Confirmation Bias: The Silent Killer of UX Design + Examples
Jeremy Gallimore
Founder of AirLab | AI Strategist | UI/UX Designer | Visual Storyteller
Definition:?Confirmation bias is the tendency to base our decisions on our own?previous experiences, personal values, cultures, and beliefs. Even if there is accurate data and creditable information to prove the contrary. Confirmation bias causes us to argue and get emotionally charged by?denying facts that can be proven.
What is Confirmation Bias?
Confirmation bias is?a deep-rooted psychological impairment?we all face at some level as human beings. We all have experiences from our childhood, lessons taught to us by our parents or our mentors that may in fact turn out to be inaccurate information.
But we take this information and form a belief that hardens and crystallizes into a powerful belief system.??
If someone comes in and disrupts this crystallized system by presenting information to the contrary of our beliefs, confirmation bias is born.
It causes the loss of friendships, meaningful relationships, and costs millions for companies that receive skewed data from user testing.
But when we are aware of the dangers it can present on our decision-making process, we can learn to identify confirmation bias as it creeps into our user testing analysis as UI/UX and experience designers.
Why Is Confirmation Bias Important For UX?
?Confirmation bias is important for more than just UX, it comes in different forms throughout our everyday lives.
Once you understand how to identify it, you will see it displayed in politics, sports, religion, business, and especially within friendly debates with our friends. This is crucial to understand for experience design.
How Can Confirmation Bias Interfere With User Testing?
?User testing is one of the key roles of experience design. Designing pretty things are not effective if they don’t actually connect the user with a solution to their problem. So the importance of knowing confirmation bias comes in when you look back at the results of your user testing.
Not realizing that the topic you chose for your test, some of the questions actually caused a negative reaction in those with a lower income. Which resulted in skewed data in your reports.
You then present these reports to your clients who are trusting you to be a professional UX designer. The product goes to market incredibly overpriced based on skewed information. And the client is furious at the cost of redesign.
You can clearly see how this confirmation bias example is an important factor to consider within the design process.
5 Common Confirmation Bias Examples To Watch Out For
1. When a person believes that left-handers are more creative and artistic than right-handers.
This confirmation bias example is a common one and stems from the idea that left-handers think with the artistic and creative side of their brains, whereas right-handers think with the more logical and analytical part of their brain.
Some famous creatives in history that were left-handed were Leonardo Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Vincent Van Gogh, Mozart, Mark Twain, Beethoven, Aristotle, and the list goes on.
2. When your friend tells you their favorite basketball player is the best when the numbers clearly show that to be false.
How many times have argued with our friends about our favorite sports player or team about who is the best? When the actual stats are public knowledge.
Many arguments lean toward the idea that the circumstances they went through should play a role in determining their greatness. Which is a perfect example of confirmation bias.
Their belief system tells them that in order to be great one must go through the toughest circumstances imaginable and come out victorious on the other side, like a true champion.
Which is an honorable thought.
But the actual definition of a champion is a person who has defeated or surpassed all rivals in a competition. Not the person that overcame the toughest obstacles.
3. When you throw trash on the ground and believe “That’s what they have garbage men for”
How many times have we had a friend that leaves a mess everywhere when you go to eat in public?
Maybe you are that friend…
This form of bias comes from the belief that we each have a specific job and certain tasks are beneath them to do. An entitlement based on the subconscious idea, that you confirmed to yourself, that this task is reserved for people of lower means.
This is also another common confirmation bias examples that are infecting the thought patterns of many people in society today.?
4. When you tell your friends you are going to write a book and they tell you 297 reasons why you won’t make it in writing.
This is one of the most common confirmation bias examples we many times find ourselves in. Our friends mean well, but when this form of confirmation bias creeps in, it impacts us more because it comes from a friend. But our friends have failures in life as well as our rivals.
A lot of us suffer from not being able to accomplish certain things in life, so when someone we know attempts the same action, we want to “help them avoid” some of the pitfalls we ran into in our journey.
But this is a simple disguise for confirmation bias.
The fact is, the two of you are not the same person. And things you view as pitfalls, your friend could view as amazing opportunities to learn problem-solving. They could go deeper into the craft than you did, therefore accomplishing results that you never did because you quit too soon.
What you are actually doing, is discouraging your friend who could have become the next Picasso of design, and end up causing them to have a negative viewpoint toward something they were passionate about.
