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Concept Frontier

Information Architecture UX ProTip

18/2/2016

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This article was written for members of the Intranet Professionals LinkedIn group. But the full text didn't fit there, so I'm publishing it publicly on here instead for any UX nerd to learn something cool. 

Hello intranet experts! 

I’m making an intranet for a client. We’ve adapted a solidly performing IA from the company's previous intranet. 

So I’m rebuilding the dynamic main menu that contains the IA. Hover the mouse over the first level section (1LS), and it displays its 2nd level sections (2LS). Hover over one of those, you get a list of 3LSs and articles. Hover over a 3LS and you get a list of its articles. Click article, get info. Familiar right?

This approach means that for a bit of mouse wiggling, ONE click, and ONE page-load, users can navigate to any intranet content. Love it! A worthy Golden Standard for menus.

But In order for this menu to perform intuitively, I’ve got to arrange these 2LSs in the order in which they’re most used. Doing the Product section, for example, the 2LS “Carpet” is first because this company sells more carpet than “Tiles”. More “Tiles” than “Commercial”. More “Commercial” than “Accessories” like curtains and rugs. 

Then I think about that last comparison. Yes, Commercial flooring forms a major revenue stream. But! There are more actual transactions in which small products (like rugs and curtains) are sold to customers. 

So which should I place higher in this dropdown menu? And there’s the epiphany: 

I shouldn’t be sequencing these menus items based on revenue OR sales at all! 

I should be sequencing them based on HOW OFTEN my lovely users look up content in these 2LSs. Maybe they need to refer to a table several times per sale for one product — or can sell some products without looking anything up. 

​Therefore I need to use actual web metrics and user behaviours to determine the right page order, and focus on the question “which content is looked at with the highest frequency?” 

This is common sense for you IA pros, but I am one of those too and this very nearly caught me out. So I figured I’d share that with you. 

Why do I bother screwing around with these menu to such a tiny degree of detail? 

Because the pay off is in micro-movements of the wrist — by not having to move the mouse cursor as many millimetres when navigating in this precise little menu. In tangible terms that stuff adds up to faster work time. Because every client's users deserve a precision solution.

In intangible terms the pay off is in less reading. I’m talking about the psychological aspect of “Why the scrud is this insignificant category higher in the menu the main product category!?”

Avoiding those little moments yields a better user experience. Which can also be measured in knowledge worker satisfaction, and ultimately productivity, ROI, and all those other big quality metrics. 

I’d love to hear other IA epiphanies like this if you guys have got them to share. I find the little details of making incredible information-seeking experiences infinitely interesting. :) 

Michael ​
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Why The Term "Overrated" is Overrated

5/2/2016

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​​You’ve heard it. You might even have said it. Comments like: 
 
“Most overrated film ever.” 
“She is such an underrated actor.” 
“He’s so overrated.”

So we are talking about ratings. Jolly good! ​What system of rating are you discussing? 

The metacritic score of a film? Terrific, that’s a real and commonly recognisable rating system! In this case, the comment has meaning! 
Embed from Getty Images

Or do you mean the number of Academy Award nominations an actor received? Hmm, that’s not actually a formal system of rating in itself, but OK if that’s what you mean. The comment kind of has meaning. 

Your perception of popularity among humans? Oh dear. This is what the comment tries and fails to express whenever no formal and recognisable system of rating applies; one is being appealed to for its authority. The problem is, that appeal is fictional and the authority non-existent. All that non-meaning packaged up into a one word implication. Impressive!

So what’s the problem with that? 

The problem is not saying what we mean. 

It’s a hazardous habit to practice! By stating an assumption that a formal and recognisable rating system exists for objectively measuring the subject’s value, use of the terms “overrated” and “underrated” tries and fails to frame the speaker’s subjective and personal opinion in an objectively measurable way. 

That, friends, is what we call a “crap shoot”.

The behaviour achieves nothing more than the complete benefit denial of the conversation. Who wants that? Nobody! 

Can we explore in more detail what the speaker may mean when using the word “underrated” or its opposite? 

Here’s my interpretation of it with a logic breakdown. It’s perhaps not the only possible breakdown, but it’s the one I feel can be most broadly applied. Phraseology is based on how I typically think and communicate. 

