Question

What are some various psychological design elements that come with Instagram and how do these elements influence our behaviors online?

Answer 1

1. Visual Saliency

Our world is full of things competing for our attention, yet our eyes can only focus on a relatively small area of our visual field at any time. To deal with this limitation, our brains have evolved a way to prioritize what we should look at. Even before we’ve had the chance to properly decode and recognize a design, its visual features—colors, contrast, brightness, patterns—will have been absorbed quickly and given a priority rating by our brain. Neuroscientists call things with high visual priority “visually salient.” Designs that are visually salient get looked at earlier, more often, and for longer.

2. Propositional Density

The logo also has another important quality: high propositional density. This is when a design is able to convey a lot of meaning with as little detail as possible. Images with high propositional density are easy on the eye, but intriguing to the mind—or, more specifically, intriguing to our subconscious mind.
People prefer images with higher processing fluency, particularly images that are simpler than we expect them to be.

3. The Power of Curves

Lastly, the logo is curvy. Research shows that, with some exceptions, people generally prefer curvaceous designs over ones that are more angular. Curves can make a design feel approachable, friendly, and even cute. Our brains have evolved to rapidly detect pointy or sharp things around us so that we can avoid hurting ourselves on them