100 Things: Every Designer Needs to Know About People

If a problem requires “out of the box” thinking, then you need to remove it temporarily from conscious awareness.

• Always provide progress indicators so people know how much time something is going to take.

• If possible, make the amount of time it takes to do a task or bring up information consistent, so people can adjust their expectations accordingly.

• To make a process seem shorter, break it up into steps and have people think less. It’s mental processing that makes something seem to take a long time.

If You Don’t Provide Categories, People will Create Their Own