The psychology behind successful apps: how smart app design plays to your lazy brain

You have a great idea for an app. The technology is solid and the design looks beautiful. But that is only the beginning. Because if you want people to genuinely enjoy using your app, you need to understand how their brains work.

The most successful apps are not necessarily the technically best ones. They are the apps that play cleverly to human psychology. But what does that mean exactly? To understand it, we first have to look at how our brains work.

Your users do not want to think

Our brain is lazy and prefers to sit in energy-saving mode. It is a clever survival mechanism: that way we keep energy in reserve for the moments that really matter. We only think hard when we have to.

That explains why we always take the easiest route. Why we drop out of a new parking app straight away if we do not get how it works. Why we would rather use a familiar meal delivery app than try a new one. And why, faced with a complicated form, we think: I will do this later.

This is crucial information when you are developing an app. Because if you make your app too complicated, your users will quickly look for an easier alternative, or drop out altogether. The biggest challenge in developing an app is therefore not the technology. It is making sure users do not have to think.

5 psychological principles that make your app more intuitive

Fortunately, you do not have to reinvent the wheel. There are proven psychological principles you can apply to make your app more intuitive. Here are five that we use a lot:

1. Progressive disclosure: break information into manageable chunks

Picture this: you open a new app and are immediately asked all kinds of questions about your preferences, your personal details and your settings. Chances are you will think: I will do this later. That is simply how our brains work. That is why progressive disclosure matters so much: you give users small, manageable pieces of information at a time. Like creating a Netflix account: first just your email address, then your choice of subscription, and only at the end your payment details. By releasing information in measured amounts, you keep users on board.

2. Goal gradient effect: motivate towards the finish

You may recognise this if you go running now and then. Are you at kilometre 4 of 5? Then there is a good chance you will push on, however tired you are. Our brain gets an extra motivation boost when the finish comes into sight. Smart apps make use of this. They show exactly how far along you are, whether that is filling in your profile (70% complete!), finishing a course (only 2 chapters to go!) or saving up for a reward (5 points to go!).

3. Jacob's Law: use what people already know

Think of your favourite apps. The search function is almost always at the top. The profile icon in the top right. And when you want to share something, you automatically look for that familiar share button with the arrow. These patterns are so strong that even your grandmother knows where to click by now. Break with these conventions, and you force users to learn to navigate all over again. That goes against our lazy brain, which likes to run on autopilot. So stick to what people know, unless you have a very good reason to do it differently.

4. Gestalt principles: group what belongs together

Our brain automatically groups elements that seem to belong together. These are the Gestalt principles, and they are crucial for intuitive design. If buttons have the same colour, we see them as a group. If elements sit close together, we assume they are related. And if things have the same shape, we expect them to do the same thing.

You see this everywhere in apps. Think of a messaging screen: all messages from the same person sit on one side, in the same style. Or a menu: related options sit close together and share the same styling. By making clever use of these principles, you help users understand how your app works without them realising it.

5. Decoy effect: help people make choices

Know the feeling? At McDonald's there are three sizes of cola on the menu: small, medium and large. That large cola is really far too much, and that is exactly the point. By adding that exaggerated option, medium suddenly looks like the sensible choice. This clever psychological trick is called the decoy effect. And you can apply it perfectly in apps too.

How these principles work in practice

These principles may sound abstract, but in practice they are worth their weight in gold. We applied them in various apps and saw the same thing every time: the better you play to your users' psychology, the more successful your app becomes.

MYTIPEE

Interior design involves a lot of choices. MYTIPEE makes those choices manageable through clever use of psychological principles.

The decoy effect in action

MYTIPEE offers three packages, with the Silver package deliberately standing out as 'Best Value'. Because of the way the pricing and the features on offer are set up, this middle package looks like the most logical choice. It is a classic example of how you can steer choices subtly.

Jacob's Law in practice

The rooms are shown with recognisable icons: a bed for the bedroom, a dining table for the dining room. By using symbols people already know from everyday life, they do not have to think about what they are looking at.

Another example of Jacob's Law

The colour picker is designed as a palette of paint colours, something people know from the real world. Another smart touch: the "Color doesn't matter" option at the bottom stops people getting stuck if they cannot decide on a colour yet.

In both apps you can see how we always try to make things as easy as possible for the user. No unnecessary steps, no confusing choices. Everything is aimed at putting as little load on the brain as possible.

Good apps are like good hosts

They make things as easy as possible for their visitors. They anticipate what people want, remove obstacles and point the way intuitively. That takes more than technical knowledge alone. It takes an understanding of human behaviour. So choose a development partner that understands both worlds. Because only then do you build an app people genuinely want to use.

Has this piqued your interest, and would you like more information about web application development at JAM-IT, along with examples from practice? Click here. If mobile application development is more your thing, click here.