Questions tagged [psychology]
Psychological principles as they relate to user interface and user experience design.
217 questions
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Is User Psychology similar to the use of empathy?
So I've been doing some read up about UX hoping to firm up my base as a UX practitioner and was just wondering and thinking if User Psychology is similar to the use of empathy.
Understanding that a ...
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Which style of avatar is more reputable?
Is there any evidence which shows whether users are more likely to reciprocate positively towards a certain style of profile avatar?
For simplicity, let's break profile avatars into the following ...
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predict behavior based on emotional response
I'm a student so this is my first crack at designing a study.
Trying to develop a usability test that 1) gathers participants emotional reaction and 2) discovers what behavior they would display ...
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'Likes' vs 'Upvotes' [duplicate]
When it comes to completely anonymous appreciation of videos. What is better to use: 'Likes' vs 'Upvotes'?
I've read elsewhere that likes seem more personal and there is a network involved. But what ...
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How do I avoid the “Halo Effect” during testing?
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on the Halo Effect lately. It seems that this effect can really make a difference in the outcome of my testing if I am not cognizant of its potential swaying power. ...
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What is more memorable: Avatar or Username?
Is there any evidence which shows whether users are more able to recognise another user's Photo over their Username or vice versa?
I am interested in understanding this from a usability perspective.
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Is the state of 'flow' equivalent to user engagement?
From Wikipedia Flow (psychology):
Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an
activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full
involvement, and ...
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For user confirmation, is it more standard to use "Y" or "N" to denote continuing execution?
This is a question about best practice, not a specific language/ syntax question.
When requesting user confirmation, e.g. Y/N to either continue execution despite some risky condition or exit to fix ...
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How to encourage quality content?
Yahoo! Answers and StackExchange are two well-known examples of Q&A sites. Both sites allow users to ask questions, vote, and choose the best answer. Both sites have a point system to encourage ...
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How do i balance MI requirements with the user experience?
Im designing an online form, to start the form, the user has to select between x3 options:
(option 1) or (option 2) or (option 3)
If the option 3 is selected, a lightbox appears to tell users they ...
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Use last modified time or time created for ordering by date?
When sorting a list of items by date, is it more logical to sort it by the time that each item was modified or the time that each item was created?
I have seen both of these methods used and I'm ...
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Would it be relevant to learn/understand how manipulation works as UX Designers?
When designing a service for users, we're constantly trying to push them to do things. We're creating systems to get them motivated so they see the value they'll get out of the product. Perfectly done,...
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How to keep the user engaged while waiting for a period of time?
I am designing an app for an online taxi booking portal. The workflow is designed in a way in which the users must wait for 120 secs for booking to get confirmed. While the customer is waiting for the ...
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How much customisation should be permitted?
The team I work in are in charge of approving and creating new team document storage/collaboration microsites for business areas within the company. These are currently being offered as SharePoint ...
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What is the fundamental difference between liking and upvoting? Please signify what to use in what contexts?
In particular:
How do people perceive the difference between these actions?
How do people perceive the difference between a like/don't like system and a upvote/downvote system?
When should you use ...
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what is the list for list of sexual orientation options in a dating website?
males and females sexual orientations in a terminology that is easy for the user to select them.
Exmple .male straight , female straight
including gay and lesbian and other kinds.
please i am ...
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What are users attitudes towards help buttons
I was wondering, given the wealth of awful help menus foisted on us by various services, whether actually describing the manual area of your application as 'help' was a good idea or not.
Do users ...
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What do dark and light dashboards communicate to users?
There are a couple of closely related answers about this on here, but none that gets to the question I'm asking.
Outside of a what a user brings to a design (preconceptions, mental models, etc.) ...
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Which of those two design best symbolizes emptiness and makes you want to fill it?
I'm working on a service with limited credits and designing a counter displaying how much is left. I came across two approaches (below) and even if the first one looks simpler I feel like the second ...
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Best way to teach novice programmers?
I'm working on a project that aims to teach programming novices. I want them to follow specific guidelines of programming and get accustomed to those (due to the fact that these guidelines are ...
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Practical applications / prototypes using different cognitive styles
I'm looking for practical applications or studies where the application has been developed for users with different cognitive styles.
I'm mostly interested in those using Nisbett's cognitive thinking ...
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What is the psychology behind road markings on lanes unaffected by speed cameras?
In the UK, speed cameras are usually accompanied by white striped lines on the road. I have always assumed that was a visual reminder to the motorist to "watch your speed- it's about to be checked".
...
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Changing a visual object as it is dragged
Imagine that you have an interface with two principal panes: a map and a timeline. We want to enable our user to be able to select a job displayed on the map (for instance, "repair washing machine at ...
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How would you describe the way visual design contributes to the user experience?
When a website or product looks good, users enjoy using it more (assumption).
They may even have more patience with the interface, regardless if there are usability issues, etc.
How would you, ...
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Is there any advantage in marketing my product for £99.99 instead of £100?
It's a wide-spread marketing technique that seems to have been around forever- selling products for £1.99, £9.99, £19.99, instead of £2, £10 and £20.
