faulty by design: an examination of human decision making 6th Annual Symposium on Communicating Complex Information (SCCI) Bill Gribbons, Ph.D. Director of UX Programs, Bentley University Founder of the User Experience Center and UX Studio wgribbons@bentley.edu @wgribbons February 2017 Gribbons 2017

what we will examine? 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 Gribbons 2017

life is a series of decisions…. what we do who we associate with where we live what we buy how we conduct our lives – financial & health where we work how we manage people, projects & companies design or engineering choices we make Gribbons 2017

but 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… for example: #1 financial concern of Americans is enough money to retire just over half of adult Americans are saving anything for retirement 50% of 45-50 year olds have saved less than $25,000 for retirement and need I share the stats on American's health goals versus the decisions they make. our most expensive purchases, investments, business decisions, choosing life partners… and the list goes on and on…. Gribbons 2017

what is decision making? where I am where I want to be Stress fatigue risk Time-to act uncertainty cognitive disability value investment costs culture expertise available information confidence age Gribbons 2017

what’s wrong? load anxiety near-term focus is it a hardware or software problem? load anxiety near-term focus Gribbons 2017

efficiency and load anchoring bias when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one… anchoring bias based on a limited pool of attentional resources, we tend to be cognitive misers heuristics and simple rules satisficing simplify choices typicality bias availability bias Simon’s notion of bounded rationality Gribbons 2017

near-term outlook behavioral economists credit this to a evolutionary bias for near-term survival we should be planning for retirement… … but, that sports car sure looks good in the driveway today…. Gribbons 2017

we are designed to keep anxiety in check what happens if we don’t? tunnel vision or cognitive narrowing confirmational bias avoidance behavior selective omission risk aversion Gribbons 2017

what does this mean for our users? are we designing for hypothetical, logical rational agents or real people? this gets tricky, as Kahneman states, people tend to exaggerate the role of the slow, rational side of their thinking … in other words, we greatly exaggerate the quality of our decision making. Gribbons 2017

expect conflicting behaviors… buttons Two days later… at time of purchase when using the product Gribbons 2017

managing the predictably irrational for example, while interviewing a future user for the previous slide’s product the conversation might go like this: “ I can understand why you like those buttons – you know, I love buttons too, but (pause…) humor me for a moment. What if we designed a device with fewer buttons 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 buttons for the real human value of investment costs --- time and money. Gribbons 2017

Let’s take a look Gribbons 2017

first the bad…. 7 plans 21 coverage aspects no comparison engine no filters connections: load, simplification, optimism Gribbons 2017

now the good… Gribbons 2017

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more bad… Gribbons 2017

good Gribbons 2017

connection: perhaps capturing the expert’s rule or heuristic? connection: anxiety, countering availability bias Gribbons 2017

the case of Zillow Connection: providing the buyer with logical, rational simplification filters rather than allowing this process to play out emotionally or irrationally in the subconscious of the buyer (thinking fast) Gribbons 2017

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the future…beware the “nudger” Gribbons 2017

closing thoughts…. design to support “real people” rather than a mythological rational logical, agent consider these behaviors in our interactions with users in the field seek to counter these persistent psychological forces without venturing too far down the slippery slope of nudging Gribbons 2017