Comprehension Logic

External conversational input: “Subject is underrated.” 
Rated by what system? 
If no system exists: 
Rating = subjective value assessment? 
The speaker has specified their subjective valuation as objective truth. 
Red flag: Speaker has mistaken feelings for facts. 
Can we define the speaker's “rating”? 
Rating = subjective value assessment by others. 
Deduction: “The subject is undervalued by others.” 
Can we define “value” further? 
Value = "Appreciation of the subject." 
Deduction: The speaker is claiming “The subject is under-appreciated by others.” 
Can we define “others” further?
Others = "All people who are not the speaker." 
Deduction (assuming our speculative definitions apply): The speaker is claiming “All humans except myself do not appreciate the subject enough.” 
Red flag: Speaker is specifying what others should feel! 
Deduction: Speaker believes others' feelings to be erroneous. 
Has the speaker stated a benefit offered by the subject that all other human beings are unaware of and therefore failing to appreciate?
If no: 
Deduction: Speaker's intent is emotion-policing (rather than emotion-influencing). 
Red flag: Speaker has demonstrated quite a hostile agenda.

Conversation Logic

New information required: Speaker’s agenda for the current interaction. 

“What do you want to achieve in this conversation?”

“Do you aim to change my appreciation level on the subject?” 

“Do you understand that selling benefits is your best shot at doing that, rather than appealing to a non existing rating system authority?” 

New information desired: Speaker’s motivations. 

“Do you want all other people to like the subject with more intensity?”

“Do you want more people to like the subject at all?”

“Do you want people to think about the subject more often?"

“Why do you want to modify others' appreciation level?” 

“Why do you not trust others to feel how they want to feel about the subject?”

“Why should others not be free to like and dislike subjects as they please?”

​The COMPREHENSION LOGIC above happens fast. Thoughts are fast. By identifying that no formal and recognisable rating system exists, interpreting the comment for what it is — an expression of desire to modify what other people like — leads almost immediately to the universally useful question “what do you want to achieve in this conversation?”. 

The CONVERSATION LOGIC is slow to get through. Speaking is slow. Asking all those questions turns what was quite likely just a clumsily expressed feeling into an impromptu intent interview and analysis of the speaker. Not necessarily an effective use of your time. 

Nevertheless! It’s useful to be aware of why garbage-grade phrasings like “overrated” and “underrated” are so worthless so that you can address them if and when you feel like doing so. 

It’s not known what the effects long term effects are of allowing subjectivity to masquerade as objectivity in human communication. Maybe you’re fine with that. But now you have a perspective to help you spot it. 

The way I feel about subjective issues being phrased in a faux-objective manner is that it’s the conversational equivalent of blowing smoke into someone else’s face; it’s unpleasant, wholly useless, and worst of all... it stinks! 
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The Reproductive Cycle of the Wrongdoer

24/1/2016

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​Wrongdoing is simple, right?

​Any action resulting in a more significant negative consequence than positive consequence. Because actions are measured by their consequences. 
Wait a minute! Doesn’t wrongdoing just mean “crime”?

Not exactly. That’s because not all crimes are wrong — they’re just against the rules. Dumpster diving is illegal in some parts of the world, yet it has the positive consequences of providing food to hungry humans and efficiently recycling waste, with no negative consequences. Moreover, not all legal behaviours have a positive effect! Calling someone a tanglebutt (or worse) is quite legal, but it’s more likely to have a negative effect than a positive one. Laws should ideally stand against the things that are most widely accepted as wrong, but our legislative systems are currently just as flawed as our behaviours. More on crime and law in a subsequent article. 
Embed from Getty Images

​For now though, let’s dive deeper into the dumpster not of law, but of wrongdoing. 

The definition of wrongdoing is therefore purely dependent on your definitions of “negative” and “positive”. But many of us agree on the big stuff: harming people’s bodies is negative. Gaining resources is positive. Trading useless resources that are beneficial to another party in kind is very positive. 

To objectively to determine the wrongness or rightness of a given action there’s a complex analysis to be done on any behaviour, involving the negative and positive impact of all known consequences. We usually handle that just based on how we feel about stuff. 

We’re pretty good at that. 

But it’s interesting to understand why wrongdoing perpetuates. Wouldn’t it be good if everyone, before taking an action, considered in advance the positive and negative consequences of that action and based the decision to act or not act or modify the action based on maximising positive effect? Yes it would. 

In fact we would call it Utopia. 

But we don’t have time for the decision analysis it would take to achieve utopia. Until that’s automated we’ll carry on with the trial and error, to gain decision informing data a hell of a lot faster than premeditative research would yield. 

Fair enough. 

But until we can automate the information acquisition requisite for exclusively positive-effect decision making (also called “rightdoing”), we are going to continue accepting a bit of wrongdoing in our own and others’ behaviour. 

Like its counterpart rightdoing, the consequences of wrongdoing can affect others. Those to whom rightdoing is done are called benefactors. Those to whom wrongdoing is done are called victims. 

Also like rightdoing, wrongdoing can carry consequences of replication. Another way of saying that is:
Every wrongdoer was a victim first.
Wrongdoing replicates itself in a nasty way: by a wrongdoer turning people into victims (bad enough) -— but then turning some of those victims into wrongdoers! 

