Going weirdly deep on console.log

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE FIRST PRINCIPLES • No. 3 People rely on patterns and consistency Have you ever been in a completely novel environment, one that felt utterly unfamiliar? Perhaps it was in a place with different customs where you didn’t speak the language. Or maybe you onboarded onto a complex service with lots of jargon and an unfamiliar UI. It’s disorienting! Under those conditions, you might be unable to make good decisions. At a minimum, you have to think harder about what to do next. That’s because your nervous system is overloaded. The brain is a pattern-matching organ. It looks for recognizable elements to alleviate the burden of real-time processing. It could be particular arrangements for street crossings or the strings of characters that form words and sentences. As you read this, your brain is filling in more gaps than you might ________. What word did you expect at the end of the previous sentence? Think? Expect? Believe? In any case, I bet it wasn’t ‘pineapple.’ As your eyes skimmed along, your brain compensated for the missing information. Or consider this sequence of characters: WHT D Y THNK THS SNTNC MNS? Your mind fills in the gaps — as long as you understand the elements that create the gaps. Environments that present consistent and recognizable patterns are easier to understand and navigate than those with lots of novelty. Don’t make things harder than they need to be. When designing labeling and navigation structures, consider ways of providing relatable elements and patterns. Let users orient themselves through familiar and understandable elements — even (especially) if you’re working with complex information. For more IA First Principles, see the link in the first reply below. 👇

It's time! @tdesseyn and I are so excited to announce The Friend Zone is live! 🎉 Taylor and I have each been in the hiring space for over a decade and we were determined to find a way to channel this experience into helping you land your next job.