Von-Restoroff Effect : The Spotlight Effect of Memory
The weirder something seems, the more we remember it
Have you ever wondered why certain things just stand out and stick in your memory, while others fade away like background noise? It’s not magic; it’s the Von-Restorff Effect, or what we like to call “The Memory Trick You Didn’t Know You Were Using.” In this short read, we’ll unravel the mystery behind this fascinating cognitive phenomenon.
So what is Von-Restoroff Effect?
This is a psychology principle that predicts that when multiple homogenous stimuli are presented, the stimulas which differs from the rest is most likely to be remembered.
In simpler words, its a proven psychology theory that the more something stands out from the crowd, the more likely it is to be seen.
When you define a set of objects in your UI, you can draw user’s attentions to the place you want them to see or feel specifically.
For example, if you want the user to feel the color of your product as blue, you can add little of blue around while another monochrome scheme is being used or you can add little blues to important action buttons to make them easily distinguishable while rest of the page is constructed as greyscale.
While designing interfaces, making an item different from the peers affects the users’ attention, by getting inside their heads and attracting their emotions. This can be done to improve the user experience through emphasising particular information or making certain actions salient.
The more attention for one, the less for the rest
One choice can be made to look more attractive by placing it next to an alternative which is a less desirable choice.
Take the example of a pricing plan chart on websites.
In the picture above, its the canva’s pricing structure which can found on their website. Here, Canva draws users attention to their Pro & Teams pricing model.The bold purple colored CTAs ensures the pro & team plans is what you pay attention to initially.
This is good for Canva’s bottom line as more often than not, people will rush for the highlighted plan instead of spending more time exploring the alternatives.
The Von Restorff effect is also applied when designing Call-to-Action (CTAs). These include UI elements such as buttons.
Most online businesses rely on getting a large number of subscriptions to make money. As such, they have to make their subscribe button as obvious and unobstructed as possible. CTA buttons are often brightly colored, bigger and isolated.
Some common CTAs include: subscribe, download, free trial, add to cart and free sign up buttons.
Designers are likely to make logout or cancel buttons much smaller than these CTA buttons. So that maybe you can grab another pair of wooden elephant-shaped earrings while you look for the cancel button.
Choose wisely
If you want to emphasise a text in your presentation that you want your audience to read and remeber, you need to make it different. Or you want to show a note in your design, you need to make them ‘different’ than the rest.
So if you are building a user interface, and want people to follow certain things to improve the experience, differentiate items by their colors, shapes or sizes.
While it’s essential to guide users’ attention to specific elements of your interface, it’s crucial to strike a delicate balance. When you introduce an abundance of different shapes, colors, and distinctive elements, there’s a risk of creating visual clutter that can distract and confuse users.
Designing a clean and effective user interface requires careful consideration of emphasis on relevant elements. Too many distinctive elements can lead to a cluttered UI, resulting in a significant cognitive load on users. Finding the right equilibrium between guiding attention and maintaining a clean, user-friendly interface is the key to successful design.
