Psychology in UX Slides from the NUXCamp workshop by Lisa Marie Ortega, Friday 3rd May 2019. 2019.nuxcamp.uk / nuxuk.org Synopsis UX is centred upon understanding people and their behaviour, so Psychology is a crucial skill to have in your UX toolkit. Everyone within UX benefits from a better understanding of how people think and how they behave so that you can truly understand your users and craft highly effective designs. You’re guaranteed to leave with lots of ideas to try out when you get back to the office! You’ll learn: The value of Psychology within UX. The value of uncovering user insights and using these to inform your designs. How to persuade and influence user behavior through simple design tweaks. How to apply Psychology to improve the effectiveness of your UX designs. Top Psychology principles for you to apply to your work.

1. Psychology in UX
Practical application and theory to improve your whole process

2. Me
Lisa Marie Ortega MSc BSc (hons)
UX Expert & Digital Psychologist
lisa@keepitusable.com

3. Today, you will learn:
• The value of Psychology within UX
• The importance of Psychology in the research process for better results
• The value of user insights and using these for customer journey maps
• How people’s behaviour and thoughts can be easily influenced
• Psychological principles to try out and apply to your work

4. How do you make a
cup of tea?

5. Psychology in UX

6. Psychology in UX

7. Psychology in UX

8. Psychology in UX

9. Customer Experience (CX) is a Customer's
perception of their rational, physical,
emotional, subconscious, and psychological
interaction with any part of an organisation.

10. What do you see?

11. Perception - We all see things differently

12. We can all look at the same thing but how we feel about it is
influenced by everything so far in our lives

13. How we are isn’t fixed. We continue to change based on the
influences in our lives.

14. We are all biased. Very biased. But we think we aren’t.

15. Experiment time!

16. Group 1
1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8

17. Group 2
8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1

18. The customer journey

19. The journey is complex - 73% use multiple channels in one journey

20. To understand what people do, why
they do it and what they feel, we use
research.

21. Psychology in UX Research

22. Research methods

23. You need to hire a car. The
first website you use, pops up
this question when you land
on the page.
What's wrong with this method
of collecting this data?

26. Environment
Where you conduct research is really
important

27. Psychology in UX Research
Environment
Observers
Researcher
User

28. Research environment

29. Research environment

30. Ethnography

31. Environment Observers
Researcher
User
Ethnography

32. Ethnography + Lab = Home UX Lab
HomeUXLab.com based in Manchester

33. Are you making the best use of observers?

34. Skill
How you conduct research is crucial

35. The Psychology of first impressions

36. Ironic process theory / White bear problem
Deliberate attempts to suppress certain thoughts make them more likely to surface
“This is not a test” “Don’t think about the people behind the mirror”

37. A lot of researchers ask this question
Do you like this [page]?

38. A lot of researchers ask this question
Do you like this [page]?
- It’s positively weighted. More people will say yes.
- It lacks insight. Better to break it down.
- How useful is knowing if they like it or not? Better to
understand how useful it is to them in conducting their task.

39. Wording bias - Equal weighting limits biased responses
How easy or difficult was the website to navigate?
Very easy Somewhat
easy
Neither Somewhat
difficult
Very difficult
I thought the website was easy to navigate
Strongly
agree
Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

40. Order effects
•Performance in a second task often improves because of experience gained in
the first task.
•Preference can be affected by the order of presentation - people often prefer the
first or last item they saw.

41. Recency effect

42. Peak end rule

43. Recall vs Recognition
Recall (open-ended) Recognition (multiple choice)
When using the website, which
section did you find the most
helpful?
When using the website, which
section did you find the most
helpful?
- Books
- Toys
- Clothes
- Shoes
- Bags
Usability tip: Place items where and when users need them as they move
through your UI. Don’t force people to remember things.

44. Hawthorne effect & Social desirability bias
I hope I’m doing
this right
Does he like me?
I wonder who’s
watching me…
Am I saying the
right things?

45. Confirmation bias
Yes! I told you they’d do
that. Let’s change it.

46. We can use research to:
Understand users

47. Personas
Personas are fictional characters created to represent the different user types that
might use a site or product

48. Personas

49. We can use research to:
Understand how people think

50. Understanding your users’ mental model(s)
A mental model is an
explanation of someone’s
thought process about how
something works in the real
world.

51. How many decisions do you make in a
day?

52. How many decisions do you make in a
day?
35,000

53. We can use research to:
Understand the decision making
process
Map the customer journey

54. Customer journey mapping

55. Discovery Research Purchase Delivery After sales
Tasks
Questions
Touchpoints
Emotions
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Create your customer journey grid

56. Back to our experiment

57. Experiment results
The answer was 40,320

58. Kahneman’s Anchoring Experiment
In 1974, the psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman asked
each of their study participants to calculate one of two equations.
Median estimates Your average
1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8 512 720
8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1 2,250 883
The leading “anchor” numbers of each of the problems (1 or 8) sways
estimates significantly.

59. Dan Ariely Anchoring Experiment
• Look at your last two social security numbers.
• Would you pay that for a wireless keyboard?
• What is the max price you would pay?

60. Priming / Anchoring
Anchoring the lowest price first makes the other prices seem
expensive in comparison:
Anchoring the highest price first makes the other prices seem like a
bargain!

61. Psychology in UX design and
Conversion

62. Paradox of choice
Barry Schwartz
AKA “The Jam Effect”

63. What percentage of people stopped to taste the jam?

64. 40% 60%
What percentage of people stopped to taste the jam?

65. People LOVE choices!
(people think choice equals control)

66. What percentage of people bought a jar of jam?

67. 30% 3%
Percentage of people bought a jar of jam

68. Less is more
Customers given too many choices are
10x less likely to buy
Iyengar: When choice is demotivating

70. Ability to choose
and act
Number of choices
Choice is paralysing

71. Decision paralysis / Choice paralysis
1. We end up making poor decisions
2. We’re more dissatisfied with our choices
3. We become paralysed and don’t choose at all

72. Cialdini’s 6 principles of persuasion
Reciprocity Scarcity Authority
Consistency Liking Consensus

73. Urgency Psychology

74. Urgency Psychology

75. OMG!
IT’S FREE!!!

76. Scarcity psychology

77. Scarcity psychology

78. Fear of missing out (FOMO)

79. Fear of loss / Loss aversion

80. Social proof

81. Pictorial Superiority Effect (PSE)
We remember things we
have seen better than
anything else
(we only remember 10% of
what we read!)

82. Be careful

85. Let’s try some of these out!

86. Today, you have learnt:
• The value of Psychology within UX
• The importance of Psychology in the research process, particularly in
limiting the effects of bias, environmental and experimental influences
• How to create customer journey maps to begin to map out the steps
people take in the decision making and purchase process
• People’s behaviour and thoughts can be easily influenced through
design tweaks
• Psychological principles to try out and apply to your work
• Implement changes intelligently to be most effective

87. Me
Lisa Marie Ortega MSc BSc (hons)
UX Expert & Digital Psychologist
lisa@keepitusable.com