Can ducks count?*
If ducks can't count then how do they keep track of their ducklings? Ducks know if they're a duckling short of a full flush,** but how? How can they tell when one of their offspring is out of sight?
How many strawberries can you see?
How many bananas?
It's unlikely that you had to count. Most of us can 'feel' how many strawberries and bananas there are - just like ducks can sense when one of their raft has done a runner.
What is the magical number?
So many people are familiar with George Miller's Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two it's become 'common sense' (or urban legend). Most people can recall about seven chunks of information.
This is a useful rule of thumb but less useful than an understanding of subitization - the name of our ability to 'count' the strawberries and bananas without actually counting, like ducks...
Recall comes later. By Definition.
When presenting information it's wrong-headed to base your plans on what people will be able to recall. Far better for you to base your plans on what your audience will be able to grasp without having to think.
Recall is not a function of "Seven Plus or Minus Two" but of sense (in all the meanings of the word) and story, motivation and modelling. And of attention and apprehension.
Limited attention, even less understanding
We're familiar with the idea of attention span. This is why we keep our presentations (and lessons and lectures) short. And some people dutifully make sure there's no more than seven (plus or minus two) bullet points on their slides or seven (plus or minus two) ideas in their lesson plan, for example.
Underpinnng attention span, though, is apprehension span. How much can people get in one sitting? We shouldn't be measuring attention in minutes or even words. But in gettable ideas. We're sensemaking machines and we can count without thinking, just not very high.
How do you make sure your audience are subitizing your arguments and lessons and not merely counting the bullet points, especially in a world that's not Sesame Street simple?
*Sorry to break this to you but dogs don't smile either.
**Collective nouns for ducks: flush, brace, flock, paddling, team and raft.
2 comments:
Nice post. I think a lot of the efforts towards redesigning ppt presentations (e.g. Presentation Zen or Slidology) are aimed at this -- making it so the viewer can't NOT get the main point, if they are paying any attention at all.
I've been trying for a while to figure out if there was an equivalent to subitizing for text/reading, so thanks for the term "span of apprehension". I think it has really useful implications for interface design, also.
Btw, there are great examples of subitization here: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/inside-the-animal-mind/overview/2081/ (Sadly, not available online)
This is a really important point, nicely expressed. I think the major difficulty people have is actually getting to the essence of what they want to say. Focusing on bullet points (seven or less) prevents them having to think about what the real message in their presentation is. If they have that thought first: "what am I trying to say in this 20/30/40 minutes?" then I think they usually end up with a better result. Unfortunately, that is often a hard question to answer, so many people just don't bother asking it.
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