Also known as Magical Number 7 +/- 2, a theory in cognitive psychology that states the average number of objects an individual can hold in working memory is about seven. Crucial for designing user interfaces that align with human cognitive limitations.
A psychological phenomenon where people develop a preference for things simply because they are familiar with them. Crucial for designing user experiences that leverage familiarity to increase user comfort and satisfaction.
A cognitive bias where people assume others share the same beliefs, values, or preferences as themselves. Important for helping designers avoid projecting their own biases and assumptions onto users during research and design.
The process by which attention is guided by internal goals and external stimuli, affecting how information is processed and remembered. Useful for designing user interfaces that direct user attention effectively.
A model by Don Norman outlining the cognitive steps users take when interacting with a system: goal formation, planning, specifying, performing, perceiving, interpreting, and comparing. Important for designing user-friendly and effective products by understanding and supporting user behavior at each stage.
Pre-set options in a system that are designed to benefit users by simplifying decisions and guiding them towards the best choices. Essential for improving user experience and ensuring that users make optimal decisions with minimal effort.
A design principle that suggests interfaces should minimize the need for users to recall information from memory, instead providing cues to aid recognition. Essential for creating user-friendly interfaces that reduce cognitive load and improve usability.
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.
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
A cognitive bias where people focus on the most noticeable or prominent information while ignoring less conspicuous details. Important for understanding user decision-making and ensuring balanced presentation of information.
The effort required for users to complete a task or interaction within a system. Essential for optimizing usability and minimizing user effort.
A cognitive bias where the perception of one positive trait influences the perception of other unrelated traits. Important for designers to manage and utilize this bias effectively in user experience design.
The tendency to perceive and interpret information based on prior experiences and expectations, influencing how different users perceive design differently. Important for designing interfaces that meet user expectations, improving usability and intuitive navigation.
The tendency for people's perception to be affected by their recurring thoughts at the time. Important for understanding how current thoughts influence user perception and decision-making.
The tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control events. Important for understanding user behavior and designing experiences that manage expectations.
The principle stating that there is a limit to the amount of complexity that users can handle, and if designers don't manage complexity, users will. Crucial for designing user-friendly systems that manage complexity effectively.
The psychological phenomenon where humorous content is more easily remembered and perceived positively by users. Useful for creating engaging and memorable user experiences.
A cognitive architecture model that explains how humans can learn and adapt to new tasks. Useful for understanding user learning and behavior adaptation, informing better user experience design.
The series of actions or operations involved in the acquisition, interpretation, storage, and retrieval of information. Crucial for understanding how users handle information and designing systems that align with cognitive processes.
A cognitive bias where users believe they have explored all available content, even when more is present. Important for designing interfaces that clearly indicate the presence of additional content.
A cognitive bias where individuals' expectations influence their perceptions and judgments. Relevant for understanding how expectations skew perceptions and decisions among users.
The deteriorating quality of decisions made by an individual after a long session of decision making, due to mental exhaustion. Important for designing interfaces that minimize cognitive load and simplify decision processes.
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.
The cues and hints that users follow to find information online, based on perceived relevance and usefulness. Important for designing intuitive navigation and content structures that align with user expectations.
The tendency to give more weight to negative experiences or information than positive ones. Crucial for understanding user behavior and designing systems that balance positive and negative feedback.
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.
A cognitive bias where someone mistakenly assumes that others have the same background knowledge they do. Essential for designers to ensure communications and products are clear and accessible to all users, regardless of their background knowledge.
A behavioral economics concept where people categorize and treat money differently depending on its source or intended use. Crucial for understanding financial behavior and designing systems that align with users' mental accounting practices.
A cognitive bias where people overestimate the importance of information that is readily available. Essential for designers to understand and mitigate how easily accessible information can disproportionately influence decisions.
A rule-of-thumb or shortcut that simplifies decision-making and problem-solving processes. Essential for designing user-friendly interfaces that facilitate quick and efficient decision-making.
