Archive Page 2
The Psychology of Casino’s
Anyone who has been to Las Vegas will know that casinos are fascinating places. According to Kati St Clair, a business psychologist, the aim is to induce a trance-like state in gamblers.
Casinos make you feel intimate, enclosed, euphoric; you’re in a suggestible state in which you want to stay where you are, continuing to do what you are doing,
So how do they do it?
Sense of time
There are no windows or clocks. Gamblers have no idea whether it’s light or dark or sunny or rainy outside. Time becomes meaningless.
Navigation
There’s intentionally poor navigation. They are built like mazes meaning it’s usually tough to find a way out. They even build the floors on a minimum slope to the center of the casino so that you automatically walk to the center of the casino.
Music
There’s a constant barrage of noises. Slot machines spin, games ding and dong, coins hit metal, there’s the pitter patter of the people running the games, etc. Many of these sounds, like the ringing of the slots, is there to give you a false sense of hope (“If all of those bells are ringing, somebody must be winning!”).
Placement
Loose slot machines — ones that pay out more often — are placed near highly trafficked areas (e.g. the aisles, change booth, restaurants, etc.) so more people witness winners.
Scents
Gamblers at the Las Vegas Hilton Casino spent 50 percent more time playing slot machines when the space was perfumed with a floral scent than when it smelled like an everyday casino. The stronger the fragrance, the longer individuals gambled.
The result: a completely immersive and compelling customer experience.
Filed under: Marketing, Psychology | 3 Comments
Dieter Rams Influence
I have always been a great fan of Apple and their industrial design. Jonathan Ive, Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple, is the principal designer of the iPod, Macbook Pro, iPhone and the iMac. But where does he gets his inspiration. Look no further than Dieter Rams. Rams was a key figure in German design and worked as head of Braun’s design staff in the 60s.
Quotes from Rams reveal a parity with the design ethos of Jonathan Ive:
As designers we have a great responsibility. I believe designers should eliminate the unnecessary. That means eliminating everything that is modish because this kind of thing is only short-lived.
Jonathan Ive’s dedication to “honesty” and “simplicity” in design pays great homages to Dieter Rams’ 10 Commandants in Design:
• Good design is innovative.
• Good design makes a product useful.
• Good design is aesthetic.
• Good design helps us to understand a product.
• Good design is unobtrusive.
• Good design is honest.
• Good design is durable.
• Good design is consequent to the last detail.
• Good design is concerned with the environment.
• Good design is as little design as possible.
And here are some similarities between Braun and Apple Products.
Braun T1000 radio and PowerMac G5/Mac Pro
Detail of the radio perforated aluminum surface
Braun T3 pocket radio and Apple iPod
Braun LE1 speaker and Apple iMac
Braun ET66 calculator and the Calculator on the iPhone
Braun clock and an interface element on the iPhone
Filed under: Design | 2 Comments
More great billboards
A few months ago I posted some cool billboards using their natural surroundings: link. Well here are a few more:
Bic:
Kill Bill
Woodland Climbing Shoes
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Where the hell is Matt?
14 months in the making, 42 countries, and a cast of thousands. Dance connects humanity as one!
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Going on a vacation this summer? Just bought that expensive and fancy camera? Take a look at these amazing photo’s. And remember the following tip when taking photo’s: Try to use a different perspective on your object.
Filed under: Design | 2 Comments
The curse of knowledge
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, tells the story about making stories stick. One of the subject they discuss is the curse of knowlegde.
Elizabeth Newton, a psychologist, conducted an experiment on the curse of knowledge while working on her doctorate at Stanford in 1990. She gave one set of people, called “tappers,” a list of commonly known songs from which to choose. Their task was to rap their knuckles on a tabletop to the rhythm of the chosen tune as they thought about it in their heads. A second set of people, called “listeners,” were asked to name the songs.
Before the experiment began, the tappers were asked how often they believed that the listeners would name the songs correctly. On average, tappers expected listeners to get it right about half the time. In the end, however, listeners guessed only 3 of 120 songs tapped out, or 2.5 percent.
The tappers were astounded. The song was so clear in their minds; how could the listeners not “hear” it in their taps?
That’s a common reaction when experts set out to share their ideas in the business world. It’s why engineers design products ultimately useful only to other engineers. It’s why managers have trouble convincing the rank and file to adopt new processes. And it’s why the advertising world struggles to convey commercial messages to consumers.
I have a DVD remote control with 52 buttons on it, and every one of them is there because some engineer along the line knew how to use that button and believed I would want to use it, too. “People who design products are experts cursed by their knowledge, and they can’t imagine what it’s like to be as ignorant as the rest of us.”
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Reading without vowels?
Wierdest news item I have seen in while in a dutch newspaper called “de pers”. They removed lots of vowels to make to title fit in the space instead of using a smaller fonttype. Intresting experiment because most people still can read the title perfectly fine.
Barack Obama zoekt vicepresident (Barack Obama searches vicepresident)
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Football Experience!
Yesterday I saw the first football match of the Netherland against Italie in the european championships. And it was great! It’s always nice to see a good match but with some friends and beer its a total different experience. To surf with the football hype Wieden+Kennedy recently made this viral video for Fifa street 3, and its super cool!
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Context over Dogma
BMW recently put out an video about a new design concept. The GINA is a roadster concept on which the usual body sheet metal found on production vehicles such as bonnet, side panels and doors have been all replaced with a special, flexible, highly durable and extremely expansion-resistant fabric material that stretches across a metal wire structure.
Why should designers and for that matter, car manufactures, restrict themselves in the use of common materials for the outer body? Why not use a flexible textile cover that could not only open an all-new world in car designing but also save money and consume less resources and energy than previous solutions. Context over Dogma!
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