Psychology plays an integral part in user experience design. Understanding the behavior and mindset of people and creating interfaces to meet their expectations is very important to create good user experiences. Designs lose their functionality if they fail to serve the users well or provide a negative user experience. It becomes vital then, to understand the psychology of the users as well as take psychological concepts into consideration while crafting UX Design.
So what is Cognitive Fluency?
There are several principles of human psychology that come into play when it comes to understanding user experience. However, cognitive fluency is one of the most fundamental psychological concepts which influences user behavior. Simply put, cognitive fluency is the ease with which we think about something. Cognitive fluency is the ability of our mind to ease decision making by seeking out familiarity. A good example of this phenomenon at play can be found when one is making a change in their daily routine. Any new activity feels unfamiliar in the beginning. However, eventually, it blends into ones life and comes naturally. Our mind becomes fluent in processing the information quickly over time because we become habitual to it.
What determines Cognitive Fluency?
The ease with which we think about something differs from person to person. There are two main factors that help determine cognitive fluency.
Familiarity: The more you are familiar with something, the easier it is to do. And it this easier to do because of fluency. Familiarity plays a major role in determining fluency. Familiarity reduces cognitive load and eases processing information and decision making. An example of how familiarity triggers cognitive fluency can be found in the way we learn how to ride a bicycle. Initially, it is difficult to peddle, steer and balance. But over time we adapt to the act and grow accustomed. Bicycling becomes familiar and natural to a point that simply getting on the bike automatically triggers the actions needed to ride it.