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Your brain has been tricked, and it’s loving it

Is Design a game of subtle manipulation and beautiful lies? Do designers not just make things work but also make you believe?

Himanshu Bharadwaj
UX Collective
8 min readFeb 13, 2025

Your brain has been tricked, and it’s enjoying it. Is Design a game of subtle manipulation and beautiful lies? Do designers make things work or also make you believe?
Adobe Stock Image by john

Have you ever wondered how brands entice you to spend $7 on coffee, wait six months for a premium bag, and feel clever? Does good design deceive you into feeling in control and also allows you to appreciate the deception?

The human brain operates on two key elements: dopamine (WANT), which is the impulsive thrill of achieving something, and cognitive ease (LAZY), which is the satisfaction of not overthinking. Congratulations- you wield influence over people if your business can harness these two forces. That’s brainwashing with flair, and it’s effective. Designers don’t just make things look nice. They manipulate reality.

Here’s how they do it.

1. Make people lazy because thinking is painful.

Don’t you think every invention that has made billions has minimized effort? The easier life becomes, the quicker people throw money at you. No one wants to do more work than necessary. Walking to a store takes a lot of effort. People pay extra to avoid cooking (DoorDash, Grubhub), walking (escalators), and interacting with others…

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Published in UX Collective

We believe designers are thinkers as much as they are makers. Curated stories on UX, Visual & Product Design. https://linktr.ee/uxc

Written by Himanshu Bharadwaj

Product Innovation and Joyful Design Thinking leader, NY. USA. joyful.design

Responses (2)

What are your thoughts?

So true... As a person who struggles with ADHD daily, I can tell you that my brain wants (and even craves) ease-of-use, and convenience. ADHDers already have such low dopamine production in their brains, that we get super addicted to things that can give us dopamine hits constantly.

1

I'm saving this article for later! Lol