Psychology for User Experience

2UX Thinking | DaveHogue.com

Why do someexperiences succeed?

We feel like they know us

personally.

You are not designing for yourself…

...but we’re all human.

Users

DesignersDevelopers

Researchers Managers

Our brains all work the

same way…

…and we share the samecapabilities and limitations.

We are subject to the

same rules.

Understanding how we all think can help us generate

better ideas…

…and help us craft and deliver

better experiences.

Relevant Fields of Psychology

BehavioralEcological / EnvironmentalCognitiveSocialConsumerIndustrial / OrganizationalHuman Factors / HCIExperimentalPsychometricsQuantitative / MathematicalEducationalDevelopmentalPersonalityPhysiological / Neurological

A Systemfor thinking about UX design, research, and strategy with a

psychological perspective.

Who are the people?Demographics, experiences, skills, attitudes, beliefs, knowledge

Where are they?Place, environment, situation, conditions, circumstances

What are the devices, objects, and tools they are using?Phones, tablets, computers, kiosks, cameras, pen & paper, chisel & stone…

Context

What are the objectives?What is the desired outcome, and is it:

Productive, focused, goal-directed, playful, exploratory, meandering

What is the value of the goals and objectives?Important, essential, necessary, optional, nice-to-have, elective

How urgent are the goals and objectives?Time-sensitive, critical, compelling, casual, open-ended

Goals

Failure

How do people sense and perceive the world?Vision, audition, and touchColor deficient visionGestalt PrinciplesImage recognitionMotionPre-conscious processing and attention

Perception

Definition:The force that initiates, directs, and sustains behavior.Why we do what we do.

Theories:Achievement, Affiliation, and PowerExistence, Relatedness, and Growth (ERG)Biological DrivesInternal vs. ExternalNot Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs…

Motivation

Why do people spend so much time on socialnetworks, and what do they get from it?

Affiliation with others (we are social creatures and seek contact)Personal achievement (competition with self and others)Social influence and credibility (“social currency”)

Motivation

Definition:The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understandingthrough thinking, experience, and the senses.

Types:Learning Decision-makingMemory RecognitionLanguage Spatial operationsProblem-solving Concept formationReasoning and logic MetacognitionAttention And many, many biases…

Cognition

Should we “Reduce deaths”…

…or “Maximize quality of life?”

Framing Bias

What did the first cars look like?

Horse-drawn carriages.

Anchoring Bias

We are susceptible to the same biases.

Definition:A complex, subjective experience resulting in physiological andpsychological changes that influence thought and behavior.

Theories:Ekman (Happiness, Surprise, Sadness, Anger, Fear, Disgust)James-Lange (physiological reaction precedes emotion)Cannon-Bard (physiological reaction and emotion are concurrent)Schachter-Singer (physiological reaction precedes cognition)Lazarus (cognition precedes physiological reaction and emotion)

Emotion

Positive Emotions

Fredrickson (2009) discovered that we need three positive emotions to lift us up and overcome just onenegative emotion.

Have you ever said,“Meh. It could be better, but it works”?

Is the rest of the interface

three times betterto make up for it?

Definition:The actions by which an organism reacts and adjusts totheir environment and other organisms; a response to various stimuli.

Theories:Classical Conditioning (association)Operant Conditioning (reinforcement and punishment)Social Learning Theory (live, verbal, and symbolic)Relational Frame Theory (language and cognition)Drive Reduction (biology and homeostasis)

Behavior

Rewards

Participation in social services is often encouraged with rewards such as badges and points that have personal and social value and which are delivered through complex reinforcement schedules.

Failure

There is a dark side.

More than visibility – we must craft accessible experiences where we can perceive the opportunities to interact in any modality.

People are less likely interact if they do not perceive the opportunity to interact, even if they need or want to interact.

Perceivability

PredictabilityThe ability to accurately and confidently predict the outcomes or results of an interaction and that it will move us toward our goal(s).

People are less likely to interact if they are not confident in their predicted outcomes or if they believe the results are not what they want or need.

Not what she predicted…

FeedbackMeaningful information about the status and outcomes of an interaction and the process(es) it started, modified, or terminated.

People are less likely to continue interacting if they do not receive meaningful information about status, progress, outcomes, or results.

After editing the gift message three times, it was still too long…

How long is it now?

How much too long is it?

What is the maximum number of characters?

HELP! What should I do?

LearnabilityWe can learn and remember interactions when we accurately predict desirable outcomes, avoid errors, and when the feedback is understandable and applicable.

People are less likely to learn an interaction if the outcomes are not expected or if feedback is absent or meaningless.

LearningWe learn to associate experiences that occur together in time and place.

We learn to repeat interactions that reward us and avoid interactions that punish us.

We can learn by watching and observing as easily as by doing.

LearningWe generalize across similar situations and transfer knowledge and skills from one context, device, or domain to another when they are identifiably analogous.

ConsistencyConsistent appearance, behavior, reaction, meaning, and outcome makes it easier for us to:

• Perceive the opportunity to interact,

• Predict the outcomes more accurately,

• Better understand the feedback,

• Transfer learned interactions, and• Learn new interactions through generalization

and discrimination.

Failure

Quick ReviewWhew! We’re almost finished.

Thanks!I’m happy to answer your questions.