Psychology is your superpower to design user-centred interfaces

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Understanding how people think and act is fundamental to designing effective user interfaces. Sadly, most designers ignore that cognitive psychology is the essence of how people interact, feel and process the information on a website.

In his article “What is Cognitive Psychology?” Bryn Farnsworth, Researcher in Neuroscience, gives the following definition for cognitive psychology:

“Cognitive psychology is the science of how we think. It’s concerned with our inner mental processes such as attention, perception, memory, action planning, and language. Each of these components are pivotal in forming who we are and how we behave.”–Bryn Farnsworth

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

The human brain uses two systems to process information.

In his book, “Think fast and slow”, Daniel Kahneman explains that people use two ways of thinking to process information: System 1 (Subconscious) and System 2 (Conscious).

Whenever we are awake, both systems are active; System 1 runs automatically and System 2 operates in a low-effort mode in which only a fraction of its capacity is engaged. Daniel Kahneman argues that System 2 articulates judgement and makes choices, but often endorses or rationalizes ideas and feelings that were generated by System 1.

In sum, System 1 enables us to quickly identify the information relevant for a task or problem, and System 2 uses this input to execute or inhibit action. (e.g acting on a website).

Let’s have a closer look at these two systems and why they are important to consider when designing a website.

System 1: is fast, emotional, impulsive and automatic.