100 Things You Should Know about People: #1-- Inattention Blindness

I've decided to start a series called 100 Things You Should Know about People. As in: 100 things you should know if you are going to design an effective and persuasive website, web application or software application. Or maybe just 100 things that everyone should know about humans!

The order that I'll present these 100 things is going to be pretty random. So the fact that this first one is first doesn't mean that's it's the most important.. just that it came to mind first.

I hope you enjoy this series. Make sure to let me know by posting comments.

So here's #1 -- Inattention Blindness

First let's start with a little test for you to take. Watch the video below:




This is an example of what is called "inattention blindness" or "change blindness". The idea is that people often miss large changes in their visual field. This has been shown in many experiments. Here is a description of an experiment that was recently conducted:



So what does this mean if you are designing a website or something on a computer screen? It means that you can't assume that just because something is on the screen means that people see it. This is especially true when you refresh a screen and make one change on it. People may not realize they are even looking at a different screen. Remember, just because something happens in the visual field doesn't mean that people are consciously aware of it.