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7 Principal Psychological Phenomena in UX Design
Don’t be evil and abuse them to manipulate your end users
Before we begin
When I first saw this meme I found it mildly amusing, then I had a little thought experiment — why would the cats behave like that and what could the owner do to solve this hilarious mess? It does have a simple and clean UI, everyone can understand what it is when they see it. But what about its User Experience?
Problem: Every bowl looks exactly the same and all three of them are placed in the same wooden stand that has three exact same sized holes. So when three cats show up, how are they supposed to know which bowl to take?
An easy solution (i) to this is to place two small panels in between two bowls to simulate a cubicle as this will give the cats a sense of space subconsciously. A better solution (ii) is to guide the cats to their designated bowl, this will of course require practices and training. Finally, the most ideal solution (iii) is to figure out the three cats’ preferences and to be sure each preference is unique, then place each cat’s favourite bowl with her favourite food inside.
(i) is interventional design. It purposely sets up walls and barricades to isolate a single user’s experience. We’ve already seen this a hundred times — ATMs, bathroom chambers, phone booths, bedrooms and etc.
(ii) is directional design. It uses orientational marks and highlights to help the users navigate and locate. Things like station signs, city maps and staircases guide the users through complex systems and reach their destinations.
(iii) is proactive design. Instead of shovelling everything you’ve got down the user’s throat, it learns the user’s behavioural pattern and uses that information to serve them. That’s why we start to see Netflix has a brand new “Because you watched…” feature and Google Maps tries to find a cool cafe for you based on your recent activities.
From (i) to (iii), we can see that the solution becomes more and more personal and intellectual. We homo sapiens are…
