User experience is an essential part of building an app or website. It’s as much of an art as it is a discipline. If you practice UX you probably have knowledge in a variety of fields from artistic theory to psychology. Psychology is at the forefront of this. It analyzes humans and their behavior and tries to predict it. Using psychology, you can develop the right methodology to improve how your users view and interact with your website. It’s impossible to go over every factor that influences user experience, but you have to start somewhere. Here are some examples of how psychology can influence UX.
1. Design is everything
Websites are the core of an online business. They’re the location where users first make contact with the actual business. Websites contain all the relevant information a user might need for any given product or service. Because of this, user experience on your website has to be top tier. Pay special attention to the design and layout of your website. One of its primary functions is to hold the attention of a potential consumer.
Proper website design doesn’t just mean applying visual art and proper coding, it also includes taking advantage of human psychology. You might not have noticed, but most websites have a specific layout called an F pattern. The pattern mimics the easiest way for human eyes to scan a website. Someone reading a website will look at the first two horizontal lines, and follow up with scanning the rest vertically. It allows for better readability on content-heavy websites. Sometimes a lot of content is warranted, but users won’t read the whole thing either way.
2. Empathy is a necessary tool
This doesn’t refer to empathy in a colloquial sense. You won’t be feeling sorry for users that can’t properly use the website. Rather, it’s a way of thinking. Before putting anything into action, you first ask yourself: what would I do in their shoes? Put yourself in the position of a user and see how you would like certain features or changes.
The design of electronic devices and websites is always removed from the user experience. You have to bridge the gap and find common ground between the design and user perspective. Understanding how the user might feel is difficult, but certainly possible. The problem is you have to distance yourself from your own knowledge. Test groups could solve this, but it’s more of a hassle than simply adapting one’s own thoughts.
3. Get their attention
The point of proper UX design is making sure you get users to focus their attention where you want them to. It seems like an easy task, but there are factors to take into account. There isn’t just one type of attention to focus on. The type of detention used depends on the situation the user is in. There’s the automatic kind of attention called “selective attention” which helps us determine what to look at any given moment.
Actions focus our attention on the task at hand. Having an interactive application lets consumers focus on using it above all else. Participation lets you provide a positive subjective experience that will make users come back to your website for more. Obviously, if they find what they’re looking for every time, even better.
4. Aim for emotions
A quality user experience isn’t complete without an emotional factor. Design your website with psychology in mind. Making users feel something has more of an impact than you think. Humans are emotional animals first and foremost. If content makes them feel something, it will impact them whether they like it or not. When personal preferences are involved, they will provoke users to actually think about their purchases. Colour is a good example of a way to affect emotions. Setting the emotional tone of a website is easily done with colors.
Different colors convey different emotions. Stereotypically, a color like red might be representative of passion or anger. This depends on the context it is used in, as well as the hue chosen. Blue is considered a calming color, and it’s often associated with water and relaxation. A good rule of thumb is to never overdo it. Colors are a wonderful tool, but overdoing them will make your website or application look tacky. A bright red everything won’t be pleasant to look at.
5. Streamline the whole process
When someone visits your website, they have certain expectations. If they know what they’re looking for, your goal is to streamline the process of finding it. The person opening your app is looking for a specific item or service, and they want it fast. A slow website won’t be visited twice. Another thing they want to know is if what they’re looking at is high quality. Keep relevant information front and center on your website, so that users can navigate them quickly and easily.
You also have to take a step back and look at how people find your website. To improve this, you need to maximize your search engine optimization. SEO is how search engines like google rank your website when something is googled online. It’s not the simplest thing to master, but it is extremely important if you want people to find your website. Companies like Brisbane SEO can advise you on how to improve your Google rankings.
6. Communication is the key
There is one thing that makes psychology possible: communication. It is an essential part of the human psyche and it can’t be disregarded no matter what you are designing. Even art is a form of communication, albeit a bit more subtle than what we’re aiming for. User experiences are based on the indirect communication between you and your users. The medium for this communication is your application.
When designing products, you might have to take a more direct approach to communication. You have to get users onboard with your products and then receive their feedback. Communication is a two-way street, after all. Build a close relationship with the people involved with the product, and that will allow you to design things that accommodate them better. With proper avenues for communication, you can better solve the problems that are facing users and clients.
Conclusion
Capturing the attention of users might seem like a herculean task for a website designer. You have to influence a user in the time it takes to blink. Luckily, human psychology will lend you a helping hand in achieving this. If you follow these pointers, both you and your users will very likely be satisfied with the results of your website or ap.
