Malloy 7 what it means to be intrinsically motivated, to have a curiosity to learn and, therefore, add relevant links to people's lives. While propaganda has been extremely successful because it plays on people's fears and emotions, it comes from an old model of understanding what motivates us. Pink looks at MIT studies that reveal monetary incentives do not work as soon as any congnitive challenge is added; the pressure has an opposite effect. Instead, people desire autonomy, mastery, and meaning. One successful example Pink offers is Atlassian, an Australian-based 35-plus million dollar software company that gives what they call “FedEx” days where employees are free to work on any non-regular job and present their findings the next day (hence, the overnight reference). Not only is Atlassian taking advantage of the realization that people want to work independently, employees who work autonomously accomplish great things when allowed to do so.8 Both user centered design research and pedagogy supports Pink’s claim for the need of mastery. Allan Cooper, a user centered design expert, discusses in About Face 3 the value and importance of allowing people a feeling of completeness. By giving visual, verbal, or tactile feedback when a user does something to an interface, communication is enhanced and the user is pleased. Feedback is satisfying, even if it is an incremental satisfaction. The same could be said for decoding, say, a design with a double image; a user feels satisfaction in discovering both images. When a student feels successful, they are more apt to continue to work hard; in the case of a user, they may be more apt to follow a call to action or become more involved with the designer’s client. Unlike Pink, Cooper argues users would rather feel successful than knowledgeable; there is a big difference.9 I do not want to know 8
Daniel Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (New York, NY: Riverhead Books,
2009). 93. 9
Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, and Dave Cronin. About Face 3: the Essentials of Interaction Design.
(Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Pub., 2007). Chapter 13.