Understanding Biases

Bias is a com­mon human trait and cog­nit­ive bias affects all of us. Wiki­pe­dia defines ‘cog­nit­ive bias’ as “the human tend­ency to draw incor­rect con­clu­sions in cer­tain cir­cum­stances based on cog­nit­ive factors rather than evidence”.

Bias is an out­come of human thought and often based on rules of thumb. Cog­nit­ive biases are instances of evolved men­tal beha­vior. Some are pre­sum­ably adapt­ive, for example, because they lead to more effect­ive actions in given con­texts or enable faster decisions when faster decisions are of greater value. Oth­ers pre­sum­ably res­ult from a lack of appro­pri­ate men­tal mech­an­isms, or from the mis­ap­plic­a­tion of a mech­an­ism that is adapt­ive under dif­fer­ent circumstances.

Though cog­nit­ive bias falls under the realm of Psy­cho­logy, cog­nit­ive bias plays a vital role in user research. Under­stand­ing the vari­ous forms of cog­nit­ive biases will help a usab­il­ity ana­lyst when per­form­ing con­tex­tual inquir­ies and user interviews.

Wiki­pe­dia lists all the cog­nit­ive biases that makes for an inter­est­ing read. The list of biases allows a researcher under­stand the con­text behind user’s approach to tasks. For example, under­stand­ing the Hawthorne Effect – which is about the tend­ency to per­form or per­ceive dif­fer­ently when one knows they are being observed – will help dur­ing a con­tex­tual inquiry. An under­stand­ing of the Plan­ning Fal­lacy effect is use­ful in cal­cu­lat­ing the task com­ple­tion times.