Mental Notes

I'm an avid follower of creativity cards, having produced my own set. Mental Notes is an attempt to lay out principles of psychology that might be useful for web design. You can use them for other things, of course, but there is a bias here towards web design in the detailed descriptions. The Mental Notes deck gave me a lot to think about, because I had, at one point, a plan to create a sequel to my Art of Game Design book, entitled The Psychology of Game Design. Similar to Mental Notes, the idea was to connect various ideas from the world of psychology to game design. Unfortunately, the more I worked on it, the more it felt like an encyclopedia, or maybe I should say, it felt like a deck of cards -- many random principles, but little that built up into anything significant or meaningful, and ultimately I abandoned, or at least set aside, the project. This deck suffers a little from the same problems -- I kind of wish its principles were a little more organized into suits, or some such, and like many survey treatments of psychology, it feels like important things have been missed. That said, it does seem like a useful set of "lenses" to flip through on a project, and you are sure to pick up some meaningful ideas and turns of phrase along the way. And the box is super attractive, so it makes a very nice gift for any designer. You can buy them here.