by jakob.schnurrer -

02 The Bias Blindspot

In my last blogpost, I linked a survey, which sadly no enough people answered, but what was it all about? I wanted to test something I read about while researching for my first blogpost: The bias blindspot. Explained simply this means, that we detect biases easier than in ourselves. Sadly not enough people took part, so I can’t make any assumptions on our study program. Still this is an important topic to talk about, this can pave the way for us to understand biases better and learn how to overcome their influence.

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What is the Bias Blindspot exactly?

People are mostly unaware of their own biases, although they can easily detect them in the judgement of others. They tend to believe that they are less biased than their peers. There are many examples of this, that you will surely recognize, maybe you have already been in a similar situation before. If you ask physicians if gifts from pharmaceutical companies would influence their decision about what medicine they prescribe, most claim that they would not be influenced by this. If you turn the question around and ask if they think, other physicians would be influenced by gifts, most will agree. This disparity can occur in many different types of judgements or decisions. (cf. CMU)

A study found that only one out of 661 adults said, that they were more biased than the average person, all other 660 were sure, that they are less biased than the average person. In addition most people have no idea, how biased they actually are but are sure people around them are more biased than themselves. There is a good reason to why this happens, since society teaches us from a young age, that being biased is bad, we don’t want to see ourselves as people, who do bad things.(cf. IxDF)

The bias blindspot is a combination of two mental short cuts, the “introspection illusion” and “naive realism”. (cf. Scopelliti, Irene Scopelliti et. al.; pos. 1-2) The “introspection illusion”, says, that we tend to rely on our own thoughts and memories, when we think about whether we are biased or not. Although this introspection doesn’t reveal subconscious factors that are influencing us. (cf. Renascence) “Naive realism” describes, that we think we see the world how it is, without any distortion, although this is most likely not true. We underestimate the possibility that we are fooling ourselves. (cf. Medium a)

What is the influence of a Bias Blindspot?

The biggest problem of the bias is, if we operate within our blindspot, we are less likely to accept input from our peers and/or experts. In addition, we are less likely to benefit from education and training concerning our particular biases. (cf. IxDF) Not only that but we will underestimate the influence of our own biases, which can lead to skewed design decisions, that fail to cater to diverse user needs. Mitigating biases is essential to gain reliable insights into user behavior and preferences. (cf. Medium b)

So this means for UX Design, this means, that if we fail to learn about flaws in our design, we can’t create an experience that truly caters to the users needs. We might even make mistakes over and over again.

How can we overcome the Bias Blindspot?

First things first, overcoming bias is hard and takes a lot of work and self reflection. To overcome the bias blindspot is to be aware that it exists and it influences a lot of our decisions. Then to truly overcome the bias blind spot, UX designers have to engage in self-reflection, constantly challenge assumptions, and foster an open and inclusive design process. (cf. IxDF, cf. Medium b)

This is quite complex, and I want to give the topic of overcoming biases the room, that it deserves. There will be a follow up post about this topic.

Thanks for reading through my blog! 
Leave a comment, if you are interested in this topic and tell me what you want to read about next! ;P

Fun Fact

While writing this blogpost, I realized, that I thought to myself: “That could never happen to me.”, a second later, I realized, that this was exactly what was going on. So even if you are aware that something like this exists, you will fall into your own traps, over and over again.

by me (using imgflip-MemeGenerator)

by jakob.schnurrer -

01 The influence of cognitive biases on UX Work

Before reading this please answer this question (even if you don’t read the blog):

Results in next post ;D

Background

One of the reasons, who I got into UX Design in the first place is behause it connects three of my fields of interest: Design, Psychology and working with people. I want to find out more about what makes people click and what drives their perception of a design. Considering unconcious factors that influence how a user percieves a product is an important step to make a product truely userfriendly and human centered. Being aware of these factors and biases can really help to correctly approach a UX problem. Is this a „real“ finding or is this problem due to a bias?

What is a Bias?

