UX & Psychology

"As UX is focused on users, understanding psychology is crucial," Senior Interaction Designer Lee Carroll says. So, here are 10 links on UX and psychology to get you started ...

1. The Psychologist's View of UX Design (Susan Weinschenk)

"I take research and knowledge about the brain, the visual system, memory, and motivation and extrapolate UX design principles from that."

2. The User Researcher's Field Guide to Psychology (David Travis)

"When planning user research studies, there are four fundamental principles from psychology that user researchers must know. These are: your users do not think like you think; your users don't have good insight into the reasons for their behaviour; the best predictor of your users' future behaviour is their past behaviour; and your users' behaviour depends on context."

3. Designing with the Mind in Mind (Video, Jeff Johnson)

"Early user interface (UI) practitioners were trained in cognitive psychology, from which UI design rules were based. But as the field evolves, designers enter the field from many disciplines. Practitioners today have enough experience in UI design that they have been exposed to design rules, but it is essential that they understand the psychology behind the rules in order to effectively apply them."

Jeff Johnson's book is also highly recommended.

4. Cognitive Psychology for UX: The Principle of Least Effort (Spencer Lanoue)

"Even though we have intricate minds, we don't want to think too hard—or too much—if we don't have to."

5. Cognitive Psychology for UX: The Principle of Limited Attention (Spencer Lanoue)

"It's physically impossible for us to pay attention to everything in our environment."

6. Psychology Makes You a Better UX Designer (Video, Hoa Loranger)

"Understanding psychological processes like memory, information processing, and cognitive biases can help designers make better decisions."

7. 10 findings from psychology that every user researcher should know (David Travis)

"A knowledge of psychology can help user researchers be more effective when they plan research, make observations, analyse data and present the results."

8. 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People (Book excerpt, Susan Weinschenk)

Inattention blindness, Culture shapes out brains, People see what they expect to see ...

More "things every designer needs to know" can be found in her blog.

Susan Weinshenk's book is also highly recommended.

9. Topic: Psychology and UX (category, Nielsen Norman Group)

Memory, Banner Blindness, The False-Consensus Effect ...

10. Psychology and Human Behavior (category, UX Magazine)

Emotional Design, Deconstructing Human Interaction, The Power of Closure Experiences ...

Illustration: Omotejowho Mentie.