Psychology & Product Design
Psychology and products design are tightly connected to each other and you can’t design a successful product without having a knowledge in Psychology, but as product designer do I have to learn psychology?
Well, the answer here is pretty clear, when you are designing a product to be consumed by human then the answer is yes unless your product will be used by aliens. 👽
If we look at the definitions of user experience. all them are different but they have one common element between all of them, is the Human here is why we should understand the human who is going to use our products. This is where knowledge of psychology in product design comes into use
How psychology is involved in all the stages of building a product?
psychology and product development go hand-in-hand in all the stages: Before, during and after building a product.
1-Before building a product:
The first thing we look for when we are building a new product is the product’s idea some people like to call it the problem that we want to solve, I personally like to call it the that human need that we want to fulfil.
If we look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, you can easily find an app that fulfilling one or two of these needs
The need of Love and belonging: Tinder, Bumble and the entire business is build to fulfil this need.
Physiological needs: Uber, Grabfood, and dozens of other apps that fulfil this needs.
We just have to find the right need to help the users to fulfil it
2-During building a product:
After we find the right need that we want to fulfil, you probably shouldn’t be surprised to know that psychology is a big deal in designing products, although in the end we are designing a digital product but we should consider the human factor and how the humans will interact with our product
So what are some of the human factors that inform designs?
here are few of the most common ones
- Impatience
- Limited memory
- Needing analogies
- Limited concentration
- Changes in need
- Needing motivation
- Prejudices
- Fears
- Making errors
- Misjudgment
For an example of design that considers these factors all you need to do is to check your email
The business email shorthand “TL;DR” has really caught on in the last couple of years, it’s an acronym you might find at the start of a very long email, that will gives you the email highlights that your really need to know without any access content, and if you ask yourself what is “TL;DR” stand for? Too Long Don’t Read
This one of the best examples of considering the human tendencies of impatience, limited concentration, need for motivation and limited memory.
Mental Models
One of the most used psychological principles in design is Mental Models.What is mental model? is simply a representation of how something works. and it allows humans to predict how something will work. When you face a door your mental models will tell you that the door can be opened.
For instance, if you are a frequent flyer, you know that you go to check-in first and leave your luggage, then you go through a security check, then through the customs and duty-free, and then you approach the boarding gate. If for some reason, you arrived at the airport, and the whole process started not with check-in but with customs, you would grow confused, perplexed, and angry. The same applies to website and mobile app users — they want the things to be where they should be.
Feedback Loops
Feedback loops refers to the outcome a user gets at the end of a process. For example, if you enter a dark room and on the light, the room will either brighten or it won’t. Positive feedback would be the light coming on, while the negative feedback will be nothing happening.
If your users take an action is important that they get some kind of confirmation that the action worked or that it didn’t.
Von Restorff Effect / Isolation Effect
is that, in any given number of items to be learned, an item that is notably different from the rest in size, colour, or other basic characteristics will be more readily recalled than the others.
In product design this why usually the CTAs looks different from the rest of the site or app because we want them to stand out.
Serial Position Effect
The serial position effect describes how our memory is affected by the position of information in a sequence. It suggests that we best remember the first and last items in a series and find it hard to remember the middle items.
This why most of the apps position the most important user actions towards the far right or far left of a top or bottom navigation bar.
Hick’s Law
the more stimuli to choose from, the longer it takes the user to make a decision on which one to interact with. Users bombarded with choices have to take time to interpret and decide, giving them work they don’t want.
As a product designer you might think that giving your users a lot of options might enhance the experience but Hick’s law telling us we maybe making their decisions harder.
To Wrap Up
It’s important for designers to use these psychological principles in an ethical way, you don’t want to exploit the user you only want to encourage them, you don’t want to over power the user you want to empower them. with little psychology, creativity and empathy, what starts as limitation can end up as benefit.
And always remember never try to trick users to take action.You may see some short-term results, but it will hurt you in the long run.
Psychology is powerful.But with great power comes great responsibility.
