• The Psychology behind your UI

    Intro:
    First off, this is going to sound absolutely insane; I discovered this from my studies & personal experiences with performance in dungeons/raids. I play a holy paladin, and use the standard Blizzard grid - I moved server and changed my race. I assumed that was what affected my healing - I was wrong. It was my UI entirely, and I discovered some psychology behind it.

    What was wrong?
    I was using the wrong side of my brain to play. Seriously.

    What does UI have to do with this?
    The positioning of my grid was changed - so that my right eye was dominantly seeing the grid I was using. This was a mistake. I'll go into more depth in a moment; the jist of it is, the very positioning of your UI in association with your hands & eyes is INCREDIBLY important. More so than people would give credit for!

    Each side of your brain has trained functions, and you too can train them with proper knowledge and layout to make you a better gamer.

    What the **** are you talking about?
    A psychologist named Sperry proposed that people have 'two half brains'. This is because, and I'm sure you've seen it before, there's a divide down the middle of the brain.

    These two sides are connected together, but act fairly independently. But we know from this and a few other experiments, that certain functions are in certain parts of the brain.
    Think of it as two computers connected by an ethernet cable - it's not as fast when you're loading information, but it still works nonetheless!

    The left side of your brain controls the right side of your body, while the right side of your brain controls the left. This may seem unimportant, but it is.
    Please note that the follow may be reversed for left handed people, I'm not sure on that one.

    An example of this is writing - while of course your motor skills are different in each hand, the ability to write will be stored in the left hand side of your brain (provided you're right handed).

    A few things the left side controls:
    • Complicated words
    • Advanced mathematics
    • Systemization


    A few things the right side controls:
    • Emotion
    • Simple language


    It is now important to take a few small tests to improve your UI.

    Clench your hands together, interlocking your fingers. One thumb placed over the other.
    [SPOILER]The thumb on top means the OPPOSITE side is your dominant side. If your right thumb is on top, you're a left brained thinker![/SPOILER]

    Now put one hand out at arms length in front of you, roughly central to your face. Cover up each eye and notice which keeps the image the most steady. This is your dominant eye.


    You've filled my head with these pointless facts, but what does this mean?
    If you're dominantly right eyed, and left brained, then you want to put the vast majority of your UI where your right eye will focus on them. This will relay the information to the left hand side of your brain, where the advanced computing is done and then control your right hand (your mouse hand).

    If you find yourself playing more with your keyboard you'd want to lay it out vice versa, ensuring the right side of your brain retrieves information and the left side of your body outputs faster.

    The ideal:
    You want to place your UI elements effectively on your screen, so you get an effect like this:



    Rather than the extra step like you see here:


    If there's one thing you take away from this...
    Train your brain in a similar way when playing WoW or any other game with a custom interface - it'll help you build your gaming skills up with ease. Don't suddenly swap your UI drastically because it looks shiny!

    Thanks for reading guys,
    Sorry for all of the psychology lingo, tried to keep it as simple as possible!
    Yours
    Sn00p

    This is an example for you guys, hopefully it'll also explain a few things and give you a better chance to visualize how it should be done.
    http://img703.imageshack.us/i/demonstration.png/

    IMAGES Y U NO WORK NAO!?

    ---------- Post added at 08:38 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:34 AM ----------

    Preserved for colour association update
    This article was originally published in forum thread: The Psychology behind your UI started by Sn00p View original post
    Comments 9 Comments
    1. 00MasterBlaster00's Avatar
      great post man!
    1. Flawz's Avatar
      Flawz -
      Now that was interesting!

      (although any Intro to Psych course will tell you the same)
    1. Harambeqt's Avatar
      Harambeqt -
      But paladins only need 2 abilities and a hearthstone.
      So if your playing paladin, theres no need for an advanced UI.
      LoL .


      :> +r nice psych guide
    1. bt411's Avatar
      bt411 -
      i don't get it, why divide by left/right eye? both eyes see the screen 100%
      the perceived image is a computed image with depth information calculated from the two 2d images the eyes perceive
      which means both sides have to cooperate for your perception
      which makes me question the idea that there is a preference between eye-brainside speed when staring at the screen
    1. Iamagoodmage's Avatar
      Iamagoodmage -
      Actually the whole idea is right, also keep in mind that both eyes capture data at different times.
    1. Eluo's Avatar
      Eluo -
      ?
      The interpretation of pictures takes place in the midbrain, which is in the middle of you brain and neither on the left nor right side.
      And this what you ....said here included basic biology and not psychology.
      Just sayin..
    1. Hirosh1's Avatar
      Hirosh1 -
      Nice post, although the two hemispheres do not work independently. When the part connecting the two hemispheres (corpus callosum) is cut, like with split-brain patients, people will lose lots of their functionality.
    1. noodleman1's Avatar
      noodleman1 -
      Quote Originally Posted by bt411 View Post
      i don't get it, why divide by left/right eye? both eyes see the screen 100%
      the perceived image is a computed image with depth information calculated from the two 2d images the eyes perceive
      '

      This. Your post makes little sense knowing that there's a huge overlap between the two 'visions' of your eyes. Your screen, unless exorbitantly large, is definitely part of this overlap (which, by the way, allows you to perceive depth), try for yourself:

      -Whichever eye you close, you'll still see the screen: this means both eyes can see it individually.

      -If you close one of your eyes, you'll no longer be able to see everything on that side: you lose sight of things not in the overlap.

      P.S: still had fun reading it.
    1. Tuuli's Avatar
      Tuuli -
      Quote Originally Posted by Eluo View Post
      ?
      The interpretation of pictures takes place in the midbrain, which is in the middle of you brain and neither on the left nor right side.
      And this what you ....said here included basic biology and not psychology.
      Just sayin..
      Interpretation of pictures does not take place in the midbrain - midbrain (mesencephalon) is a place of fairly primal visual functions among others. Interpretation of spatial features, locations and object-manipulation movements happens in the posterior parietal association cortex, to which information is imported by the dorsal visual path, and interpretation of object identities happens in the ventral temporal lobe, especially in the fusiform gyrus - this is another association area, not a part of the midbrain - both areas belong to telencephalon, and consist of complex neocortex. The brain does not acquire a "whole blob of information from a unitary visual field", but processes streams of information from both eyes with the aid of different commissures, the corpus callosum being the most significant.

      Perception and brain functions are a key subject of psychology (especially cognitive psychology), not only biology.

      Yes, you do see the entire screen with either eye if the other is closed, but of key importance is what information lands near the fovea of your retina (the part in the middle, responsible for sharp and clear vision) and what lands on the peripheral areas, giving you a blurrier perception of your UI, so even if your screen isn't gigantic, it might be worth it to organize your features a little. For example, since interpreting language is fundamentally a function of the left hemisphere, you might want to move your chat window to the right. UI features should be oriented around the focal point of your concentration during the most challenging tasks, on adequate sides.
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