This accident was one of more than 250 related to confusion over the design of the Jeep’s gearshift. Many people thought the Fiat Chrysler gearshift, which looked like most gearshifts, should move up and down to shift into reverse, drive and park. That was their mental model. In other words, their belief about how it should work.

The gearshift, in fact, worked differently than most. It used push-buttons and always returned to the centre position. The fact that the gearshift’s actual functionality – otherwise known as its  “conceptual model” – was different than users’ mental models caused issues. Major ones in this instance.

In the field of user experience, we need to understand how users think so we can design with that in mind. When we understand people’s thinking, we can either design to match their current mental models, that is their beliefs about how things should work. Or, we can clearly educate people about anything that might differ from their expectations. We know this is critical to creating usable products.

This article will walk you through how to apply this idea to your own designs, covering:

• how to understand your users’ mental models in relation to your product
• how to represent them so the design team can keep those findings in mind
• how to translate what you know into designs that will work.

Let’s get started.

Understanding users’ mental models

The first step in understanding our users’ mental models is (unsurprisingly) research. Many research techniques such as interviews, observation and focus groups help us understand how users think about the world and products like ours. Let’s look at interviews as an example.

You’ll want to interview several users who have similar characteristics; in other words, those who you think are likely to use your product in a similar way. In an example from my past, my email marketing firm had a lot of users who were small business owners who didn’t have much time for marketing.

Some of our goals for the interviews were:

• to understand why they were doing newsletters
• how they created them
• pain points they encountered with our system
• how they wanted to feel when sending messages.

All of this would teach us about they understood the world of email marketing.

Write down whatever you want to learn and then come up with open-ended questions for your interviews. Start each interview with easy questions to make your participants feel comfortable, then move on to those that require deeper thinking. There are plenty of resources for tips on interviewing users. As a start, take a look at Cameron Rogers’ article right here on UX Mastery, or Steve Portigal’s book, Interviewing Users.

If you’re observing people work or conducting a focus group, it’s still helpful to determine ahead of time what you want to learn, which will help you focus your session.

Once you’ve completed your research, you should have a good idea of common themes, and how they experience your product and other similar products.

When I interviewed small business owners, I learned, for example, that they generally created their newsletters bit by bit because they were interrupted a lot. I also learned they were trying to stay on their customers’ minds, had lots of pain points with our system (things that didn’t work the way they expected or needed them to), and they wanted to feel smart and confident when sending their messages.

Representing mental models

By now, you’re starting to form a good understanding of this user group. Your next job is to put this information into a format that will help your designers consider these users’ mindsets. Again, you have several options, including personas, storyboards and mental model mapping. Let’s talk through how to use personas to represent mental models.

In my example, one finding was that the business owners had a mental model based on using Microsoft Word. They thought they could walk away from their work and return to work on it where they left off. In their work as small business owners, they often did need to step away frequently.

Unfortunately, this conflicted with the way our product – or conceptual design – actually worked. If you left for “too long” and the system shut down, you navigated to another page, you lost your work.  This caused much pain for users, who were devastated over losing their work. This even happened the usability testing environment test when it wasn’t even their work.

Our persona, Bob the Busy Business Owner, conveyed that there was a mismatch between the persona’s expectation and the software’s reality. The team then needed to decide whether to address this mismatch by meeting Bob’s expectation or by explaining the different model and how the interface worked.

When you create your personas, consider conveying their mental models – their beliefs about how a system will work – in the form of their current work habits, product expectations, issues, and quotes.

One quote that helped describe our Bob persona’s system expectation, for example, was “I need something where I can just plop in my copy and it works.” That helps the team understand that he’s busy, in a hurry, and in need of something that doesn’t require a lot of technical knowledge and fuss. In design discussions, make sure designers keep the personas in mind and address their needs. 

Instead of personas, you might decide to create storyboards or maps because you want to represent your users’ mental models more visually, or focus more on illustrating their ideal interactions with your product. That works too.

Creating conceptual models using mental models

And now the final step: applying what you know about your users to the design. In this case, it made sense to make the software match Bob’s expectation because he was in a hurry and not technologically advanced. It was important to prevent such critical errors. So that was our strategy.

The designers and developers worked together to create a system that automatically saved users’ work frequently, helping Bob to achieve his goal of feeling confident about his newsletters. To test how well this and other new design changes matched our users’ mental models, we usability-tested each iteration of the design and made modifications where needed.

When you understand how your users think, you can create intuitive designs for them. It just makes sense. If Fiat Chrysler had stuck with designing for a well-established mental model instead of veering in a different direction, the world would be a safer place today.

Up for some further reading? Here are more useful resources on mental models.

Books:

• The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
• Designing with the Mind in Mind, Second Edition by Jeff Johnson
• Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior, by Indi Young

Online Articles:

• Mental Models by Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group
• The Secret to Designing an Intuitive UX by Susan Weinschenk, UX Magazine
• User Experience Design with Mental Models by Ross Johnson, 3.7 Designs Blog

The post Communicating Mental Models to Your Team appeared first on UX Mastery.

The session marked the culmination of our theme for November – how psychology and neuroscience help us design for people. We used Susan’s book 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People as the inspiration for our discussions so it was a fitting way to end the month.

If you didn’t make the session today because you didn’t know about it, make sure you join our community to get updates of upcoming sessions.

During the session Susan promised us a list of resources that influence or inspire her. Here is that list:

Blogs, websites and alerts

Measuringu
Neuroscience News
Nir and Far
Deric’s Mindblog
Sapiens
UX Planet
The Verge
Fastco Design
Smashing Magazine
UX Mastery
James Chudley on Medium
Luke W

Psycalerts from apa.org which sends emails from various Psych journals

If you’re interested in seeing what we discussed, or you want to revisit your own questions, here is a full transcript of the chat.

