How User Psychology Shapes the Apps and Websites You Use Every Day
Think of the last time you opened a new app or website. You probably knew exactly how to use it. Nobody gave you a tutorial. You didn’t need any instructions. You just figured it out.
It’s no coincidence. The people who designed those apps and websites made intentional decisions about color, layout, button size, spacing, and everything else you see — all based on how your brain works.
This is user psychology. And you see it all the time: self-checkouts at grocery stores, bank ATMs, or even the Coca-Cola Freestyle Machine. Once you notice it, you’ll realize that user design and human psychology are everywhere you look. In this article, we’ll uncover the hidden psychology behind apps and websites you use every day, what you can do with a degree in psychology, and how Champlain College’s program allows you to pair your studies in human behavior with other interests.
How User Psychology Shapes the Apps and Websites You Use Every Day
What Is User Experience (UX) Design?
User experience, or UX for short, is exactly what it sounds like: the experience a person has while using a product, app, or website. The term was coined by Don Norman, Apple’s User Experience Architect, in the early 1990s, and became a core part of Apple’s design process for its new products. UX is a discipline, a job title, and a design philosophy all at once. But it’s also all about people, too, which is where psychology comes in.
What Does Psychology Have to Do with UX?
Psychology is the study of human behavior: how we think, feel, act, and make decisions. And UX designers constantly borrow from psychology. They study how people process visual information, what makes a decision feel overwhelming, why certain colors trigger certain emotions, and how quickly the brain forms a first impression. Every time a designer decides where to place a button or how many options to include in a menu, there’s a psychological principle behind it.
The Psychology Principles Behind Every App and Website
The apps you use every day are the result of teams of people (designers, researchers, writers, and engineers) who rely on psychology to make many of their decisions.
Active Engagement
From the moment we’re born, we learn about the world through touch. As babies, we grab and squeeze every object we can get our hands on (and sometimes, put it in our mouths). So when it comes to interactive technology, leaning into that natural human instinct makes sense. Think about the emergence of touchscreens, for example. By replacing the computer mouse with our fingers, touchscreen devices made users feel more connected to products, like they were interacting with technology directly.
According to psychologists, this builds trust and a sense of ownership with users, creating a personal connection to the device — something a mouse and keyboard can’t. Now, with just your fingers, you can tap, drag, scroll, pinch, and zoom on your phone. These gestures probably felt instinctive and natural the first time you did them, and tech company Apple understood this better than anyone. When the original iPhone launched, that psychology was built into every smart device.
Familiarity Feels Good
We’re creatures of habit. Our brains are wired to recognize patterns, which saves our brain energy. This is why UX designers follow established patterns rather than completely reinvent the wheel with every new app or website, something psychologists refer to as mental models. Some examples include:
Icons and symbols
- The shopping cart in the corner of the screen
- Magnifying glass for search
- Trash can for deleted photos, messages, or files
- The home button
- Gear or wrench for settings
Interaction patterns
- Pull-to-refresh
- Infinite scrolling
- Double-tapping to like posts
- Swiping
Visual patterns
- Grayed-out buttons signaling that something is unavailable
- Progress bars indicating loading or completion
- Toggle switches that look like light switches
Structural Patterns
- Bottom navigation bar
- Logo in the top left corner (usually brings you back to the homepage)
You’ve probably encountered many of these examples before. There’s a reason why they’ve stuck around all this time. As the old saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Hick’s Law
More options might sound better, but psychologists William Edmund Hicks and Ray Hyman found the opposite is often true: the more choices you present to a person, the longer it takes them to decide. This is known as Hick’s Law, and it’s a guiding principle for UX designers. By limiting options and guiding users step by step through a decision, they prevent users from getting overwhelmed and experiencing decision fatigue. The best app and website user designs are simple and clear, preventing users from getting lost and getting them exactly where they need to be.
Gestalt Principles
Before you read even a single word on a screen, your brain has already grouped, ordered, and interpreted the visual information in front of you. That’s the Gestalt principles at work. Developed by German psychologists in the early 20th century, Gestalt theory describes how humans naturally organize visual elements: grouping things that are close together, connecting things that look similar, and filling in gaps to complete incomplete shapes. UX designers use these principles to create visual hierarchy, guide the eye, and make interfaces feel organized even when there’s a lot going on.
Did You Know?
First of His Name
Don Norman was the first person to have “user experience” in his job title. He was truly a pioneer of human-centered design, earning him the title “Father of User Experience.”
