POLA
Principle of Least Astonishment (POLA) is a design guideline stating that interfaces should behave in a way that users expect to avoid confusion. Crucial for enhancing user experience and reducing the learning curve in digital products.
485 topics found for:
“behavior design”
Color Psychology
The study of how colors affect perceptions and behaviors. Important for designing experiences that evoke desired emotional responses from users.
Functional Fixedness
A cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used. Important for designers to foster creative problem-solving and innovation.
Optimal Arousal Theory
A theory that suggests there is an optimal level of arousal for peak performance, and too much or too little arousal can negatively impact performance. Important for designing experiences that keep users engaged without overwhelming them.
Automaticity
The ability to perform actions or behaviors automatically due to learning, repetition, and practice. Important for understanding user habits and designing intuitive user interfaces.
Extrinsic Motivation
The drive to perform an activity due to external rewards or pressures rather than for the inherent enjoyment of the activity itself. Important for designing systems that effectively use external incentives to motivate user behavior.
Expectancy Theory
A motivational theory suggesting that individuals are motivated to act based on the expected outcomes of their actions and the attractiveness of those outcomes. Important for understanding motivation and behavior, distinct from decision-making under uncertainty.
Intrinsic Motivation
The drive to perform an activity for its inherent satisfaction rather than for some separable consequence. Crucial for designing experiences that engage users through inherent enjoyment and interest.
Page Parking
The practice of keeping multiple web pages open in browser tabs for future reference or action. Important for understanding user behavior and designing for multi-tab usage.
Bypassing Pattern
A reading pattern where users skip over certain sections of content, often due to a lack of perceived relevance. Crucial for designing content that is engaging and relevant to prevent users from bypassing important information.
Decoy Effect
A cognitive bias where consumers change their preference between two options when presented with a third, less attractive option. Useful for designers to create choice architectures that effectively influence user decisions.
Commitment Device
A technique or tool used to lock oneself into following through on a commitment, often by adding a cost to failing to do so. Useful for designing interventions that help users stick to their goals and commitments.
Probability Matching
A decision-making strategy where individuals allocate resources proportionally to the probability of an outcome occurring, rather than optimizing the most likely outcome. Important for understanding decision-making behaviors and designing systems that guide better resource allocation.
Overconfidence Effect
A cognitive bias where a person's subjective confidence in their judgments is greater than their objective accuracy. Crucial for understanding user decision-making and designing systems that account for overconfidence.
Social Desirability Bias
The tendency for individuals to present themselves in a favorable light by overreporting good behavior and underreporting bad behavior in surveys or research. Crucial for designing research methods that mitigate biases and obtain accurate data.
Mood-Congruent Memory Bias
The tendency for individuals to recall information that is consistent with their current mood. Important for understanding how mood affects memory and designing experiences that account for emotional states.
Humanistic Theory
A psychological perspective that emphasizes the study of the whole person and the uniqueness of each individual, focusing on concepts such as self-actualization and personal growth. Crucial for understanding and designing experiences that cater to individual user needs and potential.
Principle of Objects
The Principle of Objects is an information architecture guideline that treats content as living, distinct entities with behaviors and attributes. Crucial for creating modular, reusable, and flexible content structures.
Integrated Behavior Model
A framework that combines multiple theories to explain and predict behavior, focusing on intention, knowledge, skills, environmental constraints, and habits. Crucial for designing interventions that effectively change user behavior.
Herd Behavior
The tendency for individuals to mimic the actions of a larger group, often leading to conformity and groupthink. Crucial for understanding social influence and designing experiences that consider group dynamics.
Data-Driven Design
An approach to design that relies on data and analytics to inform decisions and measure success. Crucial for making informed design decisions that are backed by evidence.
Behavioral Economics
The study of psychology as it relates to the economic decision-making processes of individuals and institutions. Essential for understanding and influencing user decision-making and behavior in economic contexts.
User Centered Design
An iterative design process that focuses on the users and their needs at every phase of the design process. Crucial for creating products that are effective, efficient, and satisfying for the end users.
Emotional Design
The practice of designing products that evoke specific emotional responses to enhance user experience and engagement. Crucial for creating deeply engaging and satisfying user experiences.
Predictive Design
A design approach that uses data, algorithms, and predictive analytics to anticipate user needs and behaviors, creating more personalized and effective experiences. Crucial for enhancing user experience through anticipation and personalization.
Behavioral Game Theory
The study of strategic decision making, incorporating psychological insights into traditional game theory models. Useful for understanding complex user interactions and designing systems that account for strategic behavior.
Anticipatory Design
A design approach that predicts user needs and actions to deliver proactive and personalized experiences. Crucial for creating seamless and intuitive user experiences.
Repeated Measures Design
A research design where the same participants are used in all conditions of an experiment, allowing for the comparison of different conditions within the same group. Essential for reducing variability and improving the reliability of experimental results.
Fresh Start Effect
A cognitive phenomenon where people are more likely to pursue goals or change behavior following a temporal landmark (e.g., new year, birthday). Useful for designing interventions and features that leverage these moments to encourage positive behavior.
Defaulting
The practice of setting defaults in decision environments to influence outcomes, often used in behavioral economics and design. Crucial for creating user experiences that encourage beneficial behaviors through preselected options.
