Anticipatory Design And Cognitive Load Link
Developers have been championing the Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY) andKeep It Simple, Stupid (KISS) principles for years, and it’s time to bring that painless logic to the way our users interact with what we’re building. Give it some thought: if we ask users to complete a task more than once within any given process, isn’t that an inefficient use of their time? Similarly, isn’t it redundant to ask someone what they prefer when you have collected that information in the past?
In psychology, we use the term cognitive load to describe the amount of mental effort being used in the working memory at any given moment in time. For everyone involved in user experience design, cognitive load is a crucial consideration. Are we doing everything in our power to relieve the strain caused by learning something new to use our product? How can we reduce the number of elements that our users need to worry about at any given time? Reducing cognitive load is one of the cornerstones of anticipatory design, as it helps create a more pleasurable experience by foreseeing our users’ needs.