Psychological biases form the basis of effective UX design. Our thinking involves two systems - System 1 is fast, intuitive thinking while System 2 is slower, effortful thinking. System 1 relies on mental shortcuts and is prone to biases. Design should aim for cognitive ease by using progressive disclosure, defaults, simplicity and other techniques that reduce mental effort. Additionally, design should leverage social influences, framing, anchoring and other unconscious decision making tendencies to guide users. The goal is habit forming experiences that provide information and feedback to satisfy our innate human cravings.

1. Psychological Biases Basis
for UX Design
Vikas Luthra

3. 17 × 24

4. 17 × 24
System 1: Fast and Intuitive thinking
System 2: Slow thinking and
requires effort

6. Complete the phrase “bread and…”
Make a “disgust face” when shown a
horrible picture.
Answer to 2 + 2 = ?
Complete the phrase “bread, dustbin and…”
Focus on the voice of a particular person in a
crowded and noisy-room.
Look for a woman with white hair.
Maintain a faster walking speed than is natural
for you.
Example Activities that are attributed
to System 1:
Example Activities that are attributed
to System 2:

7. For each columns say in your mind the position of words:
whether left or right ?
Column 1 Column 2

8. We tend to perceive things what we
expect and familiar with
Our perception is biased by our:
• Our experience
• The context
• Our goal.
We Create Mental Models

9. Salience

10. We perceive for structure and patterns

11. F-Pattern

12. Z-Pattern

13. We don't want to work or think more
than we have to. Our System 2 is lazy…
• Least amount of cognitive load and mental effort
• Majority of us can’t multi-task.
• Want cognitive ease and flow state
• Not to be overwhelmed with information. Allowing Information
scanning.

14. We Don't Want to Work or
Think More than we have To.
• Progressive disclosure: Show a little bit of
information and let them choose if they want more
details
• Show people an example.
• Defaults let people do less work to get the job done
• Design for Simplicity : Features that people really
need. Minimalism not equal to simplicity Progressive disclosure to show
information step by step

15. Cognitive Ease

16. Progressive Disclosure: Details only when provided

17. Progressive Disclosure: Duo-lingo interactive way of how app works.

18. Progressive Disclosure: Instructional Overlays.

19. Our Attention is limited
• Attention is a key to designing an engaging UI. You can use the senses to grab
attention. Bright colors, large fonts, beeps, and tones will capture attention.
• Number( Hicks’ law) and Size (Fitts’s Law) of objects affects our decision making process.
Tunnel Vision and Change Blindness
• Peripheral vision is poor, and visual search is linear unless target “pops” in periphery.
• We are more goal focused and miss items in our views.

20. Number is not noticed

22. Focus on
task
Misses the banner
on right

23. Hick’s Law
Hick’s Law describes that the time
it takes for a person to make a
decision depends on the choices
available to him or her. So if the
number of choices increases, the
time to make a decision increases
logarithmically.

24. People are programmed to
pay attention to anything
that is different or novel. If
you make something
different it will stand out.
“When multiple similar
objects are present, the
one that differs from the
rest is most likely to be
remembered!”
Von Restorff Effect

27. We are Social
• Social validation and support. People look to others for guidance on what they should do
•Synchronicity: If people do something together at the same time (synchronous behavior) it bonds
them together—there are actually chemical reactions in the brain. Laughter also bonds people.
•Reciprocity: If you do a favor for me then I will feel indebted to give you a favor back (reciprocity).
Research shows that if you want people to fill out a form, give them something they want and then ask
for them to fill out the form, not vice versa.
.

28. Reciprocation

29. Reciprocation

30. Social Validation

31. We make unconscious and irrational
decisions
• Commitment Bias: Commit to a small action then more
likely later commit to a larger action.
• Framing: People react to a particular choice in different
ways depending on how it is presented.
• Anchoring Effect: An anchor is a thing that serves as a
reference point for our comparisons.
• Ordering Effect: Ordering of things influence our
choices
• Loss Aversion: We rate our losses higher than our
gains

33. Use of Framing

34. Scarcity
Negative Framing
+ Loss Aversion

35. Anchoring
and Ordering

36. Serial position effect
The Serial Position Effect is the propensity of a user to
best remember the first and last items in a series.
Most Important information of a website in front and the end.

37. Lastly, We crave for information and visceral
rewards
• Want more information than they can actually process. Having more
information is more choices and makes people feel in control and
they could survive better.
• People need feedback. The human needs to know what is going on.
Power of 10
• We are looking for visceral rewards and perform certain behavior
regularly leading to habit formation.

38. Trigger that starts the
behaviors: Physical, or
mental. (thought, emotion)
The action taken by us
(thought, emotion)
The benefit you
gain from doing
the habit.
Habit Formation
Loop
Micro Interactions as Triggers

39. Habit forming UX

41. Cognition
• Attention is limited; Memory is imperfect.
• We need social support and validations
• We do not want to think a lot.
• We crave for more information and visceral rewards
• We make unconscious decisions which could be
irrational
• We have mental models and shortcuts
Perception
• Perception is biased by experience, context, goals
• Our vision is optimized to perceive structure
(Gestalt principles).We seek and use structure
• Our peripheral vision is poor, and visual search is
linear unless target “pops” in periphery.
To summarize,

42. Thank you
Vikas Luthra

43. Questions?
Vikas Luthra

44. • Designing with the Mind in Mind by Jeff Johnson
• 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People by Susan
Weinschenk
• The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman (first title: The Psychology of
Everyday Things)
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini
• Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Reading Resources