Is it really true that no one here has genuinely studied this question before?
Findings from cognitive science and UI research:
People attribute personalities to everything, including software.
Personalized emails, with a person's name, have higher conversion rates.
One of the ways the brain deals with reading is to pretend, on some level, that it's having an imaginary conversation. Concrete description of objects, use of the active instead of passive tense, questions, and keywords like "You," all improve understanding, attention, and memorability.
It's that simple, guys. The research is out there. It's not hard to find. It's not hard to read, either! Just pick up a couple books on writing/cog sci and subscribe to the ACM and do a quick search of their library once in a while.
Or continue to have an argument based solely on what you feel, as if the data is not out there… that works, too.
Findings from cognitive science and UI research:
People attribute personalities to everything, including software.
Personalized emails, with a person's name, have higher conversion rates.
One of the ways the brain deals with reading is to pretend, on some level, that it's having an imaginary conversation. Concrete description of objects, use of the active instead of passive tense, questions, and keywords like "You," all improve understanding, attention, and memorability.
It's that simple, guys. The research is out there. It's not hard to find. It's not hard to read, either! Just pick up a couple books on writing/cog sci and subscribe to the ACM and do a quick search of their library once in a while.
Or continue to have an argument based solely on what you feel, as if the data is not out there… that works, too.