A tale as old as time, Beauty and the Brain!

A hunch, a gut feeling, or intuition.?

We call it all this when we do not know about the processes behind it.?

Researchers around the world have a different opinion.?

They say our brain sizes things up so quickly that it appears instinctual. In this case, decision-making happens in milliseconds, so we do not consciously register it.

As a marketer, consider your end user- a client, a consumer, or maybe even your team- and the beliefs, attitudes, and experiences their brains come pre-loaded with.?

Is it surprising to see how differently people react to the same stimulus? (in this case- your marketing material)

How do you ensure, then, that your campaign fires up the right networks of neurons in every one of your end users' brains??

I recently learned that neuroscience has beauty-full answers for these.?

Beauty-full, because they’re about how the brain interacts with beauty (bad pun intended).?

This is neuroaesthetics, and it's already been a pretty big deal in UX and design for years.?

Beauty and the Brain

Last year, Deep Shah - my business partner- was editing a blog.?

Before looking at a single line, though, he opened the doc and changed the font to Proxima Nova- our default.?

I asked him why.?

He said, “If you’d read it before, something would seem so off that your brain would keep tuning out after the first page.”

And he was right!?

I sat with it for half an hour. And I realized, though the information seemed sound, I couldn't see a reader trusting the info.?

On switching the font, it was almost silly how much better the blog sounded immediately.?

Should the font- and other visual details- play such a huge role in developing trust in the reader? Perhaps not.?

Do they still? Absolutely!?

This brings me back to my original point about intuition.?

I had to wait a half hour before recognizing and decoding the decisions my brain had made in less than a second: what to trust, what not to trust, and everything else.?

The brain trusts visually pleasing content more. In other words, content that looks beautiful is allocated more resources for processing.?

A Brief (Nerdy) Biology Lesson

Neuroaesthetics studies this by imaging the brain using fMRI scans and seeing which brain areas light up when an individual perceives something aesthetic.?

Usually, it is the orbitofrontal cortex- also known as the reward-processing area of the brain.?

When you perceive something beautiful, it induces positive emotions, and this, in turn, develops trust.?

Working with Beauty

How do you define what's beautiful?

Some people love maximalism. For them, the more stuff on the page, the better. Colours, fonts, layouts- everything must have a space for itself.?

Some people would absolutely love this design. Me? I cannot pay attention to anything because everything’s screaming at me to be noticed.?

Others (including us at The Wise Idiot) swear by minimal designs. We love clean lines, lots of negative space, and crisp copy.?

Those people would call this boring and flavourless. I think it’s an amazing design. The best part? Both of us are absolutely right.?

As a marketer, how would you find common ground between these sorts of people??

Let's say you're strategizing for a new client.

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Keeping beauty in mind- in ideas or presentations- makes you see how much fluff can easily be removed.?

At The Wise Idiot , we call it “Keep it simple, stupid!”. Others might know it as minimalism.?

Luckily, these are the common principles that everyone agrees with. Maximalists love chaos, but it must be controlled and fit in with every other part.?

Which is exactly what minimalists like.?

Broadly, beauty is no frills and fancies.?

Its principles are as simple as colour, composition, symmetry, and sense.?

It's often logical, and mostly it's your brain going, "Aha! That fits so well with what I know/expect!"

And if there's beauty in strategy, there most certainly will be beauty in execution.?

This is how you make campaigns and materials that grab attention and direct action.?

Beauty Is In The Eye of the Beholder

Neuroaesthetics is old news in UX.?

They've known about it for years, and most use it to some extent.?

Heatmaps help you see at what point the user clicks out of a page or to what extent they scroll down.?

Eye-tracking takes this a step forward- it checks on which areas of a webpage, a product's packaging, or a brochure- the human eye is naturally drawn to first.?

That region will be given the most time for perception; thus, the most crucial info must be located there.?

Same for webpages- people read in a decreasing F-shaped pattern.?

Thus, H2s and H3s and bite-sized content ensure that the reader gets the maximum-impact content in the least amount of time.

The Final Word

Beauty in execution, while not easy, is doable- it’s taken care of by a whole team of people, and it’s often the first thing people point to.?

Beauty in thinking, however, is different. It requires a deep understanding of your customer, what they know and what they don’t, their preferences, expectations, and thought processes.?

It can be as simple as knowing whether they like witty content.?

And as complex as knowing the exact extent to which your solution overlaps with their problem.?

The way to get it right??

Know what your user expects aesthetically, and deliver on it every time.?