How to use the Subconscious Mind to create better User Experiences
“Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.” — Donald A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things
What is a Subconscious Mind?
Subconscious minds are thoughts, habits and behaviours that exist in the mind but are not immediately accessible to the consciousness.
A simple exercise that can help you understand your subconscious mind is to perform the following one. Hold your palm out in front of your face, horizontally. Close your eyes and imagine you have anything you are tempted to eat, in your palm right in front of your eyes.
Subconscious minds are thoughts, habits and behaviours that exist in the mind but are not immediately accessible to the consciousness.
Did you subconscious end up thinking of a cupcake because of the added visual element? Did your mouth water when you imagined holding, probably a cupcake in your palm? The conscious mind understands that there is no cupcake and that it is all a figment of the imagination. The subconscious mind is illogical and believes what the conscious mind believes, causing your mouth to water.
The conscious mind is logical and analytical, whereas the subconscious mind is illogical. Unconscious behaviours are those that occur automatically and are effortless, unconscious, and involuntary. Unconscious behavioural responses are caused by environmental stimuli that continue to influence the emotional system, perceptual system, evaluative system, and motivational system.
How does the subconscious mind navigate our everyday habits, actions and behaviour?
The process of driving is a common example used to explain the subconscious mind. When you first start learning to drive, you are completely focused on the gear, clutch, and so on. You are completely focused on the driving process; you inspect every pothole, bump, and obstacle. As you become more accustomed to driving, the act becomes ingrained in your subconscious mind, and you begin to drive without making a conscious effort. You automatically avoid obstacles and shift gears when necessary, even if you could be doing a zillion other things at the same time. You could be talking to your companion sitting beside you, listening to music, or observing the scenery as you drive.
Mental Reflex action
Not all of our actions are the result of conscious decisions. The majority of our actions can be classified as “Mental Reflex ActionsTM” These actions are dictated by our subconscious mind, over which we have little control. This understanding can assist us in better understanding people and improving relationships in both our personal and professional lives. The key to getting to know ourselves better is to discover and uncover our subconscious mind. When we know ourselves well, we can understand others well. It can help us understand our bosses and coworkers, as well as our friends and family, affecting both our professional and personal lives.
And as Designers the insight into the subconscious mind can help us design and deliver better products, services and solutions to the people around us by understanding and differentiating between what they say, say they want to what they actually need. Let’s discuss this below.
Designing for the subconscious mind
When designing a product or service it is crucial for designers to create solutions based on their understanding of unconscious behaviour interaction between user and product. All of the design rules are based on human psychology: how people perceive, learn, reason, remember, and act on their intentions.
Below are a few guidelines to keep in mind before designing UI & UX products.
We Perceive What We Expect
Our perception of the world around us is not a true representation of what exists. To a large extent, we perceive what we expect to perceive. Three factors influence our expectations, and thus our perceptions:
- The Past: While designing for the web or computer interactions it is important to keep the past actions and human interactions into account before making any radical changes.
As shown in the image above, a subconscious habit has developed in which the next option is located in the upper right corner of the screen and the back option is located in the upper left corner of the screen. However, if these are interchanged, users will be confused because their perception of previous actions will be called into question, leading to frustration.
It should also be noted that the actions can be placed based on design perception. The right and left arrows are placed on the left side of the screen, as shown in the above image, but the basic instincts (the right arrow is for the next page and the left arrow is for the back) remain the same.
2. The Present: Our current situation — Our five senses can contradict one another, depending on the situation, if not well communicated. What we see may not match what we hear, and vice versa. Furthermore, context corresponds to how we recognise objects or people, as well as how memories are activated and behaviour is influenced.
As in the preceding example, a hamburger can mean an icon in a UI platform while it’s a food item for the outside world. When communicated effectively with three horizontal lines, we are communicating to web or app users that a hamburger is a menu button for that website or app.
3. The Future: Goal-biassed perception can predict what action will be taken before it is taken, essentially anticipating the end result. While browsing through websites users don’t read every word on a page; instead, they scan for the information they require. If they cannot find what they are looking for, they leave and continue their search. They are so focused on a goal that they frequently ignore anything that is unimportant.
Using the same law of being goal-biassed, designers can achieve their goal of making users register, join, or accept by using CTA buttons, which are typically designed to be large and of a different colour so that the user’s attention is drawn to the action.
Takeaway…
The subconscious mind is illogical, and unconscious behaviours are those that occur automatically and are effortless, unconscious, and involuntary. Designing for the subconscious mind is important because it generates mental reflexes, which make a product or service more user friendly and accessible. How do we understand that the big white circle in the camera app is used to click an image, how the colour green is associated with currency and leafy vegetables, what is clickable, slidable, and so on, How we zoom in and out, are all designed to be subconscious acts that make the user and the product or service more interactable.
We should consider certain methods when designing UI/UX for the subconscious mind, such as ‘We perceive what we expect,’ which means designing with the past actions, current situation, and future goals in mind. Gestalt principles are all part of designing for the subconscious mind.
References:
https://neurotray.com/is-the-subconscious-mind-scientifically-proven/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1413751?seq=1
https://medium.com/@JoeViergutz/we-perceive-what-we-expect-5f69121b666a
