As a UX designer and user researcher, you don’t have to have a Ph.D. in psychology to benefit from the underlying human factors. While deep-rooted psychology is probably the best starting knowledge base for a true user experience career, having access to quality research studies and data can make all the difference in your project work. In this video, I’ll share my favorite place for up to date human-centered research as well as cover a few key themes in the realm of what’s universal for us as humans to experience.
Universal human experiences:
1:06 Personal space
1:52 Emotions
3:15 Senses
5:35 Mate preferences
7:00 Human values
British psychology society digest: https://digest.bps.org.uk/
Emma Young’s article summarising the universal human experiences: https://digest.bps.org.uk/2020/09/15/which-human-experiences-are-universal/
Research studies and abstracts: Preferred Interpersonal Distances: https://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/873645.sorokowska_et_al_2017.pdf
Emotion semantics show both cultural variation and universal structure: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6472/1517
Universal and Non-universal Features of Musical Pitch Perception Revealed by Singing: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098221931036X
Colour categories in a stone-age tribe: https://www.nature.com/articles/18335
Psychology of language and smell: https://digest.bps.org.uk/2014/01/13/studies-of-se-asian-tribes-force-a-re-think-on-the-psychology-of-language-and-smell/
Mate preferences: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797620904154?journalCode=pssa
Cross-Cultural Differences and Similarities in Human Value Instantiation: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00849/full