Bottlenecks: Aligning UX Design with User Psychology

This is THE go-to reference for anyone whose task is visual or electronic communication. David Evans has specifically created a resource targeting the host of professionals whose task is to convey memes (i.e., any “idea, . . .invention, [or]. . .particle of culture”) into public awareness; and not only to convey them but also to ensure reception of those memes, and foster their retention in memory and integration in the viewer’s behavior. In other words, bloggers, webmasters, marketing personnel, game creators, trainers, PR personnel, software developers, filmmakers, entertainers and a host of other specialists. I would add that anyone whose job involves education would be well-served by this resource. If you need to adopt the most effective, most powerful principles to convey your message, Dr. Evans has produced an encyclopedic compendium of the most critical research from the fields of perception, psychology, neuroscience, optics, motivation, attention, communication theory, computer sciences, and a good deal more. Despite the rather dry and academic sound of the foregoing description, Evans’ has produced a lively and highly readable work. He clearly has taken his own best advice in the design and execution of this resource. Adopting a “voice” of the end user, Evans leads the reader through a clinic of what to do and what not to do, with real-world examples. The result is both a road map of how to create the most effective and lasting communications and a reference manual for specific “bottlenecks” (his term for the things that impede viewer acquisition of memes). It is clear that Dr. Evans not only knows the talk, he has “walked the walk” in the trenches of industry, education, product development and marketing. He distills highly technical information into readily understandable and practical tools that have direct application. As a psychologist and educator, I am enormously impressed by this very welcome resource. It occupies a ready-access place in my own professional library. Richard Guest,, Ph.D.

It took me a while to go through the book and I wanted to write the review after finishing the reading so that I could give a fair review. I am from the field of Instructional design and got really interested in UX design/research this June. This is my first UX book that a friend strongly recommend to build up my UX knowledge. Though I've got a digital version from my university library, I immediately got a hard copy after reading the first several chapters. Now, I want to recommend this book to you as a MUST have to expand your personal UX library. After taking two UX courses (foundational reading + design studio), I found this book even more interesting. Dr. Evans (who is also a practitioner in UX research for many years) mapped out design strategies by showing the daily things we see from the perspective of user psychology. It really WOWed me a lot of times when I was like, "that's exactly how it should be!" He explained psychology in a tone that everyone can understand. From this book, I was able to tell that the UX design principles (I learned from my UX courses) are integrated with and supported by all different types of design examples. I feel like this book can satisfy different readers' needs whether you only want to know some tricks in design, or to learn some foundational psychological theories in understanding how users interact with products/systems. It also provided me insight into UX research in terms of how people behave in.a certain ways and why do they do that. I recently learned that psychology is one of the core disciplines that contributed to Human-computer interaction (HCI), and speaking even more broadly, to the accumulated understandings of user experience design. It is also one of a main disciplines that instructional design is built on. My previous design projects were mainly focused on learning & teaching, while the principles and strategies I learned from this book can be definitely applied to learning experience design as well. I've recommended it to my UX and ID friends and strongly recommend you to have one copy if you are working on any design related work.

This book provides the best synthesis to date of (a) empirical findings from psychology and (b) user-centered design-thinking for products based on information technology. Content-wise this book gets it right. However, there is one stylistic issue that detracts from its strengths. The author explains that he wanted to write the as if the content is being stated by 'we', the population of potential users, to a target reader conceived as a product designer or manager who most needs to be enlightened by this information. But this technique fails in practice, causing more awkwardness and confusion than clarity. The problem is that the author is describing complex concepts and findings from scientific research in psychology, with a highly technical, sophisticated vocabulary. It therefore fails any sense of fittingness or plausibility that 'we' the mass of all users would have — or even care about — such specialized knowledge that is needed by designers, but not by us as users. It also makes the author sound like an inauthentic politician, or a kind of aspiring bureaucratic 'expert' who believes his specialized knowledge authorizes him to speak for mass populations. But the bottom line is, as noted above, that the content is excellent, and the author has provided great value to designers with it.

