Applicability of neuroscience to UX
By: Muditha Batagoda
Tags: User Experience, Psychology, Design, Brain, UX

Neuroscience is a fascinating subject to talk and to discuss in the field of UX design. The design has moved from traditional applications to complex and innovative applications. The UX design has moved from just creating the UX process or a design guideline to creating a delightful and intuitive experience for application design though psychology, user research and neuroscience. The study of neuroscience is an emerging field where the UX designers can thrive and pursue how they can create solutions to user needs and goals effectively and meaningfully. The study of the human brain generates a solid foundation for designers to make better decisions on what approach to take when designing solutions for the problems encountered by the focus groups.

What is neuroscience, how broad is it?

The neuroscience is also known as natural science, is the study of how the nervous system develops, its structure, and what it does. Neuroscientists focus on the brain and its impact on behaviour and cognitive functions. Not only is neuroscience concerned with the human nervous system. Neuroscience is often referred to in the plural, as neurosciences. Neuroscience has traditionally belonged as a subdivision of biology. These days, it is an interdisciplinary science which liaises closely with other disciplines, such as mathematics, linguistics, engineering, computer science, chemistry, philosophy, psychology, and medicine.

Based on research areas and subjects of study can be broadly categorized in the following disciplines.

Affective neuroscience — In most cases, research is carried out on laboratory animals and looks at how neurons behave concerning emotions.

Behavioural neuroscience — The study of the biological bases of the human brain that affects human behaviour

Cellular neuroscience — The study of neurons, including their form and physiological properties at the cellular level

Clinical neuroscience — Looks at the disorders of the nervous system, while psychiatry, for example, looks at the disorders of the mind.

Cognitive neuroscience — The study of higher cognitive functions that exist in humans, and their underlying neural bases. Cognitive neuroscience draws from linguistics, neuroscience, psychology and cognitive science. Cognitive neuroscientists can take two broad directions; behavioural/experimental or computational/modelling, the aim being to understand the nature of cognition from a neural point of view.

Computational neuroscience — Attempting to understand how brains compute, using computers to simulate and model brain functions, and applying techniques from mathematics, physics and other computational fields to study brain function.

Cultural neuroscience — Looks at how beliefs, practices and cultural values are shaped by and shape the brain, minds and genes over different periods.

Developmental neuroscience — Looks at how the nervous system develops on a cellular basis; what underlying mechanisms exist in neural development.

Molecular neuroscience —The study of the role of individual molecules in the nervous system.

Neuroengineering — Using engineering techniques to better understand, replace, repair, or improve neural systems.

Neuroimaging — A branch of medical imaging that concentrates on the brain. Neuroimaging is used to diagnose disease and assess the health of the brain. It can also be useful in the study of the brain, how it works, and how different activities affect the brain.

Neuroinformatics — Integrates data across all areas of neuroscience, to help understand the brain and treat diseases. Neuroinformatics involves acquiring data, sharing, publishing and storing information, analysis, modelling, and simulation.

Neurolinguistics — Studying what neural mechanisms in the brain control the acquisition, comprehension and utterance of language.

Neurophysiology– Looks at the relationship of the brain and its functions, and the sum of the body’s parts and how they interrelate. The study of how the nervous system functions, typically using physiological techniques, such as stimulation with electrodes, light-sensitive channels, or ion- or voltage-sensitive dyes.

Paleoneurology — The study of the brain using fossils.

Social neuroscience —This is an interdisciplinary field dedicated to understanding how biological systems implement social processes and behaviour. Social neuroscience gathers biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social behaviour. It uses social and behavioural concepts and data to refine neural organization and function theories.

Systems neuroscience — Follows the pathways of data flow within the CNS (central nervous system) and tries to define the kinds of processing going on there. It uses that information to explain behavioural functions.

How the human brain preserve information?

In the book, 100 things every designer should know about people, the author Susan M. Weinschenk explains how the human brain preserve information in different ways. The eyes will receive visual information from the website and turn it into electrical pulses, then the information will be transmitted further through the optic nerve to the visual processing centre, which is medically known as the occipital lobe. It then passes into the parietal lobe, where it is separated and analyzed, but it still has no significance, which will happen once it passes into the frontal lobe. If information gains meaning, it will then be stored in long-term memory.

How designers use neuroscience to improve their design?

Humans recognize/identify objects by recognizing patterns

The human brain is good at recognizing patterns from the outside world. Human brain’s pattern recognition behaviour helps humans work with elements easily and fast. There are many theories over the past on how humans see and recognize elements. The research that was done by David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel tells that some cells in the visual cortex respond only to horizontal lines, others respond only to vertical lines, others respond only to edges, and still, others respond to certain angels. Another popular theory on pattern recognition is that the human brain has a memory bank that stories millions of objects, and when you see an object, you compare it with all the items in the memory bank until the correct object shape is found. But now the researches tell that you only identify the basic shapes that create elements. Irving Biederman came up with an idea of geons in 1985 suggesting that there are 24 fundamental shapes that we recognize that forms the building blocks of all the objects we see and identify.

Takeaway

The designers should use pattens as much as possible and if you want to make the object recognition to the users, use simple geometric drawings or design of the object.

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Simon effect

People respond faster and more accurate to stimuli that occur in the same location as the solution, even if the location of information is irrelevant to the actual task.

Closure law

A closed-form will always be more easily identifiable than an open form

Open forms appear to be incomplete and the brain will tend to fill gaps to see the entirety of the shape.

Conclusion

Neuroscience is a complex and upcoming technology in the world of design. The designer should focus more on these areas and create much more meaningful designs and solutions towards the users. The UX design has a bright future if we can tap into the human brain and trying to understand the mysteries in design. Hope you enjoyed my article and I have started studying much more into the area of neuroscience and hope to write a few more articles on the same topic.