What is design psychology? Thomas Watkins of 3Leaf compares it to ergonomics—both fields aim to make products feel as comfortable as possible for their users. Where ergonomics is concerned with things like the shape of your office chair’s back or the height of its armrests, design psychology is all about making software experiences more intuitive and reducing cognitive load.

This week on the podcast, Thomas chatted with Erin and JH about the similarities and differences between design psychology and UX research, risks and need-to-knows for psychologists transitioning into business research, the power of mental models, and more.

Highlights

[01:08] What is design psychology?
[05:44] Similarities and differences between design psychology and UX research
[08:32] Practical examples: Superiority effect, perpetual intermediates, mental loads
[13:59] What psychologists need to learn to thrive in business research
[18:26] Risks of applying design psychology in UX
[26:03] Why Thomas likes bringing his expertise to UX research
[26:59] The power of mental models like JTBD

About our guest

Thomas Watkins is UX architect and Principal and Founder of 3Leaf. He is a life-long learner who has a passion for bringing greater clarity to the world. Thomas has made it his career’s focus to combine technology with design psychology in order to drive business success. He specializes in helping his business partners bring their own brilliant ideas to life, by translating complexity into simplicity. The scope of his work has included interface design for mobile, SaaS system architecture, usability research, and data visualization.

#91 - Design Psychology with Thomas Watkins of 3Leaf