I began Daniel Kahneman's book Think Fast and Slow with to better understand behavioral patterns and learn how to design around them. It is valuable to rely on best practices, user research, and common patterns to guide the basics of our UI design, but there is also something important about knowing the reasons behind why people might not behave as we expect them to.
As I read further about Kahneman’s studies, what I realized first was not about the patterns that I could detect in others, but the invisible biases and behavior that I could detect in myself. Everyone involved in making UX decisions should be aware of them, as the core of our role is to remain objective and give recommendations unbiased by our own opinions.
Many of the principles that Kahneman writes about are so applicable to UX design, that it feels like he is directly speaking to it. It explains so well why certain instances I’ve experienced have happened as they did, caused by nothing more than natural tendencies.
Here is set of natural biases and intuitions that all UX designers should be aware of. As I set out to accompany it with examples and solutions, I realized that many of the best approaches to avoiding these biases align with core UX best practices. Soak it in and let's tame our ignorance.
- Daniel Kahneman
A deliberate search for confirming evidence. People seek data that are likely to be compatible with the beliefs they currently hold. It favors uncritical acceptance of suggestions and exaggeration of the likelihood of extreme and improbable events.
The mistake is feeling confident that something used elsewhere is bulletproof to your own users. Those products may not necessarily focus on the same demographic pool as you work with. Age and tech-savviness can vary as well as how differently your users used to perform the task.
Even if something might seem obvious, validate. If the results are not black and white, be wary of skewing your interpretations to believe in what you want it to be.
The risk that’s been set up here is going with the flow of what your client says without taking the time to question things. The confirmation bias causes us to have a natural tendency to accept suggestions without being critical about whether it’s the right problem being solved, if it’s the right approach, or if it’s the right user and goals.
The best approach or situation you can be in is to have the flexibility to help clients re-frame the problem. Is it the right solution? How did they come up with this solution? How much research do they have available to them? Understand the “back story” and stay user-focused.
Exaggerated emotional coherence. The tendency for an impression created in one area to influence opinion in another area. It increases the weight of first impressions, sometimes to the point that subsequent information is mostly wasted.
The ideal feedback you are collecting should be representative of the product’s end users. Testing with a group of young techies will certainly lead to a halo effect, where you start to get 'high' off how well the users are understanding your product. PAUSE and evaluate if you're speaking to the right kind of people.
For those who don’t have enough resources to do this, find some creative alternatives. If you can’t, then be aware that it means your design is not fully validated. Your first success, at least, is realizing that this important.
Everyone has had their fair share of review sessions with a stakeholder, developer, or other team members about their designs. These conversations can be well-structured and sometimes not. The halo effect comes into play because the standard practice of open discussion gives too much weight to the opinions of those who speak early and assertively. This explains why post-it notes are crucial elements to focus groups and workshops because it subdues everyones voice to be presented equally.
Keep using those post-it notes! In workshops, it is helpful to have exercises where users diverge into groups and have the chance to write out their ideas before everyone converges to align.
Our brains are good at constructing the best possible story that incorporates ideas currently activated, but it does not (cannot) allow for information it does not have. We naturally can create coherent stories with what we have in mind, regardless of the quality of the data on which the story is based.
When we design these are our “stories” that we create. When we make only one we may think it’s good. We may think it’s strong. But this false confidence comes from the fact that there is no additional context to compare to. We don’t know what isn’t there. According to Kahneman, participants who only heard one-sided evidence were more confident of their judgements than those who saw both sides.
Sketch out more than approach and compare the pros and cons to each design solution. We need to activate our brains by presenting ourselves with options so we don’t fool ourselves with one story. Even the most experienced designers should be analyzing different options; they may just happen to do it faster.
Do you feel like you've been influenced by some of these biases in the past? How might you do things differently?Kahneman explains that the trick to changing your behavior is to apply it to something personal.
This is the first part of a series of two. Stay tuned for the second one :)
- Daniel Kahneman