Have you ever wondered why your users do not interact with your product the way you hope? Like signing up, uploading a document or buying a product? To understand the reason behind what drives users to certain process, we need to look at the psychology of users that initiates and performs a behaviour. Here are some examples that can explain human behaviour in a better perspective.
1. People don’t like to think much
There is a term called “Progressive Disclosure” i.e to help users to maintain their focus by showing only what is needed and not confuse them or make them think more than necessary by giving extra information. It is not that people don’t want to put in effort to do any work, we are generally just lazy to do work that might take an extra effort! So only provide information that user really need. Giving more information can clutter up the experience and confuse the user.
2. People cannot always multitask, which is why they can lose interest easily.
Various kind of multitasking have serious cognitive challenges and it is proven that only few people can multitask. Forcing users to multitask can make them lose their interest in your app.
A clear, one-step-at-a-time process in a task flow is vital. The more the user is able to move forward, the better. It increases the possibility that they will be able to finish a task without wandering off to do something else.
3. People are prone to make mistakes
Mistakes occur when accomplishing a task. But then why to provide a space for errors? If the user makes an error and you can correct it, then do so and show them that what and how to solve their mistakes. Give them the opportunity to solve their mistakes or make it easy for them to undo their mistake.
4. Human memory is too flimsy
Human memory is too quirky, complicated and unreliable. Even when we think we are remembering things, chances are that things have gotten twisted along the way. People have habit to reconstruct their memories which means their memories are always changing so don’t make people remember things from one task to another.
5. Attention of specifics.
No…wait wait wait waaiittttt!
What I tried here is to just grab your attention. It worked well right? Include this formula in your design because it helps in engaging users. Psychologically people get confused when they find things that are different and unique. But UX designers have to make their path through that in a smart way. Different UX feature with great usability is what we need. This is what will attract users.
6. Design Language
Imagine that you are on your bike and someone marches in between out of nowhere. Then the person gives you a cold look and goes away. This will make you angrier. But then imagine a scenario where a person comes in between your path, realizes his/her mistake and apologies saying “Sorry sir, my mistake” with a smile on face. This attitude cools you down immediately and you also tend to forgive him.
This is how relations between users and their application works i.e “Design Language”. Just saying sorry for your mistake is not enough; your application should have the personal touch. It should speak user’s language.
7. Visual Appeal
How will you feel if you have to work with a team where everything is messed up and unorganized? You will lose your interest right away.
Same thing happens with your design. Research shows that people use vision to get the “gist” of what they are looking at. So avoid lengthy paragraphs, mixed and unorganized information. Try to group similar information together incorporating visuals, iconography, images, graphics etc.
Conclusion
The human brain is very complicated and very hard to understand. Often, we are unaware of what we want until we use it or experience it. It may differ from user to user and product to product, but it is important to know or to examine that how a particular user will behave with the product you are building.
