With increasing product market saturation, innovations are welcomed. Especially when it comes to user experience (UX), a factor not many companies take for granted nowadays. It speaks volumes about what little details can tip the scales for a digital product. The Baader-Meinhof effect is something you can overlook at first glance but it’s essential when it comes to users and the app’s performance.
What is the Baader-Meinhof effect?
The Baader-Meinhof effect is typically associated with social perception. It’s also known as the “Frequency Effect” or even the “Frequency Illusion Effect”. In plain terms, it allows designers to drive the quality of applications indirectly. Not by physically making them better (that’s actually the next step in the process) but rather by observing the impact of features and consciously increasing knowledge about this impact. The deeper the product team dives into the rabbit hole, the increased chance of polishing interactions with the app and user experience.
The main thing about the Baader-Meinhof effect is the frequency (hence the second name of the process). The more people are accustomed to a solution, the more they spot it in the environment. For example: if they see the cogs icon, they can immediately link it to the “Options” feature. They don’t have to think about it, that’s how things are. The more frequently users are exposed to a solution, the more natural it becomes for them.
In the context of UX, this means that you can use trends, design patterns, and tools for creating integration with the app in a way that is predictable to the audience. This way, even new forms of interaction can be quickly adopted by people, because they won’t be different from what they already know.
A good example would be a Vision OS from Apple. It’s totally new grounds for the company (a brand new product category) but the software is largely built on past experiences. Therefore, the more something changes, the more it stays the same. The more users know and trust presented solutions, the more eager they are to use the app. Finally – they are more engaged, especially financially (even to the point of upselling).
The Baader-Meinhof effect in the UX context
An important detail – although the phenomenon is based on gravitating towards known factors, it also has a second side. Users tend to also crop what they consider interesting to them and filter out the rest. This selective attention allows you to introduce innovations. Entire applications can be built around this concept, not to mention single features. Users appreciate what’s comfy but also want to be stimulated with new. They gravitate towards stimulants fueled with curiosity. Balance the app while implementing this concept and you have gold.
The second important factor is confirmation bias. People seek not only what’s known to them but also what they believe is true. If you have the gear icon and place behind it payment not options, people will not only get confused. They will become distrustful. Users seek out information and proofs that support their beliefs. If you make a mistake, you simply dig a hole under the app.
The third and final factor in this section is about acting on unreliable information. Trends in UX/UI or broadly, business-wise can be valid and important but also quickly fade. You don’t need to base your design or the entire business model and UX wrapped around it just because the market says so at the moment. Get comprehensive research, compare information, adapt the application, and observe reactions to changes. Most importantly – trust foundations, not passing fashion.
Priming – the key to modern UX/UI
Modern application designers don’t want to just create reliable products. Everyone with skill can do that. It’s fairly easy to be honest. The key is to influence the audience to perform specific actions. It’s called priming – something used to make something happen. It doesn’t get simpler than this.
It’s about subconsciously making a person behave in a way you want. in the context of UX, it means designing user experience in such a way that it helps the users to complete actions you wish them to take. Note that priming isn’t about telling people what to do. It’s the influence, not order. Whispering, not pointing in the direction.
Priming is based on the science behind how our minds work. We are rational beings but even more so, emotional ones. Our decisions are driven by facts but the most important ones come to life from observations. Yes, emotions too, but observations.
In the context of UX priming means designing an interface that guides the customer, subconsciously, toward a certain action. It means giving a person the signals that subtly influence them into making a purchase, signing up for a service, or any other action you may desire.
Priming is used to make the user experience intuitive so you do not have to give instructions, which leads to people falling in love with the experience on your website or application. There are techniques that can help you achieve this goal.
Priming techniques – the Baader-Meinhof effect in the wild
The perfect user experience is maintained without giving any instructions. That is the ultimate aim of priming. Let’s dive in.
- Availability heuristic. It refers to our brain’s tendency to weigh easily and recently available information, more than old information. The memory that is the most easily available will be the most effective. For many of us, and rightfully so, the first thought or memory, tends to be the most important one. For example, driving a car with information about the accident on the road ahead in the radio, makes us go slower and more carefully.
This translates to the business and marketing solution: remind users of the problem they facing and give them your app as a remedy. The prompt will make them face the problem and look for a permanent solution, benefits of the app will make them consider your proposal.
2. Attentional bias. Attentional bias means that the recurring thoughts in our brains change how we perceive reality. You may have noticed that usually, the person who hates something is the first one to notice it. It’s because people not like something are more eager to spot it or even effectively look for it. Even if they want to brag about it and feel relieved.
