1.
Design Principles
a. Hick’s Law: More the number of options, more is the time taken by the user to
decide. This results in poor user engagement.
b. Cognitive Load: Mental effort required to process information
c. Anchoring: It is a cognitive bias that occurs when a person relies TOO HEAVILY
on the the first piece of information made available to him/her for decision making
purposes
d. Priming: Phenomenon where an exposure to one stimulus affects the response
to another stimulus
e. Reciprocity: The app must look to give something to the user (a reward, a
rewarding experience, a sense of achievement) while it asks stuff off users
(details, fees etc.)
f. Reactance: State of mind where a person feels that their autonomy and
freedom of choice is threatened. Often results in people reacting in ways that
are opposite to what is being suggested or opposite to what is in one’s favour
(e.g. an app sending in too many irrelevant notifications that causes the app
users to turn them off completely)
g. Curiosity Gap: Feeling of intrigue that arises when a puzzle is partially revealed
and prompts us to look for the rest of the puzzle
h. Regret Aversion Bias: Tendency to avoid taking decisive actions because
people fear that whatever action they take will prove less than optimal. People
avoid taking actions that could lead to future regret
i. Dark Pattern: A deceptive design tactic used on websites or apps to manipulate
users into making unintended decisions, often by obscuring info, using
confusing language, or making it difficult to opt out of something, essentially
tricking them into doing something they didn't want to do
i. When a website makes it very easy to sign up for a subscription but then
hides or complicates the process of canceling it, essentially creating a
"roach motel" where it's easy to enter but hard to leave
ii. Free trial with automatic renewal
j. Loss Aversion: Cognitive Bias that makes us view loss of some magnitude as
being larger than a gain of the same proportion
k. Wrongful Delegation: As a product expert, making decisions easier for people is
your job. If you're unsure about people's needs or wants, do not delegate the
daunting task of filtering/understanding to your audience, decreasing the
chances they'll take action. Instead, do more research and testing, and learn
more about product psychology to make better decisions.
l. Aesthetics of Reading: Good website aesthetics reduce the cognitive load of
the users, making it easier for users to interact with the web page
m. Squint Test: Squinting one’s eyes at a website to see if the relevant information
is being highlighted.
n. Spark Effect: People are MORE LIKELY to take an action if the effort required is
small
o. Variable Rewards: People enjoy variable rewards
p. Framing: Framing refers to a cognitive bias where data is presented either
positively or negatively
q. Bandwagon Effect: People do things that everyone else seems to be doing
r. Personalization: Practice of tailoring a product, service, or offering to specifically
cater to a user’s needs, preferences and interests
s. Singularity Effect: Tendency of people to care about a single, identifiable victim,
rather than a large group
i. Example for Spotify, it focuses on one, single, individual songs while
“wrapping up the year”
t. FOMO: FOMO for the purposes of piquing users’ interest
u. Accurate Prompts: Lead to increased adoption
v. Law of Effect: Behaviours can be strengthened if they are followed by rewards
2. On-boarding
a. If new behaviours/patterns are involved in my product, the onboarding process
must take into account the fact that people are not familiar with it. So, the
process has to be smoother and as intuitive as possible. The app should guide
the user without shaming them, or causing cognitive overload
b. Number of CTAs (Calls to Action) must be limited
3. Content-curation
a. More streamlined it is, the better it will work
4. Content Scarcity Paradox (see the graph)
5. Timers
a. Need to be used sparingly and only when absolutely essential
b. Also, the seconds counter shouldn’t be included unless less than 24 hours
remain
6. Rigging of prize draws
a. Rigging prize draws pisses customers off and decreases retention
7. Setting Defaults
a. Defaults are a great way to ensure stickiness, but it should be used carefully
b. Could also create nuisance
8. PM Metrics Used
a. Daily/Weekly/Monthly Active Users (DAU/WAU/MAU)
