Podcast 37: Cognitive Psychology and User Experiences

Basic psychological phenomena like memory, perception, and emotions have huge implications for the design of products or experiences, from nutritional labels to phone apps to voting registration forms to video games. And people who study those kinds of user experiences need to be aware of some of the very basic ways that squishy human brains can be expected to operate as they set out to test and measure how people interact with their products and make sense of their media. If they don't take those things into account, they lose one of their most important guideposts to improving user experiences and helping the designers or directors of the world execute on their visions.These are the kinds of things I'll be talking about with this episode's guest expert, Dr. Celia Hodent. We will also talk about the challenges and pleasures of being a user experience consultant, and we'll even talk a little about the runaway success of Fortnite: Battle Royale.