Understanding numbers
Meaningful numbers
Do you find it difficult to understand big numbers? You are not the only one. This is because processing numbers requires too much thinking. But sometimes, it is important that you do understand what the numbers are trying to tell you. For example, if it is about statistics about your health or welfare.
One important sector that uses a lot of numbers is the media and the news. Headlines guide your opinions and decisions. But we find it difficult to understand them sometimes. If a headline is talking about ‘33.000 gallons of drinking water’, do you know how much that is?
In an experiment, they tried adding anchors to numbers: adding a perspective that helps people interpret information much better. For example, 33.000 gallons of drinking water is about 2 average swimming pools.
What can you learn from this experiment? If you have to communicate a number, you should put it into perspective by finding an anchor. By using an anchor, you can make information much more meaningful for someone as it puts meaning to a value or statistic.
.webp){kind=icon}
Subscribe to our newsletter
Join over 7.992 professionals learning to become more influential and make better decisions in just 1.5 minutes every week.
Related posts
Accelerating Behavioural Change: From pushing to easing
We all have been situations in which we wanted a behavioural change. It could be you want your children to behave politely. It could be you wanted your client to approve a budget. It could be you want your manager to grant you extra time to work on a project. It could be you need community members to contribute to preventing littering actively. It could be you wanted employees to embrace organisational change. No matter what situation you were ever in, we have all experienced once or twice that getting someone to do things is hard. At least, the way we often approach it. There is a more effective approach to change. This is what this blog post is all about.
How to influence the perception of value?
In this blog post I want to explore the concept of value. I want to argue that Behavioural Design is as much about influencing how people perceive and experience things, as it is about changing actual behaviour. The design of psychological value is in my opinion a great concept to think about how to change perception and experience.
The forces that shape behaviour change
In this blog, I want to explore the different forces that shape behaviour change. Whenever you want to design a strategy that aims at changing behaviour, you have to ask yourself three questions: Macro-forces: What are the trends I can tap into? Meso-forces: What are the needs I can tap into? Micro-forces: What are the biases I can tap into?
