Design for Flow

Flow, a mental state, first proposed by psychology professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi; is characterized by a distorted sense of time, a lack of self-consciousness, and complete engagement in the task at hand. Often measured as a function of the emotional outcome, Flow is a useful tool to understand User Experience.

These are the slides of my talk at the UX India conference, held in Bangalore, at IIM Bangalore campus, October 24th-26th

Transcript

1. DESIGN FOR FLOW @kshitiz #uxindia13 Talk delivered at UX India Conference, October 25th, 2013
2. Currently I head : INDIA STUDIO! Otherwise I have a few startup initiatives
4. Origin of this term?
6. Marcus Arelius in his writings 'the Meditations’, wrote a lot about the flow of thoughts and happiness and he concluded that "most things flow naturally" and in his opinion it was better to "Go with the Flow" than to try and change society.
7. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Hungarian, Professor of psychology Today we are going to speak about
8. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi How do you say his name?
9. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Me-high Chick-sent-me-high
10. FLOW The psychology of optimal experience
11. FLOW The psychology of optimal experience His most famous work Was done to study happiness in people
12. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy. - M Csikszentmihalyi, Flow, 1990
13. Good UX à Happy people
14. Design for people, emotions, behaviors. Do not design for technology
15. But its easier said than done… So let us go a bit deeper into understanding this
16. What actually goes on in the human mind, when we are looking at designing for happiness
17. Going from this
18. To this
19. Look into a cognitive, psychological & behavioral understanding of what builds a good UX  
20. Our mental and emotional states M Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow, 1997
21. These states are controlled by CONSCIOUSNESS
22. These states are controlled by CONSCIOUSNESS What is CONSCIOUSNESS ?
23. CONSCIOUSNESS is a Phenomenological construct
24. It is dependent on phenomena : Subjective experiences of the individual
25. Order in the Consciousness à GOOD UX Disorder in the Consciousness à BAD UX
26. MASTERY OVER CONSCIOUSNESS à HAPPINESS Mastery of the Consciousness à Happiness
27. More than anything else, men and women seek happiness - Socrates, 2300 years ago
28. Optimal experience depends upon ability to control what happens in the consciousness each moment
29. How does Consciousness work? How is it controlled?
30. CONSCIOUSNESS : Where pain and pleasure both reside
31. Users actions are based on INSTINCT : What we feel is right, the inner voice
32. Information theory helps in understanding what really happens in the consciousness
33. What interests us, is how sensory data (what we experience through our senses) are collected processed, stored and used
34. Consciousness is a place for ordered information à Responds to subjectively experienced reality
35. The consciousness processes INFORMATION BITS
36. COGNITIVE LOAD : Too much information to process à Leads to CHAOS
37. CHAOS creates DISCONTENT: facilitated by chronic dissatisfaction and anxiety
38. OVERCOMING the anxiety : RECLAIMING the experience
39. But not everything we are presented with, is processed by the Consciousness
40. The processing of information by the Consciousness is INTENTION
41. Our INTENTIONs decide the ATTENTION spans and time we give to a task
42. But there are limits of Consciousness : How much information bits can the human mind (central nervous system) process ?
43. Shortest time it takes to discriminate between one set of information bit and other is about 1/18th of a second
44. One can process upto 126 bits of information per second = 7560 bits per minute = Almost half a million per hour = 185 billion bits of information in a lifetime * * Assumption: Lifespan = 70years, and 16 hours or active waking time each days
45. 185 billion bits of information in a lifetime !!!! Seems a lot, but it is not! To understand what the other person is saying, 40 bits of information are processed each second.
46. Information is processed by the consciousness because we give it ATTENTION
47. ATTENTION is Psychic energy, that decides what information bits need to be processed and tells the consciousness what to do
48. The more you complicate the information, the more difficulty the consciousness has in processing it!
49. COMPLEXITY is a result of differentiation and Integration in Information. Differentiation à Move towards uniqueness Integration à Union of old vs new, other ideas, preconceived impressions
50. COMPLEXITY à Disorder in Consciousness We call it PSYCHIC ENTROPY
51. Removing Psychic Entropy in Consciousness, is optimal experience and it leads to FLOW
52. DESIGNING FOR FLOW = BETTER UX
53. HOW ?
55. Takeaway #1 Think about the Consciousness when you design
56. Takeaway #2 The goal is mastery of this consciousness through design decisions
57. Takeaway #3 How can you control the users intentions? Design for it.
58. Takeaway #4 Think on how much attention should be given to each task?
59. Takeaway #5 Think about Information Bits that the consciousness is processing
60. Takeaway #6 Reduce cognitive load to remove Chaos in consciousness
61. Takeaway #7 Avoid Complexity and reduce Psychic entropy
62. Takeaway #8 Overcome anxiety of the customer!
63. Takeaway #9 Help them reclaim the experience
64. Takeaway #10 Spread Happiness J
65. THANK YOU! Go with the flow! Connect with me on