A Designer's Guide to Life-and-Death Decisions with Katie Swindler

Stress changes the human brain, enhancing some abilities and degrading others. In some of the most dangerous industries, creators of life-saving products have discovered how to leverage brain science and smart design to harness good instincts while reducing panic and aggression. They use human-centered design to help their users land airplanes, avoid car crashes, resuscitate heart attack victims, and escape burning buildings. Apply their techniques to your work in any field to create clear, intuitive experiences that effectively guide the behavior of your users, no matter their state of mind.
Key takeaways:

• Learn the secrets of designing for users under stress developed by practitioners in some of the highest-stakes industries like healthcare, avionics, and the military, but applicable for great design in any field.
• Unlock the science of the human survival instinct and learn how moments of peak stress change users’ physical and mental capabilities, affecting their ability to use certain types of designs.
• Apply techniques for identifying potential high-stress moments and crafting experiences that can harness the user’s instinctive behavior, suppress it, or protect the user from panicked-induced actions.