Throwing Down the Gauntlet

A friend and I were discussing Chad McAllister’s article Open Innovation: Overcoming cognitive bias in innovation projects in which he describes how our inherent biases can limit our creativity. I mentioned that I have felt quite successful that I have avoided such biases in my UX practice.

It was then that the gauntlet was thrown; a beer challenge had been issued. We all know that no self-respecting individual can ever refuse a proper beer challenge. The aforementioned friend asked if I was up to a UX design challenge filled with inherent biases. Filled with a bit of arrogance and confidence (not to mention maybe a beer too many), I, all too hastily, accepted. I assumed (an inherent bias, I might add) that the challenge would be a hypothetical brainteaser. However, said friend argued that a hypothetical challenge is devoid of any true biases and instead presented me with this zinger: What would you do to get Gary Johnson invited to the presidential debate?

I had been set up.

Nevertheless, knowing that the first rule of a proper beer challenge is that you cannot ever decline, I accepted.

The inherent biases on this challenge are both emotional and intellectual. I had to hand it to him. My friend presented a real challenge.

To settle this challenge, I ask you to review my analysis and resulting plan from a purely UX standpoint and determine whether or not I divorced myself well enough to produce a reasonable, viable plan that could achieve the stated goal. 

I hope while reading this you will find yourself experiencing some sense of bias awareness and begin to understand Chad’s point a little better.

The Personas

Knowing very little about Gary Johnson, I initially started my research looking at the candidate, but quickly realized that was not my normal methodology.  I decided to apply my typical User Research approach and analyze the problem domain, not the person. My analysis determined that the goal of finding a way to have an interloper invited to the president debates relies on 3 main user groups. I have briefly described their personas here:

Voters: While there are many voters staunchly ensconced in either side of the two-party battle, I learned that there is a growing dissatisfaction among voters that feel as if they are left only with the lesser of two evils.

Polls suggest that people are voting AGAINST someone more than voting FOR someone. This presents a key opportunity.

In essence, the “middle” is underrepresented. The middle is looking for another choice that is less disgusting than the other two. Interestingly, the middle isn’t overly interested in the actual position or policies of an alternative candidate as much as just want a viable enough choice besides the other two. The candidate doesn’t have to be perfect, just good enough.

Media Executives: The media is a for-profit venture. The executives must decide what’s best for their bottom line. Their business thrives on controversy to increase ratings. Their business operates on a simple binary scale, Fear and Greed. They fear things that could undermine their company but are constantly drawn by things that generate higher ratings (greed).

For reasons I could not readily identify, there is some fear of inviting a 3rd candidate to the Presidential Debate. Maybe it’s the bloodlust to see two heavy weight boxers duke it out on live TV. Yes, there is the anointed group (Debate Commission) who determines who should be invited, but the media execs can pretty much do want they want if it serves their greed.

It’s possible that the execs have determined that inviting a third party candidate would not stir up enough controversy to overcome their inherent fear. This may change after the 1st debate.

Another fear they have that could be leveraged is the fear of missing out on a juicy story. The media outlets all vie for the same eyeballs and are always looking for that next big breaking story. If the 1st debate is a tremendous success, execs will need something to top it the next time. If it’s a dismal failure, execs will need something to shake it up. A 3rd candidate in the next debate could serve both needs.

The Other Candidates: Part of the reason that an interloper is excluded from the debates is that the primary candidates fear losing screen time, especially in such a hotly contested battle. A 3rd candidate would reduce their screen time by 50%. Their campaigns are designed to fight a single adversary. The candidates are ill-equipped to fight a major campaign on 2 separate fronts.

They not only fear losing votes to each other, but they also worry about losing ground to the 3rd man. Both contenders feel that someone who votes for the alternative could have voted for them, instead. In this sense, both major candidates are united in their efforts to exclude another alternative.

The UX Strategy

The obvious approach would be a full frontal assault and merely obtain the minimum required number of voters. Even for me, a 50% conversion rate increase in such a short time is unrealistic. This challenge requires a multi-dimensional strategy that leverages the opportunities provided by the 3 personas.

Voters: Gary Johnson is waging a traditional campaign based on his policies, positions, and plans, but the persona analysis suggests that voters aren’t so much interested in what he has to say as long as he doesn’t “sound” like the other two.

Rather than winning over voters on his own merits, Gary could merely attack the other candidates’ positions with a matter-of-fact candor to gain more voters. There are no shortages of candidate comments that repulse most voters and Gary could leverage that disdain to get voters to want to see a debate with all 3 candidates.

Misery loves company, and criticizing the other candidates alongside the millions of other disgruntled voters could win the hearts of many voters who may not vote for him, but at least would want to see him on the debate stage. (Remember, my challenge wasn’t to get Gary elected, but just to get him in the debate.)

Media Execs: Given the binary behavior model of this persona (motivated by Fear and Greed), the plan would be to simply raise the awareness of how much buzz or controversy a third candidate on stage would generate. Since all of the media outlets compete with each other, the plan would only need to succeed with one outlet, thus leading to a mad rush for the others to follow or be left behind. This leverages their fear more than their greed, but helps tip the scale towards greed.

An obvious approach would be to use social media to generate the buzz. It turns out that the Johnson campaign has earned a rather large number of younger, social media savvy voters who could be helpful in creating more buzz about “how crazy it would be to see the other candidates reaction to Gary on live TV?”

One method would be to leverage voter apathy to promote a campaign slogan “contest” on social media to create apathy slogans, such as “Gary Johnson, better than the lesser of 2 evils.” Or “Finally a choice that doesn’t suck, Gary Johnson.” These kinds of gamification campaigns have proven to be very successful at gaining traction rather quickly.

Candidates: As the old saying goes in Hollywood, “There’s no such thing as bad press.” There are a number of things Gary Johnson could do to get the other candidates to talk about him. Leveraging their inherent fear of losing votes to him, Gary could simply attack there more controversial policy positions, such as free college or The Wall.

Given that voters are more likely to vote against someone rather than for someone, Gary does not need to try to sway voters based on his position. He just needs to criticize the other candidates, who will have little choice but to try and refute his criticisms.

One way to attack these policies is to provide a simple, academic critical analysis of them. Interestingly, a critical analysis suggesting that a candidate’s policy might have some merit would automatically draw an immediate response by the opposing candidate (playing the two candidates against each other), thus gaining even more publicity for Gary.

Summary

This has been a very interesting exercise for me. This was not your typical UI design project but still required a common UX/UCD methodology to define the problem and identify a strategy. Keep in mind that I was time challenged on this and had limited resources to the users.

I hope I demonstrated how UX methods can more accurately define a problem and suggest better ways to leverage human emotions and behavioral proclivities to incite specific behaviors that achieve a desired outcome. I also hope that I demonstrated my ability to avoid most inherent biases in performing UX Research and Strategy design.

As I mentioned earlier, I ask you to critique my analysis and resulting plan from a purely UX standpoint. Did I divorce myself well enough from my inherent biases to produce a reasonable, viable plan that could (if implemented) get Gary Johnson invited to a presidential debate?

A simple, yes (like) or no will suffice, but comments and critiques are encouraged and welcome.