Now… If you plan on acquiring users, don’t mention an email or an optional newsletter that goes along with signing up. People will spot it if they want to. Don’t overplay the hand. Even more so, remove signs of a newsletter or optional emails in spaces that are not directly linked with these.
3. Illusory truth effect. The illusory truth effect is that a statement is considered the truth if it is repeated often – regardless of whether it is actually true or not.
If you’re convinced you have something here – say it. Don’t even say you have the best product on the market (although you absolutely can). Say something like “The most practical way to swap currency between Africa and UE”. Then repeat it in marketing materials and all over the app. Enough times to make people believe it. That simple.
4. Mere exposure effect. It’s a cognitive bias where we favor things that are familiar, even over a better alternative. People like what they like not because they have assessed it in any way but simply because it is familiar. That’s why it’s so important to make people engaged with your app. To create a sense of belonging, community, or simple trade-off, when going with a loyalty program.
Most websites use familiar patterns like menus, icons, and placement. In the same places, in the same order. Not because there’s a regulatory body somewhere, ordering them too, or designers are too lazy to come up with something fresh. It just works, people are familiar with what they have seen times and times again.
5. Context effect. The human brain doesn’t keep things in isolation – all pieces of information are stored in relation to each other. This means that simply by changing the relation you can change the way a thing is perceived. Conclusion? Everything is relative.
You don’t necessarily need to explain new functionalities at first glance and come up with God-knows-how cool onboarding mechanisms. Simply put it in a context that can interest people and throw them out of a “routine orbit”. If you have a killer feature but it’s hard to use and counterintuitive, fix it temporarily with an onboarding process that guides the user. Everything can be fixed with the right process. That’s why many first dates are great. Context is important, not always the person.
6. Cue-dependent forgetting. Memories aren’t stored as individual objects but as connections and relationships. You may have a tough time remembering an outing. This is one of the most important things to understand about UX and AI – people remember associations and emotions, not necessarily the experience itself.
That’s why they constantly trust politicians, even if they behave in same old way. To say the very least. That’s why they ignore half-baked features and unoptimized code at the proof-of-concept phase. They lack the solution and they make an association with how the solution made them feel.
7. Mood-congruent memory bias. Our mood affects how we perceive and remember things, much more than you may think. Our brains can be primed into feeling a certain way depending on factors and memories we may not even be aware of.
For example, if the car breaks down on a highway when you need it the most, every trip taken on that road has the potential to create a negative memory. If you find an attractive person, every moment spent with him or her will probably make you happy. But if you end the relationship, at least some memories, regardless of how objective they were at the moment, will probably get darkened by the experience.
Translating this into UX: one of the most vital duties of designers is the creation of the right mood. If you’re making a fintech app, you need to make it look and feel trustworthy. If you’re creating a medtech app, you’re going to aim for professionalism.
8. The Baader-Meinhof itself. Our brain works at recognizing patterns. It picks up things it deems useful and ignores the rest. The word isn’t being used more often around you – it is being used as much as it was before. However, since you have learned about it only recently it remains a fresh mark on your brain. Thus, every time your brain detects the pattern it highlights it to you.
This is especially important for SaaS providers. When you are a SaaS provider you cannot list your features – you need to convince people that your product is useful. Sure, you may have terabytes of storage and an unbelievable amount of computing power, but that doesn’t excite the user or tell them how you will be useful to them.
9. Empathy gap. The empathy gap refers to our inability to understand how many factors affect our decision-making. Sometimes when you are in a bad mood you do things that you regret once your mood is fine. You keep thinking ‘’Why did I do that?!’’, and there is no answer. This is because your brain in a good mood cannot empathize with your brain in a bad mood, and vice versa.
9. Base rate fallacy. When given general information and specific information people tend to value specific information even more, even when it gives the wrong answer. The base rate fallacy is a great way of dealing with any bad statistics or press. All you need to do is provide them with a slice of information which suggests otherwise. You can tell the story of a customer who had great luck with your products – better than average.
Summary
For more tips, check our blog sections about user experience and user interface. We are a company of practitioners. At Code & Pepper, we hire only 1.6% of the best market talents. Those who made the cut, work with AI to build and enhance your applications. AI-powered developers are the future of software development.
That’s why we insist on foundations while looking for the future. That’s why we write articles like this one. To inform about trends but also firmly stand on what’s timeless. And that would be consumers’ trust. We really believe it. Check our case study section for yourself.
