Cognitive schemas @ website usability

QUESTIONSThe usability researcher always tries to get involved with the user’s thinking. One of the most important parts of research is to access the user’s cognitive schemas.

– What are these cognitive schemas?– Why should we know them, and how could we access, measure and research them?– How and why determine our cognitive processes with online surfaces in the �rst place?Above all: how can we use these data in information architecture planning / web design / usability / UX? How can this help us solve design problems?

Successful products will be ones that take the user into consideration

o�ine (ergonomy) online (cognitive ergonomy / software ergonomy)Relationship between man and technology » not sensomotor but » cognitive level!The aim is to create compatibility between human thinking and the computer program.

We move about di�erently in the online surface than we do o�ine » Redundant cognitive operations... » Invisible interface?between human thinking and the computer program.

Ergonomic interface: we like it more

Moreover: » we get better performance in a more e�cient system

In order to create this, we need to know the user.

We can access cognition by: Accessing cognitive schemasOrientation is usually guided by unconscious strategies (psychology of perception): » we do not use emphases consciously, » instead, orientation is governed by so-called cognitive schemas » thus, e.g., what we look for and where we try to �nd it on a given digital surface – as a stereotypical situation.

“The term schema is used to refer to well integrated chunks of knowledge about the world, events, people, and actions.” Eysenck – Keane

According to Piaget, schemas are the frameworks through which we perceive the world, ranging from an early re�ex to a complex philosophical concept. Cognitive schemas used in more complex forms of action are the patterns of thought and planning that behavior is presumably based on.

Aim: to create simple, explicit surfaces.However: to whom is it explicit? To the designer? Or the user?Objective: » to learn about the general ways of online thinking » to avoid unnecessary cognitive steps

General online way of thinking in practice, examples:Visual aspects, layout (these rules have become almost compulsory by now). » place of the site logo; place of search function » home: the �rst item of the navigation bar » expected system of primary and secondary navigation » links (colour, underlined)Other issues, e.g. the process of online shopping

But: Research is the way to explore what is evident to the user in a given environment, on a given surface (eg. eye tracking, online focus group researches and methods).Based on: getting to know users and their ways of thinking, and testing the surfaces while under construction.

Europe's Seventh Information Architecture SummitPrague, Czech Republic, September 23-24, 2011

Csilla HerendyCorvinus University of Budapest

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