Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Marc Andrew

Cognitive overload. We hear this term bandied about a lot.

User’s brains are definitely wired a little differently in this present day. I’ve mentioned here before about the Scan method that the majority of users now adhere to so we need to make sure that what we’re presenting to the user is well, very scannable (technical terms abound).

A few key, no-brainer points to remember, are having a defined style that runs throughout your product, choosing adequate white-space to give everything some breathing room, and, whenever possible stick to common design patterns.

No, you can still bring originality, and a strong design presence to the work that you create, but just do it in a way that doesn’t forgo usability, and brings about cognitive overload for the user.

That’s not to say that all products that you produce should go down the route of having characterless design that get’s frowned upon by many a Twitter vocalist “All sites are looking the damn same!”. No, you can still bring originality, and a strong design presence to the work that you create, but just do it in a way that doesn’t forgo usability, and brings about cognitive overload for the user.

If they have to stop or think where that certain button may or may not take them to, then you’re mentally overwhelming that user at key points inside of your product, and it’s not working to the best of its ability.

Follow the tried and tested method. Create a comp, test a prototype, and then little by little strip away the superfluous until you have something that performs as it should, reduces the cognitive resources of the user down to the bare minimum, but not to the disadvantage of usability in any way. Find that balance in your projects and you can keep the user around for longer, reduce those dastardly high bounce rates, and get the user to take the right actions, in the right places, at the right time.

Thanks for reading the article,
Marc

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How to avoid Cognitive Overload for your Users was originally published in prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How to avoid Cognitive Overload for your Users

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