I am the king of mistakes
Psychological reasons to avoid common mistakes in your design
Whether you’re designing a Web site or a medical device — or something somewhere in between, your audience is comprised of the people who will benefit from that design.
And the totality of your audience’s experience is profoundly impacted by what you know, or don’t know, about them.
1) Avoid blinking or any other movement from your application or website design.
You have two types of vision: central and peripheral. Central vision is what you use to look at things directly and to see details. Peripheral vision encompasses the rest of the visual field — areas that are visible, but that you’re not looking at directly.
“People cant help but notice movement in their peripheral vision. For example, if you are reading text on a computer screen, and there’s some animation or something blinking off to the side, you cant help but look at it. This can be annoying if you are trying to concentrate on reading the text in front of you. This is peripheral vision at work! This is why advertisers use blinking and flashing in the ads that are at the periphery of web pages.”
2) Avoid use of Primary Colors(Red, Green and Blue) together
When lines or text of different colors are projected or printed, the depths of the lines may appear to be different. One color may jump out while another color appears recessed. This effect is called chromostereopsis. The effect is strongest with red and blue, but it can also happen with other colors, for example, red and green. These color combinations can be hard and tiring to look at or read.
3) The meaning of colors vary by culture
Research shows that colors affect mood. The restaurant and hospitality industry has studied this a lot. For example, In US orange makes people agitated, So they wont stay long (useful in fast food restaurant). Browns and Blues are soothing, so people will stay (useful in bars). However in order for a color to affect mood, the person has to be sitting in a room surrounded by that color. The effect does not seem to work if he or she is looking at a computer screen that has a particular color on it.
4) Avoid Black as a background in your design
Computer screens, Kindles, and paper create different reading experiences. When you read on a computer screen, the image is not stable — it is being refreshed constantly, and the screen is emitting light. When you read text on paper the image is stable (not being refreshed), and instead of emitting light the paper is reflecting light. The refreshing of the image and emitting of the light on the computer display are tiring on the eyes. Electronic ink (as in the Kindle) mimics the appearance of ink on paper. It reflects light and holds the text stable without refreshing.
To make text on a computer screen easier to read, make sure you use a large enough font and create enough contrast between foreground and background.
5) PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS MAKE MISTAKES; THERE IS NO FAIL-SAFE PRODUCT
How to write an error message
Assuming that an error will occur and that you’ll need to inform the person using your design, make sure that your error message does the following:
Tells the person what he or she did
Explains the problem
Instructs the person how to correct it
Is written in plain language using active, not passive, voice Shows an example
Here is an example of a poor error message:
#402: Before the invoice can be paid it is necessary that the invoice payment be later than the invoice create date.
Say instead, “You entered an invoice payment date that is earlier than the invoice create date. Check the dates and re-enter so that the invoice payment date is after the invoice create date.”
6) How many users read terms and conditions
There is, perhaps, no area of the user experience that sucks harder than the average terms and conditions page for a website or application. These giant legalese documents are supposed to protect the provider from any possible legal avenue of recourse. In practice, nobody reads them.
It’s been estimated that it takes up to 25 minutes just to plough through most t’s and c’s. Users are way too busy to bother — so they do what everyone has done since time immemorial; they click “I accept” and hope that they haven’t signed over the soul of their first born child in doing so. (In fact in one famous April Fool’s day prank — GameStation actually did take their user’s souls in their t’s and c’s).
This isn’t how it should be. Terms and conditions aren’t fair to a user who isn’t going to read them. We suspect that in Europe, at least, this isn’t going to be allowed for much longer either. You can’t seriously expect to hold someone to terms that they’ve not read. What’s desperately called for here is a simplification of terms and conditions and for them to reflect the bigger user experience picture.
For more info Click here.
7) Dont give too many choices
If you stand in any aisle in any retail store in the U.S., you’ll be inundated with choices. Whether you’re buying candy, cereal, TVs, or jeans, you’ll likely have a huge number of items to choose from. Whether it’s a retail store or a Web site, if you ask people if they’d prefer to choose from a few alternatives or have lots of choices, most people will say they want lots of choices.
Too Many Choices Paralyzes The Thought Process
Sheena Iyengar’s book The Art of Choosing (2010) details her research and others’ on choice. In graduate school Iyengar conducted what is now known as the “jam” study. Iyengar and Mark Lepper (2000) decided to test the theory that people who have too many choices will not choose at all. They set up booths at a busy upscale grocery store and posed as store employees. They alternated the selection on the table. Half of the time there were six choices of fruit jam for people to try and the other half of the time there were twenty-four jars of jam.
Which table had more visitors?
When there were twenty-four jars of jam, 60 percent of the people coming by would stop and taste. When there were six jars of jam only 40 percent of the people would stop and taste. So having more choices was better, right? Not really.
Which table resulted in more tasting?
You might think that people would taste more jam when the table had twenty-four vari- eties. But they didn’t. People stopped at the table, but they only tasted a few varieties whether there were six or twenty-four choices available. People can remember only three or four things at a time (see the chapter “How People Remember”); likewise they can decide from among only three or four things at a time.
Which table resulted in more purchases?
The most interesting part of Iyengar’s study is that 31 percent of the people who stopped at the table with six jars actually made a purchase. But only 3 percent of the
So, How People Decide?
People who stopped at the table with twenty-four jars actually made a purchase. So even though more people stopped by, less people purchased. To give you an example of the numbers, if 100 people came by (they actually had more than that in the study, but 100 makes the calculations easy for our purposes), 60 of them would stop and try the jam at the twenty-four-jar table, but only two would make a purchase. Forty people would stop and try the jam at the six-jar table, and twelve of them would actually make a purchase.
Why People Can’t Stop?
So if “less is more,” then why do people always want more choices? It’s part of that dopamine e ect. Information is addictive. It’s only when people are confident in their decisions that they stop seeking more information.
Reference- 100 things every designer should know about, Neuro Web Design, Interaction Design, Seductive Design.
I hope, that this information will be beneficial to you. For more works, follow me on Dribbble & connect with me on LinkedIn.
Cheers!!
This story is published in Noteworthy, where 10,000+ readers come every day to learn about the people & ideas shaping the products we love.
Follow our publication to see more product & design stories featured by the Journal team.
