DESIGNERS GUIDE TO DECISION MAKING AND ELIMINATING BIAS
Unfortunately, we tend to see what we are trained to see. That is true for work as well as life. It does however, open an intriguing question as to ‘direction of purpose’. What are our motivations when we engage in the design process? How free are we really to creatively indulge in the design process? Do our solutions just reflect our upbringing and social conditioning or are our actions a reflection of objective rational thought focused solely on the design brief and nothing else. Or conversely should a designer be biased in his decisions after all maybe that was why the client choose him or her in the first place.
The role of the product designer is to make critical strategic decisions around the form and function of the products we have been tasked to create or improve. As makers it is our responsibility to be aware of what informs our decision-making process.
One of the great urges a designer has to fight against as the project unfolds is to become myopic in his thought and actions. The longer the design process continues the more we are immersed in its intricate dances, to the detriment of everything else. We tend toward blocking out everything except what is in our immediate path.
At any given moment we receive over 11 million bits of information. However, our conscious mind processes only a fraction of this, actually it’s 40 bits.
Therefore, the unconscious mind is processing the other 99.999996% of bits coming through our senses. We have a universal ability to make instinctive decisions automatically as a survival mechanism. This innate human ability is called unconscious bias.
Unconscious bias is the by-product of the workings of a gland called the Amygdala. This gland controls the fight or flight responses and is also responsible for long term memory acquisition. Memory acquisition is sparked by having an experience. It does not matter whether that experience is good or bad, it just needs to be accompanied by an emotional response. The emotional response triggers the Amygdala into stimulating the neurons into laying down permanent tracks that facilitate memory retention.
If you give a user an emotional experience when engaged with your product, they will not forget it.
Remember that!
So, unconscious bias is a tool nature gives us to help us thrive on this planet. The ability to figure out things quickly and come to rapid conclusions. It is triggered when our brain makes quick assessments and judgments of people and situations that are affecting us. It is influenced by our socio-historical identity, our cultural artefacts, and domain changing experiences. Unconscious bias is the foundation of stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination.
It is also human and it is also very normal.
How can we circumvent this Venus fly trap of blinding subjectivity?
• Firstly, self-awareness within the decision-making process during the product meetings or workshops.
• Secondly, Put yourself into the stakeholder’s shoes.
• Thirdly, broaden your perspective on your product, don’t try only to learn code for the sake of learning but instead get familiar with the core business.
• Fourthly, bring questions to the table not just answers.
• Fifth, go out there and educate yourself!
− Search relentlessly for potential relevant or disruptive evidence.
− Seek diverse opinion from outside the group to counter familiarity.
− Reward the process, make use of constructive critiques.
− Flip the problem on its head to see if we are viewing the situation in either a positive or negative framework.
− Redefine the problem to avoid an escalation of unnecessary commitment.
− Avoid the potential for escalation or further emotional investment in faulty decisions engendered by outdated thinking. Know when to cut and run.
Most of the design process choke points come from within the group. It is only by exercising intellectual rigor can we challenge the status quo.
It is well worth reading an enlightening POST by David Ingram and Mike Thompson who maintain that it is not only our behaviours as ‘individuals’ that are relevant, but also and perhaps more importantly how we make risk/reward decisions within the group, that have the most potential for the project’s success or failure.
We have a responsibility to create products that not only look great but function for the benefit of the largest target group, regardless of our natural tendency toward bias.
It is often useful when designing to begin by looking at the question holistically. The design process that is taught in colleges up and down the land has a sequence and that sequence starts with research. Garner new insight from your research and then bring others into your process, whoever they may be, peers, teachers, family, friends.
The research process should bring some answers but those answers will be loaded with bias. All answers should be questioned with counter arguments to eliminate potential bias. Recognise the natural bias we cannot help but indulge, then conduct experiments in such a way as to mitigate them.
STRATEGIES:
1 — Identify and Eliminate Bias
The importance of research goes way beyond the need for creative inspiration. It can help you understand the bias that you inherently bring to the table when problem solving. Within the research process you should be asking users what the problems are, instead of trying to figure it out yourself.
2 — Write down all your assumptions
Write down your assumptions. You know what they say about assuming,
‘It makes an ass out of you and me.’
By writing down assumptions it gives the designer another moment of reflection which inevitably leads to greater clarity.
A designer should be in love with assumptions, it is the reward for free thinking, when your mind is at its most childlike, free from the dictates of the brief, constrained but not constrainable. It is the moment when you get to know yourself, the individual, not the designer but the human being with all its faults.
We make assumptions about the user, the design team, the product. We even assume that users will like the product.
In writing our assumptions down we can be led to questions about the product or the user which hopefully can be used in turn to create a more user centred design.
3 — Think about the answers when you have done your research
Pertinent questions bring pertinent answers. Good interviewers focus on asking insightful questions because that’s how you really get to understand the issue or the person.
During the early stages of a project, try to stay away from answering the big questions and instead prioritize questions by importance and keep them close at hand. Keep your questions in mind as you do your research but don’t try to find solutions until the research stage is complete.
‘It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It
biases the judgment.’
– Sherlock Holmes
Start thinking about solutions only after you feel you have a holistic understanding of the environment surrounding the problem space.
It can be very hard to know everything about the problem space but, as designers, we should be trying our best to understand the ecosystem our solutions are going to fit into.
Solutions should arise only from a reasonable level of both secondary and primary research into the problem space has been completed. —
Hopefully, the next time you’re working on a project you can fight that lizard like brain tendency of jumping on the first solution that pops into your mind.
A brilliant solution to the wrong problem can be worse than no solution at all: Solve the problem you see not the problem you think you see.