Cognitive Biases and Principles in UX Flashcard Deck

Question

SKIP What is Tesler's Law?

Answer 1

Social proof is a convenient shortcut that users take to determine how to behave. When they are unsure or when the situation is ambiguous, they are most likely to look and accept the actions of others as correct. The greater the number of people, the more appropriate the action seems. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 2

While scarcity is typically invoked to encourage purchasing behaviors, it can also be used to increase quality by encouraging people to be more judicious with the actions they take. It can come in different forms: Time-limited, Quantity limited, Access-limited. Never fake scarcity if you don't want reactance! ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 3

The curiosity gap is the space between what users know and what they want or need to know. Gaps cause pain, and to take it away, users need to fill the knowledge gap. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 4

A mental model is an explanation of someone's thought process about how something works in the real world. It is a representation of the surrounding world, which might be accurate or not. What users believe they know about your product changes how they use it. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 5

Users have an innate desire for things they're already familiar with. And the more we experience something, the more likely we are to like it. So, try to use common patterns when creating new experiences. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 6

Skeuomorphism is where an interface object mimics its real world counterpart to facilitate transition to new technology. The digital object imitates reality by how it appears or how the user can interact with it. Skeuomorphism partly relies Familiarity Bias and on a usability concept called "Affordance" (the actions which users consider possible while interacting with an object). Skeuomorphism is best used to get users to adapt to new interfaces and new technology. Especially since nowadays, most users have become used to interacting with graphical user interfaces. That's why creating a skeuomorphic interface strictly for aesthetic reasons won't always work and might even clutter the interface. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 7

Reciprocity is a social norm of responding to a positive action with another positive action, rewarding kind actions. In the context of digital product experiences, users are more likely to engage with your product if you first provide them value. They'll be more likely to trust you and reciprocate. That's even more important when you're about to ask for something big from your users (sign up, paywall, etc). ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 8

People are more willing to empathize with a single, identifiable person than large abstract groups. This means that the addition of more people doesn’t increase your willingness to help proportionally. On the opposite, your compassion fades as more people are involved. The Singularity Effect, combined with the Character Identification Effect and the Narrative Bias explains why you tend to remember stories with vivid characters much better than abstract statistics and data (see examples below). ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 9

In the operant conditioning method, a variable-ratio schedule is a schedule of reinforcement where a response is reinforced after an unpredictable number of responses. This unexpected schedule creates a steady, high rate of responding. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 10

The aha moment is a moment of sudden insight or discovery. In software, it’s the pivotal moment when a new user first realizes the value of your product and why they need it. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 11

The closer users are to reaching a milestone (e.g., completing a task, reaching a goal, etc), the faster they work towards reaching it. Interestingly, even artificial or estimated progress indicators can help to motivate users. That's why it's crucial that your experience provides a clear indication of progress to provide this feedback to your users. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 12

Occam’s razor is a mental model which states that “it is futile to do with more what can be done with fewer”—in other words, the simplest explanation is most likely the right one. Be careful, simple does not mean ignoring important facts in an attempt to reduce the complexity. It requires open mindedness to seek a better solution with less complexity and less assumptions, exploring a better way of doing things. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 13

When companies demonstrate genuine caring and social responsibility, they tend to be rewarded with increased brand loyalty, and greater profits. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 14

The Hawthorne effect is a theory that describes a type of reactivity in which individuals modify an aspect of their behavior in response to their awareness of being observed. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 15

Making users wait for something they requested while showing them how it is being prepared creates the appearance of effort. Customers are usually more likely to appreciate the results of that effort. This is also called the "KAYAK Effect" (based on the travel booking site that used that tactic). ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 16

Unless the incentive to change is compelling, people are more likely to stick to the default situation presented to them. This is also called the Status quo bias. It can be a powerful actor when trying to change behaviors. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 17

People invest time, money, information, or effort into a product in anticipation of future benefits. It makes them more likely to return because of the increase in perceived value. When executed properly, user investments load the next trigger to use your product. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 18

