Strengthening behavioral cues in UX web design with Gestalt principles

25-second history of Gestalt psychology
The field of Gestalt Psychology aims to explain how the mind perceives and organizes visual, auditory and somatosensory stimuli. As web designers and user experience (UX) professionals, you will find the research of Gestalt Psychology to be an invaluable tool as you go about optimizing not only your product’s usability but also its engagement. Introduced around the 1910s, it is credited to the work of psychologists Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler. Gestalt, German for “form,” gives us insight into how to orchestrate user experiences by exploring the relationship between a given stimulus and the cognitive response of the user.

Intro to emotional grouping

- Law of Proximity
Objects near each other tend to be grouped together. - Law of Similarity
Similar items tend to be grouped together. - Law of Closure
Objects grouped together are seen as a whole. - Law of Continuity
Lines are seen as following the smoothest path. - Law of Common Region
Items in similar areas tend to be grouped together. - Law of Connectedness
Items that are connected are seen as groups.



(Images: wolf, bunny) Applying these theories enables you to strengthen behavioral cues in engagement design and to increase your conversions, strengthen brand engagement, achieve world domination or whatever else your goal may be.

Strengthen behavioral cues with emotional engagement via Gestalt
By cognitively grouping emotional triggers with behavioral triggers or with calls to action, you can strengthen the legitimacy of the request and persuade the user into taking the next step. This creates higher conversions for things like email sign-ups and purchases: steps in which users invest something of themselves in the relationship with the platform, as opposed to simple click-troughs or navigation-based behavior.

Emotional contagion in web design
So, how does it work? Why are some visual images so compelling, while others are not? Strong visual imagery and emotionally engaging text help to create “emotional contagion” with the user. Emotional contagion is a psychological phenomenon that basically boils down to this: emotions are contagious. In other words, the kitten up there just infected you with a case of the mean blues. You can almost hear it thinking, “Take me home. Love me. Become my paparazzi, and create gratuitous lolcat memes from my happy times.” Even if you aren’t a cat person, it would be hard not to feel some sort of sympathy for its plight. The ASPCA knows the power of sad animal eyes; it relies on the imagery time and time again in its campaigns. The example above uses a photograph, but illustrations and logos can also help to create emotional states in users. An example of this is LessAccounting’s home page (as suggested by @JbirdDesign).

In a nutshell
By understanding the perceptive organization involved in the cognitive process, we can develop stronger strategies for emotional and behavioral triggers in our user experiences.- Coupling emotional and behavioral triggers in some form of cognitive grouping — whether by proximity, similarity or something else — strengthens the motivation to act on the behavioral cue.
- Industry standards aren’t necessarily the most emotionally engaging, as seen in the YouTube embedding comparison above. Learn to curate your experiences, instead of subscribing to a standard.
- Gestalt principles can help UX professionals leverage trust to increase sales-based conversions.
Shell Grenier
Written exclusively for WDD by Shell Grenier. Shell is a compulsive adventurer, gardener, sender of happies and seeker of swoon. She writes and speaks on emotional engagement and technology for various international media and conferences. She enjoys meeting new people on Twitter, so go meet her @shellgreenier.
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