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Marianne Talbot's talk at UX Brighton
- 1. 1
- 2. Thank you for inviting me to speak 2
- 3. In designing a website one of your aims is to stimulate action This is almost certainly the main aim of your employer 3
- 4. There are all sorts of different actions you might want to stimulate buying following liking clicking through recommending reviewing often youll want to stimulate several actions 4
- 5. Well action is something that philosophers know a lot about 5
- 6. Distinguish tripping over a carpet and pretending to trip over a carpet which is an action and why? 6
- 7. Pretending to trip over a carpet is an action because: it is chosen it is performed intentionally it is performed for reasons 7
- 8. When human beings act they make choices When human beings make choices they do so for reasons 8
- 9. If we want to understand action, therefore, and how to stimulate it, it is necessary to understand reason 9
- 10. To be rational is to be such that some of your behaviour is reason-driven Most rational things are such that most of their behaviour is non-rational To be rational is to be capable of being irrational Non-rational things are neither rational nor irrational 10
- 11. What is a reason? 11
- 12. A reason-driven behaviour (an action) is a behaviour caused by a combination of desires and beliefs 12
- 13. Desires and beliefs are both mental states but they differ from each other quite radically 13
- 14. Desires and beliefs play different roles in the production of action Desires and beliefs have a different relation to reason 14
- 15. Desires motivate action Beliefs guide action towards its goal 15
- 16. It is not possible to reason anyone into a desire It is only beliefs that we can be reasoned into 16
- 17. I understand that UX stands for User Experience and that it was born because your main aim in designing a website is to provide the user with whatever he or she wants 17
- 18. Unless you are offering something the user wants youll never get anywhere But the users wants desires are only half the picture The users beliefs about how to fulfil his desires are the other half 18
- 19. In fact given that there is little you can do about your users desires your main aim (I respectfully submit!) should be to give your user the belief that by using your website he can fulfil (some of) his desires 19
- 20. So lets consider the nature of beliefs 20
- 21. all beliefs have contents the contents of beliefs are constituted of concepts every belief is related to every other belief beliefs admit truth and falsehood beliefs are expressed in sentences human beings care (to some extent) about the truth of their beliefs 21
- 22. Relations between beliefs can be: rational irrational non-rational 22
- 23. A rational relation between beliefs: Belief one: Marianne always wears jeans on a Friday Belief two: It is Friday Belief three: Marianne is wearing jeans The rational relation between these beliefs is entailment If beliefs one and two are true, belief three must be true 23
- 24. These beliefs amount to a deductive argument Premise one: Marianne always wears jeans on a Friday Premise two: It is Friday Conclusion: Marianne is wearing jeans 24
- 25. All arguments are relations between beliefs such that one belief is the conclusion and the other beliefs are its premises (the reasons given for the conclusion) 25
- 26. There are two types of argument: deductive arguments inductive arguments 26
- 27. Deductive arguments give us certainty (conditionally on the truth of the premises) Valid deductive arguments are conclusive Valid deductive arguments can be evaluated a priori 27
- 28. P1: All doodahs are whotsits P2: All whotsits are green C: This doodah is 28
- 29. Irrational relations between beliefs: Premise one: Marianne always wears jeans on a Friday Premise two: Marianne is wearing jeans Conclusion: It is Friday 29
- 30. Non-rational relations between beliefs: Premise one: I want my spouse to be faithful Conclusion: My spouse IS faithful 30
- 31. Inductive reasoning takes us from observations of the past to predictions about the future: P1: I have seen the sun rise every day in the history of the universe C: I expect the sun to rise tomorrow Inductive reasoning is hugely important to human beings Inductive argument is central to science 31
- 32. Huge philosophical controversy: is induction rational? 32
- 33. The Scottish Philosopher David Hume noted that every inductive argument contains a hidden premise that nature is uniform (the future will be like the past) 33
- 34. This premise cannot be justified deductively (it generates no contradiction to believe that nature is not uniform) inductively (wed be arguing in a circle) 34
- 35. Hume argued that induction is non- rational 35
- 36. But it is clear that we can distinguish between good inductive arguments and bad inductive arguments: Women who drink this brand of vodka are beautiful, rich and attract the most handsome men If I drink this vodka I will become beautiful, rich and start attracting the most handsome men 36
- 37. Philosophers live in hope of finding a systematic way to distinguish between good and bad inductions 37
- 38. Summary: actions are reason-driven for an action to be reason-driven is for it to be: motivated by desire guided by belief it is not possible to argue anyone into a desire if you want to satisfy users desires it is their beliefs you need to address users beliefs can be changed and brought into being rationally, irrationally or non-rationally 38
- 39. If you want to inspire trust it is always better to change someones beliefs by rational means! 39