Common Types of UX Design Bias and How to Overcome Them

One way brains are able to store so much information is by creating mental shortcuts based on repeated patterns. These shortcuts allow humans to relate and group information together for quicker processing. But, these repeated patterns of thinking can lead to inaccurate or unreasonable conclusions that are biased.

Bias is favouring or having a prejudice against something based on limited information. It’s like making up your mind about someone before you’ve really gotten to know them.

Kinds of Bias

• Confirmation bias
• False consensus bias
• Primacy bias
• Recency bias
• Implicit bias
• The sunk cost fallacy

We aren’t the users. It is important to put ourselves in our user’s shoes when making design decisions.

1. Confirmation bias.

This bias occurs when you start looking for evidence to prove a hypothesis you have. Because you think you already have the answer, you’re drawn to information that confirms your beliefs and preconceptions.

Overcoming confirmation bias:

• Ask open-ended questions when conducting interviews.
• Actively listening without adding your own opinions. That means you aren’t leading your interviewees toward the answer that you want them to give.
• Include a large sample of users. Big sample of users with diverse perspectives, make sure you’re not just looking for a small group of people who fit your preconceived ideas.

2. False consensus bias

Which is the assumption that others will think the same way as you do. It happens when we overestimate the number of people who will agree with our idea or design. it’s possible for the false consensus to go so far as to assume anyone who doesn’t agree with you is abnormal.

Overcoming False consensus bias:

• Identifying and articulating your assumptions. Finding a few people who do align with your beliefs and assuming they represent the entire community is a false consensus.
• Survey large groups of people.

3. Recency bias

That’s when it’s easiest to remember the last thing you heard in an interview, conversation, or similar setting because it’s the most recent.

4. Primacy bias

Where you remember the first participant most strongly. (Sometimes the first person you meet makes the strongest impression because you’re in a new situation or having a new experience.)

Overcoming the Primacy bias and the recency bias:

• Take detailed notes or recordings for each interview or conversation you have.
• Interview each participant in the same way.
• Consistency makes it easier to compare and contrast over time. Consistency makes it more likely that you’ll remember the unusual and important moments that happen throughout your research.

5. Implicit bias (unconscious bias)

It is a collection of attitudes and stereotypes we associate to people without our conscious knowledge. When we only interview people within a limited set of identity profiles, such as race, age, gender, socioeconomic status, and ability.

• Implicit bias might cause you to feel uncomfortable interviewing people whose life experiences are different from your own.
• We might choose to interview people from typically excluded groups, but then ask potentially offensive questions because of our internalized stereotypes.
• Everybody has implicit bias

Overcoming Implicit bias:

• Reflect on our behaviors
• Ask others to point out our implicit biases.

6. The sunk cost fallacy

This is the idea that the deeper we get into a project we’ve invested in, the harder it is to change course without feeling like we’ve failed or wasted time.

Overcoming The sunk cost fallacy

• Break down your project into smaller phases
• Outline designated points where you can decide whether to continue or stop.
• This allows you to go back based on new insights before the project gets too far along. you need to focus on work that positively impacts users.
• The phrase “sunk cost” refers to the time we’ve already spent or sunk into a project or activity.

The more that identifying bias becomes a habit, the better you’ll get at avoiding bias in your design process.

You’ll need to know how to anticipate, identify, and overcome biases in your research, in particular.

1. Choose your words carefully. While conducting research, it’s important to use words that don’t lead the user in one direction or another.

• Choosing leading words can cause the framing effect, where users make a decision or choice based on the way information was presented to them. To improve your product, you need honest feedback.

2. Foster independent thinking. Group interviews can be affected by the bandwagon effect, or going along with the group’s opinion instead of thinking creatively, which can discourage open discussion by people who have an opinion that doesn’t align with the majority of the group. To combat the bandwagon effect, ask participants to write down or record their thoughts before discussing them as a group.

3. Avoid specific language. It’s important to be mindful about the types of questions you ask users and how those questions are framed. You’ll need to be careful to avoid confirmation bias, which is trying to find evidence to prove a hypothesis you already have. Confirmation bias is particularly prevalent in online surveys.

• You provide four options with specifically worded language that the participant has to choose from. If none of the options you’ve provided apply to the user, they can’t select “other” or skip the question, so they’ll be forced to choose one of the multiple-choice answers that doesn’t match their actual experience.
• In a survey, you want measurable results, which is known as quantitative data. You can reframe the question in your survey to ask participants to rate their experiences using the product, which will be a more accurate way to gauge how they felt about using it.

4. Limit the guidance you give users. Everyone learns and thinks in different ways. When you’re conducting any type of UX research, you have to be cautious to avoid experiencing any false consensus, which is the assumption that others will think the same way as you do.

• It’s important to let participants follow their own paths through your product, without interrupting them.

5. Consider users’ tone and body language. You’ll work with many different users and participants throughout your UX career, and part of your job will involve interpreting their nonverbal cues, like vocal tone and body language. To avoid experiencing implicit biases, which are based on the collection of attitudes and stereotypes you associate with people without your conscious knowledge, it’s important to clarify when you think you’re getting mixed signals from a participant.

• Make sure participants are comfortable sharing their thoughts with you.
• Before the research begins, ask participants about themselves or make light conversation. Starting with easier questions can help reduce anxiety or awkwardness throughout the study.

6. Be careful of your own body language and reactions. You also have to be mindful of your own tone and body language while interacting with participants. Social desirability bias can happen when a participant answers a question based on what they think you want to hear.

• The user has to feel comfortable sharing their true, unfiltered feelings about the product.
• Reassure participants that their answers won’t hurt anyone’s feelings and that you really want to hear their honest opinions in order to improve your work.

7. Plan your research effectively. Tight deadlines are inevitable. But as a UX designer, it’s essential you get enough time to recruit the right users for your research. Availability bias occurs when you rush the user recruitment process or skip screener questions to attract a bigger pool of users, even if they don’t fit the qualifications or characteristics that you’ve already determined are present in your ideal user.

• If you’re having trouble recruiting the right users before your deadline, offer a better incentive for participating in your study, adjust your recruitment strategy, or ask your project manager for more time.

8. Remain open-minded. You have to work hard to treat all information equally to avoid both primacy bias, which is remembering the first user more than others, and recency bias, which is most easily remembering the last thing you heard. To help combat these biases in your own research, it’s helpful to space out the scheduling of interviews, ask your colleagues to join you during interviews to provide additional opinions and take careful notes.

A tool that can help us identify our implicit biases is an Implicit Association Test (IAT). Being aware of biases is the first step to take to overcoming them and better serving users. (preliminary information)