How Niko Tinbergen Reverse Engineered the Seagull
dustincurtis.com
How Niko Tinbergen Reverse Engineered the Seagull
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Re: How Niko Tinbergen Reverse Engineered the Seagull
#2First, I'm really intrigued by the design choices made on the page - the red line and the fact that the page is a good 1280 px wide (I have a 1280x800 pixel monitor and had a horizontal scrollbar). There's something absolutely brilliant about how the red line on the left reinforces the key insight of the research. (And it exactly matches up with the part of the text that would maximize that reinforcement.) The page width, I don't get - but Dustin's a design stud and I'm not a stud of any sort.
Second, I suppose we could end up at optimal designs for what we wanted through iterative A/B testing. Given enough time, enough variations, and enough traffic, you could conceivably come to the ideal webpage for conversion (of whatever metric you wanted). Of course, as people change, the page would have to change as well. The Gladwell article posted earlier today is a good companion read to this piece, I thought.
Re: How Niko Tinbergen Reverse Engineered the Seagull
#3cite your sources? :)
Re: How Niko Tinbergen Reverse Engineered the Seagull
#4cite your sources? :)
It's written in the style of a magazine piece that doesn't do citations, but still, some follow-up suggested reading would be nice.
Re: How Niko Tinbergen Reverse Engineered the Seagull
#5cite your sources? :)
Sure.
I first learned about the research from a brief footnote in the book Phantoms in the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran (highly recommended). Then I spent quite a long time looking for the article sourced, by Tinbergen, which is:
Tinbergen N., and Perdeck, A.C. (1950). On the stimulus situation releasing the begging response in the newly hatched Herring Gull chick (Larus Argentatus argentalus Pont). Behavior 3:1-39
Took me forever to track this article down, so if you want a copy, ping me.
Re: How Niko Tinbergen Reverse Engineered the Seagull
#6cite your sources? :)
Sure. I first learned about the research from a brief footnote in the book Phantoms in the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran (highly recommended). Then I spent quite a long time looking for the article sourced, by Tinbergen, which is: Tinbergen N., and Perdeck, A.C. (1950). On the stimulus situation releasing the begging response in the newly hatched Herring Gull chick (Larus Argentatus argentalus Pont). Behavior 3:1-39 Too…
Here it is!
Re: How Niko Tinbergen Reverse Engineered the Seagull
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure. I first learned about the research from a brief footnote in the book Phantoms in the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran (highly recommended). Then I spent quite a long time looking for the article sourced, by Tinbergen, which is: Tinbergen N., and Perdeck, A.C. (1950). On the stimulus situation releasing the begging response in the newly hatched Herring Gull chick (Larus Argentatus argentalus Pont). Behavior 3:1-39 Too…
Here it is! http://therobert.org/stuff/tinbergen_article.pdf (20MB)
Awesome! Sadly, I don't have academic access anymore, which is why it was hard for me to find.
Also, it's copyrighted so I figured linking to it might be morally dubious.
Re: How Niko Tinbergen Reverse Engineered the Seagull
#8First, I'm really intrigued by the design choices made on the page - the red line and the fact that the page is a good 1280 px wide (I have a 1280x800 pixel monitor and had a horizontal scrollbar). There's something absolutely brilliant about how the red line on the left reinforces the key insight of the research. (And it exactly matches up with the part of the text that would maximize that reinforcement.) The page w…
For me, the extra width worked rather well. When I first hit the site, the sidebar was hidden and I focused entirely on the article. At the end, I noticed the little white arrow cue and scrolled over to get extra information about Dustin and his website.
I'm not certain if this was a premeditated design choice, but it actually played out very nicely.
Re: How Niko Tinbergen Reverse Engineered the Seagull
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here it is! http://therobert.org/stuff/tinbergen_article.pdf (20MB)
Awesome! Sadly, I don't have academic access anymore, which is why it was hard for me to find. Also, it's copyrighted so I figured linking to it might be morally dubious.
Well, ping me if you ever need another. :)
Re: How Niko Tinbergen Reverse Engineered the Seagull
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here it is! http://therobert.org/stuff/tinbergen_article.pdf (20MB)
Awesome! Sadly, I don't have academic access anymore, which is why it was hard for me to find. Also, it's copyrighted so I figured linking to it might be morally dubious.
cough scribd cough