Design psychology in daily life
For a good product-driven person, it is extremely important to understand users. Just like the basics of any concept, human behavior is guided by some psychological principles which drive our daily behaviors and habits. I came to know about an excellent resource on how psychology is being used in the products in one of the modules of Upraised’s program.
I have tried to add the one-liners for my own learning for some of the important principles listed here.
Hick’s Law — more options on the menu more difficult to decide what to order
Confirmation Bias — rather than search facts, we often try to find the advantages/disadvantages of using a product based on the prior knowledge
Priming — I opened Zomato to buy biryani but saw a promotion of a 50% discount on pizza and ordered it.
Cognitive Load — Thought of filling the income tax return, opened the site, found so many things to be filled, closed it to be filled later.
Anchoring Bias — My interior designer quoted me around 10L for the design, when the final quotation turned out to be 8L, I thought it was cheap.
Nudge — Keeping all the healthy options easily accessible in the kitchen lets me make healthier choices
Progressive Disclosure — You get to know the complex nature of your other half only after the marriage, that dating period involves easier interactions 😃
Fitts’s Law — Amazon using 1/3 of the screen for the subscription of the medicine
Banner Blindness — Kids learn quickly to click on the skip ad button of the youtube
Decoy Effect — You were given options to choose from Biryani & Veg-pulao, just to give you one more option, they also have jira rice.
Framing — how you propose is way more important 😃
Attention Bias — me referencing marriage and partners 😅
Empathy Gap — Cancerians are emotional fools, replace Cancerians with all your users
Visual Anchors — tricking your eyes for influence on decision
Von Restorff Effect — You remember the someone wearing a funny dress at a function
Visual Hierarchy — order for the eyes and brain
Selective Attention — portrait mode
Survivorship Bias — natural selection of biology
Juxtaposition — similar items look as one unit
Signifiers — traffic signal coding of maximise, minimise and close of chrome
Contrast — make the pay button highlighted and focussed
External Trigger — everyone partying on Friday night, let me order something as well
Center Stage Effect — Let me choose from the middle of the shelf for fresh vegetables
Law of Proximity — I ignored the paneer curry placed just near the non-veg items
Aesthetic-Usability Effect — Given I get the same prices from Pickly and Dunzo, I would go for Dunzo
Social Proof — me choosing the most popular items from a new restaurant
Scarcity — how one-plus invite-only was a game-changer for the initial launch
Curiosity Gap — read half the news from an economist site, pay for reading the full news
Mental Model — my own understanding of how things work in the world
Familiarity Bias — Spotify podcast using the same player as the music
Skeuomorphism — Bin Icon on the Mac similar to the Bin at home
Reciprocity — My friend offered me dinner last night, I should give him back something.
Singularity Effect — The whole social media gets united on the photo of a delivery boy getting slapped by a girl, they don’t care about the overall problems of the gig workers
Variable Reward — Gambling is addictive
Aha! Moment — Me not see any ads from Dev Gadhvi and Ankur Warikoo and other gurus selling courses while opening youtube
Goal Gradient Effect — Google fit already shows that I have taken 4500 steps, let me take 500 more to achieve my goal
Occam’s Razor — go for the simplest explaining of the things — cut the tech jargon
Noble Edge Effect — Meta vs Google Offer, Google obviously
Hawthorne Effect — why watch some phone review on a youtube account, use in cognitive mode — to skip recommendations and ads
Streisand Effect — Censored movies are more hit
Cognitive Dissonance — painful to hold 2 different ideas in the mind
Survey Bias — Let's play safe for the survey
Curse of Knowledge — Me assuming that it is as easy for my father to use any application
Authority Bias — Since my favorite philosopher said, it must be right
Flow State — in the zone
Miller’s Law — users can keep 5 +/- 2 items in the working memory
Labour Illusion — take extra time while fetching the flights for the best fare
Default Bias — I am old and rigid for my behavior change
Investment Loop — can’t move away from Spotify since it has all my playlists
Loss Aversion — I play the game, then before quitting, the app asks for the login
Commitment and Consistency — committed to badminton, so will react to all the notifications of the cult or other sports apps
Sunk Cost Effect — Yes bank, invest more, already invested so much
Reactance — Youtube is cheating by increasing ads after I stop subscription
Law of Instrument — Hammer, nail
Temptation Bundling — Show Elon Musk’s or Steve Jobs's Speech at commencement — ask for GMAT/GRE date booking
Dunning-Kruger Effect — Less knowledge more confidence
Discoverability — Ease of fining favorite food by repeat orders
Second-Order-Effect — Gold Rush, increase in the demand for digging equipment
Hyperbolic Discounting — Pizza over Gym
Cashless Effect — No actual money spent from the pocket while using a credit card, I am rich until the credit card bill comes
Ikea Effect — assemble your furniture and love
Provide Exit Points — No Saas-Bahu (Ekta Kapoor’s never-ending dramas) series pls
Peak End Rule — we remember the maxima/minima and the end experience
Sensory Appeal — Looks good and smells nice 😝
Zeigarnik Effect — incomplete tasks occupy the headspace
Endowment Effect — Overvalue things we possess.
Chunking — Categories and Subcategories
Delighters — Asana completing the tasks
Internal Triggers — emotional buying at late nights
Picture Superiority Effect — Picture over the name
Method of Loci — remember your last anniversary on the beach?
Recognition over Recall — The feedback Form gives all the parameters and valid options to fill good interview feedback
Storytelling Effect — learn history as stories
Negativity Bias — remember one negative comment over 100 positive comments
Serial Position Effect — remember first and last
Spacing Effect — study sessions are more effective when spaced out
Availability Heuristic — prefer recent and available over past information — who reads the classics over the new york bestsellers?
Disclaimer: Few things are valid for the Indian context.
