We experience with our brains

In her book “Neuro Web Design: What makes them click?” Susan M. Weinschenk applies discoveries from brain science to our behavior on the Internet. And although it is focused on websites I would say a lot of it applies to the applications we use on our computers or phones as well. The book helped me to understand WHY many of the things I may have already read or observed about user experience were so. And I’m someone that always wants to know “why” (which drove my parents nuts).

Susan explains that we have evolved to have 3 brains: an “old” brain; which is concerned with our survival and takes care of things automatically, a mid brain where the emotions are processed which causes us to feel things and a new brain that handles things like speech, reading, thinking and planning.

The trick is that a lot of the processing of the old and mid brain occurs outside of our conscious awareness.

“… it means we think we make decisions about how to act and what to do consciously, but actually most of our decision making and behavior is governed by unconscious processing. We can’t really separate what we do consciously from the unconscious aspects.”

Our unconscious is some ways even smarter than our conscious mind and we learn patterns or rules without consciously knowing about them. This would explain the importance of consistency in the layout and navigation of user interfaces and the frustration / disorientation that follows when the rules are changed or are inconsistent.

In one of the chapters she explains how feeling indebted works and how to build reciprocity and concession with, for example, giving things away at a web site. I bet anticipating the users needs while he or she is using an application is like giving them a no strings attached present too, and that triggers reciprocity as well (in the form of adoption).

She also explains why I will have to do something about my own blog. Not enough pictures.

A new book of hers is about to be published. “100 things you should know about people”. The first 20 can be downloaded from her blog “What Makes Them Click: Applying Psychology to Understand How People Think, Work, and Relate