The death of the big idea

Brian Millar

Many people scan media and ignore advertisements, precisely because they look like advertisements. So what can we do about it? One answer may be the 'big idea', not based on a single concept, but on a rich, multidimensional engagement with the consumer.

The death of the big idea

Brian Millar

Jakob Nielsen is a geek hero, a useability expert who spends his life strapping people into eyetracking headgear and watching how their attention skitters across a computer screen. He recently conducted an amazing study for the US Census Bureau. It had redesigned its website to include a giant population ticker in the top right. Nielsen asked his subjects to look at the page and tell him what the population of the US was.

Only 14% of users managed to do it. The clock was enormous, in a font size twice as big...

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