vocabulary
    • Structural navigation: what does on what pages and how do we get there?
      • decisions are often made before a UX person gets involved.
      • Every single page should answer the questions: who are we? what are we about? where you are on the site.
  • Copy
    • Please don’t talk to users like they are a robot.
    • Error copy is particularly bad.
    • Read your copy out loud to a friend.
    • Does this sound like a sentence that one human being would say to another human being?
    • If you must have the dry robot speak, bury it under an a “more info” link.
    • Data
      • Plugins vs Extensions: Users don’t know the difference, and by dividing them into those two terms, if just confuses users.
      • Research technique: “card sorting”.
        • Put topics on cards, ask users to sort into categories and name those categories.
      • If your website organization mirrors your organization chart, then your navigation is definitely not working.
    • Jakob Nielsen Eye tracking chart: http://www.useit.com/eyetracking/
      • it’s an F pattern normally.
      • So keywords must be toward the top and to the left.
      • If the first few words of every page are the same or not useful, then you are forcing the user to have to read further, and they will miss the keywords.
  • Login
    • Did survey of top 100 sites: 
      • 90 out of top 100 sites: you can use all of the meaningful content and features of site without login
    • Make everything you can open on your site.
    • Login only when it is essential.
    • Otherwise, they will bounce away.
    • Don’t be greedy.
    • Gradual engagement is the term for this. http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1128
    • “Remember me” checkbox
      • Login is not about security, it is about recognizing the face of your friend.
      • Do everything you can to remember your users.
      • Are you going to be like a bank and timeout after 20 minutes?
        • a 15 minute cookie does help protect the user against internet cafe type intrusions.
      • Are you going to have a 24 hour timeout?
      • Having a 24-hour session cookie vs. a 4 week session cookie doesn’t really buy you any security.
      • So either do a 15 minute timeout (if you are bank level security), or do a 4 week or forever cookie.
      • Amazon remembers you forever. But for the critical stuff (e.g. to change shipping address), you have to re-auth.
      • Facebook remembers forever. Google remembers for many weeks.
      • Best practice:
        • Remember forever/long time
        • Re-authenticate for anything critical.
    • Question:
      • Q: Does using Facebook authentication reduce friction?
        • Yes, reducing friction.
        • But, huge variability in user populations.
          • Some people love it, use it for everything.
          • Some aren’t crazy about it, would rather have their own login.
          • Then there’s the tin-foil hat crowd.
      • Q: Example of a perfect site?
        • Mint.com is really good.
        • BankSimple is doing some good UI stuff
        • OKCupid: gets the subtles of the UI right. Really good polish. The way they engineer interacts on the site so get value on both sites: the user gets value and the site gets value.
  • Q: Are carousels useful?
    • Not really
  • Q: Favorite UX/design trend?
    • Save as you go. e.g. No need to submit, no worry about losing a page of stuff.
    • Save as draft.
    • e.g. shoebox (receipt tracking, OCRs photos of receipts), evernote, 
  • Q: How do you convince a boss who says a lot of these things?
    • Data, data, data.
    • That boss will love spreadsheets.
  • Q: Information architecture / card sorting. Are there documented best practices? e.g. “For industry A, these are the results…”
    • Don’t know of anything existing. Because it is as unique as your content. If your content is different, then your information architecture is different. utility navigation may be pretty much the same.

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    Discussing Design:
    The Art of Critique
    #wvpdx webvisions 2012


