Exploring Metacognitive Awareness in UX Design: Cognitive Strategies in Information Organization

Abstract

User experience (UX) design is a multidisciplinary field focused on optimizing user interactions with digital products and services. It encompasses usability, accessibility, and user satisfaction, aiming to create intuitive interfaces. UX design also involves understanding users' needs, preferences, and behaviors, and developing systems that adapt to these factors. A key element of UX is information organization, which structures and presents content in a way that aligns with users' mental models, facilitating navigation and decision-making.

Although much has been studied about how users perform these tasks, there is limited exploration of the cognitive strategies they employ when organizing information. Understanding the mental processes behind these actions can provide valuable insights into decision-making, influences on choices, and reflections on actions. These cognitive processes are linked to metacognition, the awareness and regulation of one’s cognitive processes. My research will investigate how users reflect on and manage their thinking during tasks like card sorting, aiming to uncover how metacognitive awareness influences information organization and decision-making strategies [1].

Card sorting tasks involve categorizing a set of items or concepts into meaningful groups, helping researchers understand how users organize information. In this research, I will examine how metacognitive awareness impacts information organization strategies during card sorting tasks. Specifically, I will investigate conscious and unconscious cognitive strategies users employ and how these influence task performance, decision quality, and usability. Although metacognition has been widely studied in learning and problem-solving contexts [2], its role in UX design remains underexplored. This research aims to bridge this gap by focusing on metacognitive processes in information organization tasks, with the goal of improving UX practices.

The intersection of UX and cognitive science lies in understanding human cognition and behavior. By exploring how metacognitive processes affect UX tasks, my research aims to contribute to more effective design methodologies incorporating insights from cognitive science. Specifically, I aim to identify gaps between current research and UX practices, providing insights for user-centered design processes that account for cognitive awareness and thinking regulation. Ultimately, this work will enhance how UX designers approach information organization tasks, making them more mindful of users' cognitive processes [3].

References

[1] M. C. Galvão, E. M. P. Simas, C. V. M. Marques, and C. L. R. Motta, “UX Design, Education, and Cognition: An Exploration of a Metacognitive Systematic Model of Digital Interface to Mediate Knowledge Construction,” in HCI International 2021 - Posters, C. Stephanidis, M. Antona, and S. Ntoa, Eds., Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2021, pp. 12–17. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-78635-9_2.

[2] A. Koriat, “Metacognition and consciousness,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology series), E. Thompson, M. Moscovitch, and P. D. Zelazo, Eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511816789.012.

[3] T. Ukov and G. Tsochev, “Reviewing a Model of Metacognition for Application in Cognitive Architecture Design,” Systems, vol. 13, no. 3, Art. no. 3, Mar. 2025. doi: 10.3390/systems13030177.