We’ve only got so much mental bandwidth, and it seems like we’re always pushing that bandwidth to its limit: multitasking, moving at a breakneck pace, trying to do too much with too little—all of which limits our ability to weigh every possible outcome of our decisions. Despite the crunch, we tend to get around just fine, making—mostly—decent choices. You can thank heuristics, the subconscious rules we use to help us make decisions when we’re short on time or brain power. These mental shortcuts often involve focusing on one piece of a puzzle to the exclusion of all others, particularly when the problem’s complex. At InVision, we keep in mind that the people we design products for face exactly these issues. They’re madly busy, multitasking machines—just like us. That’s why we focus on creating the most frictionless flow through the product possible, using our research findings, gut instincts, and best guesses to guide us. By building your conscious understanding of heuristics, you can become more aware of your own thought patterns and biases and make better guesses about other people’s decision making. Here are three of the most powerful heuristics to use in your design work.
1. Availability
The availability heuristic means that the easier it is to think of an example of something—an event, entity, whatever—the more probable it is. We think: “I remember this, so it must be important.” It’s a classic subjectivity-is-not-reality moment. We typically remember things we’ve heard about recently, or frequently. So the relative importance of these facts is of little to no significance. For example, 2011 was called the “Summer of the Shark” due to increased media coverage of shark attacks, not an actual increase in shark attacks. And the last time you thought of buying a lottery ticket? Probably happened soon after you heard about someone else winning.What availability teaches us about user experience
Remind a user of a problem they face, and they’ll consider it a problem worth solving. Try these three things to keep their problem top of mind.- Focus landing page design and copy on the problems your product solves, not what it does. “Get dinner delivered faster” is better than “Fast food delivery online.”
- Give users positive feedback when they solve a problem, and remind them what it was. “Congrats—you’re one step closer to inbox 0!” is better than “Congrats!”
- Cut irrelevant info from your design. Every irrelevant message dilutes the relevant ones.