Here’s the diagram of how it works. 
Picture
A model of wrongdoing as a self-replicating behavioural system
​“Yuck! Some baddie can turn me into a baddie! And there’s nothing I can do about it?” 

There’s actually a lot you can do about it. In fact, when you’re victimised, the only part that’s out of your control is the victimisation and suffering. Yes, those are done to you. Everything after that is over to you, and you can act or fail to act as you please. 

Most victimisations result in a resolution. That can take many forms. It might be grand, like the breakthrough result after years of therapy. Or it could be as dull as “getting over” the event. The definition of a resolution is making the choice not to have your behaviour and identity negatively affected by the victimisation. 

If that fails, however, the result is bad. That result means that an act of wrongdoing has had such an impact on the victim that it has resulted in (perhaps consciously untraceable) behaviour and identity changes resulting in more negative-result behaviours being undertaken than would have been undertaken had the victim not been victimised. 

What do I mean by “untraceable”? Can the causation of wrongdoing be traced back to earlier experiences of victimisation? Or more generally, can the causation of any human behaviour be traced back to its causative experiences? 

In an adequate therapeutic environment, theoretically yes. 

In our current era we rarely bother. It would be useful, but much like doing premeditative research in decision making, it currently fits in the too hard basket. 

But there’s good news. 

Like any field of science, psychology is making progress. Rehabilitation is on the increase, and the fundamental tenet of it... 
understanding why humans behave the way they behave
...is on the rise as well. 

Utopia, as we defined it above, is not yet within reach. Not even close. 

But it is in this direction. 
Thanks for learning! 
Michael
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Stop Throwing Ideas Away! Learn How to Record them Properly

20/1/2016

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​You have thousands of ideas every day.

So many, and so often, that you take it completely for granted. 

​Some of them are ideas that no mind has ever had before. How many of those could make you money?

​How many valuable ideas do you lose forever because you don’t write them down?

Whether you can answer those questions or not, the fact is this: you need a fast and easy way to record your brain's most valuable thoughts. 
Embed from Getty Images

And here it is.

MY DISCLAIMER: You can record ideas
 using any model at all. I developed this model to maximise the effort to reward ratio of producing the idea record. I use this model every day, and it's been instrumental in capturing a large enough volume of ideas that I am able to pick the ones I like most to create fun and revenue-generating side projects from them. This is something anyone can do, and banking ideas is a key part of it. 

Now onto the model. It's got 3 parts.
 

1. Observation

Example Observations

This is where you describe the key observation you made. It might be a problem or an inefficiency or something non-existent that would be more useful if it existed.

For this one you think critically!

You must be clear what the point of the issue is.

​If someone asked “What’s the benefit of this idea?” you point to the Observation and say “Because it changes this.”
A problem
Observation: The only chewing gum products available to me are too soft. I want to work my jaw muscles properly when I chew gum.

An inefficiency
Observation: Writing a full grocery list manually every week is time consuming. It should be more automated.

Something new
​
Observation: There’s no online quiz that asks you “What do you like more?” a bunch of times to help me identify the colours, shapes, corners, drop shadows, fonts, and other stuff that it outputs into a comprehensive CSS file you can plug straight into your website without having to learn CSS.
 

2. Opportunity

Example Opportunities

This is where you describe what could happen to solve the problem, make the improvement, or do something that’s never been done.
​

For this one you think imaginatively!

You need to honestly describe an effective solution. This is the exciting part of the idea!

​If someone asked “What can we do about the problem?” you point to the Opportunity and say “This is the solution.”
A problem
Opportunity: I should learn how gum is made and what it’s made from, and make a firmer gum of my own that will properly exercise my jaw muscles. I could then produce and sell, or license the recipe commercially for other people to benefit from.

An inefficiency
Opportunity: I could set up sensors into my fridge that update an online list when particular foods and liquids are depleted by a certain amount. In doing so, my grocery list becomes automated for every food and drink I have a sensor and dedicated place for.
Something new
​
​
Opportunity: Someone with the capability to code should make that online quiz. I could design it and pay someone to code it.
 

3. Objective

Example Objectives

This is where you specify what you want to get out of this idea. How can it create value for you? 

For this one you think selfishly!

If someone asked “What’s in it for you?” you point to the Observation. And maybe smirk a little bit.
​

Why is this step important? Because it's what brings you back to the idea. It's what motivates you to act. If you desire something: recognition, a feeling of having accomplished something, pride at having created something new, or just plain old money, then you're likely to do something to achieve it.

If there's not a very clear reward for you, the idea will never be realised through effort. 
A problem
Objective: Get a life supply of quality gum that I can make in my kitchen easily.
Sell my recipe to a major manufacturer.

