Memory in the Digital Age
Here’s a fun fact: humans have shorter attention spans than goldfish. Yes, you read that correctly. A study from Microsoft Corporation in 2015 found that humans generally lose interest after about eight seconds, while our fish friends can stay engaged for a whopping nine seconds.
It wasn’t always this way, though; in fact, before the year 2008, humans could pay attention for 12 seconds on average. What sparked this drastic change? Well, according to Microsoft, the digitization of society and the mobile revolution are to blame.
Understanding human memory can offer a significant advantage to companies aiming to outperform others in their industry. In order to understand it, however, we must define it first. According to the American Psychological Association, memory is “the ability to retain information or a representation of past experience, based on the mental processes of learning or encoding, retention across some interval of time, and retrieval or reactivation of the memory.”
There are two main types of consumer memory: sensory memory and long-term memory. Sensory memories are only stored for a short period of time, a few seconds at most, but play a crucial role in your overall memory processes. Without sensory memory, new short-term and long-term memories may not form properly.
The challenge is to penetrate a consumer’s long-term memory, which involves the storage and retrieval of information over a long period of time. Once long-term memory is stimulated and associated with specific products and/or companies, purchase behavior is influenced as a result.
UI (user interface) and UX (user experience) are two key ingredients in a brand’s recipe for success. These involve capturing and holding a consumer’s attention, which is the first step in memory retention. Ease of use and overall design work together to ensure consumer satisfaction.
Unfortunately, technology design has various limitations; thus making it difficult to access a consumer’s long-term memory. Because of consumers’ short attention spans, there is actually an eight-second rule for UI/UX designers. Research shows that 50% of people will leave a website if the brand hasn’t piqued their interest in eight seconds or less.
Fact of the matter is we live in a world filled with instant gratification. For consumers, simply waiting for a home page to load can affect their decision to make a purchase. One study estimates that a one second lag in Amazon’s run time could cost them $1.6 billion in sales.
So, what are some ways to optimize UI/UX for the human mind? One of the most effective ways is to store information in chunks. Short-term memory only has the capacity to keep around seven bits of information; with that said, it’s much easier on the eyes and mind if designers group relevant information together.
Another way is to keep the information relatively simple. Implementing a minimalistic design will help the user focus solely on necessary information, making it much easier to digest.
If nothing else, just remember these three core aspects of memorization: concentration, association, and repetition. Organizing your content based on these three points will help consumers store information in their long-term memory. In turn, your brand will be at the forefront of their retrieval and evoked sets when faced with purchase decisions.