Psychology in Design. Principles Helping to Understand Users.

25/04/17, 10:05

Psychology in Design. Principles

Helping to Understand Users.
Tubik Studio Apr 5

We are a comprehensive digital agency specializing in UI/UX design and

development of websites and mobile applications, animation, graphic design and
branding.

Some people are used to thinking of design as a purely artistic job but there is
much more standing behind it. The sense of beauty and inspiration are not enough
to create the proficient design. Thats why designers should possess certain
knowledge and skills of distinct sciences to do their job right. And its not only the
art of design, its also about various fields of knowledge and practice which help

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them work efficiently and productively. One of the basic studies helping designers
to understand users is psychology. Today, we will figure out what a big part
psychology plays in design and what psychological principles are essential to
remember during the design process.

The role of psychology in design

Today the tendency of user-centered design makes designers reconsider approach

to their work and go deeper into the understanding of the target audience. Donald
A. Norman in his book The Design of Everyday Things defines design as an act
of communication, which means having the deep understanding of the person with
whom the designer is communicating. In order to get better insight into peoples
needs, designers are recommended to bear in mind the psychological principles of
human behavior, aspirations and motivations.

The outcome of the work can be even more positive if a designer applies
psychology in the creative process since the science gives the close understanding

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of the target audience. Psychology knowledge helps to create the design which
will make users perform the actions they are expected to such as making a
purchase or contacting the team.

Designers may see psychology as a complicated approach to improving the design

and for that reason neglect this part of research and analysis. However, you dont
need to be a Ph.D. in psychology to use it at your work effectively. All you need to
consider are the basic principles constantly presented in design. Based on our
experience and the conducted research, weve defined six effective psychological
principles often applied in the design process.

Gestalt Principles

This psychological theory is almost 100-year-old but it hasnt lost its actuality.
The word gestalt means unified whole so the theory explores users visual
perception of elements in relation to each other. In other words, it shows how
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people tend to unify the visual elements into groups. The principles, on which
users form the groups, include:

Similarity. If a user sees objects that look somehow similar, they may
automatically perceive them as the individual elements of one group. The
similarity between elements is usually defined with shape, color, size, texture or
value. The similarity gives users the sense of coherence between the design
elements.

Continuation. It is the principle according to which the human eye moves

naturally from one object to the other. This often happens through the creation of
curved lines allowing the eye to flow with the line.

Closure. It is a technique based on the human eyes tendency to see closed shapes.
Closure works where an object is incomplete but the user perceives it as a full
shape by filling in the missing parts.

Proximity. When objects are placed in close proximity, the eye perceives them as
a group rather than seen individually even if they arent similar.

Figure/Ground. This principle demonstrates the eyes tendency to separate

objects from their background. There are lots of examples of pictures that shows
two faces depending on where your eye is focused the object or background.

Photography Workshops website

The Gestalt principles confirm in practice that our brain tends to make tricks with
us, so designers should consider that fact during the creation process to exclude
the possibility of misunderstandings.

Visceral Reactions

Have you ever had that feeling when you fall in love with the website after the
first second when youve opened it? Or maybe an application has made you sick
only with the quick glance at it? If yes, then youve already known whats a

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visceral reaction. This kind of reactions comes from the part of our head called
old brain responsible for the instincts and it reacts much faster than our
consciousness does. Visceral reactions are rooted in our DNA, so they can be
easily predicted.

How do designers use this knowledge? They aim at creating a positive aesthetic
impression with the design. Its not that difficult to guess what looks nice to
people and what doesnt if you know your target audience and their needs. So, the
tendency of using the high-resolution beautiful photos or the colorful pictures at
landing pages, websites or any other web and mobile products is not accidental.

Jewelry E-commerce Application

Psychology of Colors

A science studying the influence of colors on the humans mind, behavior, and
reactions is called the psychology of colors. Today we wont go deep into the
aspects of this study since it is complex so deserves to have a specialized post
devoted to it (on which, besides, were already working). In a few words, the main
idea of the study is that the colors have a great impact on the users perception.
Thats why designers should choose the colors knowingly to make sure their work
presents the right message and tune.

