Aha Moment

Remember those days in college when you'd stay up all night? No, not that night the cop caught you stealing that stop sign. Although, that was really funny. We're talking about when you'd pound hard at the keyboard on an essay that was due at 7 a.m. You don't know where the paper's going. You've lost focus. You've had too much coffee. Then a chemical lightening bolt bursts between sleepy neurons and WHAM! You've got it.

That was an Aha moment. The moment of truth were everything — the idea, the process, and the situation — clicks. Eureka! To turn a cliche, the lightbulb goes off and shines bright.

Bright Lights, Big Brain

Now let us hit you with some knowledge. A lightbulb might not be far from the truth. The folks at WebMD report that your brain becomes a hotbed of electrical activity during an Aha moment. Get this, a study shows that a third of a second right before the Aha moment people have an explosion of high-frequency brain waves — the kind associated with some super-charged processing of information, says WebMD. That's wicked! Guess that means we've got a lot of pumped gray matter around our offices.

Can I Get An "Aha!"

Aha moments happen fast around ZURB. We'll be with a client in a strategy meeting, and one of us will blaze through our plans for the client's project. Then the client will slightly lean her head back and smile. At that moment, she's seen the future as we've describe it and all the awesome possibilities it will bring.

Another Aha moment happens during brainstorming sessions. Picture it, we've all been at the same thing for awhile, slumped over dozens of sketches. We think we're out of ideas. Then someone shouts out an idea and everyone snaps to attention, recognizing the idea as brilliant. The idea spurs a chain reaction that ends in a nuclear burst of creativity and innovation.

As customers visiting a website, it's that sweet moment when we realize that the site offers exactly what we've absolutely need. But we all know how easily that Aha moment can turn sour if something on the site is jacked up — something as seemingly innocuous as finding the company's phone number, for instance. Yeah, that can turn an Aha moment into a "Oh" moment.