Transcript

hawk

2017-11-28 23:00

Ok, let’s get this show on the road

hawk

2017-11-28 23:01

First up, thanks to you all for joining us today. I’m super pumped about this session – I’m a huge fan of @susanweinschenk’s work and I’ve really enjoyed reading her book this month

hawk

2017-11-28 23:01

(for those of you that aren’t aware, we used Susan’s book _100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People_ as the basis of our theme for November)

hawk

2017-11-28 23:02

And a very big thanks for you @susanweinschenk for taking the time this evening to answer our questions

hawk

2017-11-28 23:02

It’s an honour to host you here today

hawk

2017-11-28 23:02

So for the formal intro:

hawk

2017-11-28 23:02

Susan Weinschenk has a Ph.D. in Psychology, and is the Chief Behavioral Scientist and CEO at The Team W, Inc, as well as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Wisconsin.

hawk

2017-11-28 23:02

Susan consults on with Fortune 1000 companies, start-ups, governments and non-profits, and is the author of several books, including 100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People, 100 MORE Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People and How To Get People To Do Stuff. Susan is co-host of the HumanTech podcast, and writes her own blog and a column for Psychology Today online.

hawk

2017-11-28 23:03

If you haven’t read any of her work, I highly recommend that you do. Her writing style is very easily digestible.

hawk

2017-11-28 23:03

So Susan, over to you. Will you please give us a bit of an intro to the topic, which is _How Psychology and Neuroscience Can Support Design_

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:04

Hi Everyone.

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:04

Glad to be here with you! From Wisconsin USA

davidbaird

2017-11-28 23:04

Welcome Susan

cmcneil

2017-11-28 23:05

BIG fan. Long time listener. First time caller.

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:05

Well, basically I’m ready to talk about anything to do with the intersection of brain and behavioral science, people, technology, and design!

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:05

(or anything else you want to ask me that you think i might know the answer to!)

hawk

2017-11-28 23:06

Well that makes it easy. QUESTIONS ARE GO…

charles

2017-11-28 23:06

I am curious to know if you are aware of any behavioral mimicry being applied with AI and if it crosses the uncanny valley

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:06

ooh, starting with a BIG question!

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:06

I don’t know of anyone using mimicry with AI, but they might be

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:07

Any of the techniques to try to make machines more humanlike you have to watch out for the uncanny valley.

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:07

If it’s TOO human like it bugs us.

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:07

If it’s not human like ENOUGH it bugs us

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:07

we have pretty narrow tolerance

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:08

The AI and robots I’ve seen make me think that the behavioral scientists haven’t gotten all that involved, but i could be wrong.

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:08

it’s typical for new technology — the technology part comes first and the human part comes later

jacqui_dow5

2017-11-28 23:09

I’m wondering if you have any insights on how the observation during a usability test will affect the results? I do usability testing both remotely and bringing people into our lab but have always wondered if they are really reacting and acting how they would if they werent being observed?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:09

The observation is going to affect them. But it might not effect them a lot

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:10

That’s why the skill of the tester is so important.

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:10

There are many subtle ways the observer can effect the results.

jacqui_dow5

2017-11-28 23:11

What sort of things should we look out for to stop us affecting the results?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:11

and not so subtle too… i’ve seen testers that nod too much, interrupt too much, tap their pen on the table, sigh, and start scribbling or typing manically after the user takes an action

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:11

I suggest you record YOU and watch the videos with an experienced person who can point out what you are doing that might affect the results

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:12

You can also set up camera feeds and so and leave the room

jacqui_dow5

2017-11-28 23:12

ooh good idea, we often end up in the videos but not so much on purpose

uxresearchguy

2017-11-28 23:12

Hi and often tested with a moderator and separate note taker (or Observers logging things a la Dana Chisnells techniques) to maintain attention and listening

sara.hemmer

2017-11-28 23:13

Nice and agree about the observation and interruptions. But how do you check all biases at the door. So many are intrensic

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:13

you can’t check all of them, but you can try as much as possible. Watch other people run a test and learn from them, record yourself.

jacqui_dow5

2017-11-28 23:13

yes, we try to avoid the moderator taking notes, and have observers in a separate room for this purpose :slightly_smiling_face:

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:13

it helps if you are NOT testing your own design.

kiell

2017-11-28 23:13

hi! late to the party but here from Minnesota, USA

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:13

being an uninterested party helps a lot

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:14

i take on the mindset of a scientist running an experiment.

ashleamckay

2017-11-28 23:14

Hey Susan, love your work! I was diagnosed as autistic just under two years ago and I’d love to hear your thoughts on how we as UXers can help people understand and empathise with diversity that they can’t see? How can I help people understand that my differently wired brain is very real, permanent and not actually a bad thing? Thank you :slightly_smiling_face:

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:14

i don’t know what is going to happen and my job is just to observe and record

sara.hemmer

2017-11-28 23:14

That is helpful. I can avoid expectations, but other biases are so subtle. . .

davidbaird

2017-11-28 23:15

Given that most personalities fall into basic categories, does this affect your research (i.e knowing that people will have certain tendencies for behaviour).
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism

uxresearchguy

2017-11-28 23:15

great and getting recordings audio transcribed for analysis helps in some cases too

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:15

Ashlea — back to the video idea… i find that if people can see and “meet” people (even if only on video) that interact differently that often helps them and reminds them that not everyone is the same.

davidbaird

2017-11-28 23:15

Sorry if that interupted others questions. Ill wait. !

flaxenink

2017-11-28 23:16

question: Are they any typical behaviors among users for a basic testing? like we have for design patterns?

hawk

2017-11-28 23:16

@davidbaird It’s all good – I’m queuing questions

bdevilliers

2017-11-28 23:17

Hi from France, a bit late too :slightly_smiling_face:

jacqui_dow5

2017-11-28 23:18

We record everything using Morae so we can watch back and make more notes but don’t tend to do full transcripts due to time constraints

uxresearchguy

2017-11-28 23:18

hopefully generates empathy

trh20

2017-11-28 23:18

Hi from Cleveland, Ohio!

