On Friday, I premiered on the big stage at Big Design Dallas. My topic was “Cognitive Biases: How to keep them out of UX Research and Design.” This topic us very near and dear to my heart because we all suffer from cognitive biases. You don’t have to hold a psychology degree to know that. The focus of this talk was how to recognize biases in yourself and others. Also what you can do ti fight of the symptoms cognitive biases. Finally, I told my crowd how they can “turn their frown upside down” and how to use cognitive biases for good in your UX designs.
For my first international/national conference speaking gig, I think it went really well. Sure there were a few minor mistakes that only (hopefully) the speaker noticed. My whole goal was to get the crowd interested and engaged in the topic. And I did that by balancing funny images, real-world stories and relatable content.
Since a lot of the slides more more visually driven, I will break down the talk below. But for the full visual effect, please download the PDF of slide deck: “Cognitive Biases: How to keep them out of UX Research and Design.”
Types of bias
Self/You
- Blind spot bias
- Experimenter’s bias
- Observer-expectancy effect
Self vs others
- Social comparison bias
Aligning with me/my beliefs
- Semmelweis effect
- Not Invented Here bias
Social connection
- Courtesy bias
Recent vs long ago
- Baader-Meinhoff
- Peak-End Rule
Use in your design for good
- Baader-Meinhoff
- Ikea
- Humor Effect
- Bizarreness Effect
- Default effect
Thank you for those who came to BigD and watched my talk. If you are interested in me giving this talk at your conference, let’s talk!
