A Psychologist’s take on UX Design – Part III

Continuation of  A Psychologist’s take on UX Design – Part II

A little recap of what you may have missed…

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

2. People Have Limitations &

3. To Err is Human

4. Human Memory Is Complicated

5. People are Social

6. Attention

7. People Crave Information

• A chemical in our brain called Dopamine is released as a reward when we learn something new. By nature, it makes us want to learn more information all the time
• People like being in control of their decisions. When they have an excess of information, they think they have more options to choose from  
• When a person does something, they need some sort of feedback from their action. If a page is loading, they need to know that it is loading.

8. Unconscious Processing

• Most of the decisions we make happen unconsciously
• If you can make people sign up to your site for free, they are more likely to do something bigger for you, like upgrading the account to a paid one.
• The old brain (the brainstem and cerebellum) are involved in the processing of emotion, behavior, attention, walking, eating, sexual activity, sleeping and a few other motor responses. This is why messages like food, sex and hunger grab our attention
• The emotional brain is affected by pictures that tells us stories of humans. It has a huge impact on the decisions we make
• People react to a particular choice in different ways depending on how it is presented (called framing)

9. People Create Mental Models

• People have for generations observed others to create mental models for themselves for example, we know how to use the remote from observing others use it
• The mental model that people have about a particular task may make it easy or hard to use an interface that you have designed.
• If you want to give the user a great UX, you have to either make use of their mental model while completing tasks or you have find a clever way of changing the way they do things
• Metaphors help users get a mental model. For example if we say, ‘the kindle is just like reading a book’, the users will immediately have a mental model ready for themselves while using the kindle
• It is very important to do proper user research so that you can find out their mental models

10. Visual System

• If the information on the page is too cluttered, users cannot find it. Use grouping to help the user focus
• Things that are close to each other are, are considered to have similar functionalities
• Decorative fonts do not help the users read. Use large and clear fonts where necessary
• Try to avoid red and blue combination as they are the hardest to look at
• People can recognize objects on a screen best when they are slightly angled and have the perspective of being slightly above
• Color can be used to show whether things go together. But make sure you have an alternate way to show the same information since some people are colorblind.