MY SECOND IMPRESSION OF COGNITIVE BIAS
There were six seconds left in a tie game with my team’s most hated rival. We were down by five and I was pretty sure that I had no use of my left leg because I had broken it in the previous play. But I knew that in order to win her love, I had to go up and catch that damn ball.
None of this is true. I play sports that don’t have a game clock and where any physical contact with another player is considered loathsome or “icky” so we separate ourselves with a net. If I am injured, my performance is more theatrical than heroic or athletic. So no, none of that story is true. I just needed some sort of flashy intro because as all writers know: “you never get a second chance to make a first impression.” I needed to grab your attention and make you feel that reading this was worth your time. And I want to talk about that very thing and why it is so important in design and experience.
The quote about first impressions is often attributed to Will Rogers or Oscar Wilde. As far as I know, neither was a neuroscientist, so maybe you dismissed it as cliche. It is quite obvious afterall. It’s impossible to do a “first” twice. It also sounds like one of those things that your high school guidance counselor would tell you before a college entrance interview. But if you dig a bit deeper and understand the mechanics of how people think, it is actually quite profound insight for anyone designing digital products. (And while I am at it…my apologies to my highschool guidance counselor, Mrs. Hyenga. I should have listened to you.)
Have you ever had a friend that bought a really expensive car and tried to justify the purchase to you by telling you how they would save money in the long run because of the great gas mileage? Or have you ever had a friend try to tell you all the great things about their very attractive, but very manipulative and annoying significant other? In both cases, your friend is trying to justify their feelings. Despite what may seem like an obvious bad choice to everyone else, they can deliver 45 reasons why they are justified in their beliefs. This is called cognitive bias.
There is a lot written about cognitive bias and how it affects people. But I will briefly cover it just in case you are one of those people who don’t like to raise their hand because they don’t want to seem like they know everything. Serious thinkers will tell you that they choose their actions based on rational thought that examines all the facts. They set their emotions aside and make logical decisions. But despite their serious demeanor and confident tone, they are wrong. Very. Very. Wrong. People very quickly make assessments of how they feel about something and then look for reasons to justify those emotions. This is cognitive bias. (Note: I realize that there are other types of cognitive bias but I wanted to focus on this particular aspect here.)
In a previous post/article I discussed how feelings, not rational thought, are the driver of all action. (If you missed it, you can read it here.) To those in design and user experience, cognitive bias tells us that not only is your audience going to be motivated to action by how they feel, but that they choose how they feel within several moments of their first interaction (anywhere from seven seconds to two minutes) and then selectively look for reasons to justify their feelings.
This has significant implications. Not only do you need to understand your audience’s emotions and motivations, but you need to deliver an experience very quickly that delivers. If not, users will quickly look for reasons why to avoid doing what you would like them to do. And once you reach this point, while not impossible, it is extremely difficult to sway their opinion. First impressions matter. And they matter a whole lot.
First impressions are often overlooked when building digital products and experiences. Designing features is hard enough, but designing to create an emotion is really hard. Because of this difficulty it often gets swept under the rug which is where many digital products often end up as well. On top of this, users can’t articulate their feelings or how they think. Or if they do articulate their thoughts, these are often a reflection of who they would like to be and not who they actually are. But let’s get into that in the next one.