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:19

Ashlea: I know that autism can be difficult for many, but for many it is more of a difference than a problem. Brain science is showing us that the brain is much more flexible than we thought, and there is research to show that our brains are changing in response to our technology and our environment. Some people with autism are able to see patterns much better than those without. Microsoft has an entire department for pattern work where they tend to hire people with autism.

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:19

@davidbaird Given that most personalities fall into basic categories, does this affect your research (i.e knowing that people will have certain tendencies for behaviour).
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:19

I don’t really take much stock in designing for personality traits.

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:19

there is so much individual difference in this area, that it’s hard to design for

trh20

2017-11-28 23:20

I like what I’m hearing about autism being different!

anapaulafaria.design

2017-11-28 23:20

Susan technology is helping us measuring emotions. What tools do u recommend? Any thoughts about this subject? Tks!

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:20

with the exception that if you KNOW that you are designing an app for neurotic people, then that would be something you could take into account in your design.

trh20

2017-11-28 23:20

Instead of an”problem”

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:21

many personality traits are situational anyway, and can change depending on mood, time of day, environment and so on

cmcneil

2017-11-28 23:21

Is there anything in your previous books that you would revise, with regard to the replication crisis?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:21

hawk [5:16 PM] @flaxenink: Are they any typical behaviors among users for a basic testing? like we have for design patterns?

rebecator

2017-11-28 23:21

Hello, Susan! Do you have any insight about how the affective computing could improve the online education?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:22

can you say more about what you mean about typical patterns among users for user testing? I’m not sure what you are asking

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:22

@anapaulafaria.design Susan technology is helping us measuring emotions. What tools do u recommend? Any thoughts about this subject? Tks!

ashleamckay

2017-11-28 23:23

The hardest part about being autistic is convincing others that it’s an advantage not an inconvenience and that overall my strengths far outweigh any irritating things I do and say. I am very good at spotting patterns and much more – I’m just a little annoying! hahahah :slightly_smiling_face:

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:23

I think tools for measuring emotions are going to become more commonplace. But we may not be able to get much further for a while than “strong emotion” and “not strong emotion”

dave.d

2017-11-28 23:23

Question: Love your work Susan and I’m an avid listener of HumanTech – I’m a registered Psychologist working in Software development and like to use psychological research to inform some of my design decisions – do you have any research journals or blogs you check regularly with a focus on research?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:24

currently we can use tools that measure brain activity, respiration, galvanic skin response and so on. These are quite reliable and can tell you down to a specific moment whether people are a) paying attention, and b) having a strong emotional reaction.

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:25

Is there anything in your previous books that you would revise, with regard to the replication crisis? — yes, there are some studies that I talked about a while back, in my “Neuro Web Design Book” that I don’t talk about anymore

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:25

John Bargh’s work I believe has not been replicated at all so I have dropped it.

uxresearchguy

2017-11-28 23:25

as always ‘it depends’ :slightly_smiling_face:

davidskodt

2017-11-28 23:25

That’s ok, I am a little annoying as well. :relieved:

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:26

It’s hard when it’s a book since it’s not like you can go back and change a blog post that is online!

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:26

but i do try and keep up and I change my keynotes and my workshops to reflect what seems to be replicated and what doesn’t.

vgaizutis

2017-11-28 23:26

In a small shop, the UX designer may also be the one conducting usability tests. There is a perception that the designer won’t be impartial since it’s their design being tested. Let’s say the designer isn’t married to their designs; that they are indeed impartial. How do they convince stakeholders of this when it comes time to review results?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:27

@rebecator Hello, Susan! Do you have any insight about how the affective computing could improve the online education? — can you say more about this one… what in particular do you consider affective computing?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:27

@dave.d Question: Love your work Susan and I’m an avid listener of HumanTech – I’m a registered Psychologist working in Software development and like to use psychological research to inform some of my design decisions – do you have any research journals or blogs you check regularly with a focus on research?

trh20

2017-11-28 23:27

Thank you Susan for your insights. How do you measure emotions changing over time?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:29

Thanks for listening to the podcast! Yes, I follow lots of research journals and blogs. I don’t have a list here off the top of my head, but perhaps I can get a list to our channel hosts and they can publish it after the fact?

hawk

2017-11-28 23:29

Happy to do that :slightly_smiling_face:

hawk

2017-11-28 23:29

I can include it in the transcript

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:29

@vgaizutis In a small shop, the UX designer may also be the one conducting usability tests. There is a perception that the designer won’t be impartial since it’s their design being tested. Let’s say the designer isn’t married to their designs; that they are indeed impartial. How do they convince stakeholders of this when it comes time to review results?

cdenhaan

2017-11-28 23:30

:+1:

davidskodt

2017-11-28 23:30

Hi Susan,
So in a talk you gave called “Top ten things you need to know about perception”, you state that negative space is “wasted” because peripheral vision gives us unconscious impressions, but I often read about the importance of negative space for increasing legibility and comprehension. Can you elaborate a little bit on what you think about this, and how YOU think negative space should be utilized?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:31

You can definitely test your own designs IF you are careful to not be attached. To convince others of that — you could try several things: have someone else test one of your designs and record everything so people can see you tend to do the same type of tests as others; be quite critical of your own design in some places, i.e., be your own harshest critic

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:31

Thank you Susan for your insights. How do you measure emotions changing over time?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:32

I don’t think we are very good at measuring emotions changing over time from a pure measurement point of view. The only way we can do it now really is to ask people and then ask again, and ask again, but I do not consider asking people how or what they feel to be very reliable.

