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The Psychology Behind OOUX

Delve into the cognitive science and psychology that backs up the fact that humans need clear objects to communicate, think, and understand.

Object-Oriented UX might sound kinda technical to those familiar with Object-Oriented Programming. Although OOUX is a great tool for designer/developer collaboration — this philosophy for designing digital environments is all about creating naturally intuitive user experiences that resonate with our very object-oriented brains. Designers working in pixels can break the laws of physics — which is great when it lets us do things like "undo" or search a warehouse of a bajillion products in less than a second. But sometimes, UXers brake the wrong laws of physics, leaving users confused and lost. OOUX principles and methodologies help designers bend and break the laws of physics in the right way. Read on for more of the science behind this awesome design method.

Featured Resources

Resources you'll enjoy

OOUX Happy Hour: Objects, Information, and Meaning with Marsha Haverty
OOUX Happy Hour: Objects, Information, and Meaning with Marsha Haverty
Marsha Haverty

Marsha and her team work to help designers focus on their creation process, instead of spending time managing files and versions of files — and files within files. And files that don't play nice with other files. They are wrangling constantly increasing complexity — and they are leveraging Object-Oriented UX to do it. In this talk, Marsha will show us OOUX through her expert eyes.

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Episode 015 - Living in Information with Jorge Arango
Episode 015 - Living in Information with Jorge Arango
Jorge Arango

In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Jorge discuss why the tension between top-down and bottom-up is the greatest challenge to designers, how to recognize signs that you’re working on a “greedy” product, and why social media is like a meeting that lasts forever.

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Episode 009 - Embodied Cognition with Andrew Hinton
Episode 009 - Embodied Cognition with Andrew Hinton
Andrew Hinton

In this episode, Sophia and Andrew discuss the meaning of embodied cognition, the pitfalls of being a physical creature in a digital environment, and why sometimes, creating inconsistency can help you be consistent.

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Websites are not living rooms and other lessons for information architecture
Websites are not living rooms and other lessons for information architecture
Sarah Barrett

In this article, Sarah Barrett talks about how mapping can improve digital experiences. She also tackled the 4 steps to make our digital experiences mappable.

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“Don’t dead him!” Why verbs are hard and what it means for our UX process
“Don’t dead him!” Why verbs are hard and what it means for our UX process
Sophia V. Prater

You name the language, human babies learn nouns easier and faster than verbs. In this article, Sophia explores research conducted by Dedre Gentner and lays out how her finding are relevant and important in the world of UX.

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UX for Lizard Brains (the Talk!)
UX for Lizard Brains (the Talk!)
Sophia V. Prater

Sophia outlines the four principles of intuitive design and goes deep on the subject of messy objects. Stay tuned 'til the end, when Sophia does a live demo introducing her iterative ORCA process (Objects, Relationships, Capabilities, and Attributes)!

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UX for Lizard Brains
UX for Lizard Brains
Sophia V. Prater

In the digital world, anything is possible. But if digital-space interfaces stray too far from our expectations, users will become unsure, confused, and unhappy. This article spells out why we should design with lizard brains in mind to create intuitive interfaces. (In OOUX, we have a new definition for a Broken Object. In this article, think of the Broken object as a mean Shapeshifter.)

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The Object-Oriented User
The Object-Oriented User
Sophia V. Prater

Look into how users understand and process their world, how thought, communication, understanding, and perception are all object-oriented, and how when digital design aligns with real-world objects, better UX is the result.

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The Cognitive Abilities of Human Beings - Why Some Things are so Darn Hard!
The Cognitive Abilities of Human Beings - Why Some Things are so Darn Hard!
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by Janne Jul Jensen, Ph.D.

Software engineer, UXer, and researcher Dr. Jensen explains Gestalt psychology and why it's relevant to the design of intuitive software. She gives great arguments that remind us to avoid shapeshifters and masked objects!

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Object-focused vs Task-focused Design
Object-focused vs Task-focused Design
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by Everyl Yankee

A classic piece on task-oriented navigation vs object-oriented navigation that deftly references more classic pieces of writing on the subject.

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What UX designers say about OOUX and intuitive design

More ways to get plugged in

Enroll in the Self-Paced OOUX Masterclass

This rigorous course is for UX designers, developers, and digital product people who are tackling complexity, wrangling stakeholders, and trying to make systems-level change.

Subscribe to OOUX Podcast

A dive into the weeds on UX systems, information architecture, human psychology, data wrangling, structured content, UX process, and above all simplifying the complex.

Join OOUX Happy Hour Meetup

OOUX virtual meetups feature amazing guest speakers, Q&A, discussion, networking breakout sessions, and important OOUX updates. Bring your coffee, wine, or whiskey.