Cognitive Foundations

The science of how minds work, and what that means for design.

When to Use This Skill

• Explaining why a design works or fails (grounded in research, not opinion)
• Evaluating cognitive load or working memory demands
• Predicting user performance (Fitts, Hick-Hyman)
• Diagnosing mental model misalignment
• Justifying design decisions to stakeholders with evidence
• Understanding attention, perception, or memory failures

Output Contracts

For Single-Principle Analysis

## Cognitive Principle: [Name]