More Than Meets the Eye: The Role of Visual Perception in User Behavior

Come join us as we continue our PEP (Practical Exercises for HF/UX Practitioners) Talk series. The PEP Talk format will integrate a short talk and small group exercises to teach participants a practical UX method or skill. We anticipate participants of all experience levels will gain something from each talk, and we'll all have a great time learning something new.

We hope you can join us for this opportunity to cover a variety of techniques that can be used when writing UI design requirements in early-stage development.

PEP Talk Format

5:30 Arrive & socialize
6:00 - 6:30 Topic Introduction by the speaker
6:30 - 7:00 Small group exercise
7:00 - 7:30 Large group discussion, Q&A

Speaker: Natalie Stepien-Bernabe, Ph.D.

Biography: Dr. Natalie Stepien-Bernabe is a Senior User Experience (UX) and Human Factors (HF) Consultant with Sage Research & Design (Boulder, CO), previously working in the same field for the scientific and engineering consulting firm Exponent, Inc. in Phoenix, AZ. Natalie earned her Bachelor of Arts with honors in Psychology from the University of Chicago and her Doctor of Philosophy in Vision Science from the University of California, Berkeley. At Sage Research & Design, Natalie helps companies tackle challenging usability questions via rigorous methodology informed by her background in psychology, UX, and HF. Additionally, she guides companies through the FDA submission process at various stages of a product’s development lifecycle.

Talk Summary: For any consumer product, it could be tempting to dive right in and design something that has all the bells and whistles readily available on the user interface. However, taking this approach could lead to use errors driven by how our brains process visual information. This talk will present some common visual illusions to reveal how the visual system processes incoming information and how the brain makes sense of that input. Understanding how the eye and brain work together highlights direct implications for how to design devices so that they are perceived by users efficiently and as intended. This presentation will also discuss some examples of usability studies that were created to generate results that directly informed visual improvements to device design.