Here is the list of the basic colors and the meanings which they are typically
associated with:

Red. The color usually associates with passionate, strong, or aggressive feelings.
It symbolizes both good and bad feelings including love, confidence, passion and
anger.

Orange. An energetic and warm color bringing the feelings of excitement.

Yellow. This is the color of happiness. It symbolizes the sunlight, joy and warmth.

Green. The color of nature. It brings calming and renewing feelings. Also, may

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signify inexperience.

Blue. It often represents some corporate images. It usually shows calm feelings
but as a cool color it also associates with distance and sadness.

Purple. Long associated with royalty and wealth since many kings wore purple
clothes. Its also a color of a mystery and magic.

Black. The color has a great number of the meanings. It associates with a tragedy
and death. It signifies a mystery. It can be traditional and modern. Everything
depends on how you employ it and which colors go with it.

White. The color means purity and innocence, as well as wholeness and clarity.

Slopes Website

Recognition Patterns

You may have noticed that website or applications united with one theme usually
have common patterns in their design. The reason is the users psychology. The
thing is that people visiting a website or using an application are expecting to see
certain things associated with the definite kind of product.

For example, visiting a website of a barbershop, the users are not expecting to see
bright colors or pictures with cats or anything like this because if they do see it,
this will definitely make them think of a website as an untrustworthy resource.

However, not only the colors and pictures matter. Some obvious and common
things such as a list of blog posts on the front page of a blog or the filters in the e-
commerce website are also important for successful navigation. Users become
accustomed to things quickly and their absence makes them feel uncomfortable.

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To-do list concept

Scanning Patterns

In our article Tips on Applying Copy Content in User Interfaces, weve already
mentioned that before reading a web page, people scan it to get a sense of whether
they are interested. According to different studies, including the publications by
Nielsen Norman Group, UXPin team and others, there are several popular
scanning patterns for web pages, among which F and Z patterns.

F-pattern is referred to as the most common eye-scanning pattern, especially for

web pages with the big amount of content. A user first scans a horizontal line on
the top of the screen, then moves down the page a bit and reads along the
horizontal line which usually covers a shorter area. And the last one is a vertical
line down on the left side of the copy where they look for keywords in the initial
sentences of the paragraphs. It usually occurs on text-heavy pages like blogs, news

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platforms, thematic editorials etc.

Z-pattern is applied to pages which are not so heavily concentrated on the copy. A
user first scans across the top of the page starting from the top left corner, looking
for important information, and then goes down to the opposite corner at a
diagonal, finishing with the horizontal line at the bottom of the page, again from
left to right. This is a typical model of scanning for landing pages or websites not
loaded with copy and not requiring scrolling down the page, which means that all
the core data is visible in the pre-scroll area.

Knowing these patterns, designers can place the elements in an effective way for
users perception and help them perform expected actions.

Hicks Law

The law states that the more options users are exposed to, the longer it takes them
to make a decision. This means that the more options you give to users, be it
products to choose or pictures to look at, the more time and energy it takes to
make a decision about the next step of interaction. The possible result here is that
the users make the choices but get unpleasant feelings after using the product, or
in the worst case, they may not want to take such a significant effort and just
leave.

Thats why designers are recommended to keep any options including buttons,
pictures, pages to a minimum. Removing unnecessary choices, you make the
usability of the product more effective.

Cafe Coupon App

Psychology is an effective tool in design which makes the creative process more
productive while the result is going to be more user-centered. Weve told you
about six useful principles but they are only the tip of the iceberg because there is
much more to learn on the topic. Dont miss our next blog posts continuing this
useful theme!

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Psychology in Design. Principles Helping to Understand Users. 25/04/17, 10:05

Recommended reading:

Here are some more articles we could recommend for those who would like to get
deeper into the topic:

Gestalt principles

The role of psychology as a design tool

5 psychology rules every UX designer must know

Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things by Don Norman

The 5 pillars of visual hierarchy in Web design

6 principles of visual hierarchy for designers

On Visual Hierarchy

F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content

Originally written for tubikstudio.com

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Tubik Studio
We are a comprehensive digital agency specializing in
UI/UX design and development of websites and mobile
applications, animation, graphic design and branding.

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