Cognitive distortions during product creation

I tried to collect cognitive distortions that prevent me from making the right decisions when creating a product. Perhaps someone will come in handy.

The anchoring effect

The effect of the anchor is, in my opinion, one of the most dangerous distortions to which you need to pay very close attention. With this distortion, people strongly rely on the source information, although it may even be erroneous.

You can use this effect very cleverly when communicating with other people, but other people can manipulate you with this effect.

If you ask 2 questions to groups of people, “The height of the redwood is more or less than 365 meters, and what is the height, in your opinion?” And “The height of the redwood is more or less than 55 meters, and what is the height, in your opinion?” The numbers 365 and 55 are taken randomly. Those who were given a binding of 365, on average, will give an answer of 257 meters, and those who have been given a binding of 55 will answer 86 meters.

You can do exactly the same to bind a person initially to a larger or smaller number.

If you are selling your product, you can often operate on large numbers in conversations about price.

"And I heard that the Slack design cost $ 250 million dollars."

And if you buy something on the contrary, then operate with small numbers.

"And I heard that the epl logo was worth only 10 dollars."

Well, do not fall for this trick yourself.

Bias Survivorship

I think that you all remember the story about the plane from the book "Think slowly, decide quickly."

Your current users are survivors. When you want to get some data on how your product works, you look at your current users.

And if the new feature you have planned may not be at all suitable for the audience that your product now has. But, perhaps, when this feature appears, a new audience will appear.

Be very careful to listen to your current users. Perhaps these are not the people at all. Do not forget to ask yourself what kind of users you are asking for. Who chose the group that you rate, how it formed and whom you lose sight of.

Confirmation Bias

This is perhaps the most terrible distortion. When we make a product, you and I have a fairly large amount of statistics. And the large amount of data and indicators makes us very vulnerable to this cognitive distortion.

Let's say we made some feature and we like it. What do we do after the release? We look at all the indicators on the dashboard. But we have a huge number of indicators. Some may be unimportant and irrelevant to features or may not be statistically significant. Or we can see a correlation, not a dependency.

We have a billion different metrics: Retention, Time in app, Number of taps, DAU, MAU, Rev. And after the release of the features you look at the indicators and gaze vytseplete only green. Just what has grown. And pretend that the feature is successful.

It is very difficult not to undergo this cognitive distortion. And in a good way, you need to either carry out t-test for confirmation. Or, before launching a feature, make an assumption about how this feature should affect the indicators, and then compare the expected with the actual one.

Biased information search

When you are confident in your point of view, you begin to look for information in order to find confirmation of your point of view.

I myself notice that if I argue with some person, then I become terribly biased. And I begin to look for information only that which is "beneficial" for me in a dispute. Only one that confirms my point of view. Although in fact, in general, it is not beneficial to me.

This, by the way, is perfectly shown in this video .

The sunk cost fallacy

This distortion brings us constantly. And I myself often suffer from it. Because of it, you can do something simply because you have already invested in it your time, money or your energy. Even if you see that it gives no results.

I once did a startup, well, then it was fashionable. And I spent a lot of time and money. At that moment I was doing the wrong thing absolutely everything I could. And this project was unprofitable. But for a long time I continued to spend money on him. Just because it's hard to give up something on which you spent a lot of effort.

In order to be less exposed to this distortion, you need to ask yourself more often if I would repeat it again? Would I write this code? Would I invest money in such a design? Would I make this feature again? Need to understand when to go.

The curse of knowledge

Curses of knowledge is when you, as an expert, think that all people around you and your users have as much knowledge as you do.

If you make your product, then you live and breathe it and you know everything about how it works. And you mistakenly believe that all people also know about it. But in fact, your users do not know about your product at all and do not understand how to use it. They look at him very superficially.

The ideal option for your product would be to follow the flow that RPG type games have. If suddenly someone who has been playing WoW for five years will give you a chance to play in his account, then you can’t do anything and understand nothing. You even will not understand with the interface. But if you enter the Second World War for the first time, they will show you everything there. You will see that you have only one boar in front of you and you have only one hit. You need to go up to one boar and hit it once with one blow. Only in this way your user will not be afraid of complexity and will not run away.