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:33

So in a talk you gave called “Top ten things you need to know about perception”, you state that negative space is “wasted” because peripheral vision gives us unconscious impressions, but I often read about the importance of negative space for increasing legibility and comprehension. Can you elaborate a little bit on what you think about this, and how YOU think negative space should be utilized?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:33

I wouldn’t have said specifically that negative space is wasted. It’s space on the periphery of vision that is wasted.

hawk

2017-11-28 23:33

We’re at the end of the queue if anyone wants to jump in with a question

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:34

negative space is always important in general, but if you just have big blank areas in peripheral vision that you are not using the power of peripheral vision

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:34

and I haven’t answered the question on affective computing if that person would like to say a little more about that

hawk

2017-11-28 23:35

From @lukcha: If Susan has them, I’d love to hear reader feedback and any interesting stories she’s collected about how designers have applied these #100things to their products to get a meaningful outcome.

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:36

I get emails all the time from people who tell me about how they are using the material in the book. I’m always happy to hear from people. It is amazing that so many people are reading the book and trying things out. I get some pretty funny emails too!

mcleanmel

2017-11-28 23:36

What are some principles you use when considering how to design peripheral space to put it to best use?

trh20

2017-11-28 23:37

So to measure emotions changing over time, you would observe, and observe again at a later point in time? Because people usually don’t like change but then grow accustomed to the new design.

jacqui_dow5

2017-11-28 23:37

In your book you talk about there being 4 ways to be creative. Next week we are having a session with stakeholders to gather some requirements for a new project and I was wondering what is going to be the best way to get them thinking creatively? (One is the development manager, and the other is the support manager)

jason.hightman

2017-11-28 23:37

Hi Susan … Could you share your opinion on applications with tons of data to view and/or input. Some tend to try and cram as much as they can into a screen while others prefer to spread things out a bit. Have you seen a trend with users when faced with either scenario?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:37

Peripheral vision is very blurry, so don’t put in a lot of detail. But DO put in peripheral vision: images that show emotion, danger (if appropriate), info that gives the “gist” of where the person is (logo, navigation bar and so on)

anja

2017-11-28 23:38

Hi from Sydney Australia.

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:38

@trh20 So to measure emotions changing over time, you would observe, and observe again at a later point in time? Because people usually don’t like change but then grow accustomed to the new design.

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:39

yes it’s true that people don’t like change, and they may become accustomed to the new design. I like to use what I call “exploratory research” to find out what people are thinking

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:39

and feeling.

davidskodt

2017-11-28 23:39

I have a philosophical question.
There is a trend where we are becoming more introverted through technology, as we get a sense of being social through social media. Do you think this will continue to worsen, and is it a problem that we should be talking more about?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:39

so i set up a scenario and ask them to talk about “the last time you bought clothing online”

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:39

and then have them walk me through a story. within that conversation i can start to explore how they feel

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:40

it’s like being a therapist!

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:40

@jacqui_dow5 In your book you talk about there being 4 ways to be creative. Next week we are having a session with stakeholders to gather some requirements for a new project and I was wondering what is going to be the best way to get them thinking creatively? (One is the development manager, and the other is the support manager)

krisztina

2017-11-28 23:41

In one of your books (I think in the 100 things…), you talk about the limitations of eye-tracking – one of those is that it only captures the central vision – do this limitation still apply? Are there any better eye-tracking devices? Have you used eye-tracking in any of your projects in the last few years? Thanks for your answer!

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:41

now there is a topic that I have changed my thoughts on. — there is new research on creativity that I have in my online course on creativity that unfortunately isn’t in my book.

davidbaird

2017-11-28 23:41

I see people get really caught up in detail when they try to explain their actions, yet do the complete opposite when they actually interact with a product – actions speak louder than words, but how do you trust what a person says they want in a product?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:42

hmm… how to give that info in a slack channel? here’s a really short version… focus on the problem you want to solve or the idea you want to come up with creative approaches to. then forget about it for a few hours or a few days. then pay attention to the ideas that occur “spontaneously” over the next few days

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:42

@jason.hightman Hi Susan … Could you share your opinion on applications with tons of data to view and/or input. Some tend to try and cram as much as they can into a screen while others prefer to spread things out a bit. Have you seen a trend with users when faced with either scenario?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:43

totally depends on the application and context. If it is a call center and people need to have quick access to the info and they are VERY familiar with the app, then put as much as you can on one screen. Otherwise, figure out what people need to know and when and use progressive disclosure to give them what they need at a certain point.

jacqui_dow5

2017-11-28 23:43

How have your thoughts on it changed? And do you have any advice for getting them to think as creatively as possible, not getting bogged down in technicalities and detail

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:44

@davidskodt I have a philosophical question.
There is a trend where we are becoming more introverted through technology, as we get a sense of being social through social media. Do you think this will continue to worsen, and is it a problem that we should be talking more about?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:44

I don’t think we are being more introverted with technology. I think we are communicating differently. I’m not worried about it because we are very social beings and will use any technology to be social.

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:45

I AM worried about AI and machines taking over.

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:45

@krisztina In one of your books (I think in the 100 things…), you talk about the limitations of eye-tracking – one of those is that it only captures the central vision – do this limitation still apply? Are there any better eye-tracking devices? Have you used eye-tracking in any of your projects in the last few years? Thanks for your answer!

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:46

correct. eye tracking measures central vision only. There is no eyetracking machine I know of that tracks peripheral vision. I have worked on projects where others are using eye tracking, but I don’t use it much on my own since I believe the limitations are well… limiting!

