learnability matters

Psychologist, Carl Jung studied human behavior deeply and passionately. He studied the behavior and knowledge of the human mind and developed theories of how the dynamic brain functions. This article is essentially concerned with Jung’s understanding of personality types. I would encourage you to sieve out knowledge from this section and weave it into your daily work of usability studies. There is an enormous need to understand and interpret the behavior of our users in the models that we design. And Jung’s ideas will help us achieve this.

The Conscious and the Unconscious
Jung developed a theory where he asserted that a person’s psychological make-up is always working on two levels- the conscious and the unconscious. Memories, feelings and other thought processes come under the conscious psyche of a person. On the other hand, the unconscious is that part of the mind that humans cannot recognize immediately. These feelings cannot be perceived immediately. They are suppressed but eventually brought to the fore. That is to say, if a person’s attitude becomes dominant when certain characteristics come to the fore, then the unconscious will also surface in some way to regain the balance. As a result, when the unconscious surfaces, it is essentially directed at other people.

The goal of every usability study should be to make the unconscious surface out into the open. I would actually call this a therapy session. These studies conducted should elicit all the “frightening” experiences faced by a user which cannot be revealed immediately. Sometimes users don’t understand the aspects of a system design. They don’t know what causes friction during an online experience. Of course, we must help them achieve what they have set out to do rather than them having to believe that it’s their fault and never an interface problem. Like Jung once said, “Nature commits no errors… All the true things must change and only that which changes remains true.”

There are two methods to elicit this behavior.
Negative Scenario Method. Our goal right now is to make the unconscious psyche surface out into the open. Let’s say that we are conducting a usability study on a travel website. So we test a few users to see how effective the site can be made. We would then consider three different situations- one user is tested without a scenario provided, the other is tested with a positive scenario while the third is provided with a negative scenario. Observe how each user would behave in a situation like this, keeping the tasks constant. Of all the three users, the third one would provide the best results as his unconscious psyche would surface. Try it. It’s always easy to point out the issues that we see. It’s also what we don’t see that bring in results of behaviour patterns in users. We usually develop scenarios while testing users. But we don’t “create” scenarios for them. Put them in this situation. Let them face the interface in a realistic situation. By doing this, the user is exposed to a setting that is “real”. Results would then be more effective.

Detailed Interview Method. A detailed interview with users should establish past experiences with an interface that could also affect future behavior. It is important to find out the good and bad experiences while using an interface. This would produce drastic insights that would affect the creation or improvement of a design model.

Introversion and Extroversion
Jung went on to popularize that the psyche (the whole being) has two basic attitudes that helps transpire human behavior- introversion and extroversion. The word “attitude” here should be understood in a much deeper sense of the term (of course, everything here is deeper in a sense). With an extrovert, “behaviour (is) directed externally, to influence outside factors and events”. An extrovert is a person who is dynamic and spirited with other people around them. On the other hand, with an introvert “behaviour (is) directed inwardly to understand and manage self and experience” (Benziger). That is, an introvert is a person who is dynamic and spirited when alone.

While conducting field studies, creating profiles are important. In studies conducted today, we do not try and understand a users’ behavior while we profile. All we determine are the superficial demographic information that belong to the user. Is introversion and extroversion determined as a part of the study? No. We “assume” that these attitudes are taken into account. For example, when we derive personas from the existing profiles and let’s say we were to design a social networking website, we would keep in mind that these users would be extroverts. We would design the interface according to this users’ need. That is to say, keeping in mind the qualities of an extrovert, such as naturally gregarious, a like for action and the yearning to get out and have people around. The look and feel of the interface has to replicate this personality type. While drawing out a scenario of this profile type, the tasks should be laid out according to how this particular user would perform them.

While catering to an extrovert, some of the solutions below could be considered.
First impressions. The first impressions of a website should exude “fun”. We wouldn’t want the user to enter thinking, “Ah, now that’s a lousy looking site. I can’t see myself looking for friends in here. I’m out of here!” And they’re gone. Let’s look at orkut.com. The site provides a good first impression. It probes the user to look at the images provided. It also encourages the user to move ahead by making him believe that he already knows the people who are part of the network. This is an excellent cue to help a user move forward.

