Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
@Ted - re: new members, probably no more or less than any of the u-tube video's posted to the site.
I am not a marketing or advertising type but possibly the use of color on a page seems warmer, engaging or embracing to some folks causing them to stay and look around longer than they might on a B&W page. Pure guessing as I haven't a clue.
What I do know is that posting my useless comments on this board is far, far, far away easier than trying to do so on nearly every other discussion board I've come across. Hmm, now that I mention it, maybe that's been their play all along.
I’m with Mark on this issue. He is on-target. Color presentation does influence the human decision process.
Like Mark, I’m not a marketing expert and have never been in that business. But the advertising specialists have been, and they’ve amassed an impressive array of tools to engage and to influence the general public.
Some of their endless bag of tricks reflect field experience; many others reflect application of psychological academic and industry studies that have generated influencing techniques for decades.
Richard Wiseman is one such researcher. He has written several excellent books that summarize the discipline’s findings and he suggests tips to deploy these findings. His book, “59 Seconds, Think a Little, Change a Lot”, is a worthwhile visit if the topic peaks your interest. Wiseman is a prolific U-Tube contributor. Here is a Link to a collection of his video presentations:
Wiseman reports that, historically, the color Red means danger and demands immediate action, whereas the color Green is more relaxing and contributes to better decision making. These findings are consistent with Daniel Kahneman’s System 1 reflexive and System 2 Reflective bifurcation in his “Thinking, Fast and Slow” book.
Changing the color scheme on the Mutual Fund Observer site will surely not attract more new visitors, but it should increase the likelihood of them staying. The psychological experiments also suggest, that the soothing Green will promote better decision making. The most shocking observations reported by the psychology community for me is that small presentation changes can make a substantial difference by supplying mostly invisible clues and prompts.
For example, folks act more reflexively when scarcity or time constraints are suggested. Cookies are judged tastier when a “victim” is offered one from a tray of only two cookies over the same cookies presented in massive numbers. When tests are printed in both red and green formats, the green respondents stay the course longer and score higher. This is data based and not speculation.
I want to thank Chip for her dedication to the site, and the changes that have made it more attractive and more useful.
Based on @MJG 's insight, I'd appreciate the whole page being a soothing green. At that point we would have maximized our decision making. Does it help with predictions too?
Chip, thank you for all your efforts, not just this one but everything you do. I think the changes look great. Just one I wish hadn't changed and that's the logo on the tab in internet explorer. When I used to look across all the tabs I seem to regularly have open I found the MFO logo very easy to find. I'm sure I'll get used to it but the owl logo is much harder for me to 'find'.
@Maurice: I spend over 20 hours a week working on news and views for MFO Discussion board readers without any pay , plus I buy things on Amazon through MFO. I am concerned about substance rather than style. You know what you can do with your graphic artist !!!!!!! Regardds, Ted
Anna: Glad you like your Fire. A Fire (older model) is my favored reading device. Great resolution and colors. Recently, Amazon added National Geographic to the subscriptions available on Fire. Well worth the $20 a year IMHO.
Ted: Calling your endless flood of links "news and views" is a bit of an embellishment. However, we're all delusional to an extent (survival instinct) and your efforts are greatly appreciated - just let's not get carried away.
MJG: Great stuff on the psychology of colors and numbers - statistically supported at that.
Mark: Your comments are far from "useless" - but I agree it's an easy board to post on and to keep coming back to.
Banner: Blue portion I'll rate just "OK" for aesthetic appeal. And the green stripe below appears kind of pale on my IPad. Neither does much for me. Would be great if color(s) could change daily in sync with the previous day's equity performance - since most here are consummate index watchers. How about hot red following big down days. Flashing gold or silver after big up days. And the pale green for days where there was less than a 1% change in the S&P?
Chip: Thanks for all the devoted work and your patience in hearing everyone out.
Isn't it sweet that they would do something nice just for those of us that are already hooked on MFO?
Looks very nice on my Kindle Fire HDX.
Yes, indeed. Although I'm looking at it all on a laptop screen. @chip or anyone else who might have a clue: what ON EARTH m in the middle of typing stuff? ight be causing my g-d CURSOR to decide on its own to re-locate itself, while I'm ******* IT JUST HAPPENED AGAIN, dammit. WHY is my cursor making decisions on its own to put itself where it does not belong? Then I have to go back and re-type, or cut-and-paste. Driving me crazy. I'm wondering if it might not be the fault of COMCAST, as my wireless internet signal lags and catches up with itself (?) Just a wild guess, a shot in the dark. At any rate, it REALLY sucks.