We hate losing or letting go of what we have (even if more could be had). Prospect theory says that a loss hurts more than an equal gain feels good. In other words, losing $1,000 will "hurt" more than the joy of gaining $1,000. Loss aversion can also lead to sunk cost fallacy. (Related: Endowment Effect). ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 19

When users are asked to do something, their brain instinctually perceive it as a threat. The smaller the initial ask, the smaller the fight or flight response and the more likely they are to agree to gradually bigger requests. Especially since the brain likes to be consistent with its previous actions. It's part of the reason why multi-step forms can perform up to 271% better than a big single-step form. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 20

People experience the sunk cost effect when they keep doing something as a result of previously invested resources (time, effort, money, etc). That effect becomes a fallacy if it's pushing them to do things that won't make them happier. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 21

Reactance occurs when a person feels that someone or something is taking away their choices or limiting the range of alternatives. It'll trigger an opposite response to what was intended, and also increases resistance to persuasion. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 22

When we acquire a new skill, we tend to see opportunities to use it everywhere. This bias is also known as “the law of the hammer”, or “Maslow’s hammer”, in reference to psychologist Abraham Maslow’s famous quote: “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail." ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 23

We’re more likely to do the hard stuff when tightly coupled with something tempting. Researchers showed that bundling a want, or an instant gratification experience, with a should, or a valuable but delayed gratification experience would increase the chances of taking action. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 24

This effect occurs when a person’s lack of knowledge and skills in a certain area cause them to overestimate their own competence. By contrast, it also causes those who excel in a given area to think the task is simple for everyone (curse of knowledge), and underestimate their relative abilities as well. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 25

Discoverability means that the user can extract the knowledge they need of the product by looking at it. If the key elements to take action are well presented then discoverability is good. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 26

A single decision can initiate a series of cause-and-effects, and it can be hard to predict or control them all. Still, as a product community, we have the ethical responsibility of trying to predict the undesirable consequences of the experiences we create as best as we can. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 27

Exit points are meant to respect people's time. They are opportunities to "put down" the product when users feel they have reached something. They are critical to an overall experience when you want to avoid product fatigue and reactance. (Related to: Peak-End Rule) ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 28

Users don't merely evaluate an experience based on the average or a sum of all the micro-experiences. Instead, their brain heavily weighs the peaks (high or low) and the end of the experience. Peaks—when pleasant—often correspond to memorable delighters sprinkled into the user journey. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 29

Why are we tempted to eat sweets when walking by a bakery in the morning? The smell out of the oven is strong enough to make us stop. The sights, sounds, feels, tastes, and smells of products are designed to engage users' senses. And when multiple senses are engaged, people are more likely to create an emotional connection with the brand. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 30

Lewin’s field theory states that a task in progress creates task-specific tension. This tension is relieved when the task is completed, but if the task is interrupted, it stays. That tension makes relevant information more accessible and more easily remembered. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 31

Users are more likely to want to keep something that they own than acquire that same thing when they don't own it. They tend to overvalue the things they own, regardless of their objective market value. (Related: Loss Aversion) ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 32

In cognitive psychology, chunking is when individual pieces of an information set are broken down and grouped in a meaningful whole. These chunks bypass the limited working memory capacity (see Miller's Law) and allow the working memory to be more efficient. Chunks are easier to retrieve because your brain creates higher-order cognitive representations of the items within each chunk. In terms of interface design, it comes down to breaking down steps, text, and interface elements into smaller pieces so that users can process, understand, and remember information them better. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 33

We remember and respond favorably to small, unexpected, and playful pleasures. But, for your delighters to have a positive effect, you must first meet or exceed the user’s basic expectations. Otherwise, that moment will likely fall flat. Also, over time, delighters become expected features losing that slight edge. ## Footnote From Growth.Design

Answer 34

A "trigger" is a prompt of a user to take action. There are two types of triggers: external (e.g. emails, mobile notification, billboards, ad) and internal (e.g. places, situations, emotions, people). External triggers are meant to alert people in case of an event. Slowly, by interacting with external triggers people begin to form associations with internal triggers, which become attached to existing behaviors and emotions. Soon, people are internally triggered every time they feel a certain way. ## Footnote From Growth.Design