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5: Foreground and Background

View the warning on the contents page regarding "facts" presented by this author.

Returning to the most fundamental elements of perception, sense data, the author maintains that businesses seem to focus on visual data almost exclusively, and neglecting the other four "means missing 80% of the influencing power."

The more senses you can engage, the more powerful the experience will be, and the greater the chances of making a lasting impression.

Some customer interfaces are limited by the nature of the interface. A billboard can engage only sight, a radio ad can engage only hearing. In some instances, there are potential to engage other senses that is ignored (a direct-mail piece is considered only visually, but the texture of the paper and the scent of the ink are present). In other instances, such as a shop or showroom, the customer is fully immersed.

The author also mentions the notion of the "background" firms mistakenly assume to be invisible to customers and of no consequence to their brand. Often neglected are:

The point here is that there is a separation between foreground and background, and suggests that it is in the power of the business to "decide which elements of your business need to be in the foreground and keep all other elements in the background."

(EN: I use "suggests" here because, while it's possible in some instances to control what a person sees and to conceal things you don't want them to see, you can't fool all the people all of the time. And especially for the second two bullets, these are neglected parties who can have a significant impact on the impression that they give others.)

The example he gives is of a stage production, in which the experience on-stage is expected to take the audience's full attention: but if you aren't careful to control this, it can detract from the experience. If the wires that suspend a character who "flies" through a scene, or even the stage hands on a catwalk, are visible in a performance, it distracts and detracts from the audience's enjoyment of the production.

To create the best customer experience, you must consider the full realm of the senses, and the full compass of the interfaces, foreground and background.

(EN: This is another short chapter, a bit random, that seems to have been broken down into separate chapters - the ones that follow focus on each of the senses mentioned here - with some random filler material bolted on to increase page-count.)