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:46

@davidbaird I see people get really caught up in detail when they try to explain their actions, yet do the complete opposite when they actually interact with a product – actions speak louder than words, but how do you trust what a person says they want in a product? (edited)

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:47

Yes, i agree, and basically you can’t just listen to what people say in a product. that’s why you have to do design (not just implement what they asked for), and why you have to do lots of iterative prototyping and testing and be ready to change things when people realize what will actually work

trh20

2017-11-28 23:48

So you have an opinion on how technology use has affected text reading? Can students adapt to both? It’s my sense that they can.

davidbaird

2017-11-28 23:48

Thanks, that makes sense. It’s kind of a combination of bits of ideas, or the genesis of ideas coming from verbal ‘wants’ or feedback.

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:49

trh20 [5:48 PM] So you have an opinion on how technology use has affected text reading? Can students adapt to both? It’s my sense that they can. — there is a great book (that I will also have put in the transcript) about how technology is changing how we read. There are people doing research on this.

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:50

the short answer is that we are maintaining our ability to read long narratives, but we are also honing our skills in skimming and scanning.

jo.ingram7

2017-11-28 23:50

Hi Susan, following on from the eye tracking discussion, mouse tracking heat maps (such as hot jar and crazy egg) seem to be gaining popularity as a quick and easy way to see what is working. What sort of weight do you give to these tools?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:51

reading is NOT something we are born with teh capability of. our brains change and “steal” resources from other faculties in order to read. It is an example of our brain’s flexibility

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:51

mouse tracking heat maps show you where people clicked and that can be useful. but you don’t know why, so user testing is always helpful.

bdevilliers

2017-11-28 23:52

Hi Susan, what do you think about mixed reality ? I’m thinking about Microsoft Hololens. Also how would you adapt your design process for mixed reality ?

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:53

I have some guidelines for designing for mixed reality that I have put together. they are in one of our online courses. It’s a great topic and you made me realize I should write a blog post about it!

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:54

The design process for mixed reality is similar to our “regular” design processes

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:54

BUT you really have to take context into account

krisztina

2017-11-28 23:54

What are your favorite user interview questions? (e.g. Kim Goodwin wrote that she likes to ask what the interviewee would do with a magic wand)

hayley.martin

2017-11-28 23:55

has joined #ask-the-uxperts

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:56

my favorites are the ones I use in the exploratory research I mentioned earlier — “Tell me about the last time you….”, “Was it fun?” “What would make it more fun?” “How do you know that the people who own this (product, website, etc) care about you?” and so on

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:56

i find that if i ask open ended questions people open up and end up talking about what is really important to them

hawk

2017-11-28 23:56

4 minutes left. Anyone got anything urgent?

uxresearchguy

2017-11-28 23:57

this has been brilliant

trh20

2017-11-28 23:57

Thank you, Susan!

hawk

2017-11-28 23:58

Ok, this is probably a good time to call it!

sbieleny

2017-11-28 23:58

Thanks Susan!

susanweinschenk

2017-11-28 23:58

Thanks everyone for your great questions and for your support of what we do in our books and podcast and so on!

jacqui_dow5

2017-11-28 23:59

thank you :slightly_smiling_face:

davidskodt

2017-11-28 23:59

Thank you, Susan :slightly_smiling_face:

roslynn

2017-11-28 23:59

thank you for the insights and the inspiration @susanweinschenk!

anapaulafaria.design

2017-11-28 23:59

Tks Susan :ok_hand:

patricia.b

2017-11-28 23:59

Thank you Susan. Greetings from Dublin, Ireland!

jo.ingram7

2017-11-28 23:59

Thanks Susan

krisztina

2017-11-28 23:59

Thanks for your insightful answers!

hawk

2017-11-28 23:59

Thanks so much for your time today @susanweinschenk – respect.

The post Transcript: Ask the UXperts: How Psychology and Neuroscience Can Support Design — with Susan Weinschenk appeared first on UX Mastery.

We came across this recently at work, when our general manager Damian unboxed a new 12” Macbook. We quickly noticed a problem: the new Macbook only had one port, with no adapter in sight. How was he going to charge his phone, or charge his new Magic Mouse, or connect his keyboard or monitor?

He was faced with a choice to either buy the $129 Apple adapter to use his screen and keyboard, or change the way he works. Resigned, Damian ordered the adapter.

This is just one example of the far-reaching impact that small design decisions can have on a user, whether intended or not.

I’m not sure about the intent behind the decision for just one port. Was it made with good intent – perhaps to progress an ‘all wireless’ ecosystem that Apple is planning?

Or was it made with consciously bad intent – to push for an upswing in accessory sales?

Without inside knowledge, we can’t know if this particular example from Apple example is intentional trickery. But there are plenty of examples where designs have indeed been created intentionally to deceive, known as dark patterns.

In this article, I’ll explain dark patterns, the psychology behind them, and how you can use smart (but not deceptive) techniques instead.

What are dark patterns?

In the online world, designs that are intentionally created to trick and deceive users are called dark patterns. Designers have crafted these ingenious, yet ethically questionable patterns to trick users into doing something they don’t want to do.

To create dark patterns, designers rely heavily on a good understanding of cognitive science and human behaviours. These are used to benefit the company behind them, to achieve goals like increasing sales and improving numbers of sign-ups.

It’s worth mentioning that I’m not talking about Anti-patterns here. They are just design mistakes that might have a negative impact on the user experience, or break conventions. Here’s an example.

I’ve become interested in dark patterns of late, and more specifically, the convergence of human psychology and cognitive science.

At a high-level, you can think of dark patterns akin to the tricks of a dodgy car salesman. These tricks are even easier to pull off in the digital space – you can’t look under a website to see a tell-tale puddle of oil on the ground to identify a dark pattern.

