If you’ve ever had to name a button on a website, app, or landing page, then you’ve probably had the moment where you’re going back and forth between options. “Sign up” or “Register”? “Order” or “Shopping cart”? Is there a way to word these requests, actions, or buttons that encourages people to take action? Gregory Walton at Stanford studies connectedness and affiliation between people. In a series of experiments, he tested how different labels affect behavior. Psychologists, and people in general, tend to think that preferences and attitudes are stable. People like opera or they don’t. Peopl ..read more

For years, I—and most other designers I know—have believed, and written, and taught that if you want whatever you’re designing to be easy to understand and use, then you have to make it easy to read. You have to use a font size that’s large enough, a font type that’s plain and not too decorative, and a background/foreground combination that makes it legible. So imagine my surprise at discovering research—not just one study, but several—that shows that if text is harder to read, it’s easier to learn and remember. Apparently being easy to read isn’t the same thing as being easy to learn. The und ..read more

If you’ve ever deleted some information and then realized that you didn’t want to delete it and tried to undo the action you will realize how important feedback is to humans. The computer doesn’t need to tell you that it in fact reversed the action and your files are still there. But the human needs to hear it. People need feedback and reassurance in situations like this, but they also like to get feedback. Humans like to get feedback about what is going on, what has just happened, what is likely to happen. Here are some examples of the type of feedback you should build in to your interactions ..read more

People don’t like being bored. It’s boring to be bored. People prefer taking action because it provides a sense of control and reduces uncertainty. One of the reasons that modern apps and social media are so popular is that they are easy to use in situations where you are waiting and would normally be bored, for example in airports waiting for a flight, on a train waiting to arrive at your destination, at the doctor’s office waiting for your appointment. Maister (1985) and Eastwood (2012) discuss the research that shows that waiting is associated with a loss of control and a lack of informatio ..read more

Keith Instone and Adam Deardurff join the show to talk about their work doing research for the State of UX in Ohio. We talk about common issues facing many UX communities, but now armed with research ..read more

People are strongly influenced by the emotional state they are in. Later, when thinking back on an event, they may not remember how emotionally charged they were in the moment. This may lead to inconsistent predictions about future behavior. Research by Morewedge (2005), Ariely and Lowenstein (2006) and Wilson (2003) shows that memory of emotions, and predictions of future emotions is not accurate, and can be easily influenced. If you do not get the emotional rating in the moment when someone is having an emotion, then that person’s future memory of the event can be biased by up to 3x. When pe ..read more

Imagine you’re scanning music on your smartphone to decide what to listen to next. You’re looking at a list of songs. You decide which song you want, and then you move your finger to touch the name of the song to start it playing. What’s so interesting about that? What’s interesting is that your description of what happened isn’t what actually happened. Your experience is that: You make a conscious decision about what song you want to hear. You move your muscles to select the song. But here’s what really happens: Unconscious parts of your brain make the decision of what song to listen to. T ..read more

Let’s return to Jim, who was looking into buying a new car. He’s debating whether to get a small budget sedan or a larger sport utility vehicle with lots of bells and whistles. Psychologists have had two competing theories—the prototype theory and the exemplar theory—about how people think about decisions like these. The prototype theory states that people have memories of different experiences, and that they create a general overview of those memories for a specific category. For example, if Jim thinks about deciding to buy the small sedan, he’ll make that decision based on a general category ..read more

You may want to pay attention to the month, day, and year that you advertise, promote, or recommend certain services or products. There are certain times in the calendar year, as well as certain years in life, when people are more disposed to making decisions and life changes. If you time your messages, events, and promotions, it’s likely that they’ll resonate more and that people will be more likely to make a change or purchase based on them. Hengchen Dai, Katherine Milkman, and Jason Riis (2014) conducted a series of studies showing that people make commitments to personal improvement and ch ..read more

Josephine is the director of marketing at a genetics company. She loves her job, but it’s very stressful. She’s in charge of a new product launch, and the deadline is approaching. One of her best team members had to take a leave of absence for a medical emergency and she doesn’t know when he’ll be back. Things aren’t likely to get less stressful for several months. Josephine’s husband, Alex, has a dilemma. His parents have been in poor health, and they’ve taken a turn for the worse. They live 500 miles away. Alex doesn’t think his parents can live on their own in their house anymore, and there ..read more