Our brains are constantly seeking patterns to add efficiency in our interactions. In digital environments, this manifests as a complex set of unconscious cognitive shortcuts that rapidly evaluate trustworthiness, utility, and potential value.
What appears to be a simple interaction—clicking a button, navigating a menu—is actually a complex psychological negotiation. Users are continuously asking unconscious questions: "Is this trustworthy?" "Does this solve a problem?" "Will this help me achieve my goals?”.
Learning to leverage the brain's inner workings can make or break your product. Let's take a look at behavioral principles we can infuse into products to create human-centered UX.
Priming for success
Previous information influences how people react to subsequent information. Leverage this early, preferably in your intro screen to prime users on the value and use cases of your product rather than simply listing features.
Priming methods that work
Contextualizing Value through Jobs-to-be-Done
Job-to-be-Done is a way of presenting features by framing options to change an existing situation into a preferred one.
Establishing the right frame of reference is key in making sure people understand your product. That is why Job-to-be-Done is a powerful tool to help focus your product on outcomes people can envision rather than unfamiliar features.
Knowing what the customer hopes to accomplish in a given circumstance is a superpower when building coherent experiences.
Cognitive Recall and Visual Cues
It’s easier for people to recognize something shown on screen than to recall it from memory. Subtle visual cues can help users recall specific information and influence how they respond to it.
It also helps to keep language as simple and clear as possible. Relying on familiarity is a great starting point, but consistency is key. Make sure to keep language and naming conventions consistent across your product, otherwise you risk making your product difficult to navigate.
Given that research shows that a majority of users do not make a purchase based on their initial searches, but rather do some research and come back some time later to make their purchase.
Visual Anchors - Guiding Cognitive Processing
Visual anchoring is more than an aesthetic principle—it's a critical cognitive navigation tool. Our visual perception is hierarchical, meaning our brains automatically organize visual information into layers of importance.
Visual anchors create a visual hierarchy that strategically guides users through these stages, reducing cognitive friction. Typography, color contrast, spatial relationships, and whitespace become sophisticated communication tools that speak directly to the brain's visual processing mechanisms.
Simple things such as good typography help people perform better on cognitive tasks. When overlooked, the product might inherit a high cognitive load, resulting in a confusing experience. A reliant indicator of a product lacking good anchors is that users don't feel your product is "intuitive”.
Framing
We have a tendency to be influenced by the way information is presented. Equivalent information can be more or less attractive depending on what features are highlighted. This is referred to as the framing effect.
The framing effect happens partly due to the fact that people evaluate their losses and acquire insight in an asymmetric fashion. The availability and affect heuristics contribute to the framing effect - information that is easily understood and recalled are favored over those that aren’t and framing often relies on emotional appeals and emotional reactions.
Choosing the right frame for your product
The Labor Illusion - Transparency as a Value Multiplier
People value things more when they see the work behind them. That’s why making users wait for something they requested while showing them how it is being prepared can transform boring waiting times into delighters that boost your perceived value. Customers are usually more likely to appreciate the results of your effort when you are transparent about it in an engaging manner.
It’s true, people dislike waiting in general, but if your users have high expectations (e.g., money transaction, migration, analysis, reporting), they may even become skeptical if the waiting time is too short. That's why replacing loading screens with a “labor screen” right after a key action can improve your UX. A well-designed labor effect can increase your app's perceived value by up to 15%.
Beware of implementing "benevolent deceptions" (fake waiting times), as they will likely backfire. If your product has no time-intensive tasks and competitors provide results without the same pesky delays, your users will switch sides without looking back.
Anchoring - The Power of Initial Information
The initial information that users get affects subsequent judgments. When estimating a certain value, we tend to give or be given an initial value, then adjust it by increasing or decreasing that estimation. However, we often get stuck on that initial value – referred to as an anchor – which leads to insufficient adjustments.