First things first: “[A] cognitive bias is the tendency to think certain ways, often resulting in a deviation from rational, logical decision-making.” (CXL) The occurs in all areas of life, there is a bias for almost every area of life, they impact how we buy, sell, interact with friends, think, feel, etc. Feeling guiltier about a certain situation than you should, according to friends and family, you could be experiencing the egocentric bias. (cf. CXL) It’s important to remember that biases can occur on both sides during user research, both the user and the researcher can be subject to predetermined believes, affecting the outcome of the research. Some are already well known like the confirmation bias. (cf. Smashing Magazine)

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Impact on UX Design

In UX design, a bias can emerge at any stage, from topic selection to data interpretation, due to influences from researchers, participants, or other external factors. This is particularly concerning since designers and researchers may not be aware of them, potentially leading to skewed results or exclusionary designs. (cf. Clara Purdy) Take a look at the picture below, the cognitive bias codex, the list of biases designers make come across is nearly endless. Everyone can be subject to any of those biases, whether you come across it and recognize it or it effects yourself.

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Research Goals

Right now I can’t really tell where this research journey is going to take me, for now I will focus on biases and their effects of UX work. BUT during the researcher for this post, I realized how deep the rabbit hole around UX design and psychology goes. (Study guide for the rabbit hole ;D)

For now, a desirable outcome would be, to create a collection of biases and other effects, that influence people. Since one would have to become sensitive to these topics before they can conquer them. In addition to just generating awareness, there should also be info on why this matters and how to adjust to these effects. In the end there should be a lexicon about common effects, to be aware of and how to combat them. A deeper understanding of perceptual psychology will greatly impact how a designer approaches upcoming problems, to deepen the understanding for actions different users take.

Thanks for reading through my blog!
Leave a comment, if you are interested in this topic and tell me what you want to read about next! ;P

by nina.schmid -

Neuro what? How Neurodesign can revolutionize graphic design

When I first tumbled across this topic it was mainly out of personal interest rather than the wish of taking on a year long journey through the depths of neurodesign. In 2022 during my Erasmus semester, between drinks and chips, I had a super interesting conversation with an international student from Sweden who previously studied psychology. He recommended me a book with the title “Neurodesign – What Design and Marketing can learn from neuroscience and psychology”. Funnily enough the author from this book was a professor at my home university, so as soon as I got back to Germany, I had a meeting with him. Afterwards I decided to take on this very new design discipline and turn it into my bachelor thesis. Pretty quickly I realized, that because of it’s depth and potential for a deeper understanding for any designer out there, this topic won’t be completely explored after my bachelor thesis. So what exactly is “Neurodesign”? A question some of you might probably ask yourselves and you’re not alone with this question.

Neurodesign is an emerging field that draws on insights from neuroscience and it’s studies to create improved human centered designs. It recognizes the interplay between design elements and the cognitive patterns as well as functions of users and viewers. To make it a little bit more simple to understand- its basically finding out how our brains work and how to improve designs depending on environment, subconsciousness as well as psychology factors. A topic especially fascinating since we are living in a world where artificial intelligence is getting the overhand, even though we haven’t fully comprehended our own creativity and mind processes. A dangerous pathway we should not fully embrace. We should rather try and find a way to improve our knowledge about ourselves instead of escaping into an easy way out (AI).

In the ongoing research of my topic I want to shift my already existing methodical and scientific research into action, meaning that the exploration of neurodesign techniques in a practical form is my focus.

How can we change the way people perceive certain topics? How can we shift the perception of typography through certain impulses? For example, I stumbled upon a study where researchers in an academic environment tested the effects on students, when it came to the print quality of typography. As a design student the outcome of said study was especially surprising for me, because they found out that work sheets with less optimal print quality was crucial in the improvement of finishing given tasks. The group of students with worse print quality had to focus more on the contents hence why they performed better on the given taks handed to them. An outcome that changes the perception of all the principles we have learned in our studies , when it comes to aspects like readability, print quality and spacing. But why is this so interesting?

“We cannot solve problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.“

Albert Einstein

Thinking about the fact that most of the design principles we are following today found their origin in the late nineteenth century, the question for me is: Is there actual change really happening or are we just repeating what we already know works well enough? Reflecting on the work we see today not much has changed other than the technical advancements. Sure, concepts, trends and techniques might change but our fundamental way of thinking is still the same. Exploring Neurodesign in a more practical way might open new portals for a new and innovative way of designing not only for recipients but also for designers.