Faulty by Design: An Examination of User Decision Making

faulty by design: an examina(on of user decision making

Boston UXPA Bill Gribbons, Ph.D Director of UX Programs, Bentley University Founder of the User Experience Center and Studio [email protected] May 2015

what we will consider

decision making in our lives decision making as a window to all behavior the faulty nature of decision making underlying causes affects on user behavior and performance possible design support

what is decision making? where I am many choices where I want to be

uncertainty invest'ent costs

value cog/itive disabilit2

St4ess

confidence available infor'ation ex9er:ise

cult;re

age

Time-‐to act fatig;e risk

let’s face it: we’re bad at it we are designed to minimize effort and optimize performance… even in the most critical life decisions…

our most expensive purchases, investments, business decisions, choosing life partners… and the list goes on and on….

for example: #1 financial concern of Americans is enough money to reCre just over half of adult Americans are saving anything for reCrement 50% of 45-‐50 year olds have saved less than $25,000 for reCrement

and need I share the stats on American's health goals versus the decisions they make.

what’s wrong? is it a hardware or software problem?

load anxiety near-‐term focus

a quick note on biases and heurisCcs

systemaCc errors are know as biases and they occur predictably in parCcular contexts heurisCcs, in the hands of an expert, are probability based rules driven by recogniCon of paOerns (not intuiCon)

efficiency and load based on a limited pool of aAentional resources, we tend to be cog/itive misers

when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one…

heuristics and simple r;les

t29icalit2 bias

availabilit2 bias

simplif2 choices

Kahneman’s noCon of bounded raConality

anchoring bias

satisficing

near-‐term outlook

we should be planning for re(rement… … but, that sports car sure looks good in the driveway today….

behavioral economists credit this to a bias for near-term survival

we are designed to keep anxiety in check

confir'ational bias

selective omission

avoidance behavior

t;nnel vision or

cog/itive nar4owing

what happens if we don’t?

what does this mean for our users?

are we designing for hypotheCcal logical raConal agents or real people? this gets tricky, as Kahneman states, people tend to exaggerate the role of the slow, raConal side of their thinking

buOons

Two days later…

at time of purchase when using the product

compensaCng for the predictably irraConal

for example, while interviewing a future user for the previous slide’s product the conversaCon might go like this: “ I can understand why you like those buAons – you know, I love buAons too, but (pause…) humor me for a moment. What if we desig/ed a device with fewer buAons but with a lower cost and increased ease of use?” “here, let me show you……”

In other words, what I did is swap out the “false value” of buOons for the real human value of investment costs -‐-‐-‐ Cme and money.

Let’s take a look

first the bad….

7 plans 21 coverage aspects no comparison engine no filters connecCons: load, simplificaCon, opCmism

© William Gribbons, 2015


A different approach…

more bad…


A few more stories….

X Sorry, pictures are not advisable here to avoid legal problems and keep me a free man….

connec3on: perhaps capturing the expert’s rule or heurisCc? connec3on: anxiety, countering availability bias

the case of Zillow

Connec3on: providing the buyer with logical, raConal simplificaCon filters rather than allowing this process to play out emoConally or irraConally in the subconscious of the buyer (thinking fast)

the future…beware the “nudger”

closing thoughts

design to support “real people” rather than a mythological raConal logical, agent. consider these behaviors in our interacCons with users in the field seek to counter these persistent psychological forces without venturing too far down the slippery slope of nudging