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5. When you set the price for your services extremely low when proposing new clients.
Most of us have suffered from this same point as designers. Pricing our services way too low for the work required in the project. This leads to frustration, endless hours of work you didn’t expect, and just when you think the project is complete, your client decided they want to make more revisions.
This can lead to a nightmare of emotions but it all stemmed from your confirmation bias. Most designers price their services at a low price because of insecurity, a belief that the client will turn us away if they hear a price they don’t like. When in fact it is quite the opposite.
A good client will hear a number they can’t afford and take it down to a number that is more reasonable for them. You then have the option to negotiate and reduce services according to their individual needs.
But when you price your services low, and the client immediately accepts, you are putting your business at a severe disadvantage.
How To Identify Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias is all around us. From the conversations, we have at the dinner table, to the communications we have with our peers at work. To identify confirmation bias when it happens to you or when someone else is experiencing it, I like to play a little game.
When I know the information I am stating is accurate and can be verified, I simply say “How much do you want to bet?” This instantly makes the person align their statements more toward the truth. And if not, I just walk away with a nice payday.
The purpose of this exercise is not in fact to win the bet or to prove the person wrong. But, his is to help remove confirmation bias as it is identified within the conversation.
The person in this situation and is in fact proven wrong can go one of two different directions. Continue to spread the lie because they have an emotional connection with what they believe is right, even though it was proven wrong. Or, they can move forward with a new discovery that they are proud to say they have learned and can verify.
Now, if the bet backfires and you are proven wrong, then congratulations, you just identified confirmation bias within yourself.
Confirmation Bias Examples In Psychology?
Confirmation bias is a practice psychologists have studied for years. It is a gateway to understanding how people think and the motivations behind what makes them think and behave in a certain way.
An article from?simplypsychology.org?stated that in a recent study,?“although a certain stereotype about a social group might not be true for an individual, people tend to remember the stereotype-consistent information better than any disconfirming evidence.”
“Similarly, those who religiously reject the theory of evolution will either gather information disproving evolution or hold no official stance on the topic.”
These confirmation bias examples are deeply ingrained in the belief system of many and collectively, once it is recognized as a bias, it will lead to greater discoveries in the advancement of our species.
This Is How Confirmation Bias Can Influence Perceptions
Confirmation Bias influences our perceptions in many ways. It influences our thoughts, behaviors, and actions.??
A friend of mine was working with a client of hers on a big design project. It was a rebrand for a healthcare company and they wanted all the design works, a new logo, brand identity system, mood boards, everything.
They partnered together with a well-established branding company to help with the rebrand.?
Sitting down at the negotiation table, my friend listened in. Now before I tell you how much they charged this healthcare company for the rebrand, I want you to imagine what you would charge to design a new brand identity system with a logo, mood boards, pictures, and all the cool design stuff.?
$500-1000??
No, more like $1-3k??
Okay, definitely $5-10k right?
If I told you they charged them $200k for a rebrand, you would probably think I’m lying. And the truth is you would be correct. It was not $200k.
After a 20-page presentation and a fairly impressive display of design work, the client walked away thrilled to sign a check for $800k to this company.?
Now let’s take a step back at look at perception.
Nobody in their right mind is crazy to charge $500-$1000 for a design project. But confirmation bias is once again is happening here.?
Most people don’t believe anyone would spend $800k on a logo and design elements. So they never charge that price. Instead, they charge a price they feel the client will least likely decline the proposal.?
But imagine going to a luxury watch store to buy a Rolex, and when you get to the register expecting to pay $30-50k you get a price for $300.
Wouldn’t you be suspicious of the quality of the watch? Wouldn’t you ask a few more questions based on your previous belief system???
Our clients are the same way and it is much better to have them negotiate down to a reasonable price than to underprice your services due to non-existing beliefs.?
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What Is The Difference Between Cognitive Bias And Confirmation Bias?
Cognitive bias occurs when a person believes something to be true based on their previous experiences. While confirmation bias is very similar, the key difference is that with cognitive bias, when the person receives enough accurate information they break the belief system around that topic.?
With confirmation bias, the person continues to seek out information and data trying to disprove the facts you presented them.???
While both are dangerous thought patterns to look out for, confirmation bias is truly the silent killer to all thought processes and should be avoided at all costs.
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