Meaningful Design

2UX Thinking | DaveHogue.com

What If…

10,000years

Gobekli Tepe10,000 B.C.E.

Heiroglyphics1500 B.C.E.

The Rosetta Stone196 B.C.E

signswordsicons

KEEP OUTOR DIE

How do wemake certain

they understand?

Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (Sandia National Laboratories, 1993)

We mustunderstand

them.

Why do someexperiences succeed?

We feel like they know us

personally.

The designersunderstandthe users.

“You are not designing for yourself.”

But we’re all human.

Users

DesignersDevelopers

Researchers Managers

Our brains all work the

same way…

…and we share the samecapabilities and limitations.

We are subject to the

same rules.

Understanding how we all think can help us generate

better ideas…

…and help us craft and deliver

better experiences.

Design is not magic.

A Systemfor thinking about design with a

psychological perspective.

People using things in places.

Who are the people?Demographics, experiences, skills, attitudes, beliefs, knowledge

Where are they?Place, environment, situation, conditions, circumstances

What are the devices, objects, and tools they are using?Phones, tablets, computers, kiosks, cameras, pen & paper, chisel & stone…

Context

Design must work across cultures,languages, and generations.

Much of our design is symbolic:Colors Graphics MotionWords Illustrations VideoNumbers Diagrams AnimationTypefaces Charts SoundsIcons Photographs Haptics

The meaning of symbols is derived fromour experiences in that time and place.

Symbols

Color of MourningSouth Africa

Egypt and Burma

Korea, Mexico, and Iran

Thailand and Brazil

China

India

United States and Europe

Wisdom Harbinger of Death

Trends & Fads

Style is socialand varies over time,

but the pendulum swingsin both directions.

What something meansto me here todaymay be different

from what it meansto someone else

in a different time and place.

Where am I going?

How will I get there?

What are the objectives?What is the desired outcome, and is it:

Productive, focused, goal-directed, playful, exploratory, meandering

What is the value of the goals and objectives?Important, essential, necessary, optional, nice-to-have, elective

How urgent are the goals and objectives?Time-sensitive, critical, compelling, casual, open-ended

Goals

Trust?

Credible?

Even minor issueswith design quality

can reducecredibility and trust.

How do people sense and perceive the world?Vision, audition, and touchColor deficient visionImage recognitionMotionGestalt PrinciplesPre-conscious processing and attention

Perception

Color Deficient Vision

Normal Red-Green Blue-Yellow

About 8% of men and 0.5% of women in the USA have some form of color deficient vision.

Choosing Colors

Some tips for being color friendly:

1. Do not use color alone to signify meaning –combine it with form and text to provide additional cues.

2. Use sufficient contrast – test your design by de-saturating the colors to see if they are still distinct.

3. Remember that the color pairs that cause difficulty are RED-GREEN and BLUE-YELLOW. Shift the hue and vary the luminosity.

Form & StructureGestalt Principles

Figure-GroundProximitySimilarityClosureContinuitySymmetryCommon Fate

Figure-Ground

Closure

Proximity

Similarity

Symmetry

Continuity

We perceive what we expect.

Definition:The force that initiates, directs, and sustains behavior.Why we do what we do.

Theories:Achievement, Affiliation, and PowerExistence, Relatedness, and Growth (ERG)Biological DrivesInternal vs. ExternalNot Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs…

Motivation

Why do people spend so much time on socialnetworks, and what do they get from it?

Affiliation with others (we are social creatures and seek contact)Personal achievement (competition with self and others)Social influence and credibility (“social currency”)

Motivation

Definition:The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understandingthrough thinking, experience, and the senses.

Types:Learning and Memory Decision-makingCreativity RecognitionLanguage Spatial operationsProblem-solving Concept formationReasoning and logic MetacognitionAttention And many, many biases…

Cognition

People are better able to scan and read text when it is presented in ways which help them identify and understand the meaning through the use of:

Headers and subheaders (size)WeightLineheight (leading)Line length (measure)Bullet listsWhitespaceGraphics, diagrams, and illustrations

Information Design

Making Meaning

The Dead Zone: An outbreak of green algae, or hutai as the Chinese call it, has invaded the seawaters off eastern Shandong. It looks harmless and lots of fun, as beachgoers are pictured frolicking in the green mass. But danger lurks below with the algae posing a massive threat to aquatic life. The rivers are contaminated due to the use of fertilizers in agriculture and chemical discharges from industrial plants. Untreated sewage, along with the discharge of nitrate and phosphate from nearby industrial plants are spewed into the Yellow Sea, which stimulate the growth of algae, phytoplankton, and other marine micro-organisms. In July 2008 an algae bloom covered 13,000 square kilometers, then in July 2013 the largest algae bloom ever covered 28,900 square kilometers. The bacteria consume dead algae and phytoplankton, taking in tons of oxygen from the water during digestion. That results in sudden depletion of oxygen, which causes a huge impact on marine life by causing hypoxia – the marine organisms literally suffocate. Most mobile, adult fish may survive by swimming away from the hypoxic zones. However, they may be forced into smaller habitats when schools become overcrowded. Seafloor dwellers like tubeworms may be more tolerant of low oxygen levels, but young fish and other less mobile creatures like clams may suffer and eventually die if the water remains hypoxic for a long time.