.....trying out the Opera browser at the moment. Let's just see and type and maybe there's I want to see it, but it's a problem with Mozilla Firefox or maybe not...OK, continuing to type and type just to type and test, without necessarily making any sense at all, as you can tell--- right? type type and type some more. It will be a while, of course, before the same symptom shows us, again, just whenaking me SEE RED! ****** Ding. I happened to look up and found the same thing happening, the way it did with Firefox. I guess we can't blame Firefox, noe Opera, for the problem. I do have very little free space in the hard-drive, but I can't imagine why THAT would be a problem. It doesn't ALWAYS happen. It's seemingly random. But it's m ***** Ding. There it goes again. It's making me SEE RED!
OK, it probably isn't your computer, since the two browsers are acting similarly. It probably isn't the MFO server, or we would be hearing from others with comparable problems. That would seem to point in the direction of COMCAST, but I really would like to have Chip's input on this. Suggest that you send her a private message to get her attention, and see what she might have to say.
You noted: "I'm wondering if it might not be the fault of COMCAST, as my wireless internet signal lags and catches up with itself (?)"
How do you know this??? How far along the internet road from your location is Comcast responsible for network quality?
What questions should be asked, to a phone caller with this problem; if you were the tech. support person???
--- what does the cursor do if you are typing an email at your pc? --- problem only exists at web sites? --- only this (MFO) web site? --- same problem at other web sites? --- cabled or wireless mouse? --- has this problem existed before?
Obviously, there are subsets of questions within the above depending upon a yes or no answer. As to the mouse itself........cables do begin to fail and a wireless mouse does have a battery. Also, that USB ports on the pc can become erratic and/or fail, too. Move the mouse connection to another USB port for a test
Okay. Back to other worlds of chores for me today.
Have you ever had trouble with the trackpad on your laptop? I had one that was so hyper-sensitive that it would catch the slightest brush of my palm across it and trigger a cursor move while I was typing. Could someone else have used your laptop and changed a setting like that, or has there been a recent upgrade?
If it only happens here, at MFO, I'm really baffled. We haven't added any new plugins or software with the redesign. It's really only a visual change. Still, I would be happy to dig further if it seems it's only happening here.
Yes, Catch's line of thought is right on. Because I use my computer for so many things other than MFO I wasn't thinking along those lines... if it is a computer/track-pad/mouse/keyboard issue it certainly should show up in an application other than a browser.
Probably the easiest test would be to type a test email, or use a text app of some sort. If it's OK there, then it might indeed suggest some sort of latency problem with the ISP.
Comments
Regards,
Ted
I am not a marketing or advertising type but possibly the use of color on a page seems warmer, engaging or embracing to some folks causing them to stay and look around longer than they might on a B&W page. Pure guessing as I haven't a clue.
What I do know is that posting my useless comments on this board is far, far, far away easier than trying to do so on nearly every other discussion board I've come across. Hmm, now that I mention it, maybe that's been their play all along.
Regards,
Ted
Regards,
Ted
I’m with Mark on this issue. He is on-target. Color presentation does influence the human decision process.
Like Mark, I’m not a marketing expert and have never been in that business. But the advertising specialists have been, and they’ve amassed an impressive array of tools to engage and to influence the general public.
Some of their endless bag of tricks reflect field experience; many others reflect application of psychological academic and industry studies that have generated influencing techniques for decades.
Richard Wiseman is one such researcher. He has written several excellent books that summarize the discipline’s findings and he suggests tips to deploy these findings. His book, “59 Seconds, Think a Little, Change a Lot”, is a worthwhile visit if the topic peaks your interest. Wiseman is a prolific U-Tube contributor. Here is a Link to a collection of his video presentations:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZJ0mCXRo7jNIUnWcoaX_3Q
Wiseman reports that, historically, the color Red means danger and demands immediate action, whereas the color Green is more relaxing and contributes to better decision making. These findings are consistent with Daniel Kahneman’s System 1 reflexive and System 2 Reflective bifurcation in his “Thinking, Fast and Slow” book.
