Occam’s Razor
A principle that suggests the simplest explanation is often the correct one, favoring solutions that make the fewest assumptions. Crucial for problem-solving and designing straightforward, efficient solutions.
45 topics found for:
“cognitive efficiency”
Hick’s Law
A principle that states the time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices available. Crucial for designing user interfaces that minimize cognitive load and enhance decision-making efficiency.
Performance Load
The mental and physical effort required to complete a task, influencing user experience and performance. Crucial for designing systems that minimize cognitive and physical load, enhancing usability and efficiency.
Heuristic
A rule-of-thumb or shortcut that simplifies decision-making and problem-solving processes. Essential for designing user-friendly interfaces that facilitate quick and efficient decision-making.
Adaptive Control of Thought
A cognitive architecture model that explains how humans can learn and adapt to new tasks. Useful for understanding user learning and behavior adaptation, informing better user experience design.
Fast and Frugal Heuristics
Decision-making strategies that use simple heuristics to make quick, efficient, and satisfactory choices with limited information. Important for designing user experiences that support quick and efficient decision-making.
Information Foraging
The theory that users search for information in a manner similar to animals foraging for food, aiming to maximize value while minimizing effort. Important for designing efficient and user-centered information retrieval systems.
Chunking
A cognitive process that groups information into manageable units, making it easier to remember and process. Important for designing user interfaces that enhance usability and information retention.
Interaction Cost
The effort required for users to complete a task or interaction within a system. Essential for optimizing usability and minimizing user effort.
Bikeshedding
Also known as Parkinson's Law of Triviality, is the tendency to spend excessive time on trivial details while neglecting more important issues. Crucial for improving project management and team efficiency.
Cognitive Load Theory
A theory that explains how the amount of mental effort required to process information can impact user experience and task performance. Important for designing user interfaces that minimize unnecessary cognitive effort, enhancing usability and user satisfaction.
Bounded Rationality
A concept that humans make decisions within the limits of their knowledge, cognitive capacity, and available time, leading to satisficing rather than optimal solutions. Crucial for designing systems and processes that account for human cognitive limitations and decision-making processes.
Information Processing
The series of actions or operations involved in the acquisition, interpretation, storage, and retrieval of information. Crucial for understanding how users handle information and designing systems that align with cognitive processes.
Decision Fatigue
The deteriorating quality of decisions made by an individual after a long session of decision making, due to mental exhaustion. Important for designing interfaces that minimize cognitive load and simplify decision processes.
Take the Best Heuristic
A decision-making rule where individuals choose the option with the highest perceived value based on the first good reason that comes to mind, ignoring other information. Crucial for understanding and designing for quick decision-making processes.
Serial Position Effect
A cognitive bias where people tend to remember the first and last items in a series better than those in the middle, impacting recall and memory. Crucial for designing information presentation to optimize user memory and recall.
Limited Attention
The concept that humans have a finite capacity for attention, influencing how they perceive and interact with information. Crucial for designing user experiences that are not overwhelming and facilitate focus.
Functionalism
A design approach that prioritizes the practical purpose and usability of digital products over purely aesthetic considerations. Important for creating efficient, user-centered designs that effectively fulfill their intended functions.
Recognition Over Recall
A design principle that suggests interfaces should minimize the need for users to recall information from memory, instead providing cues to aid recognition. Essential for creating user-friendly interfaces that reduce cognitive load and improve usability.
Escalation of Commitment
A cognitive bias where individuals or organizations continue to invest in a failing project or decision due to the amount of resources already committed. Important for designers to recognize and mitigate their own risks of continuing unsuccessful initiatives.
Information Bias
A cognitive bias where people seek out more information than is needed to make a decision, often leading to analysis paralysis. Crucial for designing decision-making processes that avoid information overload for users.
System One
A mode of thinking, derived from Dual Process Theory, that is fast, automatic, and intuitive, often relying on heuristics and immediate impressions. Important for understanding how users make quick decisions and respond to design elements instinctively, aiding in the creation of intuitive and user-friendly interfaces.