Look and feel. The design should look welcoming to a user. By providing pictures of smiling faces, the user would feel like taking that step forward. Let’s look at facebook.com. The site does not provide any welcoming design. The user here is not at all enthused to sign in. Why? This is because the site provides boring text that would demotivate the user before even registering.

Interaction. The interaction pattern must be creative and entertaining. Any pleasant surprise along the way is always welcome. The wordings on the site also matter. This reinforces the existing emotions within the user. It is always best to map these existing emotions which will help him navigate. Anything that spells out “boring” on the site will only drive the user away.

The Functions
Jung included four functions of a human psyche. This included thinking and feeling; sensation and intuition.
Thinking and feeling. According to him, these functions help humans in making decisions, assuming and judging certain circumstances. While thinking, a person reflects on the stimulus. Let’s take the example of a basketball player. The person understands and reflects on the game. Feelings come into play when the person judges his game. Was it good? Did I play well? Accordingly, he can add value to his games in future.

Sensation and intuition. These functions help humans to gather information and perceive these emotions in a context. Through this, a person is able to reflect and respond. Sensation always exists. It determines how we perceive an object with our senses (taste, smell, touch, and so on). Intuition, on the other hand, helps a human to analyze and judge the direction of sensation. It determines the course of action after perceiving a stimulus. When you pass a drainage system, your intuition guides you to move away from it. The sensation here is the smell the drainage emanates and the intuition is to move away.

‘Thinking’ is always in the conscious. ‘Feelings’, on the other hand, are embedded in the unconscious psyche of a person. So to speak, ‘sensations’ are also a part of the conscious while ‘intuitions’ fall into the unconscious psyche. What is important is bringing out the feelings and intuitions of a user while conducting usability studies. While a user interacts with the system in a natural environment, not knowing that he is being watched would best give results as the unconscious can be revealed far more easily unlike in a scenario where the user knows that that he is being watched.

I have discussed one model that helps us understand the influences of psychology in our lives. These concepts should not merely become a chapter in our psychology books. We need to analyze, discuss, and further implement it in our day to day life.

There are some aspects that aid users to navigate, keeping these functions in mind.
Scent of information. The scent of information provided should be good enough to evoke the good feelings of safety and security while navigating. For example, the contextual and content links provided must be clear and meaningful. The orientation feedback given to users must also be clear so that they know where exactly they are. So to speak, if the scent of information is poor, users are going to be left with a lot of unfeeling thoughts.

Information hierarchy. The hierarchy of information should be well established so that users can navigate with ease. For example, the most important information should not be hidden. It should be presented upfront for the users to see above the scrollbar. There should also be clear sections that divide the page to ensure that users know what they are seeing and where they can expect the information presented. If the hierarchy is disrupted, you could be certain that the principle functions of Jung are negative as well.

Interaction. The interaction should be smooth flowing and most importantly effective for users who navigate. For example, if a website or an application provides the users with confusing labels that lead to frustration, the functions are negatively portrayed. To keep the functions working positively, an interface should provide users with effective interaction patterns.

Bridging the Gap
The emphasis here is mainly on the unconscious psyche of a person. While we conduct usability studies on users, we merely replicate design solutions that are superficial. What about the inner workings of the human mind? What about his personality type? We never consider these aspects. Wouldn’t personality types in a profile completely change the working of an interface design?

Most applications or websites created today lack personality. I have always believed that each interface should have a personality of its own (like the way we behave in an environment). Depending on the target audience, personality types should be identified and matched with the interface personality. If the target audience is largely extroverts, the interface should be fun and creative. Messages displayed should also be adventurous and arresting. If the audience is predominantly introverts, images on the site would replicate timid, shy and caring people.

Conclusion
Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to abandon exact science, put away his scholar’s gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart throughout the world. There in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with a real knowledge of the human soul. (Jung- 1945, 1953).

Simply put, we can say that it is essential to know where the user is coming from, what the user believes in, what the user is thinking and more importantly, what motivates the user to think in a particular way.

Jung felt that if you want to understand the jungle, you can’t be content just to sail back and forth near the shore. You’ve got to get into it, no matter how strange and frightening it might seem. (Dr. C. George Boeree- 1997, 2006)

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