Presumably the pyschology is that submliminally £...
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Confusions about applying Hick-Hyman Law in user interface design
I think many people here have heard of "Hick-Hyman" law, which describes the time it takes for a person to make a decision as a result of the possible choices he or she has; That is, increasing the ...
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Do shapes connote differing degrees of hazard?
I'm working on designing an icon set and experimenting with a few different styles. One style would involve every icon being the same color. However, color is really good at differentiating things ...
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Is giving users false assurance a good thing?
I've seen websites that show messages like - Sorry, Something went wrong, we're trying to fix this ASAP , when they really should be displaying : 404 - the page you're looking for does not exist
One ...
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Looking for arguments and studies to rebut "No one complains, so it ain't broke."
I'm of the opinion that the absence of complaints is not a strong indicator of good usability. I'd like to learn more about this idea, whether it's true or not, and how to argue the point if true.
My ...
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Model photo choice for better conversion rate : is same sex more appealing than opposite sex?
I am creating a landing page targeted to men of age 18 to 45 years.
It's supposed to promote a nationwide recruitment effort of temporary workers needed in production plants.
The photo of a smiling ...
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Is it useful keeping "foveal vision" in mind when arranging content?
I came across this video explaining how you can reduce the congnitive load by arranging your content in small chunks fitting into your "foveal area":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...
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Is it still effective and appropriate to use psychological pricing for IT people?
I need to build pricing plan for service that will be used mainly by developers and designers. I can't decide what price to use, e.g. $20 or $19.
I'm afraid that well-educated and smart people (...
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How do you nudge users to download your native app?
I was reading an ACM research paper recently that considered users' revisitation patterns. The authors found that users tend to revisit native apps far more often than they revisit pages in browsers.
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When offering options, at which position in a sentence should be the desirable one?
When I ask the user a question with two options of which I want the user to choose a specific one, should I formulate the sentence so that the desired option it the latter or the other way around?
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Do touch screens have a harmful psychological effect on people? [closed]
The touch screen is a radical change in the control of machines. For centuries, machines were operated by physical buttons. Perhaps the most important aspect of user experience for a physical device ...
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Why are nested elements scrolled to the opposite direction?
My question is about scrolling conventions, and spatial scroll conventions in general (even here it's only horizontal, but same applies for vertical scrolling).
Looking at the below mockup, why is it ...
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Should I display a "not available" option in my key, even when I know it will never be used
I've got a site which sells lots of different products. Due to the nature of the industry, it is necessary that multiple products can be displayed on screen at the same time.
To save space, the ...
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Name or data on this error alert phenomenon?
This is just a curiosity on my part, but I'm wondering if there's a name or studies for what I'm going to describe.
I've noticed in many UX scenarios, not just computer related, that when there's an ...
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Prefer buttons over text links when designing for mobile?
When designing for mobile, should one prefer buttons over text links whenever possible?
I'm guessing buttons are better at encouraging tapping, whereas text links are increasingly becoming associated ...
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Should we risk using colors other than blue in Web apps?
Trends: New Colors (we’re looking at you, #00A0D1)
If there’s one thing that’s been stagnant in the design community, it’s the originality with colors. Sixty percent of the applications on my ...
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Upon the launch of a new site - add big slide-down / lightbox explanation?
Upon the launch of say a new social media site - is it appropriate to do a big slide-down / lightbox to explain what the site is about - or to let users figure things out for themselves?
Former:
...
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Labels inside or outside text inputs? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
On forms, is inline placeholder text better than a label outside each field?
Are there any advantages / disadvantages in placing ones labels outside ones text inputs like ...
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Should I style my buttons?
Are there any major advantages / disadvantages in styling ones buttons like Facebook, Twitter and StackExchange - vs. not styling them like Craigslist and 4chan?
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Best practices or resources about online assessment
I have a project to deliver an online assessment of a large number of users. The assessment is for a psychological research project, so the content is mostly self-description asked in a variety of ...
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Monitors display more colors than human eye can distinguish
The human eye can differentiate about 10 million colors. A 24-bit display mode can produce about 16 million. Why, then, do operating systems have 32-bit and higher display modes if the apparent ...
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To lower user's cognitive memory load or not?
Naturally, it sounds like it is only best for our users if our design could reduce user's cognitive workload when performing a task.
However, there are also theories that explain the need for a ...
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How do users use spatial memory?
I have some questions about how spatial memory works and the effects on user interfaces:
Do users seek items by spatial memory? What do they actually "link" to a position - a particular object ("View ...
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Simulate Eye-tracking by Photoshop filters? [closed]
I've read some articles about visual perception and that it mostly differs in High-frequency, Mid-frequency and Low-frequency recognition. Whereas Low-freq is fastest and seems to be responsible for ...
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How do drunk users act?
What effect does alcohol have on user behaviour? Alcohol is a part of many Western cultures and it's entirely possible that some of our applications will be used by people who have had a drink or two. ...
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Is user centered design only about hygiene factors?
There is one thing that bothers me about UX-design. One of the shortcomings of a user centered design approach, is that it only focuses on existing needs and not on new revolutionary ideas. For ...
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