Joseph Tajaran (Designer & Chris’s friend) and Chris Cole (Psych PhD) go over how aesthetics impact functionality in design. More specifically, they go over the aesthetic-usability effect and specific examples of how this happens in design:

1. Contour Bias: people are biased towards curved over sharp forms
2. Ockham’s Razor: the philosophy of leveraging the smallest amount of elements
3. Signal-to-Noise Ratio: maximizing the most functional elements of a design.

Check out the video version of this episode on YouTube.