On a recent sojourn out of town, I had to take a morning flight at a time of day when it was still dark. Although I generally dislike these flights due to how early I have to get up, they generally make for a more productive day since the normal waking hours for everyone else are spent interacting rather than traveling.
Upon arrival at the terminal, I saw that they had done something very smart with stop signs. The outside of the signs were framed with small red LEDs that would blink on for two seconds and off for three. This got me to thinking about the use of these types of cognitive interruptions to draw attention to elements in an environment that has a lot of cognitive load already.
The departure terminals are typically busy places where people may already be under some stress due to being late, travel anxiety, etc. When we add the fact that the roadway is typically densely packed at that time of day, with reduced visibility, and a lot of motion, it is understandable that some people may miss the cue to stop, whether it be for pedestrians or simply to provide a pause in the flow of traffic. This is where the slowly blinking stop sign comes in to play.
The designers of the environment took into account the participant’s (user’s) state of mind — as well as reduced visibility, physical constraints of space, and density of traffic — and came up with a solution to draw attention to something in that environment that was very important by creating a cognitive interruption in a way that allowed the sign to break through the noise and demand attention.
When designing an interface to interaction — whether virtual or physical — we need to always remain aware of the user’s state of mind at the point of interaction. Then, if there are elements in that interaction that are necessary to improve the user experience for all, we need to find ways of calling attention to them in such a way that they don’t just become part of the noise, by creating well crafted cognitive interruptions to bring them to the forefront.
However, be careful to not overload the user with multiple interruptions. Otherwise, you will just add to the cognitive noise.
