Cognitive Biases in UX and Where to Find Them

by Garik Avetisyan, Co-Founder at Flexy Global

What do you do in online shops before dropping an item in the Cart? Let us imagine that you find the item you desire online and it has the highest ratings, with thorough and positive reviews from 1001 people. Would you buy it? Yes, right?

Now, what if that very same item had a 5-star rating, but did not have the exact color or material you wanted; but, still highly praised over all other options. Would you still buy it? Probably yes.

Believe it or not, this behavior is a psychologically studied phenomenon (as common as it may seem) called a cognitive bias. It is when the way information is presented affects people’s judgment. I like to describe it as rose-tinted-glasses that can either help in decision making or blind us to corporate agendas.

After much research and personal experience, I am convinced, as an entrepreneur, that psychology plays a huge role in business development. After all, psychology is all about human minds and actions, which manifest in user experience. Cognitive biases are often included in deliberate UI choices, which then affect your customers’ experience. That is why I wanted to share my thoughts and findings with you to help improve your strategies. Allow me to talk you through 5 biases and show them in action.

The Bandwagon Effect

The above-presented example you visualized in your mind not a minute ago is actually a cognitive bias called the Bandwagon Effect. I prefer that term better than ‘Herd Behavior’ because of its visual quality. A bandwagon is an old fashioned cart used by circus people or gypsy artists who would be greeted by townspeople and followed to see the rare entertainment. Hence, the term was used to represent something popular or fashionable; resulting in the phrase, “jump on the bandwagon” meaning to join others in something popular. You probably guessed by now that the bias is about doing something just because “everyone is doing it.” For instance, the more people buy a certain product the more you trust it, so you end up buying it.

Mind you, it is nothing to be ashamed of! We tend to do this all the time: looking at the crowd’s actions at a zebra crossing or taking off your shoes before entering someone’s house because you saw others do it. The same behavior is transferred into your online life as well, and you can bet that companies use it to their advantage.

Before we talk about where the Bandwagon Effect is used, what is it made of? First, the message you want to spread is that a product or service is super popular or preferred over others. Secondly, the message should be clearly visible among other offers and brands. Let us look at this from a design perspective. After all, text, fonts, colors, shapes, and layouts all guide users’ eyes to what we want them to notice.

Here are a few things that can make your message pop:

• Page hierarchy
• Bold font
• A text frame
• Central placements
• Larger scale ratio to other messages
• Color sectioning
• Contrast

Where is it used? These elements are commonly used to highlight a particular subscription plan. Some even add the actual number of customers who chose a subscription plan, but statistics only have weight if your numbers are up in the thousands. You can also find the bias appear as “Top Listed” offers near products on leading retail websites like Amazon and AliExpress.

The ’cherry-on-top’ is adding a bright and bold text like, “Most Popular” so customers know why a product stands out. Design elements are indirect signifiers of something special, whereas text actually carries the trigger message, ‘others like it, so will you.’ Why pick a dodgy offer when you can follow the, allegedly, popular choice! If your business is more service-oriented, a trick you could use is to name partner companies or brands that already use your service. This will help build customer trust and drive those conversion rates.

Scarcity Effect

We discussed how grown people follow treaded paths, but the truth is that biases also occur among children. A group of researchers studied the Scarcity Bias in child behavior and found that young kids preferred toys of rare color over a common color.

So, what is scarcity bias? The scarcity effect is when you place greater value on things that are limited in number. It is in human nature to want something that is hard to obtain. Why is gold a precious metal? Because of its properties, sure, but also because there is less of it! This is at the core of the Scarcity Effect or as I think of it — the forbidden fruit syndrome.

This time, the task is to let people know that there is a limited amount of products. Our job is to inform clients of the absolute top offer before anything else and convince them that they better not miss the deal.

Here are a few kickstarters:

• Priority information usually goes to the top
• Red is typically the color of alert
• Emphasize the number of available seats/products if applicable
• You can safely use all caps for this message
• Feel free to add a supporting message if applicable e.g. “You can cancel at any time!”

Where is it used? Some companies, like Booking.com go for a bannered message at the very top so you simply can’t miss the message. Amazon tends to have “Epic deals” or “Today’s deals” right on the home page and continuously suggested while shopping. Another option is the direct “Only 5 left in stock” notice or having limited-time deals with a visible countdown.

