How does UX design depend on user perception?
The way we perceive the world around us is actually quite different from what the world is in reality. By and large we perceive only what we already expect or what we are accustomed to perceive. The factors that affect our perception can be divided into three main groups:
- Experience — the knowledge that we have received in the past;
- The current environmental factors that surround and affect us at the present moment;
- Goals that we want to achieve in the future
The impact of experience on our perception
In truth, our experience, as well as our judgments and habits, are all heavily based upon our pasts, and have a key impact on our future perception. For example, if the news presents a headline such as, “Eating Meat Heals Cancer,” vegetarians and individuals who eat meat will undoubtedly experience vastly different reactions and feelings regarding this new theory. The fact is that these two categories of people express vastly different attitudes towards meat based on belief and perception. Vegetarians would likely have a very hard time accepting that something they believe to be very bad for their bodies could actually be very good for them. Their entire perception of the issue, as well as their relationship with it, is based on their past experience.
This statement can also be applied to users of websites or mobile applications. Users often click on buttons, completely oblivious to what exactly is written on them. Their perception of a particular website is based on their past experience interacting with this resource. This experience makes the user “see” something on the page that may not be there. The experience of previous use can also actually cause the exact opposite effect. If on the same website in one of the forms the “Confirm” button would differ in color and location from how it was presented in preceding forms, the user may simply not find it because his perception of this website’s functionality has shaped his mind to expect to see exactly what he saw before. This feature of our perception often stuns the creators of mobile applications or websites because they rely on what the user will see, as well as what really exists on the page, but not what the user expects to see.
The influence of the current environment on perception
The current environment or context in which a person is at a given moment in time also has a significant impact on perception. For example, if someone saw a man in a store with a gun and a stocking on his head, that person would perceive him as a robber. However, if the stocking on his head was replaced with a police badge on his chest, then that individual’s perception would change dramatically right away. The man is still holding a loading weapon in a store and nothing has changed, but the ways in which others will perceive the two men differ completely. It would seem that everything has changed when, in reality, only the context has changed. Similarly, if two young people are fighting frantically with swords in a metro station, the people around them would immediately perceive danger, and would try to stay as far away from them as possible. But, if these two individuals were engaged in the same swordplay on a theater stage, everyone’s perception would be not to flee but to stay and enjoy the spectacle, and they would even likely applaud it. In both the first and second situations, the essence of the situation has not changed; only the context has changed.
The impact of our goals on perception
Not only the past and present, which are expressed in our experience and context, affect our perception. Our goals, namely, what we expect to hear, see, or feel, can also dramatically affect our perception. For example, a website user who is looking for a specific function or information does not read everything on this resource. The user browses the screen with lightning speed in search of what is connected with the purpose of their visit to the website. Our perception simply does not register, and in fact ignores, everything that is not related to our goal. For example, if a woman saw beautiful blazer on an internet ad, and then clicked that ad to bring her to the product website, she may not carefully examine the product photos once she reaches the site, even though she wants to make a purchase. She would then, of course, be completely surprised upon later receiving extremely low-quality goods or not at all what she had thought she ordered, because her perception was something much divorced from reality.
To take this one step further, should she then go to the website of this store in order to find the phone number for the customer service department to express her dissatisfaction, her eyes would scan the pages looking for anything that looked like a phone number. In her tunnel vision she would likely not even notice the large, brightly colored banner in the middle of the website with the inscription: “Buy one thing and get any five items as a gift.” It’s an extremely advantageous offer, but her mind is only set to perceive informational text that looks as if it could be a phone number, and so she is potentially missing out on a great opportunity.
Features of perception and design
All of the above features of our perception should certainly be taken into account when creating the user interface of any application or website. Based on these features, Product Designers should highlight the following recommendations:
- Ambiguity is your enemy
One should avoid the ambiguous presentation of information. Try to create a design so that the maximum number of users perceive and interpret the display in the same way.
- Consistency is your friend
Always be consistent. All buttons and information should always be in the same, specified places, and should not suddenly change from one page to another. The controls that are responsible for the same function on different pages should look the same everywhere, and this applies to their color, font, and location.
- Understanding goals is your best friend
If a Product Designer or UX Writer can understand the goals that users of the product want to achieve, then the end result will be very pleasing to everyone. After all, the user’s goal greatly affects his or her perception of the information presented to them. Therefore, it is the job of the UX professional to ensure that the information the user needs to achieve this goal is visible and accessible.