Dark patterns in action

All across the web, you’ll find dark patterns being used through practices like friend spamming, disguised ads, hidden costs, and more. Luckily, the UX industry is fighting back against dodgy practices through websites like darkpatterns.org, which is dedicated to educating designers and calling out questionable digital practices. It currently lists 14 ‘types’ of dark pattern to watch for.

Here are a couple of examples to be wary of.

Trick questions

Here’s a recent example that was featured in The Age a couple of months ago. 

The article refers to “Simon”, who is extremely careful with his personal information, and is happy with his one bank. Simon was surprised when a rival bank, ANZ, sent a personalised letter to his home, inviting him to become a “platinum member”.

After digging and hassling on the phone, an ANZ representative finally revealed that they had received his details from Veda, who are Australia’s largest credit reporting agency.

It turns out that a few weeks earlier, Simon had been to the Veda website to fill out a form to obtain a personal credit report.

At the end of the form, Veda provides a pre-ticked checkbox that gives consent to Veda and its “corporate partners” to use his personal data for marketing purposes.

It’s a cheap trick, but it’s not an accident. The designers are playing to the fact that people tend to scan pages and don’t really read things properly. Especially when it comes to terms and conditions at the end of a long form.

The inclusion of a big, red button helps to distract the user away from the offending text even more.

Bait and switch

Candy Crush fans have probably fallen victim to the bait and switch, another common dark pattern.

As you start playing, the game conditions you to hit the big button in the centre of the screen for all key actions. You hit play to start a game, and play – in the same position – to start a new level. You hit the retry button – still in the same position – to start a level again if you lose.

And if you’re out of moves and not looking closely, you could easily hit this button.

The difference is, it now has a different function. The UI baits you into thinking you know what the action will be, then sneakily switches this in to make you spend virtual currency, taking you one step closer to an in-app purchase.

The designer has taken advantage of human neuroscience here. By conditioning users to continually hit the call-to-action in the centre of the screen, the user’s mind recognises the pattern and over time diverts conscious attention away from reading the label.

Turning to persuasion over dark patterns

Why do people resort to dark patterns and underhanded trickery? It’s often when business needs are placed too far above user needs and design expertise. Perhaps when people are asked to do something unethical to please their boss, or to meet a particular KPI. It can be difficult for designers to push back on these priorities, forcing a moral and ethical dilemma.

This got me thinking. Is there another, more ethical way to achieve the same kinds of results? How can we, as designers persuade people to do stuff without trickery?

It turns out that we can use the same principles of psychology that dark patterns employ to persuade users instead, and to invoke positive behaviour changes.

It’s important to note that we’re talking about ethical use of persuasive techniques here – and not leveraging cognitive science against users to achieve business goals. Persuasive design, when used responsibly, can leverage a good understanding of cognitive science to add value to a user’s experience, and increase user engagement.

Above all else, it is our responsibility to ensure users retain their right of choice.

The Fogg Behaviour Model by Stanford University’s BJ Fogg, says that for a behaviour to occur, there needs to be a sufficient level of both motivation and ability.

So if you want to persuade someone to do something with your product, you need to first make them want to do it, then second, make it easy for them. Let’s take a look at how we can use motivation and ability in design.

Ability

As a designer, it’s typical for us to focus on ability first. That’s the part we usually have more control of. There are 6 basic elements of ability:

• Time
• Money
• Effort
• Cognitive load
• Social acceptance
• Routine

If you can influence these aspects, your user is far more likely to do the intended behaviour.

This might sound complex, but it isn’t always hard to make something easier, and it doesn’t even have to be a huge change to achieve a significant result. In fact, you’re probably already doing these sorts of things as a matter of best practice in making designs usable.

A great example is the $300 Million button story. In this well-known case study told by Jared Spool, he explains how simply changing the label on a single button increased an online retailer’s profit by $300 million in a single year.

There’s a little more to this story. The change removed the barrier of having to create an account before making a purchase. It’s a great example of how making a simple change to improve a user’s ability can have an enormous positive impact.

Persuasive techniques can be used for bad, too. Cash back on purchases are one way the ethical line gets blurred. When you have to jump through hoops to get your refund (filling in a long form, photocopying the receipt and mailing it), then the ‘ability’ to complete the cash-back is low. In this case, it’s likely that some buyers won’t bother to complete the action – which is exactly what the retailer wants. It hardly seems worth it for a $200 refund for a $1700 purchase, for example.

This isn’t a mistake – it’s designed to maximise purchases and minimise rebates through cognitive science.

Motivation

In the cash back example, you start to see how motivation part comes into play. It might be easier for a designer to control the ‘ability’, but we can also influence motivation with a good understanding of human psychology.

People’s key motivators include:

• Desire for completion and order
• Delight and emotional connection
• Variable rewards

Understanding what motivates people is the powerful bit, and if you think back to those dark pattern examples now, you’ll realise that although they’re outrageously dodgy practices, it’s not just about the interfaces, but the way those interfaces are put together in response to a good understanding of human behaviour.

Fitbit, for example, is very effective in tapping into people’s desire for completion and order. Staying focussed on being active and keeping fit is a hard behaviour to crack. It’s very easy to put off heading out for a run and just sit on the couch instead.

Fitbit knows this. By adding little achievements that need to be completed, like measuring 10,000 steps, they appeal to our natural tendency as humans to want to ‘complete’ the step goal.

These are powerful techniques. And the great thing about persuasive design is that its influence has the potential to do more than simply help us get people to use our product.

Design is more than aesthetics and usability

Us designers wield enormous power, but it’s easy to forget that when we’re deep at the coal face, buried in research findings and wireframes. Take a moment now and again to remember that it’s not just about aesthetics and usability. We help shape the lives of people everywhere, and our decisions can have significant impacts on the way we as a society behave.

