29.08.2019
They say that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. If there were any truth to this, designers would have a tough job to do, because they would always miss the mark with their products even though they would follow trends. And even though design in communication industry is not an exact science, understanding the human psychology is a strong tool for designers. With additional knowledge in psychology and behaviourism a designer can make his products address the right people and achieve the desired effect, while also direct the behaviour of users towards the set goal – sale of a product or service.
Some of the best global designers have extensively dealt with the restructuring of behavioural patterns that we can achieve with even the smallest changes of habits. A smart and thoughtful design can actually impact the changes in behaviour of an individual, in classic and web design. There are rules and directions for the selection of colours, typography, settings, emphases, text structure, methods of adding products to baskets, etc. When a consumer comes across a certain brand, he has exactly 90 seconds to either be attracted to a brand or not. And in as much as 62 to 90 percent of cases, the first impression is actually based on colour. There are thousands of theories on colour psychology, one of the most interesting is certainly the ketchup and mustard theory, which assures that a combination of red (colour that creates feelings of excitement and attention) and yellow (optimism) would make the brand tasty and get the tastebuds going. Judging from McDonald’s, the theory could easily be confirmed.
Lauren Kelly, psychologist, behavioural consultant and founder of the company BehaviourStudio, is also a supporter of the importance of combining psychological science and design. Kelly helps brands, such as Microsoft, British and Estonian government, Coop Digital, Everywoman, Kinetic London, MIT, Union College and Contentful, create project groups to improve user experience and deal with challenges in the area of behavioural patterns, and find the way to the creation of more effective products. Lauren Kelly will be one of the speakers at this year’s SEMPL conference, which will take place in Portorož on 28 and 29 November. She will present the tool BehaviourKit that is used for distilling the latest theories of design, behavioural economics and psychology of consumers, and uncover the surprising results their methods bring.
