Curious about how humans interact with technology? HCI Explained breaks down complex Human-Computer Interaction topics into clear, engaging stories. From agency and automation to design ethics and UX psychology, we explore how tech shapes what it means to be human. Whether you're a student, designer, or tech enthusiast, join us weekly to learn how interaction design influences our everyday lives.
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The Invisible Math of Human Frustration: The Three Kinds of Cognitive Load #HCIExplained S2E14
Your brain has a budget. Good design either spends it wisely or blows it.
Not all mental effort is the same — and that distinction turns out to matter enormously for how we design things people actually want to use. Cognitive load theory started in educational psychology, but its core insight migrated quietly into UX and product design, where it shapes decisions from the layout of a settings screen to the way a checkout flow asks for your address.
This episode traces that idea carefully: where it came from, what the three types of cognitive load actually describe, and why "just make it simpler" is a more complicated instruction than it sounds. The hosts look honestly at where the research holds up, where it gets fuzzy, and what happens when designers reduce the wrong kind of effort — or accidentally strip out the kind that's genuinely useful.
• Why intrinsic load isn't the enemy, even when it feels like friction
• The extraneous stuff that quietly exhausts users without their noticing
• The third kind of load — the one that actually builds understanding over time
• A real product example where simplifying made the experience measurably worse
Whether you work in interface design, teach anything to anyone, or just find yourself wondering why some apps feel effortless and others feel like homework, this conversation offers a useful lens. No prior knowledge of HCI or cognitive science needed — just curiosity.
Pull up something you use every day before you listen. You'll look at it differently after.
13 Jul 2026
The Map in the User's Head #HCIExplained S2E13
Your mental model of an app and the designer's rarely match — and that gap explains a lot.
Every time you tap something and get a surprise, every time a feature hides somewhere you'd never look, every time a tool feels like it's working against you — there's a good chance you're bumping into a mismatch between the map in your head and the one the designer drew. That gap has a name in human-computer interaction research, and understanding it changes how you see almost every digital experience you have.
In this episode, we get into the idea of mental models: the informal, often unconscious pictures users build of how a system works. We look at where those pictures come from, why they almost never perfectly match the system's actual logic, and why that matters whether you're the person building something or the person trying to use it. The examples are grounded in research — not hypothetical, not hype.
A few of the things we explore along the way:
• Why two people can use the same interface and come away with completely different internal maps of how it works
• A classic analogy that makes the whole concept click — and why it's both useful and imperfect
• Real documented cases where the model mismatch caused genuine confusion, not just minor frustration
• Where thoughtful designers and researchers actually disagree about whose job it is to close the gap
This is a calm, source-grounded conversation for anyone curious about why digital things feel the way they do.
11 Jul 2026
What Norman Meant by Affordance #HCIExplained S2E12
The word "affordance" is everywhere in design — and almost always wrong.
Don Norman borrowed a term from ecological psychology, put it at the heart of design thinking, and then watched it get mangled for three decades. Designers use it to mean roughly "what something looks like it does" — but that's not quite what Norman meant, and the gap between those two ideas turns out to matter enormously for how we build things people can actually use.
This episode is a careful look at where the word came from, what it was always trying to point at, and why Norman eventually introduced a second term — signifier — to rescue the conversation. We follow the idea from a psychologist studying how animals perceive their environment all the way to the door handles, app buttons, and everyday objects that quietly shape human behaviour every day.
A few of the threads we pull on:
• The original definition, from James Gibson, and why it has almost nothing to do with design
• What Norman actually argued in The Design of Everyday Things — and what he later said he got wrong
• A real product that failed because its designers confused the two concepts
• The quiet ethical question underneath all of this: who decides what an object "invites" someone to do?
None of this requires a background in HCI or user experience research. If you've ever pushed a door that was meant to be pulled, or tapped something on a screen that turned out not to be a button, you already understand the problem this episode is about. The theory just gives you a cleaner way to think about why that keeps happening.
Calm, unhurried, and worth your attention.
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