Essentials of UI Design XI: Applying Psychology to Improve UX
Psychology is increasingly essential in effective UI design. The idea is to transcend visually appealing interfaces to understanding the underlying mindsets, behaviors, and needs of users. This article will explore the various psychological principles and cognitive biases that can support functional UI design that heightens the user experience.
The Quartet of User Interaction
It’s a UI designer’s job to determine the four distinct phases of interacting with a digital product. Here’s an overview of each one:
Information processing
It’s here that your users will process the information you present to them on each screen.
Significance attribution
After processing the information, the user needs to make sense of it using social proof and using what they know to connect the dots to what they want to know.
Timing action
This third stage involves motivating users to take desired actions using investment loops or promoting commitment and consistency.
Retaining memory
This final stage of user interaction involves implementing strategies to ensure users recall their positive experience interacting with your product.
Information Processing to Understand the Interface
To make effective design decisions at this stage, you can leverage psychological principles such as Hick’s law. It suggests that the number and complexity of choices directly increases the decision-making time. So, it’s important to not overload users with information.
A common design recommendation is to divide tasks into smaller steps for easier information processing. You can also delay complex tasks until the end of the user’s journey and make content easy to skim (if you cannot reduce options).
Turning to the power of priming
In psychology, priming influences decision-making by triggering related information in the user’s memory. This can help direct users to take desired actions by using relevant imagery or visuals to highlight the benefits of the product or service. Finance apps on UILand use this technique to promote key in-app features.
Avoid cognitive overload
Human memory is only able to handle a few things at a time. Overloading tends to lead to abandonment; therefore, a UI designer may consider eliminating redundant information. They may also use familiar cues to minimize learning needs, while organizing information intuitively and logically.
Conclusion
Using psychology principles to make micro UI design decisions can help you to develop more engaging and user-friendly products. If you care about prototyping designs that have a big impact on your desired outcomes, UILand offers the inspiration to build your dream product.
