Angels & Demons — Psychology in design
When we learn UI/UX, we might find there are lots of courses, articles and lectures which are related to the psychology. We see the close relationship in-between user experience and psychology. After reading lots of books and related UI/UX information, what can we apply in design?
Introduction
A UX Designer is designing the way that you interact with the technology, products and app that you use every day. A UX designer is working to make your digital spaces easier, more delightful and sometimes more addictive.
— Sally Woellner
UX designer create journey to make products more accessible. Having good, simple, delightful interactions inbetween users and products. However, it might sometimes lead to addictions, that is to say, users are controlled and manipulated by designers.
Since it is possible to manipulate user behaviour and apply the psychology in product design, how will we evaluate it retrospectively?
Note: the article is written based on Dark Patterns: How design seeks to control us | Sally Woellner | TEDxSydney and 7 Psychological UX Tricks From the Real Psychologists.
The angel who navigates
If we apply psychology properly, we might feel relieved. It makes the process smooth, leads us in the complicated procedures and mediate our stress.
In 7 Psychological UX Tricks From the Real, the author interviews some psychologies, having questions on what they’ve observed while surfing the websites. Below are 7 point of views accordingly. I find it interesting, which indicates lots of psychological principles. I find some are just around us, here are the shares.
1. People Often Repeat the Actions and Emotions of Other People.
This is the chameleon effect. We see it quite often in the virtual world. Like we see 404 page with a smily mascot, or the corresponding facial expression when we comment. Through emotional interaction, it is possible for designers to change our emotions via products.
2. It Must be Good Because it Looks Beautiful
“It Must be Good Because it Looks Beautiful” though we all know good-looking things are not necessarily useful. Somehow it is appealing, so we have them in the pocket. This is the aesthetic convenience effect which might be seen on the sign up pages.
When the good looking design is not practical, users blame often themselves but the website.
3. Did I Just Hear My Name?
Did I just hear my name? This is called the cocktail party effect. People listen to what they want to, especially when we hear our names. Designers apply the way to appeal user attention. We see often on the customized websites. We see “welcome back, Cheryl!” when we sign in on pages.
4. The Middle Child is Not Being Listened to
“The Middle Child is Not Being Listened to” is known in the family psychology — middle child syndrome. It means the middle child is more or less being ignored and might hold more distance to the family. It is similar in the digital era, when we browse the pages, information being placed in the middle of the page might just be flipped through. This is the way when we browse the pages, we find important information like “personal information”, “add new articles”, “notifications” are arranged on the realm of the interfaces. “Medium” is a good reference.
5. Lots of Options
Lots of options is not ideal for the users, this is the Hick’s law. When there’s way too many option, it takes time for us to consider and ponder on what we really want and need. This is not what users want. When we need to ponder around on the pages, we tend to skip the information and find other way out. Time is precious, there are piles of alternatives. Therefore, designers should distill, categorize and simple the complex information to engage retention.
6. You Look Familiar, so I Think I Know You.
“You Look Familiar, so I Think I Know You” this is called mere exposure effect. People are fond of things simply because of the familiarity. We see Apple fans use the apple products. You hardy see the apple users turning to androids phone. (I’d turned to android but then backed to apple, cause I simply like it) it is also applied in design, some brilliant designers place the call-to-action button on hot red section or the place where mostly being seen.
7. Cancel
Psychologists have confirmed that we humans tend to worry if we cannot predetermine the events of our life path.
Thus designers use repetitive, reversible actions to make users feel things are controllable and safe. We see the “X” button is often applied the actions mentioned above. You might see the”cancel” in the box as the cancellation whereas the “X” is needed. It means “I haven’t made up my mind, let me think for some while”. It leaves room for the users if compare to “I do not want to have it”.
Evils that lures users
However, things are multifaceted, we might see the negative side. Psychology in design could somehow manipulate users’ behaviors.