And as a product creator, you often prefer to receive feedback from your experienced users. Advanced users can understand the subtleties of the product and can participate in deeper conversations about it. Product managers more easily communicate with those who can “speak” in the same product language without needing to explain the basics. As a result, more effort is directed towards meeting the needs of advanced users, increasing the complexity and complexity of using the product for new users.

To overcome the "curse of knowledge", you must take into account the level of knowledge about the products that users have, and adjust their communication according to their level of understanding. It is important to understand that users have different needs depending on how long they use the product. If you ignore beginners, then expect outflow.

Post-purchase rationalization

Actually, it works exactly as it sounds. If we decide to buy something and buy it, then you begin to justify this purchase. And if you want to get some opinion from your customers who have already made a purchase, then you should understand that they are already subject to this distortion.

Most likely, the person who made the purchase will say that he is satisfied and will look for pros. Even if your offer is not very competitive.

Negativity bias

I myself am pessimistic and suffer from this distortion. This is such a distortion in which all the negative news seems worse than they really are.

Any products face problems. The database may fall, or you may lose some code, a valuable employee may leave you or there may be problems in the team, you may get some legal problems, a large fine, or you will be flooded. And your customers can go to another application. Your competitor released a feature earlier than you for a month and you now see how your users are leaving.

You will always feel depressed at such moments. It is difficult to advise something, just know that there is a distortion in which you overestimate your problems.

Availability Bias

Because of this distortion, we begin to judge the importance of some action based on how simple it comes to our mind.

When we think about which of the conceived features to be released to us first, we will most likely prefer those features that easily come to our mind.

If you recently saw a letter from some of your users asking you to release a feature, and then your colleague came to you and also started a conversation about this feature, then you will think that this feature is a higher priority, because "Everything asking about her. "

But in reality, it is just a given distortion that makes us think so. We must overcome this assumption and rely on data.

Affect heuristic

Affect heuristics is a type of mental contraction in which people make automatic decisions while under the influence of their current emotional state. We make decisions not rationally, but on the basis of our emotional state at the current time. Our emotions can cloud our rational side and influence our decisions.

If we are too happy, we can make too risky decisions. If we are under stress, then we, on the contrary, are afraid to take risks and make too conservative decisions.

It is important to maintain an objective point of view, backed up with research and data with clear pros and cons when making decisions. And do not make decisions on emotions.

Planning fallacy

People always make mistakes in their assessments.

Denver Airport opened 16 months later than planned, and this delay cost $ 2 billion. The Typhoon joint defense project of several European countries was completed 4.5 years after the deadline, the cost was $ 19 billion instead of $ 7 billion

The Sydney Opera House was originally valued at $ 7 million, and cost $ 102 million. And it was built 6 years later.

The building of the Scottish Parliament was estimated at 40 million pounds, this estimate has changed several times, and twice even the legislators set a limit. First 195 million, and later 241 million. But as it turned out, even the English laws do not save. As a result, costs amounted to 431 million. 10 times more than planned.

In 2002, they also conducted an interesting survey in which they interviewed people who rescheduled their kitchens. Owners assumed to spend on repair on the average 18.658 dollars, and spent on average 38.769.

I believe that it is impossible to fight this distortion. And the person will always calculate his assessment according to the most optimistic scenario. The only way out is to break the project into small parts and evaluate each in turn.

Mere Exposure Effect

The effect of acquaintance with an object is such a distortion, which suggests that the more often we see something, the more pleasant and more attractive it is.

The more your product reminds and behaves as other products that users already know about, the more successful it will be among these users.

That is why it is so important to adhere to the guidelines. And for this it is better not to invent some complicated interfaces, even if your designer wants it so much.

Omission bias

When we become face to face with difficult situations, we have a very big desire to stay idle. Even at such moments when inaction will cause more harm than any of the actions.

In chess, there is such a term as “Tsungtsvang” - this is a position of a player in which any move leads to a deterioration of his position. Only here in chess you can not walk, but in real life you can.

And I like the experiment, when the subjects were offered to choose from two options: when 20 people died, but if the subject presses the lever, then these 20 are still alive, but 15 others die. Although the action entails less harm, but all people consider inaction less immoral.