elisabeth's blog

Why cool is good for your brain

When I found out that it's ok to buy something because I think it's cool, I was relieved. I like buying things that are cool (even if they are a little more expensive :-). Turns out that "cool" is good for your brain. How cool is that?

When I use the term "cool", I'm really talking about aesthetics. What is aesthetically pleasing obviously varies from person to person, but there are certain things that seem to be more aesthetically pleasing than others. How about the Apple iPod? The iPod is the runaway best seller in MP3 players, even though the iPod was late to market compared to other MP3 players, and it's generally more expensive than similar models. So why is it the best selling MP3 player out there? Need I say it — it's cool. It looks good. It feels good.

So how is cool good for you? Donald Norman discusses this idea at length in his book Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things. When something is aesthetically pleasing, it makes you feel good. And when you feel good you are more creative. You think outside the box. You have new ideas about how to use things. "Feeling good" about something is an emotion, and that emotion has a huge impact on us as consumers and users.

Scientists used to think that emotion got in the way of thinking; that it impeded our ability to make good decisions. However, we've learned that, in fact, emotion is actually inseparable from cognition. Emotion is a vital part of making decisions: it helps you decide everything from what you eat for dinner, to what car you buy, to whether to run from the tiger that's in front of you. We know that emotional memory is fast memory; it's what remembers that tigers are bad for you, so in this case emotions are vital to your life-saving decision to run (and it's so fast that you really don't notice that you're making that decision). But what do emotions have to do with buying a car? Shouldn't that be a strictly logical, practical decision?

The most recent car I bought was a new Honda Element. I could have bought the Saturn VUE (much cheaper) or the Toyota RAV4 (better gas mileage), but I bought the Element. Obviously I did think through the practical aspects of the purchase and whether or not the car fit my need, but in the end, a big part of my decision was that I think it's cool. I intend to keep this car a long time, so I wanted a car I felt good about. There's those emotions again, helping me make a decision.

Emotions make passionate users. When I think of the cars that people feel passionately about, it's not cars like the Honda Accord (an incredibly reliable car) — it's cars like the Mini Cooper, the PT Cruiser, the Pontiac Fiero, the Honda Element. These are the cars that have huge numbers of fans, internet bulletin boards for posting pictures of cars, etc. The same can be said for lots of other cars — for instance, when I see huge groups of people getting together for classic car shows, I know it's because those people are passionate users of their cars; they love their cars.

The L word (love) is the key to creating passionate users. You want your users to LOVE your product. Your product doesn't have to be perfect; lots of people buy cars because they are cool, even when the cars have flaws (the Mini Cooper is a good example of this — this reviewer suggests ignoring the Mini's flaws because it's just so cool). Donald Norman talks about the love he has for his teapot collection — he loves his teapots, even the ones that aren't particularly usable, and even the one he can't use at all because it's designed NOT to work (the one that's on the front cover of his book, The Design of Everyday Things).



He says that people love things like this because they can tell stories about them; these products somehow reflect their self-image, and they like the experience they have with the products.

Which computer reflects your self-image? Are you a Windows geek, a Mac geek or a Linux geek? Chances are, if you are a passionate user, you feel very strongly about one of these operating systems (or in the case of Apple, not just the OS, but the whole machine). Apple made a tremendous comeback in the late 90's precisely because of aesthetics. Apple computers are more expensive, so why would you buy one? Because it's COOL! Windows geeks might feel strongly about their computers but Apple geeks are fanatics. People have written books about Apple fans, they are so passionate. And with the iPod and iPhone, this Apple fanaticism has now expanded to other devices. Apple is making gains in these markets because they have created really passionate users.

Aesthetics matters not only in computer hardware but also in computer software, and in programming languages themselves. Just like a car, you want your computer to work. You want the software to work. You want the programming language you use to be efficient, bug free, and consistent. But you also want all these things to "look good". How can a programming language be aesthetically pleasing? Two influential computer scientists, David Gelernter and Ken Arnold both claim that the key to an aesthetically pleasing programming language is simplicity. In Programming Linguistics (a book I would argue is one of the best books about programming languages and language design — unfortunately, it's no longer in print), David argues that the history of programming language style reflects the history of style generally, and compares the design of the Chevrolet over time to trends in the design of programming languages. In the end, for many people, it's the simpler designs that work the best, that are the most aesthetically pleasing. Who wouldn't agree that when you can write a concise, easily understood, well thought out program in your programming language of choice, you feel good about it. You take pleasure in your ability to write solid yet aesthetically pleasing programs in that language. You stick with that language because it makes you feel good. You're a passionate user of that language.

Ken argued for simplicity in a talk he gave at O'Reilly's Foo Camp '04 when he used some examples from Java's Swing framework to illustrate where Java has lost simplicity, and thus, lost elegance, lost power, and lost fans in the process. People complain that Java is bloated with too much crap, that it's too complicated. I agree with Ken — getting back to basics is what we need to keep Java's passionate users. Eric Freeman discusses this point in his java.net post, and I also highly recommend the book, Better, Faster, Lighter Java for some great suggestions on how to implement this idea.

We may buy or use something because we find it aesthetically pleasing, but it's not personal until we change it and make it truly our own. When we participate in the creation process, the design process, that increases our pleasure and our enjoyment of the product. I think this is probably similar to the process of participating in the act of learning — if you participate directly in your own learning process, then that learning process is more pleasurable, and therefore more memorable (and, then you remember what you've learned).

So, why does cool matter for books? Because of emotions. Surprise, pleasure — the emotions we experience when something is cool — are emotions that help you learn. Emotion is a key component in learning: it's what gets your brain to pay attention. It's what helps your brain remember. And if you are engaged, and participating in your learning experience, you're probably enjoying that learning experience more. You have to be involved, and what gets you more involved than cool?

Labels: brain, learning