In today’s fast-paced digital world, capturing the user’s attention and engagement in their journey with you is becoming more challenging than ever. Users are constantly bombarded with information, so it’s essential to create a simple and effective customer experience.
In this blog, we will explore strategies to minimise cognitive load while effectively delivering a seamless and enjoyable user experience.
We all know it – the more programs, apps and tabs we have open on the computer, the slower the computer gets. The human brain works similarly; the more things asking for attention, the harder it is to focus, prioritise, and find the solution. The resource that users invest in when it comes to engaging with the product is their mental effort. Those who design and create user experience should treat this mental effort as a precious resource and remember that if users find what we ask them to do too demanding, they will look for alternatives. This is particularly important when similar products are easily found somewhere else.
Let’s take a look at a few different ways to keep the mental effort low..
Unnecessary information
To create a clean and intuitive user experience, it’s essential to streamline the design of your interface.
First, check the user interface for any repeated elements. Did you find any? Remove them. This is the instant way to simplify the interface without losing any information.
Then remove all unnecessary words and introductory phrases such as “We will discuss the Typography in chapter 3, but now let’s dive into Colours”.
My advice is to jump straight into the topic.
Progressive disclosure
If there is more information you need the user to know, but you don’t want to overwhelm them, this technique could help you. This is called Progressive Disclosure. Here, you reveal information bit by bit. It will not only make the user interface look clean and straightforward but also reveal the information only to those who need it.
Unnecessary Styles
It is not just text that can increase cognitive load – style plays a significant role too. While in fashion, designers may indulge in a variety of colours, decorations, and embellishments, in UX, we should aim for simplicity. Just as some prefer minimalistic outfits, your interface should avoid unnecessary styling elements. Remove excessive lines, colours, background music, and animations that do not serve a functional purpose. Aesthetics are essential, and incorporating branding colours and personalisation is important, but these should not hinder usability.
Remember, some styling elements are automatically associated with a specific function. For example, where we see blue underlined text, we expect it to be a link. A rectangle with some padding and text in the middle makes us think it is a button. Keeping these practices in place will decrease the mental effort needed, which can instead be invested in completing the task your users came for. Completing the task means success for your users and success for you, too.
Conclusion
Remember that every piece of information that the user comes across increases the mental effort they have to make to understand your brand and the task they are trying to complete. Keep it simple and straightforward. The more time your users must spend figuring out how to use your interface, the higher the chance they will give up. Time is precious, so remove all repeated and unnecessary information to save your users’ time. Not all information carries the same importance for everyone – use progressive disclosure to reveal the information to only those who need it. Last but not least, we should think about decorative styles. When designing for others, avoid excessive decorations and prioritise simple design and conventional practice over design creativity. Be creative with the solutions you can offer to your users rather than with unexpected functions that will take time to understand.
This blog is part of our series on User Experience. You can check out the other blogs here.