    Slides: http://t.co/u9mMXXBl 
    • What is critique?
      • critique and feedback are not the same thing.
      • feedback: gut response. instance reaction to something.
      • critique is an ongoing process: built on refining to create a better product.
      • it needs to be presented in such a way that it is actionable.
    • critique is about critical thinking
    • there are two facets to critique
      • giving and receiving
      • at their foundation is intent. the “why?”
      • why am i asking for feedback? why am i giving feedback?
    • giving critique with the wrong intent is selfish.
      • “I’m smart, this is wrong, I want to be validated that I’m smart.”
    • it’s about approach as well: “hey, congratulations on your launch. that’s awesome. i love the product. when you get a chance, i want to give you some feedback. can i buy you lunch or a beer or send you an email?”
    • Tips for giving critique
      • Use a filter: Gather initial thoughts and reactions. Revisit them in the right context.
      • Don’t assume: Find out the reason behind thinking, constraints or other variables.
        • Odds are, they had many constraints.
      • Don’t invite yourself: Get in touch and ask to chat about the design.
      • Lead with questions: Show an interest in their process?
        • What were your goals?
        • What were you trying to do with that?
      • Talk about strengths. Critiques are not just about things that aren’t working. It’s also about understanding what is working well: to maintain or to build on.
    • Receiving critique with the right intent takes humility and meekness
      • Remove yourself from the setting. It’s about the product.
      • Don’t ask for feedback if you aren’t ready to receive and act on and think about.
      • Remember the purpose: critique is about understanding and improvement, not judgement.
      • Listen and think before you talk back. Do you understand what the critics are saying?
        • Don’t be thinking about your rebuttal while they are talking.
      • Refer to the goals. Is what you’re hearing pertinent to the goals you’re trying to achieve?
      • Participate. Analyze your proposed solution along with everyone else.
    • Critique is a life skill, it is not a design skill.
      • It applies to sports, cooking, anything that you can do.
    • Making critique part of your process
    • Design Reviews
      • This is not part of design review. You can have 30 people in a design review. Half the people there don’t care.
      • design review is not a critique
      • critique is impromptu, or scheduled, but it comes before design review.
    • Critique is a skill. You only get better with practice.
    • Start small.
    • Think before you speak.
    • Choose who you critique with carefully.
    • Rules of Critique
      • Avoid problem solving and design decisions.
      • The designer is responsible for follow up and decisions.
      • Everyone is equal.
      • Everyone is a critic.
        • Don’t let people be silent…because they’ll come back two months later with feedback, and it’ll be too late to address it then.
    • Goals are critical for successful critique
      • Scope the critique session: “today i want to talk about flow”, “today i want to talk about this one UI component”.
    • Who should you invite?
      • 4-6 people.
    • Tools and techniques
      • Active Listening, question for clarity
      • Round robin
      • direct inquiry
      • quotas
      • six thinking hats: emotional perspective, behavioral perspective, etc. 
      • Facilitators
        • Helpful in the beginning, but as you get more experienced, you will want to take control of your conversation yourself.
    • Handling difficult people
      • Set expectations at the beginning. “We’re not here to talk about the color. We’re here to discuss this UI component.”
      • Make sure everyone understand critique.
      • Ask quiet people for feedback directly.
      • Refer back to personas, goals and principles.
      • Use laddering (the 5 whys).
      • Critique with people individually ahead of time.
        • Get them out of a group session. It’ll be more civil. They won’t flare their peacock feathers.

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      Notes from Thor Muller’s talk at Webvisions 2012 (#wvpdx)

      Get Lucky: The Business of Planned Serendipity
      Thor Muller
      • A lot of success is luck.
      • But how can we manufacture luck? Can we create chance encounters?
      • There’s nothing random about luck.
      • GetSatisfaction
        • Started with a joke. (So many great scientific breakthroughs came from play.)
        • We could start a shwag of the month club. And we did, and within two months had 2,000 subscribers. But fulfillment is hard, and customer service is even harder. Hundreds of emails every day.
        • But we discovered that customers would repost our answers to them, and would ask questions on the web.
        • So founded GetSatisfaction. Now have 65,000 paid customers.
      • Serendipity = chance + creativity
      • Recent research shows that we can do more/different to enable creativity in ourselves. We can read the owner’s manual for our minds.
      • But… we’re wired to avoid risk and change. We want predictibility.
      • So how do we let in unpredictability and predictability at the same time?
      • The answer is planned serendipity
      • http://bit.ly/liHRUy
      • Jane’s Story
      • Preparation
        • “Chance favors the prepared mind.”
        • Obsessive curiosity. Going deep. Following curiosity further than is normal.
        • Jane’s first obsession was sculpture
        • Notice the anomalies. The things that don’t fit. (Most business people look for the similarities.) Arresting the exception
        • Forget what you know to be true. This is important to be able to make big leaps. Otherwise beliefs limit you. 
        • Jane went to school
          • played with materials. made something out of silicon and wood chips. it amused her that it was a bouncing wooden ball. 
          • When we think concretely, it’s about things very near to us in time, space, relationships.
          • When we think abstractly, we’re able to connect things beyond categories, because we’re seeing things from a much higher level perspective.
          • when Jane went into her materials workshop, she came in with a sculptor’s mentality. 
        • Structures you can use to create this: 20% time
      • Motion
        • To stir the pot. Run into new ideas and new people. Open space.
        • taking the materials workshop helped jane run into new ideas and new people.
        • computer models show that diversity helps solve complex problems.
          • when people are the same, and they tackle the problem, they all get stuck in the same place.
          • when people are very different, and they tackle a problem, they get stuck in different places.
          • the problem with the workplace is that we stick everyone into cubicles, so they can’t talk.
        • Structures to create: pot-stirring events and open space
      • Commitment
        • To have an overriding purpose. To stick to that purpose. 
          • Which implies: knowing what to say ‘no’ to.
        • Overly broad mission statements don’t help us unless they tell us what to say ‘no’ to.
        • Decision fatigue: the more decisions we make, the worse decisions we make. the decisions become arbitrary.
        • By knowing what to say no to automatically, we have more willpower left for the decisions that do matter.
        • Structure to create: The automatic No-list
      • Attraction
        • Jane talked to everyone about: scientists, media people, fellow students. 
        • Project your sense of purpose out into the world.
        • It changes what the world sees as possible.
        • And it gives people a place to come if they care.
        • For Jane, it brought people in who could contribute their skills.
        • Will to Meaning
        • Interviewed a group of people to assess first the sense of purpose of the people. then asked the people to do a 10 minute introduction of themselves. Then showed the videos to other people and asked viewers to rate the attractiveness of the speakers. Those people who had a higher sense of purpose were rated as vaster more attractive across the board.
      • Divergence
        • Branching strategy
        • Jane got a 35,000 pound grant. but the material was imperfect. that wasn’t enough money to do the necessary rounds of testing. the only way she could do it was to do the research and testing herself. she spent two years and taught herself materials science on the fly to perfect the material.
      • The Hidden Bias Against Creativity
        • Inserting uncertainty into a situation caused people to rank creative ideas in a negative way or with negative connotations. (the example given was a study in which some participations were told they would be entered into a lottery to win a prize. this uncertainty caused negative responses.)
      • Permeability:
        • Customer Community

