We’re far more than just UX designers – we’re also mind readers. Okay, so we attempt to be mind readers. That is the basics of the psychology behind user experience design.
Naturally, it gets a bit more complex than that. After all, it’s the human mind we’re talking about here. The point is, we have to dive into the mind to understand a user’s motivations, emotions and needs to go from concept to final product.
The big question is what are all the psychological components we have to think about during the design process. Once we have that answer, we appreciate a great design even more than before.
Tapping Into The Unconscious Thought Process
We might think our conscious mind is fully in control, but it’s actually our unconscious mind that does most of the heavy lifting. So not only do we as designers have to understand how users think, we have to understand the unconscious thought process too. The human brain does most of its work in the background. For instance, when we go “awww” over a cute kitten photo online, it’s actually an emotional instinct (unconscious mind working here). With UX design, we have to know how to appeal to those types of thoughts and instincts.
Understanding Mental Models
When someone says “sports car,” it’s easy to get a mental image of a Corvette or Lamborghini. But what if an automaker wanted to completely change the design to look more like a hatchback? It probably wouldn’t work because it doesn’t match the mental model that people have.
Part of the psychology behind user design experience is understanding what the mental model, or mental image, that the user has in mind for a particular product, app or website. Even with something new, users will create a mental model and they expect something similar to what they envision.
Anticipating Human Error
We could design what we believe is perfection, but add in a human element and poof! Suddenly, nothing’s going right. So what went wrong? A large part of the psychology behind user experience design is anticipating human error. For instance, if we go to a website and want to cancel an order instead of proceeding, but the two buttons are close together, the odds are pretty good that quite a few of us would hit “proceed” versus cancel.
We have to take into consideration how users process information without really thinking about it. In the above example, we’d expect to see “proceed” on the left and “cancel” on the right, but if the two were reversed, we’d have more misclicks.
Finding The Simplest Path Possible
Okay, so this applies to most people and things, except for maybe people who want to climb Everest or something else insanely difficult. All in all, we can agree that we all prefer the simplest path possible to perform a task or use a product. For instance, going back to the website example, we wouldn’t want a check-out process that has 20 steps versus two or three.
In trying to find the easiest path, the mind has been hardwired to uncover the simplest way to do something. Ironically enough, it actually takes hard work to change that mindset. But as UX designers, we have to assume that most users want products and apps that are easy to use without much effort to perform tasks or learn.
Knowing The Difference Between Want And Need
Finally, the psychology behind user experience is kind of like being a parent. We have to figure out the difference between what a user’s mind is telling them they absolutely need (aka want) versus what they actually need. This is one of the trickiest parts. For instance, if we’re doing UX design for a GPS app, the user might want the app to come complete with Google Street View for their entire route. However, we also know that this will take longer to load, use up precious mobile data and make it more difficult to see upcoming turns.
So, we have to be the parent that says “no” sometimes. The user might pout a little at first, but once they experience the final design, they’ll forget all about their not-so-useful wants and see that the final product does exactly what they need.
It’s not easy trying to dive into the human mind, but it’s something every great UX designer has to do. We’re part designer and part mind-reader.
Images: Jessie Orico, Sebastian Sammer, Jens Lelie