Psychology for Designers

Great resources on practically using mental models in product design. GOLD.

Source: Mental models for designers | Dropbox Design

Not 21 days at the internet seems to think but around 66 days..

The simple answer is that, on average, across the participants who provided enough data, it took 66 days until a habit was formed.

From: How Long It Takes to Form a New Habit – Brain Pickings

Handy!
Source: The Psychology of Color and Emotional Design | UX Booth

Great listen, about 1 hour so perfect to accompany a couple of commutes.

Daniel Kahneman is winner of the Nobel Prize in economics for his integration of economic science with the psychology of human behavior, judgment and decision-making. He is the author of the popular book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” that summarizes in an accessible way his research of several decades, often in collaboration with Amos Tversky, on cognitive biases, prospect theory, and happiness. The central thesis of this work is a dichotomy between two modes of thought: “System 1” is fast, instinctive and emot

Source: Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | MIT | Artificial Intelligence Podcast

Some scary uses of psychology to game users into paying for things. Doubly scary when this game is marketed to kids:

6 Ways Mario Kart Tour Triggers You Into Gambling Your Money

For those in a hurry:

The review indicates that gamification provides positive effects, however, the effects are greatly dependent on the context in which the gamification is being implemented, as well as on the users using it.

From: Does Gamification Work? — A Literature Review of Empirical Studies on Gamification (2014)

…general support for our main hypothesis that gamification is not effective per se, but that specific game design elements have specific psychological effects

From: How gamification motivates: An experimental study of the effects of specific game design elements on psychological need satisfaction (2018)

Those elements being:

Our results show that badges, leaderboards, and performance graphs positively affect competence need satisfaction, as well as perceived task meaningfulness, while avatars, meaningful stories, and teammates affect experiences of social relatedness

Love this. I’ve always thought smell was underused in UIs.

Source: Bad Smells Make Memories Stronger | Technology Networks

New York Times fighting back. The backlash against these practises continues.

Source: How E-Commerce Sites Manipulate You Into Buying Things You May Not Want – The New York Times