Great functionality is not enough anymore. Understanding the nuances of human behavior is essential for human centered design and for creating intuitive and engaging UX. Leveraging tools used in behavioral science can transform a design and shift user perception in your favor.
By integrating key behavioral principles into your design process, you can create products that not only meet user needs but also foster lasting engagement. Let’s break down key behavioral principles, identify some actionable tips, and figure out how, when and where to best integrate them to create a holistic, engaging interface.
People don't buy products - they buy a better version of themselves
Don't try to sell users on the features of your product - instead, tell them how it actually improves their life.
People are driven by the promise of self-improvement, whether it’s saving time, reducing stress, or achieving a goal. When designing user experiences, your focus should shift from showcasing product features to demonstrating their value in terms of reaching a goal.
Frame your messaging around benefits, not just features, to make the value immediately clear. Paint a picture of the future your product takes people to. Write copy that speaks to user aspirations and goals, activating identity in the process.
Identity-Driven Messaging Strategies
Each of us has a multi-faceted identity and as different situations prompt us to assume particular identities, the values and goals associated with each role dial our choices in subtle ways. We seek to act in accordance with the way we see ourselves, which depends on the identity cues we get from our immediate environments. Be sure to prime the right identity to maximize the perceived value of your product.
Use copy that speaks to user aspirations - “Become multilingual in just 10 minutes a day”
Use customer testimonials that reflect real-world transformations - “With Product X I read 10x as many books this year”
Always ask yourself: Would I explain this to a friend the same way?
Designing Meaningful User Feedback Mechanisms
Even if your product is bringing value, your users might have a hard time articulating all the benefits on their own. That’s why you need to illustrate the possible results of using your product to highlight all the bits of value you deliver and to avoid confusing them.
Everything, including your product, must submit to the laws of physics - every cause must have an effect - and most importantly, that effect should be visible to the user. Each time your users go through this loop, their behavior is reinforced and becomes a part of their identity.
💡 Pro tip: Write copy as if explaining it to a friend—relatable and personal. For example: "You’ll feel more focused and less stressed after just 10 minutes a day!"
While understanding user identity and aspirations is crucial, it's equally important to recognize how users process information. This brings us to our next principle…
Most information gets blocked
Our brains block complex or lengthy information to save us from overloading. This happens constantly and instinctively - our brains do it to conserve cognitive energy. Clear and specific communication is therefore critical to bypassing the information wall and capturing users’ attention.
System 1 thinking, responsible for up to 98% of our thinking, filters out much of the information it receives before passing it on to the much slower, much more resource consuming System 2.
According to a 2021 Nielsen Norman Group study, users only read about 20-28% of content on a page, highlighting the need to reduce cognitive load. Being clear and specific in your copy will not only reduce cognitive load and the likelihood of being blocked, but it’s a good way to earn people's trust.
Mastering Concise Communication
It's easy to explain a concept with a lot of words, but a lot harder to explain that same concept with fewer words. However, it does pay off in terms of ease of use and user satisfaction - the fewer words, the better.
Even the most compelling value proposition can fall flat if we don't consider how users actually process information in their daily lives. Once we've mastered delivering clear, digestible information, we need to consider how users will remember their experience with our product. This is where the peak-end rule becomes crucial…
Cognitive Load Reduction Frameworks
The B.I.A.S. framework can help you understand how to avoid this pitfall in your product:
Brevity: Keep copy concise.
Informativeness: Offer valuable, actionable insights.
Accessibility: Simplify navigation paths.
Specificity: Use straightforward, relatable language.
Purposeful friction is a good way to ensure your have earned enough of users’ trust to gain their attention when the situation warrants. Removing friction from every other part of the experience will let users know their focus is truly required for more complex parts of your flows.
To achieve this, design for the least amount of friction unless:
more cognitive effort is needed
prompting users to make important decisions
warning users to prevent costly mistakes
How popular products keep cognitive load at a minimum
You’ll notice that most products break the onboarding down into several pages. They’re leveraging this principle to ensure that users focus on the task at hand in order to provide more accurate responses and therefore a better, more personalized experience.
Similarly, Spotify only shows users 3-4 music genres at a time in order to avoid overwhelming their users and make decisions easier and faster to reach. Imagine being bombarded with 50+ music genres or a medley of songs
💡 Pro Tip: Replace jargon with conversational language to make your content feel more approachable
Peak-end rule
People judge and remember experiences based on their most intense moments (peaks) and how they end.
That's why smooth offboarding is key to keeping a good reputation. While people may be leaving, they can still recommend your product for years to come if their last interaction was meaningful. For example, a smooth exit survey thanking users and offering tailored feedback ensures they leave with goodwill, even if they discontinue. Dropbox implemented this strategy and saw a 15% increase in word-of-mouth referrals post-offboarding.
Creating Natural User Journey Transitions
The peak-end rule doesn’t just apply to the very end of the user journey, but to each break in usage. Every time your users stop using your product, for however long, you have an opportunity to make that particular experience memorable.
Add stopping cues to signals that an activity is complete and that it's time to move on if warranted. Without a cue or a clear exit point , digital experiences can cause product fatigue and reactance.
