Chapter 1. Meeting users’ needs: including psychology in design
This chapter covers
- Why you should read this book
- Knowledge and skills you’ll gain
- Effective UX design using psychological principles
If I told you that after you invest a few hours of your time you can learn things that will enhance the rest of your design career, you’d probably demand that I tell you how, right now. That’s the purpose of this book. This book focuses on psychology, the study of the mental processes that lead to human behavior, and how you can apply it to design. Good design reflects users’ psychology as a way of meeting their needs. As a product designer, you want to understand psychological principles so that you can adapt your product to new technologies or social contexts without relearning concrete design patterns. Whether you want to tweak an existing website to make it more intuitive or build a digital experience aligned with how users make decisions, this book is the tool for you. You’ll learn principles of psychology that allow your design to
- Create or change user behavior
- Account for users making quick decisions
- Present users with a call to action at the right time
- Shape users’ positive attitudes toward your design
- Incorporate social elements and interactions to influence users
- Persuade users to engage deeper with your product
- Communicate meaningfully with users about your design