1.1b: Psychological Factors

1.1b
Psychological Factors

Human beings vary psychologically in complex ways. Any attempt by designers to classify people into groups merely results in a statement of broad principles that may or may not be relevant to the individual. Design permeates every aspect of human experience and data pertaining to what cannot be seen such as touch, taste, and smell are often expressions of opinion rather than checkable fact.

The analysis of the human information processing system requires a designer to critically analyse a range of causes and effects to identify where a potential breakdown could occur and the effect it may have.

Methods of Collecting Psychological Data

Nominal Scales

Nominal scales are used for labelling variables without any quantitative value - they are simply named or labelled. All of these scales are mutually exclusive in the sense that there is no overlap and none of them have any numerical significance.

Example of Nominal Scale

Interval Scales

Interval scales are numeric scales in which we know not only the order, but the exact differences between the values. The classic example of an interval scale is Celsius temperature because the difference between each value is the same. 

Interval Scale

Ordinal Scales

Ordinal scales place an importance on the order of the values on a scale. They are typically measures of non-numeric concepts like satisfaction, happiness, discomfort, etc.

Example of Ordinal Scale

Ratio Scales

Ratio scales tell us the order, the exact value between units, and they also have an absolute zero - which allows for a wide range of both descriptive and inferential statistics to be applied.

Ratio Scale

Methods of Collecting Psychological Factor Data

• Interviews

An interview involves asking people questions to find out about their experiences and attitudes. One problem of interviewing people is the concern of participants to tell the interviewer what they think is socially acceptable or desirable.

• Surveys or questionnaires

These require subjects to read questions and mark their answers. Some psychologists observe behavior and mental processes by administering standardized tests.

• Observation
• Standardised tests
• Case Studies