Design for Flow

DESIGN FOR

FLOW @kshitiz #uxindia13

Talk delivered at UX India Conference, October 25th, 2013

Currently I head :

INDIA STUDIO!

Otherwise I have a few startup initiatives

Origin of this term?

Marcus Arelius in his writings 'the Meditations’, wrote a lot about the flow of thoughts and happiness and he concluded that "most things flow naturally" and in his opinion it was better to "Go with the Flow" than to try and change society.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Hungarian, Professor of psychology

Today we are going to speak about

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

How do you say his name?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Me-high Chick-sent-me-high

FLOW The psychology of optimal experience

FLOW The psychology of optimal experience

His most famous work

Was done to study happiness in people

People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy. - M Csikszentmihalyi, Flow, 1990

Good UX à Happy people

Design for people, emotions, behaviors. Do not design for technology

But its easier said than done… So let us go a bit deeper into understanding this

What actually goes on in the human mind, when we are looking at designing for happiness

Going from this

To this

Look into a cognitive, psychological & behavioral understanding of what builds a good UX  

Our mental and emotional states

M Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow, 1997

These states are controlled by CONSCIOUSNESS

These states are controlled by CONSCIOUSNESS

What is CONSCIOUSNESS ?

CONSCIOUSNESS is a Phenomenological construct

It is dependent on phenomena : Subjective experiences of the individual

Order in the Consciousness à GOOD UX Disorder in the Consciousness à BAD UX

MASTERY OVER CONSCIOUSNESS à HAPPINESS

Mastery of the Consciousness à Happiness

More than anything else, men and women seek happiness - Socrates, 2300 years ago

Optimal experience depends upon ability to control what happens in the consciousness each moment

How does Consciousness work? How is it controlled?

CONSCIOUSNESS : Where pain and pleasure both reside

Users actions are based on INSTINCT : What we feel is right, the inner voice

Information theory helps in understanding what really happens in the consciousness

What interests us, is how sensory data (what we experience through our senses) are collected processed, stored and used

Consciousness is a place for ordered information à Responds to subjectively experienced reality

The consciousness processes INFORMATION BITS

COGNITIVE LOAD : Too much information to process à Leads to CHAOS

CHAOS creates DISCONTENT: facilitated by chronic dissatisfaction and anxiety

OVERCOMING the anxiety : RECLAIMING the experience

But not everything we are presented with, is processed by the Consciousness

The processing of information by the Consciousness is INTENTION

Our INTENTIONs decide the ATTENTION spans and time we give to a task

But there are limits of Consciousness : How much information bits can the human mind (central nervous system) process ?

Shortest time it takes to discriminate between one set of information bit and other is about 1/18th of a second

One can process upto 126 bits of information per second = 7560 bits per minute = Almost half a million per hour = 185 billion bits of information in a lifetime * * Assumption: Lifespan = 70years, and 16 hours or active waking time each days

185 billion bits of information in a lifetime !!!! Seems a lot, but it is not! To understand what the other person is saying, 40 bits of information are processed each second.

Information is processed by the consciousness because we give it ATTENTION

ATTENTION is Psychic energy, that decides what information bits need to be processed and tells the consciousness what to do

The more you complicate the information, the more difficulty the consciousness has in processing it!

COMPLEXITY is a result of differentiation and Integration in Information. Differentiation à Move towards uniqueness Integration à Union of old vs new, other ideas, preconceived impressions

COMPLEXITY à Disorder in Consciousness We call it PSYCHIC ENTROPY

Removing Psychic Entropy in Consciousness, is optimal experience and it leads to FLOW

DESIGNING FOR FLOW = BETTER UX

HOW ?

Takeaway #1

Think about the Consciousness when you design

Takeaway #2

The goal is mastery of this consciousness through design decisions

Takeaway #3

How can you control the users intentions? Design for it.

Takeaway #4

Think on how much attention should be given to each task?

Takeaway #5

Think about Information Bits that the consciousness is processing

Takeaway #6

Reduce cognitive load to remove Chaos in consciousness

Takeaway #7

Avoid Complexity and reduce Psychic entropy

Takeaway #8

Overcome anxiety of the customer!

Takeaway #9

Help them reclaim the experience

Takeaway #10

Spread Happiness J

THANK YOU!

Go with the flow! Connect with me on