An inefficiency
Objective: Have a fully automated grocery list in my phone that I don’t even have to spend time thinking about.
Fully document my system spec and license the technology to “smart appliance” manufacturers.

Something new
Objective: Create a widely useful “software as a service” CSS generator for non coders.
Charge for use, give it away free, or monetise it some other way. ​
And that's it!
That’s your new system for recording your ideas. These records aren’t going to be big, until you flesh them out and write in the details: crossing the threshold from an IDEA to a DESIGN.

You can create a Google Drive document for each idea. Very useful if you want to create an Idea Bank you can browse any time you’re inspired to work on something you find interesting! Also gives you space to add details to develop the idea into a design, and write up the development plan.

Or just jot them into a note-taking app on your phone, or a notebook, and keep them there.

The beauty of this system is that it’s so concise that you can even write an idea on the back of your hand if you just need to get it down fast! Memory is fickle -- don’t ever believe your brain when it tells you “this idea is so good I’ll never forget it!” The fact is, without regular thought-cycling, your brain can and will forget anything... even a million dollar idea!

Feel like giving an idea away? Write an idea on public bathroom wall, and you might just create the most high-value graffiti ever published. Or you can Tweet it with the tag #FreeIdea and maybe someone else will benefit from your genius!

Whatever you do with your ideas, record them with Observation, Opportunity, and Objective. When you come back to them after 12 years they will still be perfectly intelligible and unambiguous in their context, their benefit, and their value to you.

This idea recording model is really just condensed common sense: All ideas are based on a key observation, like a personal problem, or a market gap, or an inefficiency. All new ideas have an opportunity to do something different and new. And all ideas can be assigned (by you) an objective so you can use the opportunity to gain value (i.e. get what you want).

Or create value for others (i.e. give someone else what they want).

Or both (i.e. everyone gets what they want).


You have that power. So use it! No more wasting ideas. 

Thanks for learning!
Michael 
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And now for something completely different

3/1/2016

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My last painting of 2015 is good enough to be my first post of 2016. Have a prosperous 2016, all you information superstars. Let nothing stand in your way. 

​Michael
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Video: How to Stop Fearing What People Think!

28/12/2015

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This new video on the Concept Frontier InfoPod introduces the incredibly pervasive Fear of Reaction.

AND it gives you an absurdly easy way to prevent it ruining your decisions.

That's a high value way to spend 5 minutes! 
Now you can beat the Fear of Reaction whenever it comes up. Aren't you clever? 

Help our channel grow by giving the greatest gift of all:  your LIKE! 

If you're serious about information SUBSCRIBE to our channel and become an Information Superstar! 

Thanks for learning! I'll see you in the next video. 
Michael Pritchard
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How and Why You Should Control Your Emotions

18/12/2015

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Having a positive experience in life includes taking responsibility for ones actions. All clear-thinking people seem to do this most of the time with little effort. 

But it also includes taking responsibility for our emotions. 

All of your emotions.

And it's not that often that we do this. 

Typically, the closest we come to the level of self-awareness that compels us to discuss our feelings is by saying things like:

"You made me angry." 
"That makes me sad." 
"This makes me feel uneasy." 
"She made it awkward." 
"This depresses me." 

We hear comments like these all the time. But even though they sound legitimate, and certainly feel truthful while we say them, every one of those statements
– and indeed any statement discussing feelings in the same sentence structure – is completely untrue. 

Let's substantiate that with a basic fact. 
The mind creates every emotion that it experiences.
Every emotional reaction that a human has arises from exclusively internal sources. The emotion itself is dictated by a series of rules that are ultimately determined by the values, beliefs, desires, needs, and expectations of the person experiencing the feeling. We launch this rule evaluation process in response to an external perception, a memory, or a new thought, but such triggers don't create emotions: our rules do.

Most of our lives we perceive things, remember things, or think things with no emotional reaction. How much emotion are you responding with to the sensation of pressure caused by part of your bodyweight passing through your feet while you're reading this? How much emotion do you give to seeing an individual blade of grass on a lawn? Or your keys where you left them, or a stranger talking on the phone? There's any number of things we don't have an emotional reaction to. 

By the fact that we experience so much that we don't react emotionally to, we can deduce that our rules only apply in certain situations. That means there are rules that determine when an emotional response is even warranted. This tells us that our emotions are controlled wholly by our rules. 

​Here's a list of major factors involved in our rule making. As you read each definition, identify some of your own values, expectations, beliefs, desires, and needs that are involved in some of the stronger emotional responses you have had. Write them down if you're serious about gaining control over your emotions. 

