Mental Tricks in UX Design. Illusion of Control

Do you believe in destiny? Do you control your life, your decisions, and your surrounding? Just imagine a scenario: scientists have invented a machine that knows the future down to the last detail, and it’s beyond your power to change it. What would you feel?

by Alec Vishmidt Psychology

Well, such thoughts send shivers down the spine… According to the statistics, 54% of people would not take pilotless flights, and 39% would never get a car ride accomplished by the autopilot system.

The thing is that we love to keep control of our lives. We want to rule life events and the world around us. It`s in our DNA and, in fact, a matter of evolution as we have continuously subordinated the world, energy, and space around us.

Down to the present, we are still strongly influenced by so-called “omnipotent control” — an unconscious belief that we can affect the environment. This particular underlying psychological process causes anxiety when we are not able to predetermine the course of life, and rewards us when we have our being well in hand.

How to Use Illusion of Control in Design?

As users, we like to get an instant system response to all our actions. We are nervous when the system we interact with, whether it’s an app or a website, doesn’t respond quickly. And do you know why? That’s because we don’t feel that we control it. In most cases, such issues can be easily fixed. But very often, we face technical restrictions: slow Internet, extensive data, computational complexity.

As users, we like to get an instant system response

The most common solution is the loading screen. It keeps us waiting, but at least we understand what’s going on — loading is in progress. But it’s still not an ideal scenario we want to deal with as people, by their nature, are impatient, and they just hate to wait. Let’s face the truth. We do not care about technologies and complex processes — we expect the result; the sooner, the better. And if the opposite happens, we will strive to find the interactive elements on another tab, browser window, app, or service which seems to be more responsive.

In such a situation illusion of control comes in handy. We should give users interactive elements and do not limit them, even if it seems to be rational. That perceived feeling of control of the system will cause user satisfaction. They also will sense some degree of comfort even despite the fact they can’t influence the process.

Give users interactive elements and do not limit them

So, how can we induce the illusion of control? How can we make the users feel it? Let’s investigate a couple of methods.

Method 1. Placebo Buttons

I bet you’ve heard about placebo buttons like “push to cross” on crossroads of Manhattan, “close doors” buttons in elevators, and fake office thermostats. Sounds like an urban legend, doesn’t it? Nope. Placebo buttons are a useful tool that you can use in design.

Let’s see how it works on a couple of examples. Having in place modern technologies, the usage of the Gmail “Refresh” button and the “Pull-to-Refresh” button in a mobile client can save us a couple of seconds. In fact, e-mail is delivered from a server almost immediately even without this action. But we keep refreshing the list again and again. That’s because we have a feeling as if we speed up the email delivery.

Give users interactive elements and do not limit them

Every generation brought up a comfortable balance between automation and control. For example, I, a representative of Generation Y, used to work with imperfect software during the times when the autosave function was working slowly. So, I’ve lost the data very often due to critical app failure, interruption of the Internet connection, or other troubles. That is why I am attuned to the necessity to save my work results.

Method 2. Incoherent Controlled Process

We don’t like to wait: the idle time is felt more lengthy as compared with the time when we are about to do something. From this perspective, mirrors are installed in the elevators. Of course, mirrors do not speed up the “ride”, but such a gimmick makes us feel engaged. A similar method we can also implement in the UX design of the systems.

A system can offer an interactive, but most importantly, an exciting process which is not related to the primary actions. It allows to keep the users within the whole process and make them get back for results. So, the users get a power of control and feel significance. They just do not wait until the process is over. Learn more about how interactive elements can enhance user engagement.

A tutorial with interesting facts about the system is an excellent example. Another spectacular example is a questionnaire. This process restrains the users and allows them to collect the information you are interested in!

The incoherent process shouldn’t be terminated unexpectedly when the primary process is over.

There are plenty of controlled process variants: from non-interactive prompting messages to mini-games. It is essential to choose an exciting and simple means to engage the users. It should be relevant and, at the same time, could be terminated at any time. Sometimes such a scenario brings more dissatisfaction than the waiting time itself.

Method 3. Redundant Actions

One more method to implement Illusion of Control is providing a user a possibility of redundant, from a technical point of view, actions. The usage of a button duplicate can be a relevant example.

Let’s imagine a standard dialogue window requesting the confirmation of any action. Here, in fact, the user can perform three but not two steps. Aside from the usual “Cancel” and “Confirm” buttons, there is a button in the form of the “X”, meaning that “I don’t want to make a decision” and closes the dialogue window. The “Cancel” button and “X” button duplicate the functionality, namely, reversion to the previous system state.

But psychologically, those actions are different. “Cancel” means that the user disapproves of an action and makes a decision not to continue. Dialogue closing means that the user is hesitating and doesn’t want to make a decision. And if you limit yourself to only one option, in this case, the user will feel discomfort: removing the “Cancel” button, you don’t offer a choice to deny, but by removing the “X” button, you take away a possibility not to make a decision, to keep a status quo. Learn more about redundant actions and the principles of good interface design in the BN Manifesto article

A lot of control elements can cause a reverse effect: the users might have some difficulties when it comes to choosing which one to use from the very beginning.

A detailed description of this issue you can find in the article about duplicate links written by Hoa Lorangen, VP of Nilsen Norman Group.

Can’t Evoke Illusion of Control? This is what you should do

• One more method to implement Illusion of Control is providing a user with the possibility of redundant, from a technical point of view, actions. The usage of a button duplicate can be a relevant example.
• Build the best loader ever. Even if you do not have control over something, you think highly of predictability which means the well-thought-out process of loading. You can find more related information in the articles of Think 360 and Nielsen Norman Group studios.
• Use a system as a cover-up. The vast majority of services and programs are working in some environment, whether it be a browser or an operating system. In fact, you can use the same loader as the system does. As a result, a negative user experience will be related to a system fault, not on service!
• Design an eye-catching animation. You can take away the user’s attention with some visually pleasing effects. That way, you shift the focus from the expectancy to something else. Animation meets the case in the best way possible for this purpose.

Take Away

A feeling of control is essential to each of us. It is even more important on an intuitive rather than on logical level. Sometimes, providing this emotion to the users is more critical than the control itself. By designing a user experience, we can provide the feeling of control through a set of useful tools.