Editor's pick
Cognitive Mapping in User Research
In cognitive mapping sessions, users are asked to produce a visual representation of their mental models. This type of user interview can provide stimulus for conversation, generate insights, and act as a facilitation aid.
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User Research & Psychology
Motivational interviewing is the UX research tool you haven’t read about
The intersection between design and psychology is well-researched, with its most pronounced impact on UX research. Some of these practices are well-known—Gestalt principles, for example—but my favorite, a technique known as motivational interviewing, has yet to make it into the standard UX research toolkit.
Human Cognition
How narrative strategies enhance user experience and counter information overload
The more choices you have, the more time it takes to make a decision. What if there is an overload of information that is scattered around in no particular order? In this era of user experience, making the users feel frustrated is a mistake that no competitive product and services companies can afford to make. A narrative is nothing but the choices we make to represent which events to relate, and in what order to relate them. A narrative is not the story but the way a story is unfolded(the storytelling). For example, Media houses often use different narratives while reporting the same story; as a result, they can end up being complete opposite versions.
Human Memory
Emotions, Working Memory, & Design
When we’re nervous or anxious, parts of our working memory are preoccupied by our awareness of our fears and worries, leaving us with less working memory to process the task at hand, such as an interview or a test. Also, when we’re nervous, our levels of dopamine and serotonin (the neurotransmitters controlling our happiness in our brains) decrease, shrinking the capacity of our working memory. Either way, negative emotions constrict our working memory. The opposite is also true for when we’re happy: our working memory capacity increases because our brains aren’t preoccupied with negative thoughts and additionally serotonin and dopamine flow freely in our brains, further expanding our working memory.
Video
How Priming Influences UX
Priming in a basic principle of psychology with big impact on user interface design: exposure to something makes a user more likely to think and react in related ways at later steps in the interaction.