An exceptional user experience is one that appears “intuitive” and people “just know” what to do. The challenge faced by user experience analysts is to create digital solutions that resonate with the innate characteristics of human cognition and perception.

At Piehead, we leverage a deep knowledge of cognitive psychology to create solutions that enable users to accomplish their goals. By removing the need to think about how things work, user experience becomes seamless and elegant.

Our Director of User Experience, Cassandra Moore, spearheads our “intuitive” approach to digital engagement. In fact, she makes a great case for a scientific, proven view of persuasive design in UX Magazine: Elevator Logic Applied to Web and Mobile Design. It’s all about leveraging the science behind human attention to design sites that are effortless, so users inherently know right away where to go and what button to click. Smart design for big results.

With a PhD in Psychology and a talented team of strategists and designers, Cassandra helps clients like Comcast and other known brands lead their target audiences where they need to go on web and mobile sites for measurable digital engagement.

The UX Magazine article offers a handful of takeaways as follows. But make sure you read the whole article. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.

  1. Decide which is the most important item or object on the page—perhaps a login, product, or announcement. Give it a visual treatment such as a different color (remember brightness), size, or shape to make it pop out. Users’ attention will be drawn first to that item.
  2. Use pop out on only a few items per page; don’t overwhelm the attention resources of your users.
  3. Use gradations of a visual treatment (size, color) to create a hierarchy of objects that will lead a user through the information on a page.
  4. Use motion sparingly and only where the user’s attention is focused. Do not employ continuous motion in one part of the page when you would like users to focus on multiple areas of the page.
  5. Enable focused attention on a group of objects such as products by using the same salient visual treatment on all of them.

What are your top takeaways from the article?