Role of psychology and emotions in interaction design.
My takeaways from the Interaction Design Foundation
Unpuzzling how products affect us
Have you ever been puzzled when looking at one product, and immediately knew what to do when looking at another? Have you ever wondered why some products just make us feel something? While shopping do you tend to make quick gut feeling decisions or do a thorough analysis first?
We are complex beings making complex decisions every day. Thanks to psychologists and Nobel laureates like Daniel Kanhenam, Amos Tversky, and Richard Thaler we know that we don’t act as rationally as we might think. Psychology and emotions matter a lot.
As professionals, and as consumers we should understand key concepts that have an impact on how people buy and interact with the products and services.
Here are my key takeaways from the journey to understand them with the Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF).
1. Human Cognition has its limitations
The role of the designer is to support the nature and limitations of human cognition. Get the users’ attention, remove the burden of having to remember, communicate with them in language they will understand and provide them with the necessary information to reason, formulate potential problem-solving action sequences and make the right decisions.
For example, did you know that our short-term memory has a limited capacity of items it can store? It’s known as Miller’s magical number of 7 + or - 2. Hence limit the number of items on a slide or a website if you want it to be remembered better.
2. Designers role is to provide users with visual cues about the object that will help them understand how to use it before interacting with it
Think of scissors, a coffee mug, and a smartwatch.
How easily can you conceptualize how to use them before you touch them? It all depends on the Conceptual Models we are led to create.
3. Product experience is formed by three Levels of Design
- Visceral — appearances and first impressions — think sleek-looking coffee mug
- Behavioral — practical and functional, pleasure and effectiveness of use — think a coffee mug that is ergonomic, keeps the temperature for long, and doesn’t break easily when dropped.
- Reflective — what users think of the product before, during and after use, and how it fits in with users’ self-image. It’s the only conscious form of processing. To tap into it we must understand users' needs — not just how they are going to use our product, but also what is the job they are hiring it for and how their life will be different once they use it. Think of an exclusive coffee mug available only for best-in-class experts.
4. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs can help us design to meet user needs.
Consider what types of needs your products are targeting in combination with Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs to craft the right message. E.g. can you refer to quenching the thirst, family safety, sense of belonging to a group, or personal mastery? What if we consider the following design hierarchy — functionality, reliability, usability, proficiency or creativity?
5. When communicating to consumers we need to talk to three parts of the brain.
According to MacLean’s three brains model, even though humans have evolved over the millennia, our brains still have the functions of our predecessors:
- The old brain or lizard brain is about primal instincts and survival. It makes quick decisions without waiting for the other parts. The primal brain can activate in decision making when triggered by fear, sex, safety. This is what happens when we see images of products used by attractive people, those appealing to parental instincts.
- The mid-brain is the emotional brain feeding the primal brain and influencing the rational brain. It also deals with making value judgments like decisions on whether to trust someone within a few seconds of meeting them. Last but not least, that part of the brain is sending “well done” messages through a reward system. The customer midbrain should be first put at ease, and then excited with a sense of progress accomplishment. E.g. “Did you know we are 100% secure and offer a money-back guarantee? Now, here’s a surprise product recommendation just for you.”
- The new brain, the rational brain is dealing with learning, memory, problem-solving, decision-making, and reasoning. It provides rational justification for decisions we made instinctively and emotionally. When designing user experiences the new brain should feel involved in the decision if it is not. E.g. by providing materials it can turn to rationalize the decision made, such as customer reviews, testimonials, performance measures.
6. Gestalt Principles — humans group similar elements, recognize patterns and simplify images to make sense of the world with constant noise.
Imagine if instead of a picture we would see every single pixel it is made of and couldn’t see the whole. Our brains would be overloaded and confused. Gestalt principles help mitigate that. Designers should follow them to organize content in a way that is aesthetically pleasing and easy to understand. For example objects close to each other are considered to be related. You can utilize it when creating a dashboard — bring related indicators closer, and separate unrelated ones.
Summary
What has surprised you? What has made you curious? What would like you like to learn more about? For more, you can consider UX articles from IxDF or full courses such as Psychology of Interaction Design, Emotional Design — How to Make Products People Will Love, Psychology of eCommerce, or Information Visualization: Getting Dashboards Right.
You can also read more about my journey with IxDF and their curricula here.
