Attention, Comprehension, Curiosity
Three things that have to happen before a signal actually lands
The outside claims this piece leans on, and where they come from. Each note says what the source looked at, so you can judge how far it stretches.
A good systems diagram can communicate a service's behaviour faster than three pages of metrics, because the eye reads relationship and direction without translating
1987 computational analysis of physics and geometry problems: diagrams can cut search by grouping related information in space.
Attention is finite
Kahneman D. Attention and Effort (1973), limited-capacity model of attention
Classic 1973 theory treating attention as a limited pool of mental capacity shared across tasks.
Audiences can only hold a limited amount in their head at any one moment
Review of short-term memory experiments (2001) putting capacity at about four chunks for adults.
If a signal does not make a case for itself in the first few seconds, it is not getting a hearing
Liu, White & Dumais (Microsoft Research, 2010), Weibull analysis of web page dwell times
Browser-plugin dwell times on 205,873 web pages (2010): the first 10 seconds decide whether a visitor stays or leaves.
People disengage because asking a question or pushing back risks looking inexperienced; lowering that cost gets real questions asked
Study of 51 work teams in one US manufacturing company (1999): team psychological safety was linked to learning behaviours such as asking questions and seeking feedback.
Switching between interruptions has a cognitive cost
Lab experiments with young adults (2001): switching between tasks costs time, and more so for complex or unfamiliar tasks.