The Powerful Side Of Graphic Design

Today I will talk about the 7 powerful side of graphic design by which you can Hack People’s Brain With Graphic Design.

You’ve been tricked and I’ve been tricked. UI and UX designers continue to trick people on a daily basis. There are various different methods that are used in marketing and business by graphic designers that do hack the brains of people.

HOW TO HACK PEOPLE’S BRAIN WITH GRAPHIC DESIGN

I’m going to share with you these methods in today’s post. You might be asking why are they useful why are they important. Well because you can use them on your client projects or even on your portfolio website to boost clicks and conversions.

The first thing, I’m going to talk about is called the Decision Fatigue syndrome. This states that people tend to feel stuck or confused when presented with too many choices. When a viewer of a design or a user of an app or website has decision fatigue, it causes them to make poor choices. They then become uninterested in the media and they often abandon the design or website altogether. Obviously, that’s not a good outcome for you or your design.

So whenever you’re displaying objects or design elements. That requires the viewer to look over each one individually don’t swamp them with a huge amounts of choice. One real-life example here might be your design portfolio. Don’t throw in 20 projects to your portfolio because this can lead to decision fatigue. You want those potential clients to not become confused or disinterested in your work.

The next method is called the Center Stage Effect. Now I’m sure you’ve seen this one in action and maybe have even been encouraged to buy something because of it.

The center stage effect states that a user will often select the middle item from a choice of three. So say for example there are three different price plans on a website. Fifteen Dollars – Twenty Five Dollars and Fifty Dollars. The middle one being twenty-five dollars would appear to stand out more than the other two.

Maybe the designer will make it taller brighter and bolder in appearance. This all helps to leave the viewer subconsciously want to choose the middle choice. Of course, it’s not going to work on everyone or even the majority of people. But this middle choice will gain a lot more clicks and reversions than the other two either side. It is a tried tested and proven method and speaking of proof.

The next method is called Social Proof. It’s becoming more and more important with each passing year. It’s why you see websites proudly show their Trustpilot score on the home page. This is because not only does it show that people have a good experience with that thing. And it’s like a reliable past proof.

But also humans tend to move in heard mentalities, we do like to follow the crowd when it comes to certain things.

But how can this help you?

But if you have a portfolio website it might be a good idea to get some testimonials from past clients. Or you could get things like fellow designers to comment on your social media posts or your work. Social proof is a powerful technique once it’s applied properly.

The next technique to be aware of is called the Progressive Disclosure Effect. This talks about how people become overwhelmed when presented with complicated tasks or projects. If that complicated task is then broken down into individual tasks.

That often starts off simple and increasing complexity. It can encourage that person to stay focused and within the task itself. This can be applied to infographics brochures or leaflets. So often we have to explain something visually, and if we break it down into individual components. In a simple way then the design will become better accepted by the viewer.

Also, you can use this when you want to show how you’ve solved problems for clients in your portfolio. Break down your graphic design process into easily digestible sections. That will obviously help any potential clients easily understand your workflow.

The Von Restorff Effect is super useful across all types of design. it states that when people are shown multiple items or design elements. their brains are going to remember or recall the ones that stand out and are unlike the others. You can see this in many forms across many different forms of media. As an example in a magazine when you see a quote pulled from a group of texts.

And it’s shown to be larger, bolder or just a different color. Or of course when a call-to-action button is clearly different from the rest of the design. It’s just another tool or technique to add to your arsenal of directing. The viewer and leading them around your design.

The Ikea Effect is quite a sneaky technique. Basically, people will put extra value to something if they’ve had some kind of input into its creation. So let’s take for example a website where you download royalty-free music or imagery or videos. You will pay a monthly fee to sign up and download that material but on the website itself. You might be able to create favorite lists or categories to organize your downloads.

And this will be personal to you and your accounts. You would then be more likely to stay subscribed and maybe even make future purchases. Because you’ve had an active role in creating something on that website.

This technique can obviously be translated in many different ways across many UI designs and business projects in general.

So Miller’s Law dictates that humans can only memorize a finite amount of information.

How much information changes from person to person?

But most people can recall 3-5 bits of information at a glance. Designers should learn to limit. How much information do they present all at once, or just break things down into hierarchies of importance. So then you have things that you really want to stick in the minds of the person or the viewer. And you’d make them more obvious than everything else. You can see how all of these laws and techniques kind of intertwine into each other.