1. 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 February 2017
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2. 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
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3. 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
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4. 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 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….
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5. 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
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6. what’s wrong? load anxiety near-term focus
is it a hardware or software problem?
load
anxiety
near-term focus
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7. 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
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8. 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….
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9. 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
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10. 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.
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11. expect conflicting behaviors…
buttons
Two days later…
at time of purchase when using the product
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12. 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.
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13. Let’s take a look
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14. first the bad…. 7 plans 21 coverage aspects no comparison engine
no filters
connections: load, simplification, optimism
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15. now the good…
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18. more bad…
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19. good
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20. connection: perhaps capturing the expert’s rule or heuristic?
connection: anxiety, countering availability bias
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21. 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)
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24. the future…beware the “nudger”
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25. 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
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