User experience design places a tangible measure and method towards a person’s emotion and attitude about using a particular product, system or service. Hence, it is extremely important for any UX/UI Designer to fully understand the profile of the person who is going to use a particular product in creating a seamless experience. Over the years of technological development, a few psychological principles have been developed within this domain as a guideline towards understanding users. These are known as the psychological phenomena in UX Design. 

1. The Principle of Least Effort 

This psychological rule is pretty self explanatory, everyday users are always looking to complete tasks with the least amount of effort. This fact is one of the main reasons why technology has been integrated into our everyday lives. The simplest design and programmes are always the most attractive.  This could be achieved through various methods such as a visual explanation or simple text for users instead of a long winded text. This applies to fonts, design and colour selection as well. The easier a design is on the user’s eyes the more effective the design will be. 

2. The Principal of Perpetual Habit

Humans are very habitual in completing tasks, hence in creating a new design there are certain aspects which we must maintain depending on how the users have reacted with the product of other similar products. Change could often make humans frustrated, therefore keeping the navigation and layout simple helps users familiarise themselves and form habits quicker hence making their experience as a whole more pleasant. One of the best examples of this is the Apple iOS, its gradual and minimal updates maintains users habits and improves upon them without users having to relearn and refamiliarise themselves with the operating system. 

3. The Principle of Socialisation 

One of the great benefits of technology is that it allows humans to increase our sociability on a whole new scale. In the 21st Century humans are also using technology to simply be accepted to society, to stay in the know. As every platform has now realised this, the integration of social media  to a product has been greatly utilised by designers. A simple button allowing users to choose to share any apps, webs or product on various platforms will ensure a more pleasant user experience. 

4. The Principal of Emotional Contagion 

In our daily lives, we are surprisingly subconsciously highly sensitive to the emotions around us. Designers could utilise this in products through the use of stories, images or sound which conveys emotions and induces the same emotions towards users. Effectively every user interacting with the product will subconsciously mirror the emotion through the use of emotional contents by designers. 

5. The Principal of Identity 

The exponential rise in technology has left humans yearning for a sense of identity, a feeling of belonging and the need to be unique. We tend to now do this through wallpapers, application variations and customization. This is the same for brands, humans will align themselves with brands to give them a sense of identity. Hence for brands it is extremely important to have unique colours, logos, messages, slogans in order to underscore the uniqueness of your brand. One of the main factors of users choosing Android over Apple is the ability to customise their product to have their own sense of identity. 

6. The Principle of Beauty 

‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ is a statement that constantly proves that as human beings we will always choose the option which is the most visually appealing. Few people can stay away from pursuing beauty. The concept of “beautiful” is often associated with the words “expensive”, and “high-quality”. This concept could be achieved through consistency and uniformity in colour schemes, fonts, spaces and many other aspects in which humans consider visually appealing both consciously and subconsciously. 

7. The Magic Number Seven, Plus Minus Two

The Miller’s rule states that a human being could store from 5 up to 9 things in their short term memory. Thus designers have to take this rule into account in designing any products, perhaps not feature any more than 5 to 9 products in an online store or not having more that 5 to 9 steps in an onboarding process or any piece of information trying to be conveyed towards users as it will overwhelm users. 

8. Focus, Attention and Concentration 

The average attention span of an adult in 2022 is only 8 seconds, the job of a UX/UI designer would be to be aware of this and highlight any important information towards the user within 8 seconds of their interaction with the product. The use of pop ups, sound effects or visual movement could be utilised to capture this 8 seconds of attention a user has towards any particular product and doing so effectively to provide the best experience. 

9. The Psychology of Mistakes

A good UX/UI designer must be able to predict where a user might mistakenly interact with their product and minimise any chances of this happening. Pinpointing a particular function or flow which could be confusing for users, adding undo buttons and double verification or informing users of their mistake with an error message are extremely important as mistakes could never be eliminated. However, allowing users to correct and prevent mistakes while interacting with a product will improve the experience as a whole. 

As a whole, the psychological phenomena in UX Design is a good foundation for any UX Designer in creating a pleasant user experience. It definitely does not cover every aspect of design but serves as a good guideline in understanding the basics of users emotion and attitude towards a product. Perhaps the list will get longer as our interaction with technology increases. But every successful design such as the likes of Apple, Google and Amazon checks almost every one of these boxes. 

Savant is informed by market research and has a specialised Digital Design team with extensive experience and expertise in UX/UI talent solutions. If you are looking to build or expand your Design function, we can support you with the best talent in the industry with experts and market leading onboarding advice and consultation. To find out more about how we can assist you, please reach out to us at technology@savantrecruitment.com