A helpful observation from not following this many times in my life.

Front load names to cue attention

The time to a target depends on the ratio of distance to the target over it’s size. So clicking on a small target close by might take a similar time to clicking on a large target further away. It’s a simple model and there are a few little games out there to bring it home in practice.

I’m reminded however, of an observation from a mentor of mine, Darrell Mann, that just because people call it a law doesn’t mean you have to treat it like one. The example of Apple’s standard program icons at the base of the screen that expand when you mouse near them, are a simple technique that help to overcome the limitations of Fitt’s law. There are plenty more. Don’t be sucked in to laziness by a name.

Fitts’ Law

This may have been obvious from day one, but despite the basic geometry of our necks it took me many years to figure out that back sleepers generally need just the one pillow and side sleepers are better off with two. Still think the pillow industry could do with a shake up though to solve basic problems like not falling into the gap between pillows, pillows made for two or pillows that more flexibly adjust as you turn over.

Back sleepers, side sleepers

And shorten the wait for everyone. It’s amazing to me how often everyone pays for forgetting there are two accessible sides to a buffet.

Approach buffets from both sides

Vary significantly depending on context and can tend to zero if you really have a lot of stuff to get through.

Cafe consumption rates

I often find myself reflecting on what ought to be an improvement to the caveman-esque communication method, which is the car horn.

My theory generally goes that the vast majority of use of a car horn, in the UK at least, is not for its intended of use of signalling to others to watch out. Instead it probably has most use in telling people they're idiots, perhaps for pulling out in front of you. Next, letting the person in front know that the light has turned green, followed by letting your friends know you're waiting outside or just leaving. And, lastly, to let people know to watch out.

But it’s harder than it seems, I'd guess, to make something that supports helpful behaviour provides safety and avoids lawsuits. Surely can’t be that hard though…

Use of the car horn

Travel and new foods

I'm not advocating it. It just seems to always be the case.

Rule 1 of indoor games: Play until something gets broken

You will have observed this most times there is shared food you can cut. I observed it with trays of brownies that we used to make. Slices start big and get progressively smaller. No one wants to eat the last slice.

A previous boss had a simple solution to this with a maxim he had: You think of one, you get two. A bit excessive, and I don’t advocate it, but it really did work.

The law of diminishing brownies

You will recognise this when you have spent 40 minutes off and on trying to do something online when you could have been spending your time happily and productively doing something else.

Bad internet is worse than no internet

The Generalised Peter Principle states that "Anything that works will be used in progressively more challenging situations until it fails.

The Generalised Peter Principle is a specific case of the Peter Principle, which is the same idea but applied to people 😱.

I observed the Generalised Peter Principle when packing a minivan in Cambodia.

The Generalised Peter Principle

You can see this trend in most technology products. Increasing subtleties and functions are added improving what a product can do. At some point, the complexity is sufficient to force us to focus efforts on simplification (or the benefit great enough that a simpler technology will take over) - while maintaining functionality. Classic menus migrating to context-sensitive menus; the original NES controller, to the xbox controller to Wii and Kinect control, Yahoo’s list-the-web, to Google’s search the web, multiple glasses to photochromic glasses, and so on.

I believe this observation is from Edward De Bono, but I learned it from Darrell Mann. I keep finding it helpful.

Things get more complex before they get simple

This is my own observation — no rigorous research to reference. But, looking at our 2 year old as he’s transitioned from a baby, I’ve been led to think about our times on, say, public transport. A baby will largely only focus on what’s right in front of their faces or directly impinging on their senses. As they grow, the vicinity becomes their circle. So if you’re on the tube, anything within sight in the carriage is fair game for them to fiddle with or want to investigate. But adults are capable of just sitting there - thinking, about things far away, in the future or in the past. It strikes me that small children just can’t do that — life is what’s around them or nothing. Hence endless fidgeting and investigation. Brilliant.

The expanding circle of attention

Not the standard physics laws of expansion.

Work expands to fill the available time — also known as Parkinson's Law

Stuff expands to fill the available space — also known as Jono's Law

Cost expands to fill the available budget — also known as life

After grandiosely naming "Stuff expands to fill the available space" as Jono's Law, I came across "Ryan's Application of Parkinson's Law: Possessions increase to fill the space available for their storage," in Arthur Bloch's Murphy's Law Book Two, p 84, which, at least, is perhaps not as pithy.

Laws of expansion

How to get into flow at work? Match challenge with skills.

When your work is too hard for your skill you experience anxiety.

When your skill is too high for the work you experience boredom.

