The Intersection of Psychology and Design

Have you ever stared at an image but can’t seem to decide what it is? Each angle you view, presents a different perspective, and the closer you look the more you see. At first glance, our image looks like a butterfly, but then it can be a fish or even two kids dancing. It’s interesting how our brain processes information, right?

Well, what if I told you that there are different psychological processes that influence how your brain perceives the design? You might wonder, what does Psychology have to do with Design?

A heck of a lot!

Psychology and Design

Psychological principles indeed play a significant role in design and the design process. Behavioral psychology explores what motivates people to react, what resonates and causes a reactive emotion. Understanding and fostering these connections will influence engagement and ultimately a decision.

A designer that understands basic psychological principles is a more effective designer. So before putting the proverbial pen to paper, a designer will explore the intended audience in depth. Having a keen understanding of personas, demographics and what makes them tick is essential and psychology will drive the process of creative development. Ultimately the principles of perception, cognition and behavior will be the guidepost to the perfect design solution.

There are many theories that substantiate the intersection of psychology and design. Since the 19^th century, psychologists have explored the mysteries of human behavior and its motivating forces. In the 21^st century we call this User Experience (UX).  For the purpose of this article, we will dive into a couple of important concepts that influence the process.

Perception meets Cognition

First let’s explore Perception. Perception is the initial point-of-contact with the stimuli. It’s how we identify, organize, and interpret information. This taps into our five senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling. Once the person experiences the stimuli, they process the information and start to form an opinion. Perception is rather agnostic and is more or less unemotional. That is until Cognition takes over.

Cognition is our brain’s supercomputer that processes the stimuli. The unpredictable part of cognition is that we, as individuals, have a unique frame-of-reference and life experiences. So, the information that is being ingested can then take many pathways depending on the individual. When the brain processes the information, it stores it in your short-term memory and continues the information processing sequence.

On that note, our brain can only hold the information for a short period of time and then, if it isn’t compelling enough or relevant to the individual, it is discarded, otherwise the information frustrates the brain. This can lead to what is called Cognitive overload, like the name suggests, it’s presenting the brain with more information that it can process. This can have a paralyzing effect on the individual and cause inaction or confusion.

How does perception and cognition influence design?

As designers and communicators, it is critical to understand who you are talking to. This will help crack the code of effective messaging. Understanding that the brain determines what is relevant and draws conclusions by associating them with things it already understands is critical when preparing a stimulus. Being too broad and general will dilute your efforts and limit its success. Being focused is paramount. Design capitalizes on people’s instinctive inclination of ordering and disordering both the known and unknown.

Simplicity is very important now. This addresses cognitive overload and provides the consumer with a pathway to information that is easily ingested. 

As humans we have an underlying framework for how we perceive and process the world. As designers, the better our understanding of how the mind works, the greater our ability to design products and experiences to meet the users’ needs.