How cognitive biases influence user’s decisions (and ours)

Cognitive biases are psychological tendencies that cause the human brain to draw incorrect conclusions. For better or worse, we can use them in many different ways to influence user behaviour on your websites and apps. As designers (and as customers), it’s also interesting to be aware of such biases. For instance, some of them might influence your user research without you even knowing it.

The list of cognitive biases is long and scary for a lot of people, some people even turned them into a poster to make it easier to remember. We propose to work together to make this complex topic a little bit easier to understand.

In small groups, we will go through parts of the list of different cognitive biases we could use to persuade our users. We will try to build the MOST persuasive site possible (or maybe the worst one, who knows) and present those sites to the other groups. Cheaters never win, right?

Transcript

1. Cognitive biases Workshop UX in LUX 06/03/2019
3. Welcome to the workshop! We are UX designers and we propose UX workshops in Luxembourg !
5. Share your knowledge with the community! Contact us if you want to present a workshop or share a UX method!
6. Thanks :) Thanks to amazon for hosting today’s workshop.
7. What’s the plan? 1. What are cognitive biases? 2. It’s scary, let’s play cards 3. Don’t be evil… or maybe let’s be evil? 4. OKTHXBYE Schedule
8. What are cognitive biases? 01
10. Ok, thank you for coming, good night :D
11. Cognitive biases are psychological tendencies that cause the human brain to draw incorrect conclusions. For better or worse, we can use them in many different ways to influence user behavior on your websites and apps. Definition
13. IF I don’t book now, there will not be any room left for me (Scarcity + loss aversion)
14. Other people booked it so I will book it too (Bandwagon effect)
15. As designers (and as customers), it’s also interesting to be aware of such biases. For instance, some of them might influence your user research without you even knowing it. Definition
16. Practise time 02
18. Step 1 - Discover and recall 1. In groups, check the biases cards we gave you 2. Can you recall any site or situation where those biases where used?
19. Let’s share our experience 01
20. Step 2 - Let’s be evil Now that we have a better understanding of a few biases, let’s build the most manipulative experience possible. How would you sell us a unicorn?
21. How would you sell us a unicorn? → inpx.it/cobiases
22. Sharing is caring 02
23. Ethics So, good or evil, what you create and build is your responsibility and your choice. Would you use some of those in a project?
24. Check your biases Some of those might influence your user interviews and user testing - Confirmation bias - Framing effect - Social Desirability bias - etc. → 10 cognitive biases to avoid in User Research (and how to avoid them)
26. • Cognitive Bias Cards For Learning Practitioners (to learn about bias) • Cognitive Bias Cards • Wikipedia list of cognitive biases • Online quizz tool with biases cards • CognitiveBiasCards • Bias Cards by UX Psychologists (to avoid designer bias) • List of cognitive biases Some cards / lists
27. • Psychology for Designers Joe Leech • 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People Susan Weinschenk • 100 MORE Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People Some books
28. Thank you :) Contact us if you want to present a workshop or share a UX method! @ux_lux on twitter - uxinlux@gmail.com