Changing the color scheme on the Mutual Fund Observer site will surely not attract more new visitors, but it should increase the likelihood of them staying. The psychological experiments also suggest, that the soothing Green will promote better decision making. The most shocking observations reported by the psychology community for me is that small presentation changes can make a substantial difference by supplying mostly invisible clues and prompts.
For example, folks act more reflexively when scarcity or time constraints are suggested. Cookies are judged tastier when a “victim” is offered one from a tray of only two cookies over the same cookies presented in massive numbers. When tests are printed in both red and green formats, the green respondents stay the course longer and score higher. This is data based and not speculation.
I want to thank Chip for her dedication to the site, and the changes that have made it more attractive and more useful.
Best Wishes.
Looks very nice on my Kindle Fire HDX.
And I especially appreciate the work Chip has put into it. Thank you!
Chip, thank you for all your efforts, not just this one but everything you do. I think the changes look great. Just one I wish hadn't changed and that's the logo on the tab in internet explorer. When I used to look across all the tabs I seem to regularly have open I found the MFO logo very easy to find. I'm sure I'll get used to it but the owl logo is much harder for me to 'find'.
Regards,
Ted
Regardds,
Ted
Thanks for all your work, Chip!
Ted: Calling your endless flood of links "news and views" is a bit of an embellishment. However, we're all delusional to an extent (survival instinct) and your efforts are greatly appreciated - just let's not get carried away.
MJG: Great stuff on the psychology of colors and numbers - statistically supported at that.
Mark: Your comments are far from "useless" - but I agree it's an easy board to post on and to keep coming back to.
Banner: Blue portion I'll rate just "OK" for aesthetic appeal. And the green stripe below appears kind of pale on my IPad. Neither does much for me. Would be great if color(s) could change daily in sync with the previous day's equity performance - since most here are consummate index watchers. How about hot red following big down days. Flashing gold or silver after big up days. And the pale green for days where there was less than a 1% change in the S&P?
Chip: Thanks for all the devoted work and your patience in hearing everyone out.
Anna: I second your very sweet comment.
Ted & MJG: Are we (you) striving for MFO Hooper ratings??
@chip or anyone else who might have a clue: what ON EARTH m in the middle of typing stuff? ight be causing my g-d CURSOR to decide on its own to re-locate itself, while I'm
*******
IT JUST HAPPENED AGAIN, dammit. WHY is my cursor making decisions on its own to put itself where it does not belong? Then I have to go back and re-type, or cut-and-paste. Driving me crazy. I'm wondering if it might not be the fault of COMCAST, as my wireless internet signal lags and catches up with itself (?) Just a wild guess, a shot in the dark. At any rate, it REALLY sucks.
******
Ding. I happened to look up and found the same thing happening, the way it did with Firefox. I guess we can't blame Firefox, noe Opera, for the problem. I do have very little free space in the hard-drive, but I can't imagine why THAT would be a problem. It doesn't ALWAYS happen. It's seemingly random. But it's m
*****
Ding. There it goes again. It's making me SEE RED!
You noted: "I'm wondering if it might not be the fault of COMCAST, as my wireless internet signal lags and catches up with itself (?)"
How do you know this??? How far along the internet road from your location is Comcast responsible for network quality?
What questions should be asked, to a phone caller with this problem; if you were the tech. support person???
--- what does the cursor do if you are typing an email at your pc?
--- problem only exists at web sites?
--- only this (MFO) web site?
--- same problem at other web sites?
--- cabled or wireless mouse?
--- has this problem existed before?
Obviously, there are subsets of questions within the above depending upon a yes or no answer. As to the mouse itself........cables do begin to fail and a wireless mouse does have a battery. Also, that USB ports on the pc can become erratic and/or fail, too. Move the mouse connection to another USB port for a test
Okay. Back to other worlds of chores for me today.
Regards,
Catch
Catch's questions are good.
Have you ever had trouble with the trackpad on your laptop? I had one that was so hyper-sensitive that it would catch the slightest brush of my palm across it and trigger a cursor move while I was typing. Could someone else have used your laptop and changed a setting like that, or has there been a recent upgrade?
If it only happens here, at MFO, I'm really baffled. We haven't added any new plugins or software with the redesign. It's really only a visual change. Still, I would be happy to dig further if it seems it's only happening here.
Probably the easiest test would be to type a test email, or use a text app of some sort. If it's OK there, then it might indeed suggest some sort of latency problem with the ISP.