How to convince developers and stakeholders to take on psychology

UX Professionals all know, that solid technical and visual design skills are insufficient for usable and enjoyable systems. It requires an understanding of humans with all their behavioral and cognitive peculiarities to develop such systems. Trained UX professionals have acquired basic psychological skills They know how to consider users and how to apply “state of the art methods”.

But in most companies’ development teams mainly consist of professionals with a technical background without explicit UX training. And project management, clients and other stakeholders also lack the understanding of human behavioral and cognitive peculiarities. This leads to the following questions, which are critical for all developments:

• How can UX professionals communicate effectively with developers and stakeholders if a key success factor for usable and enjoyable systems is not understood similarly by everybody?
• What are the most important practical psychological facts that everybody should comprehend because they put usability at risk?
• What are the psychological issues that people are most likely interested in and can be a door opener?
• How can we detect incomprehension within our teams, caused by different psychological understanding?
• And how can we communicate human peculiarities on the job to professionals in their fields, if they disregard the necessity?

I have analyzed my trainings and projects of the last 5 years with more than 300 people, seeking to answer these questions and find solutions. These solutions resulted in a tool box, that encompasses formal and informal Do’s and Don’ts, behavioral and communication strategies as well a set of hands on materials.