Have you ever had the experience when you cancel the subscription, it shows “if you want to unsubscribe, contact our customer service. And upon cancellation, you see discount offers. I had contacted the customer service for three days and try contacting for unsubscribing the magazine. It was not a tempting thing. I find it deceptive.
Deceptive patterns is also called dark pattern. It applies different ways to appeal users for monetizing.
Sally Woellner listed four dark patterns in Dark Patterns: How design seeks to control us | Sally Woellner | TEDxSydney.
- Confirm shaming
- Misdirection
- trick question
- privacy Zuckering
How these dark patterns being utilized? Let us have a look !
Confirm shaming
Confirm shaming is when designers use manipulative language and emotionally charged design, to make you feel really, really guilty about canceling a service or leaving.
Take Duolingo for example, Duolingo redesign the owl, you see crying face when leaving the page. You might feel guilty about it. I’ll place the question mark because most of the people do not want to make the adorable owl cry intentionally.
Misdirection
That’s when designers will hide the things that they don’t really want you to see and draw lots of attention to the things that you do, in order to help you to behave the way they want.
When doing the shopping and booking the accommadations, we might see the total amount of pay we need to afford is more than expected. The sum might show on the payment page. People will spend more on around 21%. Look at the screenshot below, guess what is hidden behind it?
However, the “hidden fee” is just the iceberg, we see more manipulative thing appear, for example, the algoristic notification on Instagram.
Instagram’s notification algorithm will actually withhold likes from you. It’ll create this growing sense of unease, disappointment and anticipation, and then suddenly, BAM! They hit you with it all the once. And that’s what’s being designed, that rush of dopamine that someone notice your cat picture that keeps you coming back.
Instagram’s notification algorithm withhold likes for you, and send you all the likes at once.
The trick question
Trick question happens when you get unexpected responses. For example, we see “Please do not send me….” tone of voice, while one on the second line for “Please send me details of products ….” .
In the talk the lecturer mentioned an interesting example, e-commerce platform Game station add the regulation. When you do the purchase, you simultaneously send your”property of your soul” to Game Station. (Cancellation is also possible.) The regulation makes the owners of tens of thousands of people and get the conclusion: around 88% of the people do not read the rules and regulations.
Nevertheless, it does not always work when you read all through. Like the example below, if you want to cancel your account, where to click on?
privacy Zuckering
This pattern is when designer combine all of these different techniques to get people to reveal much more information about themselves than they intended to.
Privacy Zuckering, the pattern is named Mark Zuckerberg Facebook CEO.
The pattern is formed with these three modes. The pattern makes you reveal your personal information without noticing you. So, why it functions like this?
They want to monetize out of it.
According to Federal Communications Commission, FCC. Each data Data intemediary (people who collect information and sell) has around 3000 personal information on average in the U.S. The research also indicates around 70% the suicide-prevention software do not reach the basic clinic standard.
Currently there are 4 major therapeutical software/application hold the function allowing people to share the common algorithms with big giants like Facebook, Pinterest, Google and Snapchat, realizing the customized experiences.
Design and technology is moving faster than the law can catch up. Your attention is the most valuable commodity in our modern digital ecosystem. If they have your attention, if they can keep you on the app or their website, they can gather more data about you. They can sell more data on to Data Brokers. They can give you more advertising and they can make more money of you.
Conclusion
Upon reorganizing the article, I take reference on some articles and videos and got the conclusions, it is widely used in the psychology to create accessible and friendly products. It eliminates the obstacles and increase the delight among users; meanwhile, it could be used to conduct and executive things they do not want to. Like continue subscribing the newsletter and reveal the personal information. We see the pros and cons and it is all up to how we utilize it.
Designers are the ones who manipulate, what do you say?
Resources
7 Psychological UX Tricks From the Real Psychologists
Dark Patterns: How design seeks to control us | Sally Woellner | TEDxSydney
Dark UX Patterns: Why They Negatively Guide User Behavior?
Note: the article is written by Able intern Cheryl Fang, edited by Steven Yeh, translated and interpreted by Ching Hsu.
