Designing for Human Behaviour.
Part 5
Navigating the Challenges of Human Behaviour in Design: Balancing Knowledge, Cognitive Bias, and Intuitive Solutions
So, if designing for human behaviour comes down to simply designing to the patterns for which users are accustomed within specific environments, where is the problem? Sounds simple, right? Not so fast. The problem with this approach is that one needs to be extremely mindful and certain of the exact context and behaviour one is setting out to frame. This, in itself, can take a bit of time and restraint to avoid falling victim to the cognitive bias that exists with both client and designer, called “The curse of knowledge,” i.e., the tendency to jump to "informed" conclusions around projected rational or logical behavioural patterns based on one's personal experience and knowledge.
This is because behaviour is often illogical and irrational. However, in very specific settings and environments, behaviour can also be quite predictably irrational. Author and Professor of Psychology and Behavioural Economics at Duke University, Dan Ariely, the founder of the research institution, The Centre for Advanced Hindsight, has written three New York Times bestsellers: Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, and The Honest Truth about Dishonesty, all dedicated to exploring our repetitive behavioural traits. We will cover more of this later.
Finally, for the most part, there are a tremendous number of intangibles. Having all the information at hand does not necessarily mean that you are now equipped and ready to design a highly popular, highly successful space, interface, or building, for example. Far from it. There is a part of this entire journey that also requires some art, some magic, and some boundless intuitive leap into the creative abyss to bring magic to the product. To make people really care about your design, to love your design, it needs to be "beautiful," as subjective as that may be. It has to be relatable to the core audience. The design has to be human and therefore elicit emotion, no matter how functional or usable it may be.
Beautiful designs get half of their credibility because of their visual appeal. Humans are hardwired to process visual information, with 30% of the cortex devoted to visual stimuli, enabling the brain to identify visual images in as little as 13 milliseconds. Sixty-five percent of people are visual learners. Most people, therefore, believe that if it looks good, it is good.
“Usability is not everything. If usability engineers designed a nightclub, it would be clean, quiet, brightly lit, with lots of places to sit down, plenty of bartenders, menus written in 18-point sans-serif, and easy-to-find bathrooms. But nobody would be there. They would all be down the street at Coyote Ugly, pouring beer on each other.” — Joel Spolsky
The problem with Design Thinking.
More in the next Article.
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