Masterclasses
Brain Psychology and UI Design Masterclass (August 2025)
August
2025
Costs
$50.00 USD Use Promo Code SPRING for $40.00 USD (20% OFF!)
Taught by
Morgan Denner
Starts
May 7, 2025
Ends
Jun 4, 2025
Gallery
Key Audiences
UX Design
UX Research
UX Writing
Product Owner
Product Manager
Project Manager
Summary
“Good Design, when it’s done well, becomes invisible.” - Jared Spool
User experience deals with the study of how humans interact with the world. Whether physical or digital, User Interfaces must be engineered to help humans accomplish their goals. Behind it all, the human brain helps us take in information, perceive it, and interpret the world.
What makes a “Good” Design? What makes a “Poor” Design?
The most successful, self-evident, and intuitive Designs have no “friction” between the user and the interface. But what causes “friction” in user experiences? And how can UX designers reduce friction successfully?
They must do so by understanding the inner workings of the human brain.
This class is a deep dive in human Brain Psychology as it relates to UX design and UX research work. It will teach you practical applications of Brain Psychology and how to apply these principles in UX design and UX research to increase intuitiveness and self-evidence.
By completing the class homework, you will receive a certification of class completion after the class is over.
Why Take This Class?
It's important for UX designers, UX researchers, and product managers to learn agile UX methods because it helps them work better as a team, build products faster, and make sure those products actually solve real problems for users. Agile UX helps teams test ideas quickly, get feedback early, and improve things often instead of waiting until the end. This way, they don’t waste time building things people don’t want, and they can create better apps or websites that people enjoy using.
Learning agile UX methods helps you succeed in a tech industry role on an in-house product team or at a startup because it teaches you how to work fast, adapt to change, and focus on what users really need. You learn to collaborate closely with developers, designers, and product managers, quickly test ideas, and use feedback to improve the product continuously. These skills are essential in fast-paced environments where priorities shift often and delivering value quickly is key. Agile UX helps you build products that users love while staying aligned with business goals.
Learning Objectives
Apply principles of Brain Psychology to user interface designs.
Apply Gestalt Principles of Perception to user interface designs.
Understand the functions in the brain that affect how humans interpret the world.
Understand how cognitive processes and cognitive load affect how humans will interact with user experiences.
Understand the principles of UX based on brain functions and cognitive processes.
Understand how to measure intuitiveness or self-evidence in user interfaces through qualitative and quantitative research methods.
Reading Assignments
The following three books are considered required reading for this class. They are books you will keep on your shelf and utilize for your entire career. It’s important to read them in this class so that you understand the context of how we “bend and break the rules”. Read “Sprint” if you have to read one.
Gothelf, J., & Seiden, J. (2021). Lean UX: Creating great products with agile teams. O’Reilly Media. Retrieved on .
Knapp, J. (2021). Sprint. Penguin Books. Retrieved on .
Torres, T. (2021). Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover products that create customer value and business. Product Talk LLC. Retrieved on .
Curriculum
Week 1 - Introduction to Agile
Learn about Agile
Agile philosophies
Agile teamwork
Agile operations
The Google Design Sprint
Perform sprint work
Break the ice as a team
Determine cross-functional roles and responsibilities
Pick a discovery topic
Plan the first sprint
Week 2 - Google Design Sprint 1
Class-focused discussions
Perform sprint work as a team: Identify most important research questions, Build assumptions, Pick research method, Build test plan, Run research, Demo results, Retrospective, Plan the next sprint
Week 3 - Google Design Sprint 2
Class-focused discussions
Perform sprint work as a team: Identify most important research questions, Build assumptions, Pick research method, Build test plan, Run research, Demo results, Retrospective, Plan the next sprint
Week 4 - Google Design Sprint 3
Class-focused discussions
Perform sprint work as a team: Identify most important research questions, Build assumptions, Pick research method, Build test plan, Run research, Demo results, Retrospective, Plan the next sprint
Week 5 - Google Design Sprint 4
Class-focused discussions
Perform sprint work as a team: Identify most important research questions, Build assumptions, Pick research method, Build test plan, Run research, Demo results, Retrospective, Plan the next sprint