The importance of psychology to UX and HCI
When people think of user experience design (UXD), they may think of the sketching of a wireframe or testing of a prototype. These activities certainly makes up part of the process, but it’s not the full story by half. The psychology behind the user, what we can quite simply called ‘user psychology’ is also a crucial part of the process. User psychology are the thoughts, feelings and cognitive processes that go on in a user’s mind while using a product or service. You can’t be a good UXD, without having an interest in the psychology of your user. To put it another way, if you cannot understand your user, you cannot design for them.
Dr Susan Weinschenk, who has a PhD in Psychology, uses “research and knowledge about the brain, the visual system, memory, and motivation [to] extrapolate UX design principles…” The information she gleans from her studies, have been clearly defined in an article, all the way back in 2010. This article is still highly relevant today as psychology becomes a larger consideration in UXD; it is simply titled “The Psychologists View of UX Design”. In this article, Weinschenck marks out some basic principles and rules to follow regards psychology and UX. The rules may seem obvious at first, but are either forgotten, not known or simply not employed, when formulating a solutions to UX problems.
The direct correlation between psychology and UX is clear, when one understands that both disciplines require an ability to understand people’s motivations and behaviors. If a UX designer wants to guide a user to a desired outcome, it is essential to understand how the human mind perceives and experiences the world. Principles such as Gestalt, how human beings visually perceive objects, “sit at the sit at the heart of nearly everything we do graphically as designers” (Bradley, 2014). This is seen in the infographic below, showing the direct application of Gestalt psychology to web design (credit:
By better understanding people’s emotions, motivations and cognitive behaviors, a UXD can provide a solution that works in conjunction with the human brain. We can only do this by employing design solutions, that follow the learnings of psychology and cognitive science. If you are a UXD, expose yourself to these discipines as it will aid you in creating designs that are more usable, efficient and easier to adopt.