The Science Behind Design: 8 Psychology Principles to Apply to Your Next Project

 When it comes down to it, design is all about making choices. Each color, shape, line, font, text, and graphic you use will ultimately influence the message you're trying to get across.

I’ve often been in conversations with people who know they should get better at design, but they don’t feel they have a “natural sense” for creativity. However, I argue that learning to design well has as much to do with psychology and user behavior as it does creativity.

But learning the "psychology of design" doesn’t mean picking up a playbook that'll tell you the right and wrong way to design something. That's just not the way it works.

Download the free introductory guide to marketing psychology here. 

What brushing up on psychological principles (as they relate to design) will do is help you understand what goes into the creation of intuitive, intentional design experiences. 

Want to learn more? We'll dive into a handful of psychological principles below to help you get the wheels turning.  

8 Psychological Principles That'll Change the Way You Design

1) Mental Models

Computer scientists and UX designers think and talk a lot about mental models, because the process of designing something new -- like a website layout or a new app -- requires trying to uncover and act on what users might find to be intuitive.

Mental modeling is the process of mapping out what a person understands about the real world through experience and replicating those models in the design of something in the virtual space. This is all about trying to uncover your audience’s intuitive process.

Think of your computer files and folders. They’re based on the same old-school method of organizing hard files, so it’s easy for the user to understand -- despite the visual looking rather different.