A walk through the neighborhood of Cognitive Bias.
The good and the bad of turning our primitive brain on itself. Diving deeper into the Daily UX Crash Course — User Psychology: 19 of 31
What is Cognitive Bias? It is the reason philosophy and reasoning should be taught in elementary school. We think we are rational beings but in reality, nature gets the best of us. Think of it as, we are bombarded by tons of information everyday and our brain has developed tricks to make our decisions faster. But faster doesn’t necessarily mean rational.
So why on earth would you want to make faster, irrational decisions? Because sometimes it is more important to make a timely decision than an accurate one. When being chased by lion, contemplating the best direction to run in will definitely get you eaten. This is where quick and irrational wins, hands down. We developed these tricks for day-to-day survival.
However, since we have moved on from the daily worries of being eaten to what do we have to eat in the fridge, our brains have not evolved. We still rely heavily on the animal part of our brain where cognitive bias rules. In the concrete jungle, it leaves us susceptible to others directing choices for us without even realizing.
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” — Mark Twain
As UX designers, like our marketing cousins, we can use this to our advantage. Moving our users toward decisions we would like them to make, often in the direction of forking over more cash than the user would initially be willing to consider.
This sounds nefarious, doesn’t it. It certainly can be. Exploiting cognitive bias in the short-term is a fantastic strategy for making money quickly. But in the long run, you lose user trust, which is proven to be more valuable by being more sustainable. Julia Kirby at Harvard Business Review makes a good business case for trust. While John Brownlee at Inc. has a recent article which eloquently explains why falling in with Dark Patterns spells persistent future troubles for even large companies. In the long-term, ethics and business can do great things together. It is interesting to note however, making decisions based on short-term gains (making money quickly at the detriment of long-term business goals) lives in the irrational part of our brain, the exact same neighborhood as cognitive bias — weird.
Now what are Dark Patterns? Darkpatterns.org describes them as: a user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills. They are developed by exploiting different facets of human psychology, most notably, cognitive bias.
We can use cognitive bias for our advantage, but remember it is a balance. Using it a little is like saying “please” and “thank you.” The user can still say “no,” because they are still firmly in control. Additionally, being polite can be persuasive while increasing trust. Users will have a positive experience and will most likely engage with us in the future. Using it way too much is like holding the user at knife-point — persuasive, but not trustworthy, causing them to run away the first chance they get.
Identifying cognitive biases.
ANCHORING: Letting the first piece of information have more weight or serve as the starting point when making decisions.
This is all about setting expectations. Non-profit organizations set expectations for donation amounts on forms to show what we “should” give. Below is a good example. We have this anchor in our brain about how much an easily attainable “want” costs, versus how much a more elusive “need” costs somewhere else. A recipe for “take all my money, because I want to be a good person.” Another would be the use of discounting. JCPenney saw purchases drop when they vastly reduced their discount sales and relied on overall lower prices. Consumers no longer saw the “savings” they were getting with the coupons and sales, even though prices were lower. It was so bad they had to go back to the discount sales model that their consumers loved and expected.
BANDWAGON: All the UX designers are using this, why aren’t you?
It’s the fallacy in logic that if everyone likes, uses, or is doing a certain thing, so it is good. We are social beings and for the most part want to cooperate with each other. It can play on our insecurities of being left out, or going against the majority. An example is when social applications advertise how many users are already using their platform. A incredibly familiar one is below.
DECOY EFFECT: Luring users to choose “the best deal”, by adding a third bias inducing option.
Users want to make smart decisions, I want to be smart decisions. We want to make the most of our money. For many our first reaction is to pay the least amount of money, choosing a basic offering instead of a more expensive extra bells and whistles option. However when a third option is introduced, it can throw our brain off, especially when it is skewed. Subscription based offerings often use this tactic. The sample below makes it very hard to resist the All Access option. It seems silly not to take it.
These examples are mostly in the middle of the road in terms of exploitation, the user still has the option to make their own choice, but cognitive bias has made it harder. In the long run, users can become suspicious and question the motives behind the deals. Making them less loyal and more likely to jump to a competitor.
Remember a little can go a long way, and use them for good.
Check out Wikipedia more complete list and sources to get you started down the rabbit whole of Human Psychology.
And if you do not have the patience, below is a shorter list of cognitive biases to explore.
BONUS tangental article of interest.