One of the best examples of anchoring comes from Starbucks - we all know their beverages come in 3 standard sizes across the world, even if we might not be familiar with the controversial naming convention of Tall (small), Grande (medium) and Venti (big). Cups showcasing each size are placed near the register, and if you do not specify a size when ordering you are prompted about the size. If you’re a first time customer, you’ve already been hit with the cognitive load of the extensive menu.
It should then come as no surprise that the most popular beverage size at Starbuck is Grande. Having depleted the resources assigned to the trivial task of getting a coffee, most people default to what seems to be the moderate choice.
The descending price anchor takes things one step further, by priming users with the highest price, making the middle option even more appealing.
Loss Aversion - Motivating through Potential Loss
Loss aversion is where framing gets interesting. Even though people prefer positive framing over negative framing in general, the prospect of loosing something already owned is a powerful motivator.
Prospect theory has taught us that we hate losing what we have earned - so much so that we prefer to avoid losses more than earning equivalent gains. That might explain why streak mechanisms are so powerful.
Loss aversion studies have shown that people are much more inclined to spend resources to keep what they already have than they are to pursue an equal gain. Closely tied to the endowment effect, this bias can be leveraged in many ways - streaks, personalization, limited offers or seasonal events etc.
Duolingo does a great job at leveraging loss aversion to boost engagement. Their meticulously crafted streak system makes users feel rewarded for progress and motivated to continue by the prospective loss of said streak.
But Duolingo doubled down on behavioral design and also capitalized on the downside of loss aversion - the distress of a loss and the desire to mitigate it. Duolingo introduced “soft faliures”, giving users a chance to win back their streak by either spending time or money.
Endowment & Sunk Cost Effects
As seen above, the best moment to get users to invest is right after a reward. This is the best moment to request resources in anticipation of future benefits, as confirmation and availability bias are both working in your favor.
Leveraging endowment and sunk cost to boost engagement
The Mechanisms of Endowment and Sunk Cost
Behavior Reinforcement: Small investments make users feel they’ve taken ownership, increasing their attachment.
Psychological Ownership: People value things more when they’ve contributed effort (e.g., IKEA Effect).
The sunk cost effect amplifies this by making users reluctant to abandon something they’ve invested in, even when the rational choice might be to do so.
The endowment effect increases loyalty by blurring the lines between users’ time, effort or resources and your product. The sunk cost effect then makes users reluctant to abandon their investment, encouraging them to stick with your product.
💡 Sunk cost can sometimes backfire if users feel trapped. To mitigate this make sure to allow graceful exits (and clear cancellation policies) and to frame sunk costs positively instead of negatively (”Look at all the progress you made” vs “Look at what you’ll be loosing”).
Endowment & Sunk Cost in action
Once an initial investment is made, users are more likely to stick around for two reasons:
The investment loads the next trigger, making users more likely to respond positively to asks
The increased perceived value then leads to subsequent investments
Kickstarter reinforces investment by keeping backers engaged with progress updates. This not only reduces churn but also encourages repeat funding.
Amazon and other platforms let users save items in wishlists, subtly encouraging them to return and complete purchases. Users feel a sense of ownership over these selected items.
Best Practices for Leveraging Endowment & Sunk Cost
Reward Commitment: Introduce rewards for incremental progress, reinforcing the value of continued investment.
Highlight Milestones: Visually show users the impact of their contributions (e.g., progress bars or badges).
Create Anticipation: Introduce future benefits tied to ongoing investments (e.g., “Unlock this feature with just 2 more actions!”).
💡 Pro Tip: Keep asks small early on and prompt users with bigger asks after a win. Leverage past wins to keep users engaged.
Beyond Interfaces and Into Experiences
User experience design transcends pixels and interactions—it's a deep conversation with human psychology. By understanding and respecting cognitive mechanisms, we transform digital products from mere tools into meaningful, engaging experiences.
💡 Key takeaway: Great UX is not about what a product does, but about how it makes users feel about themselves and their capabilities.