4(+1) Takeaways from “The Smarter Screen”

For the past couple weeks, I’ve been reading “The Smarter Screen” which is an awesome book with some great insights into our behavior and interactions with the screens that we encounter every day. It has become even more prevalent for businesses, major brands, and even individuals to build the digital content they are producing to capture the attention of their desired audiences more effectively. Breaking through all the noise can be challenging, so here are my 4(+1) takeaways from “The Smarter Screen” that should help you build better digital content.

1: The 4 +/- 1 Rule

The average individual can only take in about 4 bits of information. If there is too much information packed into a graphic or piece of content it can create a scarcity of attention and some vital details you might be trying to convey could be missed.

2: an opinion on content will remain the same, no matter how much time they look at it

Whether it's a small fraction of a second or a full minute, your opinion of what you see on a screen will pretty much stay the same. It's important to make sure your content is well designed to attract attention.

3: Middle Bias

When looking at any content on a screen, our eyes naturally drift towards the middle of whatever we're looking at. Details placed along the edge of a graphic or piece of content are missed more often than information set towards the middle.

4: Perception Struggle

Using fonts that are slightly challenging to read will help comprehension. We are used to reading common fonts like Times New Roman or Arial so we can skip over words and comprehension will drop. So some fonts like Comic Sans that are still easy to read but take more effort to perceive will help with the overall understanding of the information you're trying to get across.

(+1): Personalization 

Personalization increases our intrinsic motivation because the information seems self-relevant. Personalized content is far more effective at garnering attention and will likely trigger the desired behavior action. Individual personalization is significantly more efficient, but personalizing content for your different target audiences can also help increase the result.