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      content specialist on the UX team at AKQA
      (Sorry, again came 15 minutes late to session, so notes are incomplete.)
      • Dolphins use ecolocation to form a 3D projection of the world
        • Can also transmit the 3D representation to other dolphins
        • There’s no word for “tuna”. There’s a compressed 3D representation of a tuna.
        • Two dolphins from different parts of the world can come together and communicate a plan using 3D representations of the world, without having to use vocabulary or symbolism.
      • Scale of Context Dependency
        • an in-joke is an example of a highly context dependent communication
        • other end
      • Resolution
        • Project high, design low
        • We don’t know what resolution things will be consumed at. So we want to project at high fidelity, but design for low.
      • Speed
        • We don’t know what kind of frame rate an alien would receive.
        • So we again want to project for highest possible, but design for slowest.
          • e.g. we don’t design a website that requires the transfer of 3 mb of video data before getting to the point, for a user on a smartphone. 
        • Play at several speeds at once.
      • Strength
        • Build up the signal from a very low strength and give it a stop button.
        • Don’t send anything that, if returned, could kill you.
      • Channel
        • The frequency of visual spectrum, audio range. For humans, we know we can smell roses, hear certain range of sounds. With alien users, we can’t know. All of the animals we know can receive more than one channel.
        • So we want to use many parallel channels
      • Devices
        • Devices we’re born with: native devices. eyes, ears. signals being experiences as raw, direct.
        • Non-native devices: picks up channels we can’t physically receive and translates them into channels we can. We can’t receive radio waves, but we can translate it into audio signals that we can listen to. We can’t receive IP packets, but we can render a twitter stream visually in the shapes of letters.
        • Design for the native device:
          • The best way to represent a water bottle is with a video or a photo of it.
      • Assume the user has the ability to project a tool as an extension of itself
      • If you know nothing about your user, you have to do a lot of work. The more you know, the less work you have to do.
      • Don’t let the what ifs stop you.

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      Trust Me, I’m a Designer
      #wvpdx webvisions 2012
      (Came 15 minutes late to session, so I am missing the notes for the first three principles.)
      • First: Keep Promises
      • Second: Show Results
      • Third: Know Your Voice
      • Fourth: Respect Context
        • if we give the user the wrong interface for their context, they aren’t going to trust us. e.g. giving them the full website experience when they are on their smartphone, or the smartphone experience on their desktop computer.
          • Context Prevents Confusion
      • Fifth: Transition Changes
        • Change Blindness:
          • If we go from one picture to black to a modified version of the picture, we can’t see it. We have change blindness. 
          • By comparison, if we transition directly from one photo to the other without anything in between, then we can easily see the change.
          • By default, web page loads are more like the former: you click a link, the page goes away, and a new page comes in. It may not be obvious what happened.
          • If we use transitions, it preserves context and makes the user feel more comfortable.
      • Sixth principle: Guide, Don’t Dictate
        • Our natural tendency is to tell people what to do. And we tell them the way we would do it.
        • But we don’t like being told what to do.
        • Showed version of gorilla video: people passing ball, count the passes.
          • except a player leaves the team and the curtain changes color.
          • no one sees that.
        • When I tell you what to do, then you’re going to focus on it. 
          • They’re going to worry that you’re trying to do a sleight of hand on them.
          • Don’t fall for the sleight of hand.
        • If you guide someone, if you give them choices, then they are going to trust you.
      • Seventh principle: Show, Then Tell
        • We seek patterns
        • Example website:
          • Each page has a very large photo that identifies the page: e.g. an image of a building he built, a photo of a person for the bio.
          • the image sets the tone for the page.
          • then give the text
      • Eighth principle: Make it simple, not simplistic.
        • Steve Krugue: Don’t make me think – http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758
          • But he’s not saying “Don’t let me think”
          • Simple: Don’t make me think
          • Simplistic: Don’t let me think
        • Example: netflix
          • interfaces are context specific and very simple
          • interface is simple: just photos and titles
          • but I roll over titles to see the details, drill in and get more details, search on attributes
          • unveil the information when people need it
      • Ninth Principle: Always Leave Them Wanting More
        • To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible, to be credible, we must be truthful. — Edward R. Murrow