You know how people say: “on a scale of 1-10”?<p>I’ve used the principle of Millers law to start asking people to measure on a scale of 1-7.<p>Universally, people balk at the scale. But I explain to them that most people can’t tell the difference between 2 and 3 on a ten point scale. If you can’t articulate a difference, there’s no use in the measurement.<p>Seven is great because you get more than the simplicity of 1-5. So...
1 - the worst
2 - bad
3 - below avg
4 - average
5 - above average
6 - good
7 - the best.<p>And don’t even THINK about responding with “5.5”. ;)
Off topic: I got all 20. What you do is invent a story in pictures.<p>A cat was playing with a ball under the tree. An apple fell from tree on cats head. The cat squared around the apple and ran inside the house through a small door into her box. King dad drove in his car, took out huge hammer from the trunk and hit the box of milk. Milk sprayed all over the house and inside the fish tank. Fish got restless and caused a cross bow from the wall to fire an arrow through the book that was all taped over. Mom in her red shoes came and took the key under the flower.
Tangential, but I was able to recite all the words, but only because memorized them in a nonsensical, but easier to remember story. I like the exercise because it forces me to be creative.<p>The CAT looked at me eating an APPLE, I threw a BALL outside to see if it would chase it instead it climbed a TREE...
I love how they end with a call to reduce your levels of electronic distraction, then have a list of different social networks you can contact them at.
Related to the idea of chunking, I remembered 15 words easily, using a clever technique that I read about a few years ago. Instead of trying to remember each word individually, I remembered scenes. This enabled me to remember more than 7 words, because the chunks no longer were words, but were combinations of words.<p>For example, for the words "king" and "hammer", I imagined a king hammer ruling over his subjects. For "milk" and "fish", I imagined a fish with udders. They're silly, but they work.
I use my hp48 every so often. The UX is primitive, 5 generic keys, slow refresh lcd. But the RPL (lisp/forth) system has only a few bits of builtin constructs, which means you'll have maybe 3 level deep worst case. Most things are below the 7 figure. It's smooth as f. With just a bit of upgrade I wouldn't mind programming on this at all.<p>More and more I believe that ignorance thus space exploration and Miller's "level 1" cache has a huge role in our enjoyment of things.
A psych professor claimed, years ago, that the number is actually 5 +/- 2, but I can't remember his argument. Something about including error of measurement from the experiments, maybe? Regardless, he said it is why 7 phone # digits is often difficult for some people, because it is on the high end of what most people can remember.
I managed to remember the first 18 elements of the list.<p>On a more relevant note, it's easier to remember a large number of things when they're related to each other in meaningful ways. So the results of this little memory test aren't very good predictors of your ability to remember things in a real-world setting.
What does memory have to do with how many things are on screen at one time? Do UI elements get turned into a memorized list or something? But longer term you can store longer lists. I'm not sure how this limited short term memory phenomenon relates to UI?
Miller’s law says that people can remember 7+/-2 things at a time. I think that’s why people usually like structured lists much better than a unstructured, unsorted laundry list.
Similar to the <i>story method</i> of memorization mentioned, using the <i>Method of Loci</i> makes it easy to memorize all twenty.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci</a><p><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_can_do" rel="nofollow">https://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone...</a>
Isn't there a law of UX that the viewport should be large enough for the user to see the article's text? I can see like half a paragraph between the top stuff and the bottom stuff.