When your skill is matched with the challenge of the work then you can experience flow.

This simple framework comes from the deep insights of the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his book Good Business.

Match challenge with skills for flow at work

I believe I first heard this on a Radiolab episode, but I can’t remember for sure. Since then, I’ve reflected on it many times and cannot help but think it has some truth.

For me, this explains why we’re not very good at processing the scenery as we drive or take a train and why cycling and walking are the best ways to get around.

In The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton makes some great observations about why trains are great for thinking. I think this has a lot to do with having time to think. We have a helpful intermission of the semi-connected landscape and houses passing by that we can only process for so long before we return to our thoughts. I love trains.

Our senses are built to take in information at human pace

Part of the reason why bottles should really have their necks to one side instead of in the centre.

Give air a pathway to avoid glugging

Hi, I’m Jono, and I think, where possible, it’s important to be you on the Internet just as it is in real life. Perspective from Jaron Lanier. Masks and hoods insight from Philip Zimbardo’s Psychology of Evil, TED talk.

Be real on the internets

I’ve always been somewhat guarded about sharing, preferring to stick with close friends and family. This frame shift, provided for me by JP Rangaswami, was part of the reason for putting Sketchplanations up here. And it’s spot on. How could I possibly know who may find which sketchplanation interesting?

Share by Default

I have read case-studies of each being effective.

3 techniques to deter riff-raff

Half the time when you pick up a whiteboard pen that doesn’t work, it’s because it’s been stored nib-upwards. It usually just needs a little re-charging.

Store whiteboard pens with the nib down

If there are only two people in the changing room, your lockers will be next to each other.

The law of lockers

The number of ideas produced in an ideation session is proportional to the size of the stack of paper in front of you.

I definitely think there’s some truth to this observation about idea generation. It’s all about expectation and belief. Like how if you simply ask people to be creative, they come up with more creative ideas. Simple.

Conrad credits Lucas McCann for the quote (who no doubt said it much more concisely and pithily).

How to peel a Post It so it doesn't fall down

The number of ideas produced in an ideation session is proportional to the size of the stack of paper in front of you

The realisation originally came to me when I saw, pinned outside a Professor’s door, an entire sheet of plain letter paper with a single line quote at the top. The standards are driving the system. About time we got more flexible.

If we plumbed in printers

I think there may be a counter trend at some point too, but generally I think this has some validity.

The wedding bar goes up the more weddings you attend

London dog size is roughly proportional to the distance from central London

Next time you arrive at a bar in a big group, resist the urge to go find a seat straight away.

Stand, don’t sit, in bars, if you’re there with a big group

My experience is that the middle floors in an apartment building are the best (except for the roof deck).

On the high floors, you are disconnected from the world—people below are teeny, tiny ants as if watching on a screen.

On the low levels, the world is un-shut-outable—shouts, fumes, traffic noise, and people can look you in the eye.

On the middle floors, you are distant from street level but still connected—you can still make out faces and hear voices, but if you choose, you can easily block them out and not let them intrude on your environment.

The middle floors are the best

I remember seeing this in some chain email nearly 15 years ago. Still relevant to this day.

Urinal etiquette

California weather = predictable. British weather = unpredictable.

It’s not so much the weather itself, it’s the unpredictability

Of all my sketches, I have a soft spot for this one.

We had some lovely family friends who were massively into birding. As a schoolboy, I was more interested in birds than most, but one day, my Dad and I went to stay with them.

They talked us through trips they'd been around the world to spot rare and remarkable birds. They had an amazing telescope trained on the birds at the feeder in their garden. They had wonderful binoculars we used on a bird walk, which showed me birds clearer and closer than I'd ever seen. They knew what birds to look out for and had tape recordings of specific bird calls that brought the birds to nearby bushes. It was impossible to be around them and not start to love birds.

As I've gotten older, I've realised pretty much everything and everyone is like that. Premier League football is boring if you don't pay close attention to it, but if you follow every detail, it can be engrossing. I didn't think much of textiles, but after spending an afternoon weaving in Laos, I loved it.

Pretty much everything has the thing they're deeply interested in.

The physicist Richard Feynman said: "Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough."

And here's another similar sentiment from the writer Henry Miller: "The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself."

It reminds me that just because I don't see something as interesting now doesn't mean that it's not or that people who are into it are somehow weird.

Everyone's a geek about something. And that's wonderful.

I revised this sketch in March 2025 for the podcast episode. Here's the original

And here's the updated and expanded version.

Observation sketches