The document discusses principles of user experience (UX) design from a psychological perspective. It introduces concepts like motivation, cognition, emotion, behavior, and consistency as frameworks for understanding how people think and interact with systems. The document advocates applying insights from fields like behavioral psychology to craft better user experiences and generate ideas by understanding common human capabilities, limitations, and biases.

2. 3UX Thinking | DaveHogue.com

3. Why do some
experiences succeed?

8. We feel like they know us
personally.

9. How many times have
you been warned…

10. “You are not designing for yourself.”

11. But we’re all human.

12. Users
DesignersDevelopers
Researchers Managers

13. Our brains all work the
same way…

14. …and we share the same
capabilities and limitations.
We are subject to the
same rules.

15. Understanding how we all think
can help us generate
better ideas…

16. …and help us craft and deliver
better
experiences.

17. Relevant Fields of Psychology
Behavioral
Ecological / Environmental
Cognitive
Social
Consumer
Industrial / Organizational
Human Factors / HCI
Experimental
Psychometrics
Quantitative / Mathematical
Educational
Developmental
Personality
Physiological / Neurological

18. UX is not magic.

19. A System
for thinking about UX design, research, and strategy with a
psychological perspective.

22. Who, where, what?

23. Who are the people?
Demographics, experiences, skills, attitudes, beliefs, knowledge
Where are they?
Place, environment, situation, conditions, circumstances
What are the devices, objects, and tools they are using?
Phones, tablets, computers, kiosks, cameras, pen & paper, chisel & stone…
Context

24. Who, where, what?

25. UX Research
When and how do people use
their mobile devices?
About 70% of all mobile phone
usage is for playing games,
socializing, and entertainment.
That ranges from 64% for all web
and apps combined to 79% for
just mobile apps.
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1733

28. Are we having fun yet?

29. What are the objectives?
What is the desired outcome, and is it:
Productive, focused, goal-directed, playful, exploratory, meandering
What is the value of the goals and objectives?
Important, essential, necessary, optional, nice-to-have, elective
How urgent are the goals and objectives?
Time-sensitive, critical, compelling, casual, open-ended
Goals

31. Failure

33. How do people sense and perceive the world?
Vision, audition, and touch
Color deficient vision
Gestalt Principles
Image recognition
Motion
Pre-conscious processing and attention
Perception

37. Definition:
The force that initiates, directs, and sustains behavior.
Why we do what we do.
Theories:
Achievement, Affiliation, and Power
Existence, Relatedness, and Growth (ERG)
Biological Drives
Internal vs. External
Not Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs…
Motivation

40. Why do people spend so much time on social
networks, and what do they get from it?
Affiliation with others (we are social creatures and seek contact)
Personal achievement (competition with self and others)
Social influence and credibility (“social currency”)
Motivation

42. Definition:
The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding
through thinking, experience, and the senses.
Types:
Learning Decision-making
Memory Recognition
Language Spatial operations
Problem-solving Concept formation
Reasoning and logic Metacognition
Attention And many, many biases…
Cognition

43. Cognitive Load
Memory and attention are limited
resources – use them wisely.
Cognitive friction occurs when we
force users to think harder and try to
remember more than they need to.
Deliver what people need when they
need it: Just in time, not just in case.

44. Cognitive Biases
Our cognitive abilities are fallible.
 Von Restorff Effect
 Peak-End Rule
 Confirmation Bias
 Loss Aversion
 Hyperbolic Discounting
 Recency Bias
 And dozens more…

45. Should we “Reduce deaths”…
…or “Maximize quality of life?”

46. Framing Bias

47. What did the first cars look like?
Horse-drawn carriages.

48. Anchoring Bias

49. We may not be
designing for
ourselves, but…

50. We are susceptible to the same biases.

52. Definition:
A complex, subjective experience resulting in physiological and
psychological changes that influence thought and behavior.
Theories:
Ekman (Happiness, Surprise, Sadness, Anger, Fear, Disgust)
James-Lange (physiological reaction precedes emotion)
Cannon-Bard (physiological reaction and emotion are concurrent)
Schachter-Singer (physiological reaction precedes cognition)
Lazarus (cognition precedes physiological reaction and emotion)
Emotion

53. Emotion
Emotions may be positive (love, joy) or
negative (anger, fear.)
We have about 20,000 emotional
experiences per day (Kahneman, 2002.)
Attractive things are judged to work
better and be more effective.

55. Positive Emotions
Fredrickson (2009) discovered that
we need three positive emotions to
lift us up and overcome just one
negative emotion.
Have you ever said,
“Meh. It could be better, but it works”?
Is the rest of the interface
three times better
to make up for it?

58. Definition:
The actions by which an organism reacts and adjusts to
their environment and other organisms; a response to various stimuli.
Theories:
Classical Conditioning (association)
Operant Conditioning (reinforcement and punishment)
Social Learning Theory (live, verbal, and symbolic)
Relational Frame Theory (language and cognition)
Drive Reduction (biology and homeostasis)
Behavior

59. Rewards
Participation in social services is
often encouraged with rewards
such as badges and points that
have personal and social value
and which are delivered through
complex reinforcement
schedules.

60. Failure

61. There is a dark side.

62. Behavior Modification
As UX designers we are in the
business of changing behavior.
Sometimes we are asked to make
design decisions that lead people to
choices and actions that are not
always in their own best interests.
Dark patterns lead people to
interact in ways they would not
have otherwise chosen to do.

65. Be the good guy.

71. More than visibility – we must craft
accessible experiences where we can
perceive the opportunities to interact in
any modality.
People are less likely interact if they do not
perceive the opportunity to interact, even if
they need or want to interact.
Perceivability

76. Predictability
The ability to accurately and confidently
predict the outcomes or results of an
interaction and that it will move us toward
our goal(s).
People are less likely to interact if they are
not confident in their predicted outcomes
or if they believe the results are not what
they want or need.

77. Mental Models
Mental Model Conceptual Model System Model

78. Not what she predicted…

80. Feedback
Meaningful information about the status
and outcomes of an interaction and the
process(es) it started, modified, or
terminated.
People are less likely to continue
interacting if they do not receive
meaningful information about status,
progress, outcomes, or results.

81. After editing the gift
message three times, it was
still too long…
How long is it now?
How much too long is it?
What is the maximum
number of characters?
HELP! What should I do?

83. Learnability
We can learn and remember interactions
when we accurately predict desirable
outcomes, avoid errors, and when the
feedback is understandable and applicable.
People are less likely to learn an interaction
if the outcomes are not expected or if
feedback is absent or meaningless.

85. Learning
We learn to associate experiences that
occur together in time and place.
We learn to repeat interactions that reward
us and avoid interactions that punish us.
We can learn by watching and observing
as easily as by doing.

87. Learning
We generalize across similar situations and
transfer knowledge and skills from one
context, device, or domain to another when
they are identifiably analogous.

88. We bring our past experiences.

91. Consistency
Consistent appearance, behavior,
reaction, meaning, and outcome makes
it easier for us to:
• Perceive the opportunity to interact,
• Predict the outcomes more accurately,
• Better understand the feedback,
• Transfer learned interactions, and
• Learn new interactions through generalization
and discrimination.

92. Failure

94. Consistency is more than visual.

95. Quick Review
A lot of psychology in just two diagrams!

98. Thanks!
I’m happy to answer your questions.