The world’s most…

The world’s most… The top X… The most unique… The most phenomenal… If the popularity of sites like Deputy Dog is anything to go by, we seem particularly drawn to such lists.

I wonder why this is so? The characteristics seem to be:

• A list is involved.
• The content is something fun/curious to look at; to be consumed and disposed of.
• The list has to be short - max 10.

This could be a useful device to get people to read a series of stuff you want to communicate. What do you think?

I liked 7 Amazing Holes.

Thanks to Bede for pointing me to this site.

One comment on “The world’s most…”

1. Stilgherrian said:
   

   Agreed. Time and time again, I’ve found that people react very positively when a slab of information is structured as a list.

   In addition to your second point, in a business context I’d say that each list item needs to have a clear action attached to it. Not “Don’t let your email inbox fill up with unresolved emails” but “Go through your inbox now, and either act on each email or delete it.”

   
   26 January 2008 at 10:38 am

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