Pattern Matching

🧤

Pattern Matching

Your brain is wired to seek shortcuts by trying to match patterns.

Similar psychology:

Specificity

Delegated Decisions

Reactive Onboarding

Likely impacts:

Productivity & Efficiency

Attention & Interest

Effort & Motivation

Last updated: 23/09/2026

How to utilise this in your designs

During a run, you could keep a persistent CTA in the same spot on every screen, so users pattern match its position to get back to the default running view.

Running app UI with yellow middle screen showing timer 00:12, pause button, and "Connect Music" button; left screen has toggles and 00:15 button; right screen shows 00:18 button.

Example from

Nike

Try spotting patterns users already create, like naming an empty page "-----" to organise content, and converting them into a proper separator line.

Figma UI showing draft files with a pages list; a text field with dashes is replaced by a separator line; Page 6 is highlighted. File and Assets tabs are visible.

Example from

Figma

When a user makes a major change to a custom product, you could show context about what that change means, breaking the pattern to pull them off autopilot.

Example from

Nike

You could experiment with reactive onboarding that interrupts an interactive walkthrough when a user makes a mistake, as the broken pattern draws focus to fixing it.

UI shows a collage tutorial with penguin and blue swirl cutouts; arrows highlight instructions: "Learn how to change the order of cutouts," "Keep finger pressed, drag down," and "Your finger must be pressed the whole time." Buttons: Skip (grey) and Next (red).

Example from

Try comparing each effort rating to something familiar, like being able to talk, so users can pattern match an abstract choice to an experience they recognise.

Black UI panels show exercise intensity levels 1, 7, and 9 with white bold numbers and labels; underlined orange text emphasizes "walking slowly," "hard to talk," and "no talking."

Example from

Nike

Possible impacts

Consistent styles and components (e.g., input fields, font sizes, headings) could help users pattern match between screens, increasing how quickly they complete tasks.

As seen in:

Nike Getting back to your run

Figma Understanding user intent

Intentionally breaking a pattern, e.g., with a modal or new colour, might increase attention on key decisions, though overuse could draw focus to the wrong things.

As seen in:

Nike The anatomy of a shoe

Keeping layouts and content order recognisable could reduce the effort users need to navigate, as they pattern match rather than re-reading each screen from scratch.

As seen in:

Sunlitt Showing off their 3D modeling

Letaido Try it without connecting your tools

Written by Peter Ramsey

Consultant to 100+ companies

Published: 26/10/2023