Cognitive Load
Our brains hate being overwhelmed. This is a feeling psychologists call cognitive load, and it’s one of the most important ideas in design. Your working memory, the part of your brain that processes new information, has a limit. When an app or website throws too much information at you at once, users get frustrated. Designers prevent this by organizing information, using clear labels and categories, and making sure the most important content is the first thing you see. The goal is always to reduce the effort required to get something done.
Color Psychology
Colors, copy, and animations are all tools designers use to shape how you feel while using an app or website. When they do, they’re applying deep psychological research on visual and sensory cues to their work. App designers use color to direct attention, set emotional tone, and guide behavior, often without users ever noticing.
How UX Designers Use Color
| Color | Psychological association | Common uses in UX |
| Red | Urgency, danger, passion | Error messages, sale badges |
| Green | Nature, growth, safety | Confirmation messages, finance, wellness |
| Blue | Trust, calm, reliability | Banks, healthcare, tech |
| Black | Elegance, sophistication, authority | Luxury, fashion, tech, editorial |
| White | Simplicity, clean, openness | Minimalism, healthcare, tech |
Where Will Your Curiosity Take You?
Your Major, Your Way
With 30 flexible credits built into your psychology degree, you’ll have the freedom to pair it with other interests like game design, business, or cybersecurity, and design an academic experience that’s uniquely yours.
Our Learning Approach
Try This the Next Time You Open an App
Before you start scrolling, take a few seconds and look. Notice what your eye goes to first. Think about why a button is the size it is, why certain things are grouped together, or how the color palette makes you feel.
Someone made every one of those decisions deliberately. All based on research, psychology, and a deep understanding of how our brains work. The people who make those decisions? They didn’t all start out knowing exactly what they wanted to do. They just got curious about people. That curiosity is a good place to start.
Frequently Asked Questions
-
What jobs can you get with a background in psychology and UX?
Quite a few. The psychology UX pipeline opens doors to roles like UX researcher, UX designer, product designer, customer experience strategist, and human-computer interaction specialist. These positions exist across industries such as tech companies, agencies, healthcare, finance, nonprofits, and more. As more organizations prioritize human-centered design, demand for people who understand both behavior and digital products continues to grow.
-
What jobs can you get with a degree in psychology?
With a psychology degree, you’ll have opportunities across nearly every industry. Graduates go on to careers in human resources, market research, brand strategy, education, criminal justice, health services, and more. If you’re interested in clinical work or specialized fields like neuropsychology or forensic psychology, a psychology degree also sets you up for graduate school.
-
Do you need a graduate degree to work in psychology?
That depends on the role. A bachelor’s degree in psychology can lead to a wide range of careers right out of college. However, other roles, like licensed therapist, clinical psychologist, or neuropsychologist, do require graduate-level education.
Build a Career Around Understanding People at Champlain College
If psychology and UX both sound compelling, the good news is you don’t have to choose between one or the other. At Champlain, our Psychology program is built for that kind of thinking: cross-disciplinary, curious, and career-focused from day one. You’ll build a strong foundation in psychological science, developing skills in research methods, critical thinking, and a deep understanding of what drives human behavior. With 30 flexible credits built into the major — a full year’s worth of courses — you have the freedom to pair psychology with UX, or take it in a different direction.
Plus, with both a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science available, you’ll also have a clear path forward — whether that leads to graduate school, clinical psychology, or a career that’s entirely your own.
Psychology Careers Start Here
Fill out the form below to receive more information about our Psychology degree program.
Author
More Inside The View
Ideas
From the minds of our students, faculty, and alumni.
News
The latest from Champlain College.
People
Champlain is more than just a place; it's a community.
Places
On campus, in Burlington, and beyond.
Events
Check out our many campus events and get involved! Refine your search by using the filters or monthly view options.
Feedback Keeps You Coming Back
Psychology tells us that positive reinforcement shapes behavior, and UX designers know this. Whether it’s the chime when you receive a message or the heart animation when you like a photo, these small moments of feedback are all rooted in behavioral psychology. Notifications play a huge role in this, too: someone likes your photo, or mentions you in a comment. Every notification is intentional. They signal that something worked, give you a little hit of satisfaction, and keep you coming back.
Social Proof
Humans are social creatures. Naturally, we look to other people to figure out what’s safe and worth our time. UX designers understand this well. When you’re shopping online, star ratings, reviews, testimonials, and follower numbers are all forms of social proof rooted in social psychology’s principle of conformity. When you see that a product has 4.6 stars and hundreds of reviews, your brain tells you, “other people vetted this, so it’s probably fine.” UX designers build this into user interfaces to put people at ease and show trustworthiness.