我們?yōu)槭裁磿?huì)被美好打動(dòng)？

GREAT design, the management expert Gary Hamel once said, is like Justice Potter Stewart’s famous definition of pornography — you know it when you see it. You want it, too: brain scan studies reveal that the sight of an attractive product can trigger the part of the motor cerebellum that governs hand movement. Instinctively, we reach out for attractive things; beauty literally moves us.

管理專家加里·哈梅爾(Gary Hamel)曾說，偉大的設(shè)計(jì)就像法官波特·斯圖爾特(Potter Stewart)對(duì)色情所下的知名定義：當(dāng)你看到它時(shí)，你就知道它是偉大的設(shè)計(jì)。你還想得到它：大腦掃描研究顯示，看到一件有吸引力的產(chǎn)品，會(huì)激發(fā)控制手部動(dòng)作的運(yùn)動(dòng)小腦部分。我們會(huì)本能地把手伸向有吸引力的事物;美麗真的能夠打動(dòng)我們。

Yet, while we are drawn to good design, as Mr. Hamel points out, we’re not quite sure why.

然而，正如哈梅爾所指出的，我們?cè)诒粌?yōu)秀設(shè)計(jì)吸引時(shí)，并不太確定這是為什么。

This is starting to change. A revolution in the science of design is already under way, and most people, including designers, aren’t even aware of it.

這一點(diǎn)正開始改變。設(shè)計(jì)科學(xué)領(lǐng)域的一場(chǎng)革命已經(jīng)展開，但包括設(shè)計(jì)師在內(nèi)的多數(shù)人甚至都還沒有意識(shí)到。

Take color. Last year, German researchers found that just glancing at shades of green can boost creativity and motivation. It’s not hard to guess why: we associate verdant colors with food-bearing vegetation — hues that promise nourishment.

以顏色為例。去年，德國研究者發(fā)現(xiàn)，僅僅瞥一眼某些綠色色調(diào)，就能提升創(chuàng)造力和積極性。其原因并不難猜測(cè)：我們把翠綠的顏色和孕育食物的植被聯(lián)系起來，綠色是代表營養(yǎng)的色彩。

This could partly explain why window views of landscapes, research shows, can speed patient recovery in hospitals, aid learning in classrooms and spur productivity in the workplace. In studies of call centers, for example, workers who could see the outdoors completed tasks 6 to 7 percent more efficiently than those who couldn’t, generating an annual savings of nearly $3,000 per employee.

這可以部分解釋，為什么研究顯示，窗外的風(fēng)景能加速住院病人的恢復(fù)，能有助于課堂學(xué)習(xí)，還能提高工作場(chǎng)所的生產(chǎn)率。例如，在對(duì)客服中心的研究中，能夠看到戶外景觀的員工的工作效率比那些看不到的員工要高出6%到7%，這樣算來，每位員工每年能多產(chǎn)出近3000美元。

In some cases the same effect can happen with a photographic or even painted mural, whether or not it looks like an actual view of the outdoors. Corporations invest heavily to understand what incentivizes employees, and it turns out that a little color and a mural could do the trick.

在某些情況下，一幅照片甚至是繪制的壁畫也能起到同樣的效果，不管它看上去是否真的接近戶外景象。公司投入巨資來研究什么能夠激勵(lì)員工，而其實(shí)一點(diǎn)顏色和一幅壁畫就能解決問題。

Simple geometry is leading to similar revelations. For more than 2,000 years, philosophers, mathematicians and artists have marveled at the unique properties of the “golden rectangle”: subtract a square from a golden rectangle, and what remains is another golden rectangle, and so on and so on — an infinite spiral. These so-called magical proportions (about 5 by 8) are common in the shapes of books, television sets and credit cards, and they provide the underlying structure for some of the most beloved designs in history: the facades of the Parthenon and Notre Dame, the face of the “Mona Lisa,” the Stradivarius violin and the original iPod.

簡(jiǎn)單的幾何圖形也有類似的啟示。2000多年來，哲學(xué)家、數(shù)學(xué)家和藝術(shù)學(xué)家對(duì)“黃金矩形”的獨(dú)特性驚嘆不已：在黃金矩形里減去一個(gè)正方形，剩下的還是一個(gè)黃金矩形，可以一直這樣繼續(xù)下去，形成一個(gè)無限的螺旋。這種所謂的神奇比例(大約是8:5)在圖書、電視和信用卡的形狀上相當(dāng)常見，而且還為歷史上一些最受歡迎的設(shè)計(jì)提供了基本結(jié)構(gòu)，如帕特農(nóng)神廟和巴黎圣母院的正面、蒙娜麗莎的臉部、斯特拉迪瓦里小提琴和最初版的iPod。

Experiments going back to the 19th century repeatedly show that people invariably prefer images in these proportions, but no one has known why.

