What is User Experience (UX) Design?

The line between UI and UX is rather blurred and for anyone unfamiliar with the disciplines understanding the differences can be a bit of a headache. At a very high level, many have summed up the difference between UI and UX in one sentence: UI is what you use to interact with a product and UX is how you feel when you use the product.

UX design is all about understanding the psychological patterns which cause a user to behave in a certain way. Are they more likely to click a red “buy” button or a blue “buy” button? How does the amount of choices in an interface affect a user’s decisions? How are users rewarded for their actions?

These are the questions that UX designers must answer. Today we’re going to dig a bit deeper into understanding this user psychology.

User Psychology

Psychology is the study of our minds. It seeks to understand and explain human thought, emotion, and behavior. Through research, psychologists have established general principles that detail how individuals behave and how to predict behavior. They are not absolute, but are solid enough to serve as guides.

As a designer, you’ll be aiming to produce work that causes the majority of users to respond in very similar ways. In a sense, you will standardize how users feel, think, and act in response to your work—and you’ll do so using psychology and design.

Hick's Law

In today’s world of options, it’s easy to think that more is always better. Cheaper by the dozen, 2 for 1 margaritas, and buy one get one free are all marketing and sales techniques that seem to reinforce this notion. But more isn’t always better, especially when it comes to making a choice.

Numerous options tend to confuse us

Hick’s Law states it takes us longer to make a choice when we have numerous options. It describes the feeling you get when you are trying to pick a new pair of Converse sneakers and have millions of colors to choose from, all right before your eyes. It’s not that you can’t choose, you just feel compelled to explore all the choices and end up feeling overwhelmed.

In the image below, is it easy to pick out your favorite purple hue?

Generally speaking, on the web and in apps, users will feel confused and disoriented when they have too many options to choose from. Large drop down menus, endless streams of navigation links, a giant rainbow to choose background colors from, will all increase the time it takes for users to make a choice. Too many paths will end up paralyzing users. It may give the illusion of freedom but will end up getting in the way as users seek to accomplish their goals or complete tasks.

Always provide users with a reasonable number of options. What ‘reasonable’ is will vary from problem to problem and will depend on what you are designing. Evaluate the problem and determine what is a good number of options. You might want to give users 10 background colors to choose from, but not 10 payment options when they’re buying your product.