EAST Framework
Easy, Attractive, Social, and Timely (EAST) is a behavioral insights framework used to influence behavior. Important for designing interventions and user experiences that effectively change behavior.
Social Proof
A psychological phenomenon where people follow the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation. Essential for designing interfaces and experiences that leverage social influence to guide user behavior and increase trust and engagement.
Licensing Effect
A cognitive bias where people allow themselves to indulge after doing something positive, believing they have earned it. Important for understanding user behavior and designing systems that account for self-regulation.
RWD
Responsive Web Design (RWD) is an approach to web design that makes web pages render well on a variety of devices and window or screen sizes. Essential for creating flexible, adaptive web experiences that maintain functionality and aesthetics across different platforms and devices.
User Centric Mindset
An approach that places the user's needs, preferences, and behaviors at the forefront of all design and development activities. Important for fostering a design culture that prioritizes user satisfaction and engagement.
Empathy Mapping
A collaborative tool used to visualize what a user thinks, feels, says, and does to better understand their experiences and needs. Essential for gaining deep insights into user behavior and guiding design decisions.
Empathy Gap
A cognitive bias where people underestimate the influence of emotional states on their own and others' behavior. Crucial for designers to account for varying user emotional states in experience design.
Sludge
Any process or administrative barrier that unnecessarily complicates transactions and creates friction, discouraging beneficial behaviors. Important for identifying and eliminating unnecessary obstacles that hinder user experiences.
Attribution Theory
A theory that explains how individuals determine the causes of behavior and events, including the distinction between internal and external attributions. Crucial for understanding user behavior and designing experiences that address both internal and external factors.
Placement Bias
A cognitive bias where people overemphasize information that is placed prominently or in a way that catches their attention first. Crucial for designing interfaces and information displays that manage user attention effectively.
Photo Study
A research method where participants take photographs of their activities, environments, or interactions to provide insights into their behaviors and experiences. Important for gaining in-depth, visual insights into user contexts and behaviors.
User Research
The process of understanding user behaviors, needs, and motivations through various qualitative and quantitative methods. Essential for designing user-centered products and ensuring they meet actual user needs.
Premack Principle
A strategy where engaging, preferred activities are used to motivate users to complete less engaging, necessary tasks. Useful for designing user interfaces and experiences that encourage desired behaviors by leveraging more enjoyable activities as rewards.
External Cues
Environmental signals that influence behavior and decision-making, such as signage, prompts, or notifications. Useful for designing environments and systems that effectively guide user behavior.
Nudging
The act of designing and implementing subtle interventions to influence behavior in a predictable way. Crucial for guiding user behavior effectively without limiting freedom of choice.
Persona
A fictional character created to represent a user type that might use a site, brand, or product in a similar way, guiding design decisions. Essential for user-centered design, ensuring that products meet the needs of target users.
Micro-Incentive
Small rewards or incentives given to users to encourage specific behaviors or actions. Important for motivating user engagement and fostering desired behaviors.
Scrolljacking
A design technique that overrides the default scrolling behavior, often to create a more controlled or immersive experience. Controversial; can enhance or hinder user experience depending on implementation.
Introspection Illusion
A cognitive bias where people wrongly believe they have direct insight into the origins of their mental states, while treating others' introspections as unreliable. Important for designing experiences that account for discrepancies between user self-perception and actual behavior.
Human Factors
The study of how humans interact with systems and products, focusing on improving usability and performance. Crucial for designing user-friendly systems and products.
Information Aversion
The tendency to avoid information that one perceives as potentially negative or anxiety-inducing. Important for designing experiences that encourage information-seeking behavior.
Obstruction
A dark pattern where a process is made more difficult than it needs to be to discourage certain behavior. Recognizing the harm of this practice is important to design straightforward user processes.
Hard-Easy Effect
A cognitive bias where people overestimate the probability of success for difficult tasks and underestimate it for easy tasks. Useful for designers to understand user confidence and design
Prospect Theory
A behavioral economic theory that describes how people choose between probabilistic alternatives that involve risk, where the probabilities of outcomes are known. Crucial for understanding decision-making under risk and designing systems that align with user behavior.
Allais Paradox
A decision-making paradox that shows people's preferences can violate the expected utility theory, highlighting irrational behavior. Important for understanding inconsistencies in user decision-making and designing better user experiences.
User Interviews
A qualitative research method involving direct conversations with users to gather insights into their needs, behaviors, and experiences. Essential for gaining deep insights into user perspectives and informing design decisions.
Scanning Pattern
Common reading patterns users follow when scanning web content, such as the F-pattern, where users read across the top and then scan down the left side. Important for designing layouts that align with natural reading behaviors, improving content engagement and usability.
Loss Aversion
A cognitive bias where the pain of losing is psychologically more powerful than the pleasure of gaining. Important for designing user experiences that account for and mitigate loss aversion.
Interaction Elasticity
The concept of providing flexible and adaptive user interactions based on user input and behavior. Crucial for creating responsive and personalized user experiences.
Customer Empathy
The ability to understand and share the feelings of customers, crucial for creating user-centered designs and experiences. Crucial for designing products that truly meet user needs and expectations.