The process of triggering particular aspects of a person's identity to influence their behavior or decisions. Important for designing personalized and effective user experiences.
The tendency to avoid information that one perceives as potentially negative or anxiety-inducing. Important for designing experiences that encourage information-seeking behavior.
A design technique that involves showing only essential information initially, revealing additional details as needed to prevent information overload. Crucial for creating user-friendly interfaces that enhance usability and reduce cognitive load.
A framework that explores the structure and function of stories and how they influence human cognition and behavior. Important for creating compelling and meaningful user experiences through storytelling.
A type of long-term memory involving information that can be consciously recalled, such as facts and events. Important for understanding how users retain and recall information in design.
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.
A mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method, or decision. Crucial for understanding how people make decisions and the biases that influence their choices.
A theory that explains how information is processed through different sensory modalities, such as visual, auditory, and tactile. Important for designing user experiences that engage multiple senses for better interaction and understanding.
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.
A cognitive bias where people prefer familiar things over unfamiliar ones, even if the unfamiliar options are objectively better. Useful for designing interfaces and products that leverage familiar elements to enhance user comfort.
The tendency to believe that large or significant events must have large or significant causes. Important for understanding cognitive biases in decision-making and designing systems that present accurate causal relationships.
A cognitive bias where individuals with low ability at a task overestimate their ability, while experts underestimate their competence. Crucial for designers to create educational content and user interfaces that accommodate varying levels of user expertise.
The tendency for individuals to favor information that aligns with their existing beliefs and to avoid information that contradicts them. Crucial for understanding how users engage with content and designing systems that present balanced perspectives.
A cognitive bias where individuals strengthen their beliefs when presented with evidence that contradicts them. Important for understanding user resistance to change and designing strategies to address and mitigate this bias.
A cognitive bias where people ascribe more value to things merely because they own them. Useful for understanding user attachment and designing persuasive experiences.
A key aspect of Gestalt psychology in which simple geometrical objects are recognized independent of rotation, translation, and scale. Crucial for understanding how users perceive and recognize patterns in design.
A cognitive bias where people judge the likelihood of an event based on the size of its category rather than its actual probability. Crucial for designers to understand how category size influences user perception and decision-making processes.
A cognitive bias where people give greater weight to outcomes that are certain compared to those that are merely probable. Important for designers to consider how users weigh certain outcomes more heavily in their decision-making.
A usability evaluation method where evaluators walk through tasks to identify potential user difficulties. Essential for improving user interfaces and ensuring usability.
The study of mental processes such as perception, memory, reasoning, and problem-solving. Important for designing interfaces that align with how users process information and make decisions.
The tendency for people to prefer things that are easy to think about and understand. Important for designing user interfaces that are intuitive and easy to use.
A strategic framework that designs user experiences to guide behavior and decisions towards desired outcomes. Crucial for creating effective and ethical influence in digital interfaces.
Pre-selected options in a user interface that are chosen to benefit the majority of users. Essential for simplifying decision-making and improving user experience by reducing the need for customization.
A set of cognitive processes that include working memory, flexible thinking, and self-control, crucial for planning, decision-making, and behavior regulation. Crucial for designing interfaces and experiences that support users' cognitive abilities.
A principle that states the time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices available. Crucial for designing user interfaces that minimize cognitive load and enhance decision-making efficiency.
A cognitive bias where people judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions). Important for understanding user decision-making and designing systems that mitigate this bias.
A cognitive bias that causes people to attribute their own actions to situational factors while attributing others' actions to their character. Essential for helping designers recognize their own situational influences on interpreting user behavior and feedback.
A step-by-step guide that helps users complete a complex task by breaking it down into manageable steps. Crucial for improving usability and ensuring users can successfully complete multi-step processes.
The tendency to overestimate the duration or intensity of the emotional impact of future events. Important for understanding user expectations and satisfaction.
A cognitive bias where one negative trait of a person or thing influences the perception of other traits. Important for designing experiences that counteract or mitigate negative biases in user perception.