Cognitive DistanceA book by Izaias Cavalcanti Free PDF

Author

Izaias Cavalcanti

Izaias Cavalcanti researches cognitive distance in information systems, drawing on a background in UX and product design.

The work examines why people complete digital tasks without understanding what the system did, and how that gap can be measured and designed away, with a particular focus on public services, banking and healthcare.

Cavalcanti is the author of a series of papers developing the cognitive distance framework, including the Cognitive Distance Index and the Everyday Services Study, and also writes about product design for practitioners. From Cognitive Load to Cognitive Distance is Cavalcanti’s first book.

The research program

The program began with a simple observation from usability practice: people often succeed at a task and still cannot explain it. Performance metrics register that as success. Cavalcanti’s work treats it as a distinct failure, gives it a formal definition, and builds the tools to measure it.

  • A construct. Cognitive distance, defined as the mismatch between the conceptual structure a system requires and the mental model a user constructs, with three properties that separate it from cognitive load.
  • An instrument. The Cognitive Distance Index, which scores perceived understanding, predictive accuracy, interaction confidence and conceptual transparency.
  • An experiment. The Everyday Services Study, which compares plain and institutional language on banking, medical appointment and licence renewal screens in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
  • Applied cases. Externalized processing in document submission systems, and accessibility debt as the compounding cost of interpretive barriers.

Selected papers

Elsewhere