In November, we’re taking a close look at how psychology and neuroscience help us design for people.
Getting close to our users is essential in our line of work. The experience they have with a designed product or service is profoundly impacted by what we know—or don’t know—about them.
Research is an important piece of the puzzle. But so is understanding underlying behaviours, so we can analyse our findings and suggest solutions in light of how people think.
You might have guessed from the title that we’ve taken inspiration from Susan Weinschenk’s excellent book 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People. This is an incredibly useful resource that we recommend every UX designer have in their library.
Read reviews and find out more about 100 Things »
How psychology and neuroscience fill the gaps
We’re all told that researching with our users is paramount to being a good UX designer. We conduct the research, and even manage to undertake some analysis and find patterns.
But then we hit a wall.
There’s a big gap between knowing an issue or a set of unwanted behaviours and being able to design your way out of it. This is where understanding how to apply design principles based on psychology and neuroscience help suggest a starting point for a workable solution.
How can you get involved?
Framed around Susan’s book, this month we’ll explore questions like:
- How does the human brain work?
- How might we use these insights to create better designs?
- What examples do we have of this being used well, or perhaps abused?
How do you use psychology and neuroscience principles in your work? We want to know, and there are many ways you can the conversation:
- Tweet us! We’ll share our favourite quotes and tips using #100things
- Follow us on Instagram for quotes, design tips and more
- Join the conversation in the UX Mastery forums
- Read along with us in bookclub
- Chat with us in our Ask the UXperts Slack channel. We have an exciting guest lined up – stay tuned for details!