Use delighters to create peaks
Delighters are the cherry on top of your product—unexpected features or interactions that bring joy or surprise, leaving a lasting impression on users. While core functionality solves user needs, delighters evoke emotional connections that keep users engaged and talking about your product.
Delighters tap into the principle of positive reinforcement. When users associate your product with enjoyable experiences, they are more likely to return and recommend it. They also create "peaks" that for users to recall later.
Spotify Wrapped comes in new graphic styles and animated stories every year, using the fact that people remember playful pleasures better. Beyond engagement, delighters can bring other benefits based on their type and shareability, such as the improved brand visibility Spotify reaped from 75% of their users sharing their Wrapped results on social media.
Practical Strategies for Peak-End Experience Design
Personalization: Tailor experiences to individual users (e.g., "Your 10th workout streak! 🎉").
Playful Elements: Incorporate insights, humor, animations, or gamified features that entertain or inform users. Chances are if they were entertained or educated, they’ll want to share it with their networks.
Seasonal Exclusives: Innovative seasonal or event-based features that build anticipation. Like Spotify and any other business, your users expect you to deliver value. Consider what they value most, their main goals and what they want to find out more about to create delightful reminders of their achievements using your product.
Create Exit Points: To ensure users don’t experience a negative end to their interactions with your product, create clear exit points to reduce the risk of negative emotions due to frustration or mismanagement of time. Take this opportunity to also give your users one last reward!
💡 Pro Tip: Use delighters sparingly to avoid overwhelming users or diluting their impact.
While memorable moments shape user perception, getting users to take that first step requires a different approach. This is where the power of micro-commitments comes into play..
Micro-commitments
Micro-commitments lower the psychological barriers users face when engaging with a product or service. By breaking tasks into smaller, manageable steps, micro-commitments reduce friction and create a sense of progress.
This aligns with the consistency bias—users who take small actions are more likely to continue with larger actions that align with their initial behavior. Leverage this bias by introducing gradual steps to larger asks to make users feel less threatened and build on that by adding asks that are coherent with their previous actions.
How Micro-Commitments Can Change Behavioral Patterns
Reduced Cognitive Load: Smaller decisions feel less risky and require less mental effort.
Sense of Progress: Incremental actions give users a feeling of accomplishment, encouraging them to continue.
Consistency Bias: Once users begin, they are psychologically motivated to align future behavior with past decisions.
Micro-Commitments in the Real World
Linkedin uses a contextual question to encourage users to activate notifications, such as prompting users to be notified when someone they message responds instead of making the ask at a time when the benefit is not obvious to users. By doing so, they make the first step easier, resulting in an increased likelihood of opting for other notifications.
Duolingo breaks content into bite-sized modules with visible progress bars, making users more likely to complete lessons and stick with their learning goals. By making progress milestones more achievable, users are more likely to remain engaged and continue building on their wins.
Designing Effective Incremental User Pathways
Break Down Actions: Divide complex tasks into smaller steps. For example, instead of asking for a full profile setup, prompt users for one detail at a time.
Offer Immediate Rewards: Provide a sense of progress or small incentives after each step (e.g., “You’re 20% closer to completing your profile!”).
Align with Goals: Ensure that each small action ties into the user’s larger goals, reinforcing its relevance.
💡 Pro Tip: Visual cues like progress bars or checklists are effective motivators. They let users see how close they are to achieving their goal.
Micro-commitments lay the foundation for user engagement, but maintaining that engagement requires well-timed prompts. Understanding triggers is key to this process…
Triggers
"Trigger" are prompt that drive users to take specific actions. Triggers can be:
Internal (e.g. emotions, habits, motivations)
External (e.g. notifications, buttons, reminders, ads)
Understanding Internal and External Motivational Cues
Internal Triggers arise from within the user, such as boredom, a desire for learning, or social connection. For example, someone feeling lonely might open Instagram to seek interaction.
External Triggers are explicit cues in the environment, like push notifications, app badges, or marketing emails.
Aligning Triggers with User Motivations
People are more susceptible to take action if the external trigger is aligned with an internal trigger - align triggers to users’ goals and context to increase their efficiency.
Therefore, the most effective external triggers tie into internal motivations:
A Duolingo notification ("Keep your streak alive!") taps into the internal trigger of commitment to self-improvement.
A fitness app notification (“Ready to beat yesterday’s workout?”) leverages the internal desire for health and competition.
💡 Pro Tip: Users are more likely to interact with prompts they set up for themselves, because of our instinctive desire to be consistent with previous actions.
Once triggers have successfully prompted user action, the next challenge is maintaining consistent engagement. This is where streak mechanics become powerful…
Streaks
Streaks encourage users to maintain consistent engagement by rewarding daily usage. Streaks gamify repetitive behavior by rewarding users for consistent actions, leveraging our bias for completion and consistency, where people struggle to accept unfinished tasks and strive to align their current actions with past behavior.