Values

​Values are the principles by which we define what's acceptable and unacceptable. 

They're determined by our beliefs and needs.

They influence our desires and expectations.
​
They also influence our beliefs. Note the circular logic inherent between forming beliefs and values: wanting something to be true can cause us actually believe it to be true, for better or for worse. 

Expectations

Expectations are what we think is likely to happen; the results of our judgement. They can be formed consciously (as in the Deductive Reasoning Process) or unconsciously.

They're influenced by beliefs. 

Beliefs

​Beliefs are our personal perception of truth and fact. 

They determine our values. 

They're also influenced by our values (as mentioned above) and by our desires and needs.  

Desires

​Desires are the rewards we want from our efforts. Desire is one of the two fundamental motivating factors for all human behaviours. 

They're determined by our needs and values. 

Needs

​Needs are what will cause us to avoid suffering. Need is one of the two fundamental motivating factors for all human behaviours. 

They're predetermined by our physiology, and detailed best in the Maslow Hierarchy. 

​They're influenced by our values. 

The substance of these elements is determined by only two motivating factors: biological compulsion and free will. The lowest two rungs of the Maslow Hierarchy describe the biological compulsion. Free will determines all of the rest. 

Free will, however, is exactly that: the ability to consciously or unconsciously select values, beliefs, behaviours, desires, and expectations. This selection exists exclusively at the whim of the individual concerned. No other force than your own mind has any influence over these. 

These elements comprise the process which yields an emotional response to a stimulus. The process is triggered whenever our trigger rules' criteria are met. A common example would be perceiving something we deem significant (like hearing someone speak, suffering a heart attack, seeing a helicopter explode mid-flight, feeling a tortoise walk across our foot, smelling a cup of coffee, and so on). Once the process is triggered, the new information passes through the ruleset, and the result determines what emotional response we will then have. 

The fact that every emotion you experience cannot reasonably be blamed on external factors is vital to keep in mind.

Because the emotions come from you; if you don't like them then it's up to you alone to figure out how to change them.

Fortunately you can achieve that systematically. 

So how can I control my emotions? 

Controlling your emotions means rewriting your personal rulebook.

You can manipulate the ruleset by creating values, expectations, beliefs, desires, and needs that make the most sense to you based on your own best judgement.

Throughout your life to date this has largely happened automatically. But now you're about to find that exerting conscious effort to tailor beliefs is not only possible, but extremely useful. It's the only way to make changes to the internal ruleset that determines the emotional response in any situation. 

The first step is to record all your values, beliefs, needs, desires, and expectations. Needs you can get from Maslow's  Hierarchy of Needs and you can't change them – everything else you'll need to delve into your own psyche. 

Once you have your list, consider the merit of each item. When did you form it? Who does it help? How much does it help? Who does it hurt? How much does it hurt? 

WHY did you form it in the first place? 

What emotional response does it produce most often? 

Is there a chance it be based on incorrect information? 

What can you change about it to make it more helpful? 

Why do you feel so strongly about keeping it? 

In this process of rule-analysis, beliefs will be very difficult to change. Values even more so. You'll feel strong emotions as you try. You can manage that by coming back to it later. But to take control of your emotions you need to get through the whole list, and add any other buried beliefs to the list as they come up. 

For each item in your rulebook, you'll face the decision of which is more important: The old belief OR your desire to control your emotions. The more you compromise on this and retain beliefs that produce in you strong negative emotions, the less emotional control you'll end up with. 

Additional techniques and exercises and techniques for editing ones own beliefs, expectations, desires, and values will follow in subsequent articles – including the introduction of the DORVA Scale of emotion measurement coming soon! (release date: 1 January 2016) 

Immediate Changes 

Perhaps the most valuable change you can make immediately is to stop blaming your feelings on other people or events, and start taking responsibility for ALL of them yourself. This will require a change to the way you discuss them.

Instead of saying "This event made me feel <emotion>," phrase it more accurately: "I feel <emotion> because I disliked that event." 

Ask yourself why you disliked the event. What values did it offend? What beliefs did it contradict? What expectation did it thwart? What desire or need did the event deny you, or someone else? 

By examining the reasons for any strong feelings you have, you'll turn up beliefs, desires, and expectations that might not already be on your original list. 

And by beginning to think and talk about your emotions in terms of beliefs, values, needs, desires, and expectations, you'll gain a far deeper understanding of the way your feelings work, and more opportunities to get the outcomes you desire. 

Next time someone asks you "How did that make you feel?" remember that  it didn't MAKE you feel anything; Your emotional reaction was the result of a conflict with one or more values, expectations, beliefs, desires, or needs. 

So a better question for them to ask is "How do you feel about that?" Notice that's the phrasing clinical psychologists tend to use. 

