Archetypes in Design: Understanding Behaviour as a Network

Archetypes as a data framework for better, faster, and more meaningful design research.

Sam Hall
UX Collective
Published in
5 min readFeb 14, 2022

A black line drawing of a triangle inside 5 circles inside a square on a grey background.
A triangle in 5 circles in a square

In this series of articles, we’ll explore archetypes as a data framework for better, faster and more meaningful design research.

This article will explore the meaning of archetypes as well as its relationship with user experience research, psychology, and literature.

The second article looks at thematic analysis, a method of data wrangling, and how it can be used as a methodical basis for connecting behavioural insights with archetypes. Specifically, the archetypal images of the
user-product relationship.

The third article is a high-level overview of how an archetypes framework can operate in a company. Specifically, how to build archetypes, their relationship with personas, how to align them with behavioural data, and how they guide strategy towards successful products and good user experience.

Meaning of the word

The archetype has ancient roots in humanity’s experience of reality. The English definition “original patterns from which copies are made” has been around since the 1500s. It’s a derivative of the Latin word archetypum, which comes from the Greek noun ἀρχέτυπον (archétypon). This means “first moulded as a pattern”. Let’s break this meaning into its parts and see if any light is shed on the meaning of the word.

In the world around us, we mould things that are soft and malleable. Just as goldsmiths mould their soft and malleable metal into something beautiful, humanity mould their ideas. We see this when considering all the different ways a group can explain the same situation. There are infinite responses to questions like “How was your day at work?” or “How was last night?”. What matters are the patterns that form our ideas around a day at work or a night out. Some patterns might be how one feels on a particular night or day (set) or what one does for work or play (setting).

For a day at work or a night of play; set and setting is key.

But why does it matter that archetypes are defined as the first mould? The word first could mean a few things in this context. It could mean the earliest, “the first person to get up in the morning”. Or it could mean the best “the winner comes first”. This frames an archetype as the first or best pattern to understand something.

An archetype is the best pattern to understand something.

This means that an archetype isn’t just any pattern. It’s the pattern we believe to be the best. Sometimes, best can be a rather unspecified goal. However, in the context of design, the goal is reveals itself.

How might we discover the best patterns of experience for a product or service?

Archetypes in UX Research

User experience (UX) research is used to build an informed product. The whole point is creating a successful product by discovering the best experience and how to get there. It’s how the designer gets a better understanding of someone’s experience when they interact with a product. A popular method for gaining this understanding at a high level is the persona method. It works by creating a fictional character and putting them into a situation with a product. By playing out the situation, hypothetical responses begin to emerge. These hypotheses form the basis of assumptions for further research.

A problem with the persona method is that the assumptions inherent in the hypotheses can be wildly inaccurate. Designers don’t always have time to build a character from accurate data or if they do, there's not much data to work with. Unless designers find time for more research later on, this can lead to expensive mistakes and a poorly informed product.

What if there was a way to frame existing data to build informed personas? Hypothetical responses could be informed by a large amount of existing validated data rather than the researcher’s more intuitive guess. The mechanics of this will be explored in the second and third articles.

Archetypes in Psychology

Historically, philosophical interest in the human mind can be traced back to ancient civilisations across the globe. Our current understanding of psychology, “the scientific study of behaviour and mental processes”, is attributed to multiple thinkers around the 1860s. This marked psychology’s departure from philosophy into an independent scientific discipline. In 1919, Carl Jung, founder of analytical psychology, used the term ‘archetype’ in the third essay of a series titled “Instinct and the Unconscious”.

As an admirer of the Philosopher Frederick Neiztche, Jung attempted to provide a solution to Neizstche’s apocalyptic proclamation, God is Dead. The solution was an explanation of archetypes as primordial personas that constitute the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is the shared set of mental concepts that articulate that nature of humanity. With an understanding of these archetypes, the individual could build a set of moral and ethical values to replace the rapidly deteriorating institution of Judeo-Christian religion in the west. A notable benefit for an individual to gain this understanding is the process of individuation, which Jung believed to be a necessary process for the meaningful life. Jungian Archetypes have since been applied across disciplines to improve understanding of the human experience in specific contexts.

Archetypes in Literature

Archetypes appear in literature as patterns of storytelling. Literary critics argue that archetypes determine the form and function of literary works and a text’s meaning is shaped by cultural and psychological myths. The hero, or the hero’s journey, is an example of an archetypal image common in literature and myth across cultures. There are individual parts in the journey. Some examples include characters, set and setting, or problems to overcome. And while the parts change, the pattern of the journey remains the same. Joseph Campbell is an American writer who articulates the 14 stages that appear cross-culturally on the hero’s journey. This meme crystalises the concept.

A group of characters and settings from stories that share the common theme of the hero’s journey.
Historical examples of the elements in the heroes journey

Storytelling is important in design. Without an effective way to advocate for good design, the connection between customer experience and product success can be forgotten. Telling the story of an archetypal image can be an effective method of advocacy because meaning is intuitively revealed through archetypal stories. Telling archetypal stories also allows designers to advocate for multiple experiences at once. This is because archetypes emphasise what’s important even if contexts and problems differ. These stories are what allow companies to unite in a common goal.

This was the first part in a three-part series:

  1. Archetypes in Design: Understanding Behaviour as a Network
  2. Thematic Analysis: Data Wrangling in Design [NEXT UP]
  3. Archetypes in Agencies: Strategy through Behaviour (coming soon)

Published in UX Collective

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Responses (2)

What are your thoughts?

Hi susan I came across your article and I really love it i found it really insightful. I'd love to discuss the topic further and hear your thoughts. Best regards luci henzo

Incredible piece on how effectively using psychological and literary methods can offer insightful examples/methods towards UX research. Bravo!