A Psychologist’s take on UX Design – Part I

People coming from different backgrounds end up having different views. So when thinking about UX design, a Visual Designer will have a different opinion from that of an Interaction Designer. It can sometimes be helpful to understand how others experience things differently from us.

A Psychologist and Cognitive Scientist by profession, Dr. Susan Weinschenk, used her knowledge and skills to help us understand the human mind better by giving us her take on UX design principles.

1. People Don’t Want to Work or Think More Than They Have To

• People will always try to put in the least amount of effort in order to complete a task
• It  helps if we show people a little information and give them the option to view more of it
• People like following other people, so they understand better when you show them examples
• Objects on the screen must show affordance. If something is clickable, it must look like it as well
• Instead of filling up the screen with features you think the user might need, do proper research and add only the things that are important
• People are lazy so provide defaults wherever possible

2. People Have Limitations

• People have short spans of interest. They will easily lose interest if there’s too much information in the screen. Provide only what is necessary
• Make informations easy to scan
• Research has shown that most of the people are unable to multi-task. So do not expect them to
• Use headers and short blocks of text to keep the users engaged

3. To Err is Human

• Know that people will make mistakes. Try to prevent them
• If the results of an error are severe, use confirmation messages before acting on the user’s action
• Keep an option of ‘Undo’ wherever possible
• If a task is error prone, break it down into smaller parts
• If the user makes an error, help them correct it

(keep reading with us to find out more on this topic  …)

Continued to  A Psychologist’s take on UX Design – Part II

References

1. UX Magazine
2. The New York Times