But as Duolingo’s Gina Gotthilf pointed out, streaks are a double edged blade:
“Streaks make people come back more, but losing a streak is also a big reason why people quit. I lost my 80-day streak last year when I was trying to learn German, and I was so frustrated that I stopped using Duolingo. That made me [even more empathetic to our users].”
Creating Motivational Streak Strategies
Safety nets: Offer ways to preserve streaks (e.g., Duolingo’s streak freeze).
Social Accountability: Make streaks shareable or collaborative (e.g., team goals).
Milestone Celebrations: Recognize significant streak achievements (e.g., “Congratulations on your 100-day streak!”).
Successful Streak Mechanisms in Product Design
Streaks are one of the top drivers of long-term retention at Duolingo, contributing to the platform’s 50+ M monthly active users, so the product team found a way to soften one edge of the blade. The app introduced “streak freezes”, allowing users mitigate the frustration of losing progress, and remain engaged even after a missed day.
One of my favorite streak based apps is Forest App, which allows users to “plant” virtual trees during focused work sessions, creating a visual streak of productivity. It’s simplicity is what makes it so powerful - you focus on your tasks and you get rewarded with a virtual tree. The tree makes you proud, but it also looks kind of lonely. You put in some more work to get your forest going. Before you know it, it becomes a habit and the idea of loosing makes you uneasy.
Another good example is the way Snapchat encourages daily interactions between friends by counting consecutive days of messaging. The social aspect amplifies the emotional attachment to streaks.
Snapchat streaks are socially driven, while Duolingo streaks focus on individual learning goals. Both models use emotional incentives to sustain engagement.
💡 Pro Tip: Balancing reward and punishment is essential to a good steak mechanism. Behavioral tactics are only as good as the incentives attached to them.
Beyond behavioral mechanics like streaks, the visual presentation of your product plays a crucial role in user engagement. The principle of aesthetic usability explains why…
Aesthetic Usability
People tend to believe that things that look better will work better, even if they aren’t more effective. Something as simple as adding color or by contrast, whitespace, can influence user’s perception for the better, so make sure you leverage gestalt principles and design theory. Small moments of visual delight can greatly transform the whole experience, so be sure to maximize high points aesthetically.
Intuitive Feature Discovery Through Design
Anytime you want visitors to focus on a specific question or task, use visual contrast to your advantage:
Reduce the visibility of secondary elements on the page
Enhance the salience of primary elements.
Visual Design Checklist
Create visual hierarchies with size, color, and positioning
Reinforce your message with visual cues
Implement full-screen mode with clear exit points
Sometimes it's that simple.
Airbnb masterfully uses color contrast and visual hierarchy to guide user attention to booking actions, using its otherwise minimal design to bring attention to the colorful accommodations and experiences available. Notion uses white space and clean typography to make complex information digestible. By making the right things most visible exactly when users need them, the complexity fades into the background as users effortlessly achieve their goals with a simple stroke of the “/” key.
Maximizing Engagement Through Immersive Interfaces
Distraction-free interfaces can greatly increase your user engagement. For example, Growth Design saw a 280% increase in user engagement for their case studies when switching the default to fullscreen.
You can double down and use loops to make your interface even more immersive. TikTok uses a default full-screen video loop unless videos are manually paused, keeping users engaged and eliminating downtime.
While creating an aesthetically pleasing and engaging experience is important, we must balance this with respect for our users' time and attention. This final principle ties everything together…
Respecting Users' Attention
Reciprocity is critical to maintaining user engagement. Bothering users with various asks in the form of notifications, pop-ups, emails and various others should always be accompanied by delivering even the tiniest bit of value.
Making asks - and yes, a pop up counts as an ask - without having provided users with value will get frustrating, fast. It's important to keep this in mind when designing your notification strategy, ads monetization strategy and beyond.
Strategic Notification Management
There are 3 benefits to an app filtering its own notifications:
Users are less annoyed overall.
You minimize the risk that users turn off notifications "forever" (if they do, good luck getting people to reactivate their notifications).
It gives you a chance to try to resurrect the user later at a more appropriate moment.
Transforming Interruptions into Value-Adding Tools
Perception of time is subjective. You can transform annoying waiting periods into delightful experiences by providing some value even during the wait time.
When interrupting users with announcements and prompts to enable new features, ensure you’re not working against yourself by introducing something users are already benefiting from as something new. It'll reduce the perceived value of the interaction.
Instead, turn new features on by default and subtly notify users they can opt out while highlighting the benefits of the new feature (opportunity for creating delighters).
While up and cross selling are critical to increasing revenue, it might be beneficial for both you and your users to avoid suggesting new features for at least 2 user segments:
Beginners: users who just onboarded and are still learning
Ressurected: users returning after a pause
This is especially important for "resurrected users", as they are 20% less likely than a new user to be retained.
Core Principles for User-Centered Engagement
"Three strikes rule" - If a user dismisses the same type of notification three times, turn off that notification type until they turn it back on - but make sure to send one last notification to let them know
"Value-first principle" - Before any interruption, ask: "Would users thank us for this interaction if they knew everything we know?”
"2-2-2 principle" - New features should be introduced within 2 clicks, take 2 seconds to understand, and provide value within 2 minutes of use.