Relevant biases and cognitive principles

1. People are afraid of losing their money

2. People want to make more money

1. People want control over their life, their data, and their finances

2. People want to get better at doing these things

3. People want this to feel significant

🎨 UI stuff

• Visual Hierarchy: The arrangement of elements on a page can guide user attention and create a sense of organization and hierarchy.

• Law of Proximity: Elements that are close together are perceived as related. This can be used to group related information and create visual organization. When adding sundry details, try and categorize the various things you need to add, then group them together. Consider which are the most important, and what people might anchor to. Then remove as much as possible. 🙂

• Signifiers: Visual or auditory cues that communicate an action or state. Using clear and consistent signifiers can improve user understanding and reduce errors. I like to use three types of signifier: consistent colour (red for error, green for success, a brand colour for “look at me, this is cool!”), icons (create a brand language), and emojis (👋 you’d be surprised how much clearer they can make your ✏️ designs, but they will not work with all brands).

• Contrast: The use of contrasting colors, shapes, or sizes can help emphasize important information and create visual interest.

🧠 Memory

• Anchoring Bias: People tend to rely heavily on the first piece of information presented to them when making decisions. This can be used to influence perceptions of value. In Web3, this is going to be APY nine times out of ten.

• Availability: Some things are easier to remember and are therefore more ”available”. People overestimate the likelihood of events that are easily recalled. This can be used to influence decision making and perceptions of risk. This has several applications in Web3. On one hand, a hack will make a big impression on users, and that info will be highly available to them, forever after. On the other hand, positive experiences can have the same effect and turn users into fans.

• Peak-End Rule: People tend to remember the peak and the end of an experience more than the overall experience. Coined by psychologist Daniel Kahneman, of Thinking Fast and Slow fame. This has some weird implications. For instance, people undergoing an unpleasant medical procedure will recall the end of the event particularly strongly, so there is an argument for extending the operation longer than is strictly necessary if it means the intensity of the final minutes can be reduced. The patient will remember the end as being “not that bad”, potentially reducing the overall trauma when they later recall the experience. This is in stark contrast to the “quick and painful” philosophy that might result in a shorter experience, but a much worse End. Anyway, back to UX; if there is an awkward user flow, at least make the end of it as good as possible. That’s all that really matters.

🏁 Motivation

• Nudge Principle: A subtle suggestion or alteration in design can influence a user's decision-making process. The concept was popularized by the book “Nudge” by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein.

• Temptation Bundling: Pairing a desirable activity with a less desirable one to increase motivation. Coined by Katherine Milkman and colleagues in a 2014 study. This is basically DeFi - pain in the arse to use, but you can make money, so you do it anyway,

• Sunk Cost Effect: People tend to continue investing in a project or decision even if it no longer makes sense, because they have already invested resources. This should be a key aspect of any personas you do.

• Hyperbolic Discounting: People tend to prefer immediate rewards over delayed rewards, even if the immediate reward is smaller. Coined by psychologist David Laibson. Something to consider on any kind of app that requires claiming or farming.

🎯 Focus

• Feedback: Notification that something has changed within the system as a result of an action. This is one of the simplest cognitive principles, but one of the most important. Feedback is how we learn, and it is also how we are encouraged or discouraged (positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement).

• Selective Attention: People tend to focus on certain aspects of a design while ignoring others. This can be used to emphasize important information and guide user behaviour. Think very carefully about where to direct the user.

• Hick’s Law: The time it takes for a person to make a decision is directly proportional to the number of options presented to them. I like to think of this at the same time as Alan Cooper’s quote, “No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it.”

• Progressive Disclosure: Revealing information gradually can help prevent cognitive overload and improve user comprehension.

• Cognitive Load: The amount of mental effort required to complete a task. Reducing cognitive load can improve user experience and increase the likelihood of task completion.

• Visibility of System Status: Providing feedback on system status can help reduce user frustration and improve trust in the system. For Web3, this is things like, active network, connected wallet, current gas fees, and anything else that might be useful for key actions.

• Fitt’s Law: The time it takes to reach a target is directly proportional to the distance and size of the target. Used in interface design to improve the efficiency of user interactions. In other words, big buttons are easier to find. Smaller buttons are ok if they’re close to each other.