Design is an evolutionary discipline. We don’t invent, we learn from the past. Designers practising the craft now are setting the example for the future generations.

Don’t always take the cheap, easy, dark patterns option. Understand that we do have great power and can use cognitive science to influence and persuade, but respect that power and use it for good, not evil. Think responsibly.

And as for Damian, he bought the expensive adapter for his new laptop. And it doesn’t even accommodate all the cables he needs!

The post Under the influence: Dark patterns and the power of persuasive design appeared first on UX Mastery.

There have been many articles written about finding UX participants and ensuring they are at least representative of your users. But I’m yet to find much good discussion about the motivations for participants to take part in our research, and how that affects their participation and the research results. 

Understanding the underlying contexts, motivations, and biases when people enter a study helps plan and interpret results in the most neutral way possible.

There are many exceptions, but the most common ways to find UX research participants are to reach out to existing customers or leads, or use panels of UX tools like usertesting.com or recruiting companies. Even if you write a screener and recruit for a well-defined persona, each source results in different motivations, and can lead to varied responses to research activities.

Let’s look at each main recruiting source and some of the pros, cons, and things to be aware of while crafting your research plans.

Existing Users

People who already have a relationship with your brand can’t help but bring their preexisting impression of the company – whether positive or negative – to research sessions. Their overarching perception of your brand will sway their impressions of the product you’re investigating.

This is called the halo effect. If you generally like a brand, you’ll be primed to like everything about it. If you dislike the brand, you’ll be primed to think more negatively about every aspect you see.

Let’s say, for example, that you’ve always wanted a BMW, and hold the company in high regard. You get brought in to test a new navigation system and have trouble entering your address.

Your first thought may not be that the system has a usability problem. Without even realising it, you might blame yourself, thinking you made a mistake, or write it off as part of being just a prototype.

The information in front of you doesn’t match your previous expectations (a phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance). So you assign the trouble elsewhere, downplay the importance of the issue, or focus your attention on the aspects of the experience that you like (what’s called confirmation bias). That means as a UX research participant, you’ve failed to give a lot of really important information without even knowing it.

A user’s experience with an overall brand also plays into their motivation to participate in a test. If a person frequently uses a product, they may have a vested interest in seeing the service improve and/or vouching for specific changes or improvements. If they like the product or have a good relationship with someone who works there, they may participate because they want to help out. On the other hand, if they’ve had negative experiences, they may look at a research session as a chance to vent or find an inside connection to get things changed.

Special note: If you work on enterprise tools and/or your users are internal, you’re likely to experience exaggerated effects of both the halo effect and confirmation bias, as well as battling politics and ulterior motives. You can’t avoid this, but it’s good to have a heads up.

Panel members

Participants who actively sign up for a research panel know they’ll be compensated for their time when they participate, and are more likely to view responding as a job.

Many panels allow researchers to “rate” participants, so respondents know that if they give poor quality feedback, they could lose opportunities. The upside of this is that they are the most likely group to show up to sessions as scheduled and respond appropriately and consistently in longitudinal studies. Several studies have shown that monetary incentives increase participation rates.

The downside is that they may view their participation as only a job. They may not be invested in your product or may want to fudge their way into being seen as a representative user.

We’ve all heard of the professional user research participant, who will “ frequently supplement their income by participating in user research… and say and do whatever it takes to get into a study.” Writing effective screeners can help prevent some of those participants from partaking, but even the most qualified panel respondent is more likely to be motivated by money over altruism or intrinsic interest in the product.

So how can you make the most of your user research?

Now that we’ve looked at some of the issues, let’s take a look at the steps you can take to get the best possible engagement and data from research sessions. We have tools at our disposal, regardless of the source of our users.

Offer compensation (in a way that participants want to receive it)

Remember that participating in a study is essentially a social exchange. People need to feel they at least come out even. Money, of course, is one of the easiest benefits to provide. 

Studies show that monetary incentives, including receiving a fixed amount of cash, being entered into a lottery for a prize, and charitable donations on a participant’s behalf, can make respondents more likely to participate in research. Besides the obvious benefit of getting paid, compensating participants shows you value their time and input.

Furthermore, giving participants an incentive of any kind can help spark the social construct around the reciprocity principle. Essentially, if you give something (anything) to someone, they will feel compelled to do something in return. This can be especially powerful, especially for longitudinal studies. Anecdotally, I’ve found I get the best response rates when I give about a third of an incentive after successful setup of a longitudinal study and the rest of the incentive upon completion.

When choosing compensation, be aware that different types of monetary incentives will be most effective for different types of studies and different types of people. People who have strong inclinations toward self-direction, learning new things, or risk-taking respond better to lottery-type incentives than fixed amounts. People who value close social relations and betterment of the group over oneself prefer money given to a charity in their honour.

So think about the type of characteristics your target persona has and consider whether you can shift (or at least experiment with shifting!) the type of incentive you offer. Think carefully about offering a discount to your service as motivation. This can sway people too far and they might feel uncomfortable saying anything negative.

Also be mindful of the amount of incentive you provide. You want to provide an amount that demonstrates you appropriately value their time without breaking the budget. For instance, I’ve paid doctors much more to participate in a study than general e-commerce shoppers and typically pay participants of in-person or ethnographic studies much more than respondents to remote sessions.

Help participants see the importance of their feedback

To tip the social exchange cost/benefit ratio even more, give people context about why their help is useful and what you’ll do with the information. People like to know the feedback they give isn’t just going into a corporate vacuum, never to be seen again.

You can do this simply by introducing the topic at the beginning of a session – something as simple as, “we’re talking about x today because we’ve noticed some issues and would like to make improvements.” Though be careful, because there are times that it makes sense not to give too much away at the beginning of a session.

