Website Decisions Based on Intuitive Understanding

Is it Reasonable?

[martinibuster]

On rare occasions I get a "gut feeling" that something might work and run with it. I like to A/B test things, but sometimes I simply understand I need to take a certain direction- I just know it's the right thing to do. Is this based on experience or is it something you have or not have? Do you ever jump in based on an intuitive grasp of a situation?

Is it possible to build intuitive understanding?

[ronin]

Not sure.

It's definitely possible to retroactively attribute successes to having possessed an intuitive understanding before the experiment.

Combined with a selective memory which remembers successes far more than failures, an individual could develop quite the conviction that they possessed an intuitive understanding.

[vincevincevince]

On the other hand, intuition (expectation of a certain result from a given proposed action) also incorporates experience. Having seen many similar business models fold, intuition will make you feel that another of the same will go the same way.

[Tastatura]

sounds like experience to me :)

Not sure who said this, but it goes something like:
"Good decisions are based on experience. Experience is built on bad decisions."

[Marcia]

simply understand I need to take a certain direction- I just know it's the right thing to do.

Absolutely, and it's somewhat explained by writings in the cognitive sciences (or more closely, philosophy). It's the stage of "knowing" that precedes logic. It's the "aha!" that really can't be explained in logical terms or language.

MB, what happens if you try to explain it to someone else, who doesn't also "know it" the same way?

[D_Blackwell]

On rare occasions I get a "gut feeling" that something might work and run with it.

Tie this to the already referenced experience, and this seems to me to be the formula for a 'first strike' development; making a connection between things that you know and something that you come to believe; which would result in a something new and unique.

If you go with it; maybe a home run. If you don't - and you were right - somebody else will make the 'intuitive connection'.

Even if you are wrong, and it is an expensive mistake - that doesn't mean that going for it was necessarily wrong. There is always going to be a 'leap of faith' point...minimum and maximum risk...potential payoff that justifies blazing a new trail.....

[Marcia]

It isn't guesswork, and it isn't exactly experience. It's called tacit knowledge, and it works far more often than not.

[steve]

^^^ A perfect description ^^^

Its what separates good sportsmen from great sportsmen.

For example the telemetary from Formula One World Champion Michael Schumachers car would show he lifted off the accelerator just before he slid, or came off the break just before the wheels locked.

I read somewhere it's what made Andrea Agazzi one of the best return of servers in tennis, based on his opponents body position he would move before the ball was struck. But I bet he couldn't explain how he did it!