This is what Joel Marsh taught me
As a graphic designer, I used to work on projects where the design brief and the client’s vision of the project was given to me. That’s all I needed to come up with the design. In a day or two, after a few iteration, based on just client feedback, the work was done. Client happy, I’m happy. That’s all mattered.
But when I joined a UX company in 2014, I realised the importance of User Centric Design. I understood why user behaviour is so necessary to design something.
‘Daily UX crash course- User Psychology, by Joel Marsh’, talks about real -life UX process. I realised, some techniques mentioned have been used on me as an user (using certain products/services) and some can be seen in daily life, used unconsciously.
Below are few extracts from the course that I picked out for this blog.
Avoid using curiosity as a marketing strategy. Tell users what is coming, tell them why, show how it works, and give them time to adjust.
Have you ever looked at a restaurant menu, ordered something that sounds exotic and been disappointed by the result? Blame yourself for it? Well, don’t!
If the menu doesn’t provide you a clear description of the dish/drink nor does it show you a clear picture of what’s coming your way and let you adjust to it, it’s the restaurant fault, not yours.
Focus on giving, so there is a sense of progress over time. Plus your users will become loyal instead of resenting you.
The first thing that came to my mind was WhatsApp. I’ve been a loyal user since 2011, when I shifted to a smartphone. It’s simple to use and all its features are free. Now that I use an IPhone, I tried using IMessages but old habits die hard.
Another smart strategy is what Netflix and other similar services do. They give you free excess to their content for a limited time to gain your trust and interest. You realise the vast amount of knowledge you’re acquiring from it, that you readily agree to pay for the service when needed.
One thing that games do very well is structuring rewards and punishments in a way that leads users through a series of goals.
There was once a rage in my college over this game call Limbo. It’s about a nameless boy, who awaken in the middle of a forest on the edge of hell. He goes through a series of complicated obstacle to find his sister.
Every time someone in college completed a complicated task, they were envied and awed. The task complication was a status symbol. Finally two of my friends sat for 13 hours straight and finished off the whole game. I’m sure they felt like they’ve achieved something resume worthy when almost half of the college praised them.
We can let users choose whatever they want, and most of the time they will choose what we want. If you do it right.
Me: How much is this neckpiece?
Shopkeeper: It’s 300 rupees.
Me: Give it for 200, I’ll take it. Otherwise, I’ll check somewhere else.
Shopkeeper: How about you give me 260?
Me: Fine, let’s make it in between. I’ll give you 240.
Shopkeeper: Done.
All happy to get it in just a less price I take the neckpiece just to realise later that my friend got the same one for 200 rupees. I defended myself by saying I’m bad at bargaining.
In psychology, this is call Anchoring. The first number you say effects the next number in someone’s head. The shopkeeper anchored me to 260, so I felt 240 is less. Well played, Shopkeeper!
Anti-UX prevents mistakes and bad decisions by using good UX principles, in the opposite direction.
Anti UX is good UX with some psychology to fix “the problem”. Joel talks about how Anti UX can make a cancelation form for a user easy as well as so lengthy and time consuming, that the user gives up and keeps the subscription.
As I think about a real life scenario, I somehow could relate this to my friend’s obsession over another friend. She subscribed to his friendship and eventually he became obsessed over her and she wanted to unsubscribed. But he threw in such philosophical and emotional content, that she gave up. It never got solved and now they’re just acquaintances who acknowledge each other’s presence when we all meet together.
So, rounding everything up, this is what Joel Marsh taught me:
“You can’t be a great UX designer without psychology.”