Once you start thinking about the underlying conflicts behind negative emotions, you'l have taken the first step to emotional self-control.

And once you've fully re-written your rulebook, you'll be in total command of your emotions no matter the circumstances. 

Thanks for learning! 
"Character -- the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life -- is the source from which springs self respect." Joan Didon. 
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Concept Frontier's InfoPod is now on YouTube!

27/11/2015

 
We're pleased to present our latest innovation: the Concept Frontier InfoPod! In this video series our host will delve into the very nature of information, bringing you a new easily digestible information concept in every video.

The InfoPod video series will be supported by the Concept Blog, which will feature greater detail on the information models presented in each video. 

All content will be presented here on ConceptFrontier.com, so you won't miss anything even if you don't subscribe to our channel on YouTube.com 

The Secret Equation That Decides Everything You Do

18/11/2015

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Introduction

Before taking an action, our brain evaluates the merit of that action. Normally this happens in microseconds! But it can be prolonged, sometimes indefinitely. But before we take an action we hit it with an evaluation by comparing the reward with the effort required. Only actions with a sufficiently high reward-to-effort ratio actually get done. If the ratio is too low, we simply will not take action. Even those "I didn't think, I just acted" moments are premeditated — any action must always be thought of before it can be performed. And by thinking of the action we consider our motivation for doing it, which means imagining a reward resulting from it. This is true for every human action except those occurring reflexively or automatically at the physiological level: like convulsions of the skeletal muscle upon being electrocuted, breathing, or heart beat. 
​

As a species, our judgement couldn't be considered "foolproof" by any measure. In fact there are thousands of foolish actions undertaken by humans every day, all of them somehow getting past a legitimate evaluation process of their reward and effort. Our judgement just isn’t perfect.

Even though we evaluate actions before taking them, we don't use consistent metrics in our decision making. But what we do have is a consistent process. The equation below describes that process in a formula.

The Human Decisioning Equation

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The human decisioning formula in text
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The human decisioning formula in symbols
The four major components of the formula are detailed below. 

Reward

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1. Reward is the behaviour motivator, and what the ratio is all about. A reward is by definition an improvement of an individual's circumstances. It can be the attainment of something desired (like money, status, recognition, an experience —​ anything that we know will evoke a positive emotional response in us). A reward is no less of a reward if it does nothing more than improve our circumstances from bad to less bad. So long as we know it will carry a positive emotional reaction it's a reward, and can therefore be evaluated using the ratio.

2. The Reward forms half the equation, and is weighed against the Effort, Cost, and Risk of pursuing it to determine if action will be taken. If the Effort/Cost/Risk are perceived to be too great, the evaluated action is not taken:

​3. Measuring reward can sometimes be done in a tangible way: a monetary reward can be measured in dollars. But sometimes the reward is nothing more than a feeling, and measuring emotions is more difficult. For ease of use in this explanation we'll use a simple 1-10 scale for measuring emotional significance. 

Effort

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1. Effort is no more than the physical and cognitive work required to gain the reward.

2. Effort evaluation is a key factor in decision making, because it requires that we determine what actions are required and how time consuming and difficult they'll be to perform.
​

3. Effort is measured by two metrics: duration of effort (time expenditure) and difficulty of effort (derived from complexity). If the physical effort is immense (e.g. climbing to the top of Mt Everest) it could outweigh the reward all by itself -- without the need to even consider cost or risk. Likewise if the cognitive effort is immense (e.g. learning the set of skills required to cut, shape, and weld steel) the effort could outweigh the reward. In our simple numeric scale of measure, effort is rated 1-10: 1 being minimal, trivial effort; 10 being the maximum effort we could consider taking for a reward.

Cost

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1. Cost is any expense that will be incurred by taking the actions required for the reward. In many cases this is monetary, but it applies to any resource expense (except time, which is addressed in the evaluation of effort).

2. Cost matters to the equation because it factors in any element of loss to the decision. When there is a reward to be gained, the cost determines its price.

3. We measure cost tangibly where possible: money out, resources traded or consumed (which can be converted to a monetary figure). But cost can also be intangible -- in some cases there's an emotional cost involved when taking an action, or even a psychological cost if the action is potentially traumatising. Most decisions in life are minor, and cost can usually be be most usefully defined as a simple dollar value: preferably $0.
​

4. The significance of cost is relative to the context, so a dollar figure alone is inadequate for the decision. By cost being contextual, I mean that $100 is a very high cost for a pizza: perhaps a prohibitively high cost rating like 10/10 on the cost scale. But $100 is a very good deal on the latest GoPro, and which we might call a cost rating as a 2/10 in that context, despite the amount of money being exactly the same. The cost rating is really just a measure of your perceived value, which is why converting it to the 1-10 scale is vital. Doesn’t it seem utterly loopy turning a tangible and quantitative unit of measure (dollars) into an intangible qualitative unit (perceived value)? Sure it does. But it’s necessary in order to analyse the significance of the cost.