Bottlenecks: Aligning UX Design with User Psychology by David Evans details the core psychological principles that can dictate the difference between successful and unsuccessful digital experiences of all kinds (websites, apps, games, hardware). Evans highlights the key elements that will prevent a user from discovering, understanding, connecting with, or remembering a digital experience. By understanding these bottlenecks, UX designers and researchers as well as entrepreneurs and creators at all levels can learn how to overcome user challenges and set themselves up for success. While this book may be most valuable to those who create and analyze various types of digital experiences, the many case studies, visual examples, and approachable tone, make it a book for everyone interested in the intersection of technology and psychology. Evans also provides tools so readers can better understand how they might personally react to different experiences and be better prepared to defend their limited time and money. In Bottlenecks, Evans presents an excellent overview of prominent psychological works and how they are relevant for UX design today. Having a refresher or introduction to studies by Cialdini, Skinner, Maslow, and others is an added benefit of this book. As people are increasingly exposed to a multitude of messages and digital experiences, it is important to understand how they become aware of and process information. Bottlenecks will help readers explore how the brain and sensory systems work to curate this overwhelming content into knowledge and enjoyment.

Bottlenecks: Aligning UX Design with User Psychology takes user experience one step further by giving in-depth detail behind the psychology of how users experience and interact with technology. Each chapter focuses on a different subject, allowing readers to apply what they have learned step by step. I love the use of real-life examples that I can apply to my life when designing user studies. It is clear that David writes from a place of knowing his readers and knowing the importance of more than just the physical design. David's use of graphics and examples really resonated with me and allowed me to gain a visual understanding of his main points. Not only will this book teach you a lot about the ins and outs behind UX psychology, but it will also provide a guide for your next project, as you will put more thought into the end user. Highly recommend!

As a recent college graduate with a BS in Psychology and a minor and Computer Science, I can say that this book brought a lot of real-world insight to how we can apply simple psychological concepts in the design everyday products to make our daily use of applications, websites, and overall technology a productive and intuitive addition to our lives rather than a burden or something inefficient one has to struggle through to get the end result. If you are debating getting this book, just do it! The amount of insight in Bottlenecks is immeasurable. The structure and language is extremely easy to absorb as David (author) covers dense psychological and design principles. The way he applies one to the other and shows the reader through examples we have lived through or struggled with really allows the concepts to sync with readers more easily than other similar books. The perspective this book has is unique but very important. I found the content immensely invaluable - I have been and will continue to share what I've learned in Bottlenecks with peers, family, and those in my workspace. Thank you, David, for creating an easily digestible book with such important content!

I have been scouring the internet for resources on user onboarding best practices and I came across this book. I have since carried it around with me where ever I go! Each chapter is very focused on a specific topic with enough information to get your brain going on how you might test the theories on your own products. A fun read even with deep topics like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Erik Erikson's Life Questions. Highly recommend this for anyone hoping to design products that will bring value to people's lives!

Great UX book! I would recommend it to anyone interested in learning about UX and psychology and in making theory-driven UX decisions rather than tapping around in the dark! :)

Interesting book, I some really cool ideas about visual and social limitations on how our systems are used and shared!

Un livre essentiel pour tous ceux qui souhaitent mieux comprendre et optimiser leurs UX et UI dans une démarche essentiellement user-centric.

I paid about INR 1000 for this book. Based on the quality of paper on which this book was printed. The MRP should have been around INR 400. (good price for most Indian edition academic books printed on such quality paper). The less rating is given due to the expensive Indian edition.

Ottima lettura per chi lavora nel settore, riferimenti sensati e scritto bene. Uno di quei testi da tenere a portata di mano.

This is a must-have for any user experience or conversion rate optimization specialist. Even if you are familiar with some of the concepts the way they are presented and the ubiquitous examples and case-studies make it a really good read.