The Cognitive Architecture of Experience

Key Insights

Our gaze feels effortless, but only 2° of foveal focus supplies high-definition vision; the rest is an imaginative guess that designers must account for before users even land on a UI.
Digital wayfinding should mirror the physical world: without landmarks, breadcrumbs, or varied signposts, users wander like ant scouts lost in a desert of identical corridors.
Language matters as much as layout—experience teams must speak the mental model of their audience, matching lexicon to expertise so translations feel intuitive rather than foreign.
Decision-making is built from nested journeys; guiding each micro-choice (from framing to price anchors) keeps satisficing customers from abandoning the path.
The Six Minds framework (Vision, Wayfinding, Memory, Language, Decision Making, Emotion) makes experience design a symphony that can augment the human mind instead of confusing it.

References

Ariely, D. (2008). Predictably irrational: The hidden forces that shape our decisions. HarperCollins.
Buxton, B. (2007). Sketching user experiences: Getting the design right and the right design. Morgan Kaufmann.
Chipchase, J. (2007, March). The anthropology of mobile phones [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/jan_chipchase_on_our_messaging_obsession
Gallistel, C. R. (1990). The organization of learning. MIT Press.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Macmillan.
LeDoux, J. E. (1996). The emotional brain: The mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. Simon & Schuster.
Simon, H. A. (1956). Rational choice and the structure of the environment. Psychological Review, 63(2), 129–138.
Whalen, J. (2019). Design for how people think: Using brain science to build better products. O’Reilly Media.

A single red circle standing out amongst numerous gray circles.

The Cognitive Architecture of Experience – Part 1: The Tyranny of the Fovea

Cognitive Architecture 1 The Tyranny of the Fovea 2 Maps of the Invisible 3 The Syntax of Choice 4 Designing the Better Human ← Series Home The Illusion of the Seamless Gaze Imagine uncovering your eyes for a surprise birthday reveal. In that instant, your brain synthesizes light, color, faces, and joy into a single, effortless experience. You feel as though you are seeing the entire room in high-definition clarity. This sensation is a biological deception. In reality, your visual acuity is limited to a mere 2 degrees of visual angle—roughly the width of your two thumbs at arm’s length. This small area, the fovea, is the only part of your eye packed with enough neurons to provide sharp focus and color accuracy. ...

An ant on sand with a faint digital maze pattern in the background.

The Cognitive Architecture of Experience – Part 2: Maps of the Invisible

Cognitive Architecture 1 The Tyranny of the Fovea 2 Maps of the Invisible 3 The Syntax of Choice 4 Designing the Better Human ← Series Home The Ant’s Dilemma in a Digital Desert Consider the large Tunisian ant scouting for food in a featureless desert. It meanders far from its nest, but when it finds a syrup source, it attempts to make a “beeline” back home. If a scientist moves the ant 12 meters east while it is eating, the ant still travels in the direction where the nest should have been. ...

A comparison between complex symbolic logic and simple geometric shapes.

The Cognitive Architecture of Experience – Part 3: The Syntax of Choice

Cognitive Architecture 1 The Tyranny of the Fovea 2 Maps of the Invisible 3 The Syntax of Choice 4 Designing the Better Human ← Series Home The Language of the Experts In the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, the line “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate” became a cultural touchstone for misunderstanding. In product design, this failure often occurs because the company speaks a different language than its customers. An insurance agent might casually discuss a “PLUP,” while a customer simply wants to know if they are covered for a lawsuit. Words are not just strings of sounds; they are associated with deep semantic concepts that differ based on expertise. To bridge this gap, designers must master the lexicon of their audience, meeting them at their specific level of sophistication. ...

A glowing digital silhouette of a human reaching for a source of light.

The Cognitive Architecture of Experience – Part 4: Designing the Better Human

Cognitive Architecture 1 The Tyranny of the Fovea 2 Maps of the Invisible 3 The Syntax of Choice 4 Designing the Better Human ← Series Home The Bionic Mind In the 1970s, the Six Million Dollar Man popularized the idea of “rebuilding” a human through technology to achieve superhuman physical feats. Today, we face a new frontier: rebuilding the human cognitive experience. With the resurgence of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, we have the tools to create a human–machine combination that enhances mental prowess rather than just physical strength. This is not about machines replacing designers; it is about using the “Six Minds” framework to train AI to think like the humans it serves. ...

Key Insights#

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Key Insights

References