從19世紀(jì)起，實(shí)驗(yàn)多次證明，人們就是喜歡這種長(zhǎng)寬比例的圖像，但沒人知道為什么。

Then, in 2009, a Duke University professor demonstrated that our eyes can scan an image fastest when its shape is a golden rectangle. For instance, it’s the ideal layout of a paragraph of text, the one most conducive to reading and retention. This simple shape speeds up our ability to perceive the world, and without realizing it, we employ it wherever we can.

最后，在2009年，杜克大學(xué)(Duke University)的一名教授展示出，當(dāng)圖像的形狀是黃金矩形時(shí)，人類眼睛的掃描速度最快。例如，這是一段文字最為理想的排版形式，最利于閱讀和記憶。這個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單的形狀加速了我們感知世界的能力，而我們一直在無意識(shí)地使用這種形狀。

Certain patterns also have universal appeal. Natural fractals — irregular, self-similar geometry — occur virtually everywhere in nature: in coastlines and riverways, in snowflakes and leaf veins, even in our own lungs. In recent years, physicists have found that people invariably prefer a certain mathematical density of fractals — not too thick, not too sparse. The theory is that this particular pattern echoes the shapes of trees, specifically the acacia, on the African savanna, the place stored in our genetic memory from the cradle of the human race. To paraphrase one biologist, beauty is in the genes of the beholder — home is where the genome is.

另外一些圖案也具有普遍的吸引力。自然分形——不規(guī)則、自相似的幾何形態(tài)——在自然中幾乎隨處可見：在海岸線和河道中，在雪花和葉脈中，甚至在我們的肺中。最近幾年，物理學(xué)家發(fā)現(xiàn)人們就是喜歡某種數(shù)學(xué)密度(不要太密，也不要太稀)的分形。其理論是，這種特定圖案和樹的形態(tài)相呼應(yīng)，特別是非洲大草原上的洋槐，而非洲自人類搖籃時(shí)期起就深藏于我們的遺傳記憶中。借用一位生物學(xué)家的話，美麗存在于欣賞者的基因中——家園便是基因組所在的地方。

LIFE magazine named Jackson Pollock “the greatest living painter in the United States” in 1949, when he was creating canvases now known to conform to the optimal fractal density (about 1.3 on a scale of 1 to 2 from void to solid). Could Pollock’s late paintings result from his lifelong effort to excavate an image buried in all of our brains?

《生活》(Life)雜志在1949年稱，杰克遜·波洛克 (Jackson Pollock)是“美國最偉大的在世畫家”，當(dāng)時(shí)他正在創(chuàng)作一系列油畫，這些油畫在當(dāng)今被認(rèn)為符合最佳分形密度(如果從空到實(shí)的尺度為1至2，其密度大約是1.3)。波洛克的晚期作品，是否源自他為挖掘埋在人類大腦中的圖像而付出的畢生努力?

We respond so dramatically to this pattern that it can reduce stress levels by as much as 60 percent — just by being in our field of vision. One researcher has calculated that since Americans spend $300 billion a year dealing with stress-related illness, the economic benefits of these shapes, widely applied, could be in the billions.

我們對(duì)這種圖案的反應(yīng)相當(dāng)激烈，以至于只要這種圖案在我們視線所及的范圍內(nèi)，我們的壓力水平就能降低至多60%。一名研究人員計(jì)算得出，鑒于美國人每年花費(fèi)3000億美元治療和壓力相關(guān)的疾病，如果這些圖案得到廣泛應(yīng)用，它們有望產(chǎn)生巨額經(jīng)濟(jì)效益。

It should come as no surprise that good design, often in very subtle ways, can have such dramatic effects. After all, bad design works the other way: poorly designed computers can injure your wrists, awkward chairs can strain your back and over-bright lighting and computer screens can fatigue your eyes.

優(yōu)秀的設(shè)計(jì)(經(jīng)常以甚為微妙的方式)產(chǎn)生如此強(qiáng)烈的效果，這不足為奇。畢竟，糟糕的設(shè)計(jì)會(huì)產(chǎn)生相反的效果：設(shè)計(jì)不當(dāng)?shù)碾娔X會(huì)損害你的腕關(guān)節(jié)，不舒服的座椅會(huì)損害你的背部，而太過強(qiáng)烈的燈光和電腦屏幕會(huì)讓你的眼睛感到疲勞。

We think of great design as art, not science, a mysterious gift from the gods, not something that results just from diligent and informed study. But if every designer understood more about the mathematics of attraction, the mechanics of affection, all design — from houses to cellphones to offices and cars — could both look good and be good for you.

我們認(rèn)為偉大的設(shè)計(jì)是藝術(shù)，而不是科學(xué)，是神祗賦予的神秘禮物，而不是有資料根據(jù)的勤奮研究所結(jié)出的果實(shí)。但如果每個(gè)設(shè)計(jì)師能加深理解吸引力的數(shù)學(xué)規(guī)則和喜愛之情的機(jī)制，那么從房屋到手機(jī)，從辦公室到汽車，所有的設(shè)計(jì)都可以既美觀又好用。