UX for Beginners

Chapter 35. Attention

This lesson is about one simple idea that most people think about in the wrong way. However, that one idea can affect everything in your approach to design.

Your brain can only consciously do one thing at a time, so it has to focus. That focus moves from one thing to another, all day long. That’s called attention. Ironically, most designers forget about attention. It seems so simple, yet we constantly overlook it. From what I have seen, people treat attention like a ticking time bomb. They do as much as possible, hoping that something will create interest, before time runs out.

That’s not how attention works.

Attention is like a spotlight. It points at a specific thing. If you want to point it at something else, you have to stop pointing it at the first thing. As you move the spotlight, anything outside of the light will go unnoticed. The other columns of content. The banners. The other banners. And the custom banners that you call something else internally so it doesn’t feel like you’re advertising to your own users (still banners!).

If you want people to notice something, it either has to be close to the spotlight or obvious in the dark.

“Whoa.”—Ted “Theodore” Logan

Here are a few ways to get the attention of users:

Motion

This is the highest-ranking part of your visual system, so when something moves, your attention is drawn to it by reflex. But if everything is moving, the stationary item gets the attention.

Surprise

This is not the same thing as “shock” or “delight”—this ...