What never changes - the fundaments of cognitive psychology and how it relates to modern CSS

As the web matures we develop new technologies and create new conventions. But still – there are things that never change. Our eyeballs are no different from those of Arkhimedes nor does our nerve structure differ from that of Sokrates. In the end we are what we are and that sets us limits.

Cognitive psychology studies individual-level mental processes such as information processing, attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, decision-making and thinking. From this science we draw the backbone of our user interfaces and usability. We introduce here the fundaments from cognitive psychology relevant to web site user interface design.

Our cognition is a complex thing. We can and should make known the difference between what are conventions that guide our cognition and what are the actual ”hardware” limitations. Conventions we can change over time, but some things are constant. In this presentation we discuss this difference through examples.

As the web evolves we gain new ways of controlling the appearance and behaviour of the content there. Here we come back to practice bridging the science and usability to modern CSS. For example CSS properties like accent-color that have recently gained browser support give us much appreciated control, but that can be used for good results or bad. We also make a note of accessibility implications.