Curiosity Gap

“Why is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what’s on the other side?” — George R.R. Martin

Another world truth is that we are naturally curious beings. It is how children grow and develop, and it is what drives our progress. Which is why, we would rather complete a number of tasks and maybe even give a sum of money just to eliminate ambiguity. The Curiosity Gap is essentially an information gap, where you create a feeling of deprivation so that your customers will be motivated to resolve it and move on.

The aim is to tease the user with a cropped piece of information, and set some tasks or rules for them to follow before they can satisfy their curiosity. Hook their attention and spark an interest!

How is it done?

• Cropped product thumbnail images
• Shortened blog titles
• Notification alerts without preview
• Scheduled announcement

What action can you spark?

• Click
• Engagement
• Filling out information forms
• Profile set-up
• Sign up
• Profile upgrade
• Purchase

Where is it used? You can find the scarcity effect on websites and applications alike. Some websites (particularly unofficial movie streaming sites) show the page a user clicked on but cover it up with an unavoidable “Sign Up!’ banner or a “Bonus Feature!” message. Other businesses like LinkedIn create a curiosity gap by notifying users that ‘someone’ viewed their profile. You can only see private viewers by upgrading to a paid Premium subscription though.

Foot-in-the-door Technique

Don’t you enjoy getting free product testers at shop entrances or supermarkets? Digital platforms use a similar principle when they give us a small offer we will accept so that we will want to agree to a larger deal. They virtually set their foot-in-the-door before you can refuse an offer.

Our goal is not to force people to buy our products or services. All we need is to hook a user with a small deal before they lose interest or move onto another brand.

Here are some subscription design ideas:

• It can be at the top, front, and center of the page like a banner.
• You can use color sectioning and text.
• Don’t forget a responsive CTA button.
• It can be a pop-up message.
• You can even have the button appear multiple times down the homepage.
• Use calm themes with accent colors on important features.

Where is it used? One of the most common examples is the ever tempting one-time ‘Free Trial’ offer before an automatic paid subscription. Most likely, it would be the first thing you would see on the screen. Another offer technique is asking for a minimal charge for the first month of use. Netflix truly knows what it’s doing as its dimmed app screen guides you to the great offer with a reassuring small-font message “Cancel in just two clicks.”

Not everything is about selling a deal. Onboarding is also a way of leaving a foot-in-the-door because you have no choice but to see it before proceeding with a service. There are different ways you can go about this: either being gentle and nudging a client to go over certain features or bombarding them with a long list of forms to fill. I would suggest the first method.

Some insider advice:

• Break the tasks into small brief chunks.
• Show a progress bar to feel encouraged.
• Show some examples instead of asking to fill in the ‘categories’ they will be interested in.
• Better use toggles instead of text input boxes.
• The shorter each message is, the better (they can visit your Help or Settings page if they need to).

Restraint Bias

Did you ever click on a clickbait article or video title? It is a tough call because, as fake as you know it may be, you still find yourself clicking, reading, listening, or watching. Many of us overestimate our ability to shut out our curiosity which confirms the restraint bias.

This bias is all about involuntary, impulsive behavior. For example, a 2009 study observed how recovering smokers who had high self-control expectations still could not ignore the inner craving to light a cigarette and relapsed.

Restraint bias is not used by all, but it is important to understand your target audience and its behavior patterns. The questions you should ask are: what are my users interested in? What does the user flow look like? How can I lengthen page visits or app usage?

This bias is most common in video platforms and social media.

Here are some design pointers:

• Give the “Up Next” call to action button a few short seconds before a smooth transition onto other content.
• Ensure a cancellation button/option.
• It is best to place the withdrawal option out of immediate sight (bottom right for example).
• Add some transparency to the button.

Where is it used? You can find this bias on Facebook, particularly the new Watch page where one video automatically follows the other. This is why you can spend a full hour watching irrelevant content without noticing! A less foot-in-the-door method is used in Youtube, where the user can cancel or switch off the autoplay option.

Keep in mind that Restraint Bias is most effective when it is least visible. Nonetheless, you can use a splash of color to hook the user if the service has intriguing follow-up content: like the next episode on Netflix or a video on Youtube.

It is worth knowing such biases since they can seriously boost our views, conversion, and sales. Product competition is sky-high, so, learning a bit of psychology will really help you create and sell projects 10 times faster!

Did you hear about any of these before? Comment below and leave a Clap if you found this helpful!