Today marks the one month’s into my first UX job. I dived into UX immediately after graduating with a bachelor in Psychology. Within this month, I’ve had so many people asking me what exactly am I doing and how is this relevant or related to what I’ve studied. Eventually, I grew exhausted from answering these questions and I even came up with a standardised answer.

“Psychology is the study of human behaviour, attitudes, and emotions. UX is all about understanding the cognitive and perceptive capabilities and limitations of humans and applying these knowledge into designing systems and environments to complement the capabilities and limitations of humans.”

This week’s topic would further explore why I got into UX and how relevant Psychology can be in UX.

Firstly, what is UX?

UX, short for user experience, is all about the behaviours, attitudes, and emotions about the interaction with a product, service, or environment. It all began when Don Norman, a computer scientist and cognitive researcher, came up with the term user-centered design.

I took up Human Factors Psychology as a course module while I was still doing my Psychology Diploma in Temasek Polytechnic. I never really thought much of it initially but at the end of the course, I found myself in love with Human Factors Psychology. Eventually, I took on an internship with NUS HCI Lab and that really ignited the passion.

In UX, we use applied psychlogy, which is the use of psychological concepts and methods to solve practical problems of human behaviour and experience. Psychology concepts and theories can be applied into almost anything, from organisational behaviour, to even designing technology and engineering.

I enjoyed the applicability of what I’ve learnt in my academic years and the more I got into UX, the more I realised how relevant Psychology was to UX. The skills I’ve picked up in Psychology, such as qualitative research and cognitive psychology, were extremely useful in UX. I was also glad I could apply these knowledge into something besides writing theses and dissertations.

Cognitive Psychology is all about the study of mental processes such as human memory, perception, decision making processes and thinking. In UX, the ability to understand humans’ cognitive abilities is essential when developing a system, environment, or experience for humans. With a better understanding, we can develop something that does not strain on the cognitive abilities and also to reduce humans’ cognitive load.

Moreover, UX is all about understanding the users, and as a Psychology graduate, humans intrigue me and I’ve always wanted to understand more about humans, their behaviours and thought processes. Naturally, I felt a connection with UX as it allowed me to get into the minds of users and understand their behaviours and thoughts.

Active listening and empathy are skills that are very useful (some may say it’s a requirement). These are skills we, Psychology graduates, develop. We always empathize and put ourselves into the shoes of others. We listen to people talk about their lives, their experiences and not be judgmental. This is exactly what a UX professional does. As a UX professional, we often have to try to see things in the users’ perspectives and apply listening techniques when talking to users.

While Psychology is quite relevant to UX, not many in Psychology in Singapore do venture into UX. There is still a lack of awareness of how relevant Psychology can be to UX. I really do hope this blog can inspire more Psychology graduates to take on more applied roles and join me in the dark side, UX.

I love The Smart Local, especially their travel articles. After reading their latest post "10 Surprisingly Well-Paying Jobs Fresh Grads Can Get With A Psychology Degree" on 3rd March 2016, I simply have to write about my thoughts on it (after all, I'm a Psychology undergraduate whom is due to graduate this year).

1. This is a sponsored post by MDIS.

2. You can't be called a psychologist with just a degree.

3. Many of the jobs' pay listed are for a master's fresh grad.

4. Psychology ≠ Social Work.

5. Gov jobs are high paying but they tend to only hire local grads.

I have blogged about my road to from Polytechnic to University and I have been answering many questions with regards to that post. When I was a secondary school student, I thought Psychology was really cool. Before I went for my interview for DPA, I read up books on Psychology and got to understand it more. I felt that made me have a more informed choice about my future and I hope all of you can make better choices too.

It’s nice to see so many people being interested in Psychology because it’s a really interesting field. However, there are many misconceptions that are tied to Psychology and I think it’s always important to know what Psychology is exactly about before jumping into the course just because it seems cool.

1. We can mind read.
No we can’t. Psychology is the study of human behaviour, we don’t mind read. We can infer what you’re thinking from your actions but we don’t have the power to read your mind. We study the intention behind the actions and the different parts of the brain and the functions which may make it easier for us to interpret and infer human behaviour.

2. We can analyse your personality.
Yes, we do study personality. However, we don’t really go around analysing your personality type. There are different theories on personality, and tests to define one’s personality type and trait. We don’t go around telling you you’re an INFP or you’re a high N because blah blah.

3. We study body language.
A common misconception is that we study body language, but the truth is no. We don’t particularly study body language but there may be a brief touch on it during one of the lectures, and that’s it.

4. We work with crazy people.
No, not all of us do. Psychology is a broad field of study and there are many areas of interest. Yes, one area of Psychology involves clinical psychology, which deals with mental disorders. But that’s about it. Not all of us do clinical psychology.

5. We solve crimes.
Again, Psychology is a broad field of study, which includes Forensic Psychology. However, forensic psychology is not criminology. Criminology is the scientific study of crime while forensic psychologists mostly deal with issues such handling criminals with mental disorders or assessing the risk and evaluation of witnesses. They do criminal profiling at times but the media tends to romanticise this part. Sure, understanding human behaviour will be important to solve crimes, but if you’re only studying psychology to be part of the law enforcement, it’s not a good enough motivation to keep you in psychology.

6. We can’t do math or science, thus we chose Psychology.
That may be true to some people who ended up in Psychology, but they’ll suffer. Psychology is a science, which means we do testing to prove our hypotheses. That means lots of statistics and numbers. Yes, statistics is a huge part of psychology. I’ll say it’s the most important part of being a psychology student. You also can’t escape from science. One of our core modules involves biological psychology which we study the brain (neurons and neurotransmitters), and how our body react to certain things biologically.

In conclusion, there’s a lot more to psychology than talking to “crazy” people or solving crimes. Some Psychology modules we take in NTU include Statistics, Research Methods, Biological Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Development Psychology, Abnormal Psychology, Health Psychology, Personality, Social Psychology, Organisational Psychology, Forensic Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology and Engineering Psychology. As you can see, it’s really wide.

Honestly, I can’t say too much about the course syllabus difference between the universities because I haven’t been exposed to them. However, there are differences in what I am doing in university and what I was in polytechnic. In polytechnic, I had more guidance from lecturers and it was more practical. In university, it’s really theory-centric and there are few real life applications taught in classes. A lot of focus was on writing papers and doing research, and statistics. The only applied psychology module I took was Forensic Psychology, which I really enjoyed.

Before you go into Psychology, think about what job it offers you in the future. To practice in a clinical setting, you’ll need a postgrad. Many of us go into mindef or other government organisations after graduation.

I personally really like how NUS FASS allows students to take a year of general studies before jumping into the major. I've known people who initially wanted Psychology but switched their major because they realised Psychology wasn’t what they imagined it to be.

So my advice is to take some time and read up on Psychology before jumping into it. Note: Others' experiences with psychology may differ from mine.