Five less-known concepts & theories from psychology UX designers need to know
The most successful software designers, information architects, UX and UI designers are the ones that leverage psychology to inform their design decisions. Gently acknowledge, that you are in the business of designing and shaping human behaviour. You are in control of how people attend to, perceive, think about, use, memorise and talk about products and services. In this article, we explore a selection of lesser-known concepts and theories from cognitive psychology, cognitive science, decision neuroscience and human-media interaction that help you advance your skills as a designer.
Distributed cognition
Distributed cognition is a branch of cognitive science that proposes cognition and knowledge is not confined to an individual; rather, it is distributed across objects, (other) individuals, artefacts, and tools in our immediate environment. It is useful for analyzing situations that involve problem-solving, such as figuring out how to navigate around a simple website or a complex virtual reality game. In summary, it helps designers hypothesize and understand to what extent our brains ‘outsource’ functions and tasks. In the context of software interfaces distributed cognition leads into:
- More experimentation
- Scaffolds learning and reduces error rates for users
- Converts slow calculation into fast perception
- Supports chunking, especially for expert users
- Increases overall efficiency
- Facilitates collaboration
Further reading:
- https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f803/0e557ceae238eb4c600511e76881b82e6350.pdf
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0ZqTf861jM
- http://archive.uxdesignpractice.com/tag/distributed-cognition/
- https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-81-8489-203-1_14
Bayesian Integration
The theory of Bayesian integration is based on the fact that our brain must deal with a number of inputs, which vary in reliability. For example: When we learn a new motor skill, such as playing an approaching tennis ball, both our sensors and the task possess variability. Our sensors provide imperfect information about the ball’s velocity, so we can only estimate it. As designers, we always should acknowledge that the world is not stationary and our brains are wired to predict many moving parts simultaneously – with more or less accuracy.
Further reading:
- https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2017/05/12/136267.full.pdf
- https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00091/full
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multisensory_integration#cite_note-Deneve_2004-28
- http://news.mit.edu/2019/how-expectation-influences-perception-0715
Simon Effect
In essence, it shows that people respond faster and more accurately if there is a match between stimulus and response features (e.g., location, when for example stimulus and response are both located on the left side of one’s body). The effect is also known as a stimulus-response compatibility effect. There are many variants of the stimulus-response compatibility available. Like the Stroop effect, it is easy to notice consciously how difficult a mismatch between a stimulus and response can be.
Further reading:
- http://www.bernhard-hommel.eu/role%20of%20attention.pdf
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283848342_Principles_for_Designing_Interfaces_Compatible_With_Human_Information_Processing
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324780567_The_breakdown_of_the_Simon_effect_in_cross-modal_contexts_EEG_evidence
Perceptual Load Theory
The theory developed by Nillie Lavie states, that humans can efficiently filter out task-irrelevant distractors when performing under high levels of perceptual load (e.g., large display size), but fail to do so under low levels of perceptual load (e.g., small display size). It is selective attention which allows us to ignore what is task-irrelevant and focus on what is task-relevant. The cognitive and neural mechanisms that underlie this process are key topics of investigation in cognitive psychology.
Further reading:
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-015-0982-5
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759815/
- https://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2137746
Embodied Cognition
One of the most exciting ideas in cognitive science is the theory that cognition is embodied. Embodiment is the surprisingly radical hypothesis that the brain is not the sole cognitive resource we have available to us to solve problems. Our bodies and their perceptually guided motions through the world do much of the work required to achieve our goals, replacing the need for complex internal mental representations. Miles, Lind & Macrae (2010) for example showed that thinking about the future made people sway forwards and thinking about the past made them sway backwards. Some people even claim that theories of embodied cognition offer a useful account of design thinking. This is perhaps another, more famous experiment that shows the relation between body and mind.
“Action Influences Perceptual Decision Making.” Nathan F. Lepora, Giovanni Pezzulo
The key takeaway for designers here is to include the body with its complete perceptual and motor systems when designing 2-D and 3D user interfaces. This will open up the possibility that we can solve a task in a very different way than a brain by itself might solve the task. In this context also look at Laban Movement Theory – there is a nice write up from Traci Lepore.
Further reading:
- https://research.utwente.nl/en/publications/cognition-is-not-what-it-used-to-be-reconsidering-usability-from-
- https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2442109
- http://www.ehornecker.de/Papers/embodimentChapterSage.pdf
- https://www.mdpi.com/2414-4088/2/2/13/pdf
- https://quote.ucsd.edu/cogs1/files/2012/09/Kirsh-Final-acm_reading.pdf
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/embodied-cognition
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405872617300291
- https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00058/full
Conclusion
Psychology offers many interesting insights and explanations of human behaviour. Many of these theories and concepts have been around for decades, but only in the last few years, experts have access to the tools and methodologies to proof or disproof some of them. As a designer, stay curious and be open to new concepts but be sceptical of the implications they have on our field.
Need help with behavioural research? I am passianate about UX Design, User Research and Customer Development. Talk to me or one of my collegues at Appnovation about this specific service. Appnovation is a Vancouver based full-service digital agency and we have offices around the world.