Google Effect
The tendency to forget information that can be easily found online, also known as digital amnesia. Important for understanding how access to information impacts memory and designing experiences accordingly.
Satisficing
A decision-making strategy that involves choosing an option that meets the minimum requirements rather than seeking the optimal solution, balancing effort and outcome. Important for designing user experiences that accommodate decision-making under constraints.
Pattern Recognition
The ability to identify and interpret patterns in data, often used in machine learning and cognitive psychology. Crucial for designing systems that leverage pattern recognition for predictive analytics and user interactions.
Learning Theory
The study of how people acquire knowledge, skills, and behaviors through experience, practice, and instruction. Useful for creating educational content and interactive tutorials that enhance user learning.
Focused Navigation
Providing clear, concise, and relevant navigation options to help users find what they need quickly. Crucial for improving user experience and efficiency in digital products.
Scaling Fallacy
A cognitive bias where people underestimate the complexity and challenges involved in scaling systems, processes, or businesses. Important for understanding the difficulties of scaling and designing systems that address these challenges.
Information Scent
The cues and hints that users follow to find information online, based on perceived relevance and usefulness. Important for designing intuitive navigation and content structures that align with user expectations.
Cluster Navigation
A navigation system that groups related links or content into clusters for easier access. Important for enhancing user experience by simplifying access to related information.
Think-Aloud Protocol
A usability testing method where participants verbalize their thoughts while interacting with a product. Essential for understanding user thought processes and identifying usability issues.
Automaticity
The ability to perform actions or behaviors automatically due to learning, repetition, and practice. Important for understanding user habits and designing intuitive user interfaces.
Smart Defaults
Pre-set options in a system that are designed to benefit users by simplifying decisions and guiding them towards the best choices. Essential for improving user experience and ensuring that users make optimal decisions with minimal effort.
Wayfinding
The process of designing intuitive navigation systems within a digital product that help users easily understand their current location, navigate to desired destinations, and efficiently complete tasks. Crucial for enhancing user experience, reducing cognitive load, and ensuring users can achieve their goals seamlessly.
Visual Fluency
The ease with which visual information can be processed and understood by the viewer. Important for creating intuitive and accessible interfaces.
Page Parking
The practice of keeping multiple web pages open in browser tabs for future reference or action. Important for understanding user behavior and designing for multi-tab usage.
HCI
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is the study of designing interfaces and interactions between humans and computers. It ensures that digital products are user-friendly, efficient, and satisfying.
Good Defaults
Pre-selected options in a user interface that are chosen to benefit the majority of users. Essential for simplifying decision-making and improving user experience by reducing the need for customization.
Wizard
A step-by-step guide that helps users complete a complex task by breaking it down into manageable steps. Crucial for improving usability and ensuring users can successfully complete multi-step processes.
CBR
Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) is an AI method that solves new problems based on the solutions of similar past problems. This approach is essential for developing intelligent systems that learn from past experiences to improve problem-solving capabilities.
Form Follows Function
A design principle that states the design of a product or interface should primarily serve its intended purpose or functionality. Important for creating digital designs that are both practical and user-friendly.
Augmented Intelligence
A design pattern that combines human and machine intelligence to enhance decision-making and problem-solving. Important for leveraging AI to support and amplify human capabilities.
Object Constancy
The principle that elements in a digital interface maintain consistent appearance, position, and behavior across different pages and states to help users maintain orientation and familiarity. Important for creating a stable and predictable user experience, reducing disorientation and enhancing usability.
Neural Network
A set of algorithms, modeled loosely after the human brain, designed to recognize patterns and perform complex tasks. Essential for developing advanced AI applications in various fields.
External Cues
Environmental signals that influence behavior and decision-making, such as signage, prompts, or notifications. Useful for designing environments and systems that effectively guide user behavior.