Author: Susan Weinschenk

Why do people seem to make some decisions slowly and but other decisions are made quickly? You might speculate that if the decision is something small and insignificant, like what to order at a restaurant, they will make the decision quickly, but if they’re deciding something large and important, like whether or not to move…

You’ve probably had the experience of having to make a complex decision and getting advice like, “Don’t let your feelings get in the way of making a good decision.” Many people think the best way to make a complex decision is to rule out feelings. As a designer, this idea that feelings get in the…

Let’s say you’re the designer for an online grocery store. You’re designing the product pages for a website or phone app. The people who will be using these product pages shop at the online store regularly. They’re familiar with the products, and they have preferences for particular products and particular brands. There could be a…

Stephen Colbert, an American political satirist, coined the term “truthiness” during the pilot of his program The Colbert Report. Colbert described truthiness as knowing in your gut that something is true as opposed to knowing through facts, logic, or evidence. The word “truthiness” caught on— you can now find entries for it in online reference…

In the 1970s and 1980s Xerox Parc was a center for research on human behavior that impacts technology design. One of the research questions was how do people behave in physical environments, and how should that impact the design of computer technology? Xerox Parc researchers brought children into a room with toys and observed their…

Autobiographical and flashbulb memories are subject to change, but other kinds of memories resist change if they’re repeated enough. Memorizing Facts Semantic memory is memory of facts. “Is Paris the capital of France?” is a question that uses semantic memory. So is “What is 9 x 6?” Once semantic memory is set, it’s not subject…

Think back to when you were last at a family gathering or an annual work celebration. You run the event back in your mind, and it almost seems like you’re watching a movie. People tend to think that memories like this are stored in their brains like digital recordings of specific facts or events. But…

In the previous section we covered System 1 and System 2 thinking. Since most people are in System 1 thinking most of the time, this means that most people are actually not paying that much attention to what is going on around them most of the time. When we design a product we are often…

Three opportunities to learn in 2024: Smashing is hosting our workshop in Behavioral Design in May:https://smashingconf.com/online-workshops/workshops/behavioral-design-susan-guthrie-weinschenk/ In-person Behavioral Design workshop, May 16th in Columbus Ohio: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/behavioral-design-workshop-tickets-769809008467?aff=oddtdtcreator In-person UX Leadership workshop, June 4th in Columbus Ohio: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ux-leadership-workshop-tickets-776626299167?aff=oddtdtcreator