This document explores the psychological principles underlying user experience (UX) design, emphasizing the importance of understanding the cognitive and emotional processes of users. It discusses motivation, emotion, cognition, and behavior, and how these factors influence interactions with design. The document advocates for crafting accessible, predictable, and informative experiences to enhance user engagement and learning.

2. 2UX Thinking | DaveHogue.com

3. Why do some
experiences succeed?

8. We feel like they know us
personally.

9. You are not designing for yourself…

10. ...but we’re all human.

11. Users
DesignersDevelopers
Researchers Managers

12. Our brains all work the
same way…

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

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

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

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

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

21. 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

25. 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

26. Failure

28. 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

31. 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

34. 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

36. 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

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

38. Framing Bias

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

40. Anchoring Bias

41. We are susceptible to the same biases.

43. 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

44. 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?

46. 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

47. 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.

48. Failure

49. There is a dark side.

55. 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

60. 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.

61. Not what she predicted…

63. 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.

64. 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?

66. 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.

68. 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.

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

73. 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.

74. Failure

76. Quick Review
Whew! We’re almost finished.

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