“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. The design is how it works” — Steve Jobs.
Do you think that designing is purely creating beautiful and elegant designs for users? Design is much more than an artistic work. It is how things work. UX Design requires understanding users’ behavior to build products or software platforms that address their needs. Likewise, psychologists study and understand mental processes, brain functions, and behavior. Both utilize surveys and data analysis to comprehend the why and how of certain situations.
1. Miller’s Law and UX Information Architecture
George Armitage Miller was an American Psychologist who was one of the founders of cognitive psychology. According to him, an average person can only keep 7 (plus or minus 2) items in their working memory.
How can this law be applied in UX? Miller’s law can direct designers to assemble content into manageable groups. This will help users identify and search for elements quicker, making navigation much more manageable for visitors to read and scan. This method is also referred to as Chunking Psychology which is a technique that helps users process and understands a lot of information by breaking it into smaller chunks. The idea is to split information, thus helping users to remember and recall it.
2. Archetypes and User Personas
Archetypes are universal, inborn models of people, behaviors, and personalities that play a role in influencing human behavior, as proposed by the Swiss Psychiatrist Carl Jung. He noted that every individual has a persona — an identity projected to others. For instance, a father may adopt traits that he considers typical of a father — serious or disciplining. Therefore, each archetype can be analyzed to identify human goals, struggles, and skills.
Similarly, UX designers build User Personas during the research phase. A User Persona is a semi-fictional character based on your ideal user. They are created by talking to users and segmenting various demographic and psychographic data. User personas are essential in helping design a product that meets users’ needs. Therefore, archetypes can be a powerful tool for any individual regarding user experience.
3. Human Concentration
According to Psychologists, humans can stay focused between 20 to 45 minutes before they begin to be distracted. Because of this, UX designers must retain the user’s attention when designing a platform or a website. Using multiple pop-ups or too many ads can distract the user. Moreover, they need to understand the user’s journey from A to Z in a software platform to retain their attention. As a result, building websites or mobile apps that prioritize the most critical elements of users’ needs are essential.
4. Empathy in Psychology and UX
According to Hodges and Myers in Social Psychology, “Empathy is often defined as understanding another person’s experience by imagining oneself in that other person’s situation: One understands the other person’s experience as if the self was experiencing it.” Empathy allows therapists to build a therapeutic alliance by apprehending the client’s perspective and goals, understanding their unique personality style and preferences, and appropriately communicating with them.
Correspondingly, empathy is also used by UX designers to understand not only users’ frustrations but also their fears, abilities, reasoning, and goals. Moreover, it allows them to have a deep understanding of users and, with that, address solutions more efficiently.
How is empathy used during the UX process?
A. Qualitative Research Methods
Empathy is used during the research phase: one of them is the qualitative method which implies user interviews or cognitive mapping.
B. Empathy Mapping
Empathy maps are made during the research phase and essential during the design thinking process. It exposes the user’s emotions, fears, and feelings. Empathy mapping helps to map what a design team needs to know about the potential audience. It also provides a deeper understanding of the user when creating a product or software platform.