I’ve also found that people love hearing about changes we’ve made based on their feedback, especially with long term customers or internal users. It’s not always possible to share, but if you can, highlight specific study periods and lessons learned in release notes or even press releases. Participants appreciate it, and are more likely to take part again, or encourage others to do the same.

Create expectations through group labels

This last one is a bit tricky, but several studies show that people are more likely to adopt behaviours based on external labels if they are relatively positive. One study showed that when researchers labelled a random group of people as politically active, they were 15% more likely to vote, and several studies have shown that people tend to like to belong to groups or follow social norms.

My educated guess is that labelling people sets an expectation they’ll behave a certain way. If they don’t follow through, they start to experience the same kind of cognitive dissonance as when you find an issue with a product you love. You can subtly shift language to let people know you expect them to follow through – for example, tell them they’re in the group most likely to respond.

Switch it up when you can

When you know how people can be swayed based on the way you recruit, you can take steps to minimise bias in your results. As you can see, different sources of users and incentives vary the amount and quality of participation. When possible, try to use different types of recruiting methods and experiment with compensation to maximise your results.

What are some of the ways you reduce bias from people taking part in UX research? Let us know in the comments!

The post Why people participate in UX research (and why the reasons matter) appeared first on UX Mastery.

It struck me that we still don’t do enough talking about the range of senses in a user’s experience – we tend to focus on the visuals and as a result lose sight of the bigger picture of designing a cohesive experience. We should design for the experience, not the ‘thing’. So let’s step back (way back) and take a look at things from a distance.

With a lot of people moving into UX from other fields like design and filmmaking, it’s a given that our skills will be strong in areas of visual design. And that’s a good thing – when the visual sense is part of the experience mix, it’s often dominant over other senses (get your geek on about it at the Max Plank Institute for Biological Cybernetics). Having said that, visual design doesn’t give us enough control on its own to make a difference when it really matters.

“Customer experience is now the only sustainable source of competitive advantage for companies”
– Harley Manning & Kerry Bodine

It’s really important for us to remember that the visuals are only one of the senses that make up a website experience, and the web interface is only one touchpoint of many in a customer’s experience of a business. As Chris Risdon, Lead Experience Designer at Adaptive Path, once said: “Touchpoints should be orchestrated.” So, if we’re conducting an orchestra, some good questions for UXers might be: what are all of our other instruments doing? How and when are they doing it? Why?

“User experience design is the art of setting the stage for good experiences to happen – creating spaces to find the delightful, useful and good”
– Helge Fredheim

Where’s the ‘sense’ in that?

Putting our cognitive psychology hat on for a moment, we easily remember that the five traditional senses are:

1. Sight
2. Hearing
3. Taste
4. Smell
5. Touch

The cinemas are a bit ahead of us web-types when it comes to creating an immersive experience with smell-o-vision, but we’re well on the way to having sight and sound and (some) touch included in our UX thinking. Well done on those three. Now what about the remaining fifteen senses?

What other fifteen senses?!

There are some difficulties in defining what exactly a sense is, but our bodies do have the ability to detect stimuli beyond the traditional senses listed above – things like temperature, pain, time, balance, acceleration, awareness of our body position, and ten other types of internal sensory receptors that give us feedback about various chemical levels and what our internal organs are up to.

In every ‘sense’ of the word

While we might influence a user’s esophagal sensory receptors to make them gag, or stimulate their chemoreceptor trigger zone (that’s really getting into Total Recall stuff) to play with their mind, many of these senses still have dubious usefulness to us until we get to technological singularity. And we don’t yet live in The Matrix (or do we?) so the overlap of physiology with web design isn’t very big unless we consider that carrying a smartphone defines us as cyborgs.

There are, however, a couple of senses in this list of twenty or so that we should keep in our toolbox when designing for user experiences. Where this stuff crosses over into UX is usually ‘post-sensory’ – where the cognitive functions of our brain recognise and interpret patterns provided by the senses. And if we can’t directly affect a user’s sense, we can still have some fun by evoking a reaction in the user by association.

Making ‘sense’ of chaos

Senses allow us to perceive things. Our brain kicks in to cognitively process the input, resulting in how we feel about something, which in turn drives us to a certain action. Designing for the senses at the beginning allows experiences to emerge.

Jesse James Garratt described a ‘UX stack’ in his book The Elements of User Experience (well worth the read) that provides us with a good idea of the conceptual layers between foundational user needs and the eventual interface – and how we can relate them to each other – no matter what senses we’ll be appealing to. This is a fundamental part of working in UX: understanding the users and the context and designing something that is useful, usable and delightful. In this sense, ‘usable’ also means web accessibility, which can be improved for those with visual disabilities if we don’t limit ourselves to visual design. But it’s more than that. As Jared Spool said in his opening keynote at UX Australia 2010: “Saying a website is ‘usable’ is like saying dinner was ‘edible’.”

The view from 10,000 feet

So, when you’re next briefed on a UX project, by all means get that interface design jazzed up, user-friendly and ready to party. But don’t forget the potential contribution of the other senses, and of course the goals of the big picture experience you’re being asked to design for, beyond just what is immediately visible on screen.

To go with our UX symphony/Jazz soiree/dinner metaphor, I was thinking of having a ‘web tasting’ night – you know, like a wine tasting tour but for website experiences? Hands up in the comments if you’d like to come along. Mmm, I’m getting a barnyard of Metro, with a hint of complex phone support and an oaked finish …

Homework: Use the comments to let me know a few good websites you’ve discovered that push the boundaries on sensory appeal or user input.

The post A 10,000 Foot View of User Experience Design appeared first on UX Mastery.