The Design of Us – Humans
Sanjay was supposed to get on a feedback meeting with his manager. This meeting was crucial to him. But his manager couldn’t make it. Praveen felt uncomfortable and frustrated.
Pangs of frustration similar to what he faced during his childhood surfaced, when Sanjay would crave feedback from his Mother, but would hardly get any.
Later that evening, sitting in solitude, Praveen started retrospecting. Why was he feeling the way he felt?
Upon looking up further, he came to understand why feedback is important to us, to our brain.
FEEDBACK
Picture this — A child touches a very hot surface and immediately retracts its hand due to the feedback. Had it not been for the feedback, the child would have hurt itself badly without even realising it.
So why is feedback important? That is how the brain learns and makes sense of the world.
Qualities similar to feedback are crucial in understanding what makes us, Us.
And these are some of the concepts which some Designers nowadays are incorporating into Human-Computer Interaction, better known as Designing for User Experience.
This humble piece of writing tries to capture a small fraction of how we are Designed and how those qualities are being leveraged/can be leveraged into the Design of everyday things, to make our lives easier.
A few of such qualities will be captured in this article today:
- Feedback
- Transition
- Stability
- Consistency
Let’s discuss Transition
TRANSITION
Okay, so you are listening to your favourite music piece with your earphones plugged in and the song suddenly changes. How do you feel? Does that make you feel irked? Pretty sure many of us have felt the same irritation. So why does this happen?
Well, the answer lies in the Gestalt principle of uniformity. The brain is a sucker for uniformity as lesser energy and effort is spent in making connections. When uniformity is broken by sudden interruptions, the brain needs to re-assemble events and processes to make sense, and that requires effort, something which the brain tries to avoid at all costs to conserve energy.
Yes, mental effort avoidance is the same reason why the brain entices you to binge-watch a series rather than solve a complex puzzle.
And yes, this is the same reason why transitions are used in digital applications.
Well, a talk on transition is incomplete without discussing stability.
STABILITY (UNCERTAINTY AVOIDANCE)
Have you been in this situation? Where you are eagerly waiting for someone/something to arrive but don’t know how much time it will take? You check your phone repeatedly. No updates. No news. Does the frustration feel familiar?
The frustration is due to Uncertainty.
And yet again, the brain will do anything to avoid uncertainty. Why? Well, the brain cannot operate in a vacuum to create a sense of reality. It needs to have an input of information (from either of the senses or sources) to be able to make sense of what’s happening around. In other words, the brain tries to avoid FOMO 😉
This is the same reason why digital product and user experience designers make sure that the user is aware of what they are getting into, how much time they might take, and what does next steps look like.
CONSISTENCY
Okay. I’m very sure you will be able to relate to this one. Remember that one time you may have met someone at a house party. Who spoke a lot of having done so much but as time proceeded, you realised what was spoken vs what the actions are totally opposite. You think to yourself, “Oh this person is BSing. I’d rather not waste my time”
Turns out this feeling is similar pops up anything which is not consistent.
A child who is told not to lie, see their parents exhibit this behaviour the next moment. Eventually, the child develops inconsistent behaviour themselves if this keeps repeating. Trust is lost in their parents and that has deep psychological impacts.
Similarly, if your brand, product or User Experience promises something and does something else inconsistencies arise in the way users perceive your brand or app. This leads to the overall trust being impacted and users dropping off eventually.
CONCLUSION
A lot of the principles of UX are borrowed from what governs our day-to-day life and thinking. Social validation, feedback, transition, consistency etc. But the most important thing to think about is, what are you being coerced into by the usage of these principles?
It might be for making you accept certain terms and conditions, or maybe make you take that policy that you may not need.
The key thing to notice is, do these principles tap into something you want and crave for, or something you actually need, and be mindful about this?
We crave oily and fatty food, all the time. We want to be lazy, take that lift instead of the stairs.
The question that stands is, is everything we want, good?