Risk

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1. Risk exists when there is a possibility of an undesired outcome. An action taken to gain a reward doesn't always have a single possible outcome: even if I take the action "order the pizza" to attain the reward "sate my hunger" there exists the chance that the order won't be fulfilled, or that I will throw the pizza onto the roof of my home in a spontaneous fit of rage. Either one of those two undesired possibilities robs me of my intended reward. But the most likely outcome is that I'll get a pizza to eat, achieving the desired outcome. So the risk is within an acceptable parameter for the action to be taken. In short, a risk is any chance of an outcome that is not desired.

2. Risk can drop reward attainment right in the toilet, particularly if the subject is afraid of risk. This is significant to the equation because a general fear of risk, or fear of a specific outcome, introduces emotional weight to decision-making, pitting our fear directly against our desire.

3. Once the risks of taking a given action have been considered, and the legitimate risks identified, they need to be evaluated for the likelihood of its occurrence versus the likelihood of the desired outcome.

So here I assign an estimated likelihood to each possible outcome: 
99.8% (Desired outcome) I receive a pizza to eat.
0.1% I receive no pizza.
0.1% I receive a pizza but throw it on the roof in anger.

There are any number of potential outcomes to an action of course. Analysis should only include those which are both foreseeable and significant. 

In this example I've determined there's very little risk of things not going as planned. Total risk is only 0.2%. Translating this to a simple 1-10 metric, the risk is 0/10: almost certain to yield the desired outcome.

Other Factors

These 1-10 ratings are completely subjective in their own right, and only serve to compartmentalise judgement to enable comparative sense to be made. But what can cloud their accuracy?

Acceptance Threshold

The threshold is about how much negative you’re willing to tolerate for the attainment of something positive. It varies from person to person. A threshold too high would mean actions are approved and taken more often than the average person. A threshold too low would mean actions are not approved and taken as often as they are for the average person. The acceptance threshold is not fixed, however: it changes as we develop our judgement and get experience in accurately estimating the difficulty of effort, the significance of cost, and the likelihood of risks. ​

Underestimation

An effort, cost, or risk could be more significant than you originally thought. It happens, learn from it. Getting hung up on accurate estimates defeats the point of having a numeric decision making system. 
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Recording in a spreadsheet your estimated R, e, c, an r ratings of various judgements and their actual ratings (determined after the action has been taken) will give you data that'll allow you to see if you tend to over- or underestimate when making decisions. You'll then be able to compensate with data-assisted precision.

Missing Data

If key information is unavailable (e.g. unforeseeable costs, an additional element of risk, or an unanticipated action requiring effort on the part of the subject) then the evaluation process will be imperfect: the optimal logic of the equation alone is insufficient; a complete and accurate data set is required for an optimal decision.

​The ratio can become further complicated when the expected emotional value is not a precisely known, but is anticipated to fall in a range, like "between 7 and 9".
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But you don't need an optimal decision: that would be pre-determinism in its final state. You just need a decision to act or not. Sometimes things will go right, but every time you have a chance to learn and improve your judgement.

Dishonesty

Not being honest with yourself about the significance of obstacles (effort required, costs, risks) can ruin your judgement.

Confirmation Bias

If we rule out the action on grounds of it being too much effort, too costly, or too risky, our brain often does a completely unobjective behaviour. It flips between the three to build confirmation bias.

Once habitualised, this cognitive phenomenon forms the basis of pessimism. The same phenomenon, but with a focus on the reward or rewards of the action, is the pattern responsible for optimism. 

Emotional Disproportion

There are some simple techniques for counteracting some of the effects of strong emotional influences on decision-making:
  • Identify strong emotions —​ Sometimes simply being aware of how you feel and why is enough to remove the emotional bias. 
  • Put time between decision-making sessions -- Not all decisions have to be made in the first attempt. Uncertainty can sometimes be conquered by facing the decision later when you're in a calmer state.
  • Environmental changes -- Stressors affect the emotional state via perceptions and effects on the physical state. Address these
  • Maslow evaluation — Are your basic physical and emotional needs being met? If not, emotions will be intense and severely influenced by this. Satisfy these needs before proceeding with the decision if possible. 

And that, learners, is the secret equation that decides everything you do, and a system for formulaically quantifying it.