The Dead Zone

An outbreak of green algae, or hutai as the Chinese call it, has invaded

the seawaters off eastern Shandong. It looks harmless and lots of fun,

as beachgoers are pictured frolicking in the green mass. But danger

lurks below with the algae posing a massive threat to aquatic life.

The rivers and Yellow Sea are contaminated by:

• Agricultural fertilizers,

• Nitrate and phosphate discharge from industrial plants,

• Untreated sewage.

These contaminants stimulate the growth of algae, phytoplankton, and

other marine micro-organisms. Bacteria consume dead algae and

phytoplankton and use tons of oxygen from the water during digestion.

Hypoxia: Suffocation due to lack of oxygen caused by the

removal of oxygen from the water by excess micro-organisms.

Most mobile, adult fish may survive by swimming away from the

hypoxic zones. However, they may be forced into smaller habitats

when schools become overcrowded.

Seafloor dwellers like tubeworms may be more tolerant of low oxygen

levels, but young fish and other less mobile creatures like clams may

suffer and eventually die if the water remains hypoxic for a long time.

Making Meaning

The Dead Zone: An outbreak of green algae, or hutai as the Chinese call it, has invaded the seawaters off eastern Shandong. It looks harmless and lots of fun, as beachgoers are pictured frolicking in the green mass. But danger lurks below with the algae posing a massive threat to aquatic life. The rivers are contaminated due to the use of fertilizers in agriculture and chemical discharges from industrial plants. Untreated sewage, along with the discharge of nitrate and phosphate from nearby industrial plants are spewed into the Yellow Sea, which stimulate the growth of algae, phytoplankton, and other marine micro-organisms. In July 2008 an algae bloom covered 13,000 square kilometers, then in July 2013 the largest algae bloom ever covered 28,900 square kilometers. The bacteria consume dead algae and phytoplankton, taking in tons of oxygen from the water during digestion. That results in sudden depletion of oxygen, which causes a huge impact on marine life by causing hypoxia – the marine organisms literally suffocate. Most mobile, adult fish may survive by swimming away from the hypoxic zones. However, they may be forced into smaller habitats when schools become overcrowded. Seafloor dwellers like tubeworms may be more tolerant of low oxygen levels, but young fish and other less mobile creatures like clams may suffer and eventually die if the water remains hypoxic for a long time.

Cognitive Biases

Our cognitive abilities are fallible.

Availability Heuristic

Fundamental Attribution Error

Confirmation Bias

Loss Aversion

Hyperbolic Discounting

Recency Bias

And dozens more…

Should we “Reduce deaths”…

…or “Maximize quality of life?”

Framing Bias

What did the first cars look like?

Horse-drawn carriages.

Anchoring Bias

We may not be designing for

ourselves, but…

We are susceptible to the same biases.

Creativity

Perhaps one of the most difficult abilities to define and measure, creativity is often assigned to designers, but everyone has it.

Divergent Thinking

Thinking that moves in diverging directions to involve a variety of factors and perspectives.

It generates many possibilities which may lead to novel ideas and solutions.

It is associated with creativity.

30 seconds…

How many uses?

Definition:A complex, subjective experience resulting in physiological andpsychological changes that influence thought and behavior.

Theories:Ekman (Happiness, Surprise, Sadness, Anger, Fear, Disgust)James-Lange (physiological reaction precedes emotion)Cannon-Bard (physiological reaction and emotion are concurrent)Schachter-Singer (physiological reaction precedes cognition)Lazarus (cognition precedes physiological reaction and emotion)

Emotion

Color

Different colors have different meanings and elicit different emotions.

Red is anger.

Green is envy.

Blue is sadness.

Yellow is cowardice.

Typefaces

Different typefaces convey different feelings and attitudes.

http://blog.crazyegg.com/2013/07/05/psychology-of-fonts-infographic/

Emotion

Emotions may be positive (love, joy) or negative (anger, fear.)

We have about 20,000 emotional experiences per day (Kahneman, 2002.)

Attractive things are judged to work better and be more effective.

Positive Emotions

Fredrickson (2009) discovered that we need three positive emotions to lift us up and overcome just onenegative emotion.

Have you ever said,“Meh. It could be better, but it works”?

Is the rest of the interface

three times betterto make up for it?

Definition:The actions by which an organism reacts and adjusts totheir environment and other organisms; a response to various stimuli.

Theories:Classical Conditioning (association)Operant Conditioning (reinforcement and punishment)Social Learning Theory (live, verbal, and symbolic)Relational Frame Theory (language and cognition)Drive Reduction (biology and homeostasis)

Behavior

Rewards

Participation in social services is often encouraged with rewards such as badges and points that have personal and social value and which are delivered through complex reinforcement schedules.

Not what she predicted…

After editing the gift message three times, it was still too long…

How long is it now?

How much too long is it?

What is the maximum number of characters?

HELP! What should I do?

Learning to use this...

…does not help with these.

Quick ReviewA lot of psychology in just two diagrams!

Thanks!I’m happy to answer your questions.