Design Psychology
Key question
Why psychology in design?
Design has an impact on people even before they have read a single word. Those who understand how people perceive, think, feel, and act can substantiate decisions rather than just make assumptions.
In this module, you will lay the foundation for the entire course: you'll learn where the discipline originates, why target audience and context matter, and which four levels you can distinguish in any analysis.
Learning objective: You can explain why intuition and taste alone are not enough for good design.
Good design begins with people, not with taste.
1.1 / Where the subject comes from
The subject grows from several roots.
Design psychology is not a new discipline. It brings together three research traditions that emerged one after the other and continue to interact to this day:
FROM THE 1910S
Gestalt psychology
Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka investigated how we organise individual stimuli into meaningful wholes. This gave rise to the Gestalt principles (Module 02).
FROM THE 1940S
Ergonomics
How must instruments and controls be designed so that people can operate them without error? This is where the roots of usability lie.
FROM THE 1990S
UX Research
Combines both with interviews, observation, and tests, whilst also exploring emotion and meaning. The term User Experience was popularised by Don Norman, among others.
Many rules that seem self-evident today therefore have a long history of research behind them. Those who know them can apply them with good reason or break them deliberately.
Design builds on decades of research.
1.2 / Designing for people
Every design embodies a concept of humanity.
Every design is based on assumptions: Who is using it? How much time, knowledge and attention do they have? A ticket machine used by travellers in a rush requires a different design to specialist software used for eight hours a day.
Anyone designing should be able to describe their target audience and context: age and prior knowledge, language, devices, environment (loud, bright, on the move), goals, and mood. These details help derive requirements, such as large fonts, concise text, or familiar patterns.
People are different. Inclusion starts by asking who might be excluded by your design (more on this in Module 08).
First ask who it's for, and in what situation.
1.3 / Four levels
Perceiving, thinking, feeling, acting: four questions for every design.
Every design can be examined using four questions. They form the framework you will use to analyse in this course:
01
Perceive
What can you see or hear, and what catches your eye first?
02
Thinking
What should you understand, and what do you need to remember?
03
Feel
What mood, what confidence, or what doubts arise?
04
Take action
What do you do next, and how easy is it?
The levels are interconnected. What is not perceived cannot be understood; what causes confusion often triggers unease; and unease reduces the willingness to act. When something is not working, it helps to identify the level at which the problem arises.
First find common ground, then solve the problem.
1.4 / You are not the target audience
Taste is an opinion, reasoning needs evidence.
Designers know their project inside out. What seems obvious to them is often unclear to outsiders. This effect is known as the curse of knowledge.
On top of that, there is confirmation bias: we are more likely to notice what supports our decision. Taste is important, but it is a personal preference and not a valid justification to clients or users.
Psychological insights and simple tests provide arguments that can be verified: What assumption underlies the decision, and how would we know if it was wrong?
Those who give reasons can convince others and correct themselves.
Exercise
Apply, evaluate, transfer
Task: Everyday object analysis. Choose an object that many people use daily, for example, a door handle, a ticket machine, or a coffee maker.
STEP 1
Observe the object without using it. Describe what it 'says': Where should you press, pull, turn?
STEP 2
Use it and make a note of where your expectations were met and where they were not.
STEP 3
Assign each observation to one of the four levels: Perceiving, Thinking, Feeling, or Acting.
STEP 4
Suggest an improvement and justify it in one sentence.
Evaluation: Compare within your group which items were unclear and why. Were there differences between individuals? This shows why you shouldn't just design for yourself.