But it's not always possible to quantify Reward, Effort, Cost, and Risk for every decision we make. In most instances it's worthwhile not to bother measuring it all, since our normal cognition handles the bulk of our decisions almost automatically, microseconds fast, and without the hassle of trying to find a pen. Moreover, the actual metrics of the evaluation system are completely intangible: in many cases it's the expectation that we'll feel a particular feeling that is adequate reward to compel us to spend effort, cost, and accept risk. 

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In a subsequent blog post we’ll examine The Action Threshold, and provide a tool for recording efficacy data on decision making.
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Beliefs Are The Concrete Of Your Mind

10/9/2015

 
The following is a conceptual model explaining the formation of opinion, belief, and conviction. 

Opinions

Opinions are thoughts validated by multiple observations and second hand evidence. They're formed simply by exposure to perceived evidence, regardless of evidence quality. Fortunately they are easily discarded or modified when more credible contrary evidence becomes available upon which to base a more informed opinion. 

Beliefs

Beliefs are the intermediate step between opinions and convictions. A belief forms when a sufficient quantity of evidence is amassed to justify exchanging memory-retained evidence for a strong feeling of certainty. We form beliefs to reduce cognitive load and free our attention for new thoughts. To form a belief, we remove the many thoughts that form the evidence for that belief from our thought cycle (because it's cognitively expensive to retain all that information when we can just hold onto the conclusion that all that evidence points to). We replace all that evidence information with only the conclusion itself: this is a belief. We also retain an emotional weighting of our surety of that conclusion, proportionate to the evidence we used to form it. By doing so, we free our thought cycle for new thoughts without losing the most important information obtained from the process of learning by storing that high-value thought as a belief. In short, a belief is an opinion where we've disposed of the supporting evidence and filled that space with a strong feeling of surety. 
Beliefs are harder to change than opinions, because in order to do so we have to pit new evidence against our strong feelings! This is difficult, cognitively expensive, and often we double-down on our feelings and simply get angry instead of evaluating the evidence. (My hypothesis is that it's often neurologically easier to intensify an emotion than it is to evaluate evidence contrary to an existing belief.) 

Convictions

Convictions are thoughts reenforced by strong feelings of not sure surety but certainty. A conviction is an idea that has been accepted absolutely, by a person who has made the decision to entertain no evidence contrary to the conviction. Discourse challenging the conviction will, rather than prompt thought and re-evaluation of the evidence on which the conviction is based -- which at this point is often prohibitively difficult due to the abandonment of the thoughts forming the evidence -- and will instead become an emotional matter, in which the emotional weight of the conviction is weighed against he new evidence which will then be dismissed if it carries insufficient emotional weight of its own. 

Whenever we share our convictions we usually state them as if they're facts, which we are convinced that they are, since they're something we have learned. When others ask for evidence to support our claims of factuality we sometimes can't deliver and simply respond with "because it just is," with a sense of exasperation. 

Thats the cost of the exchange that occurs when beliefs mature into convictions. But the benefit of the exchange is that it frees our thought cycle for new observations, new thoughts, and new evidence on which we can form new beliefs and thereby continue learning. 

This is why its easier for us to form new beliefs than change our existing ones; we cant easily recall and reevaluate all the old evidence we've put out of circulation. 

Thought Cycle

Thought cycling is the repetition of thoughts through attention. An example is illustrated: 
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The train of thought starts off thinking about squares. The thought vector (which could go in any direction, to literally any other thought!) happens to move to thinking about right angles. Next, a perception: the brain sees a road. It starts thinking about roads. Thought vector progresses to thinking about the angles between intersecting roads. Then a thought vector goes back to thinking about right angles. And lastly a vector moves on to thinking about the angles of squares (a very similar thought to the first thought in the train, but not exactly the same). 

In this train of thought (i.e. sequence of thoughts), the "thought cycle" is described thus: 
  • 1 recurring thought ("right angles") 
  • One perceptual input ("roads") 
  • 5 internally derived thoughts ("squares", "right angles", "angles of roads", "right angles", "angles of squares") 
  • 4 thought vector progressions between related thoughts 
  • 2 cross-referenced thoughts ("angles of roads", "angles of squares") 
  • 16.% (1 in 6) of thoughts were cycled in the train of thought twice, meaning it was "cycled" in the train of thought. 

Notice how much data is generated from just 6 sequential thoughts! Now consider that our day-to-day trains of thought are far more complex than this. They're non-stop! Trains of thought tens of thousands of thoughts long that generally include everything from the right amount of toothpaste to use, to what other people think of the way you look, to the state of the economy. The thoughts we cycle change in frequency according to our interests, our perceptions, and the direction of our attention. 

Since thoughts derive beliefs, and our beliefs determine our behaviour, it's wise to have an awareness of our own thoughts. And from time to time ask ourselves the question: "What is the most valuable thought I could think?" 
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