UX Lat
A historical milestone: the first visit of the User Experience Professionals Association International (UXPA) to Latin America, to address and commit to the development of the UX discipline in the region.
Client: UXLat
Role: Speaker
Breaking Down Biases
I was invited to conduct a workshop at UX Lat in Santiago, Chile, October 1-3 2019. The event was sponsored by the Catholic University of Chile and the User Experience Professionals Association International (UXPA). During the workshop I discussed the impacts of cognitive bias on design and research, and how those biases can impact the users, creators, and stakeholders of our products.
One of the biggest insights I think people got out of it is just how susceptible everyone in the product creation process is to bias, and that those powerful biases can unconsciously impact decisions researchers and designers make. For example take the Ikea Effect, when we create something ourselves it has greater value to us. This is why it can be hard not to get attached to your own designs. We are inherently connected to things that we create and that provides opportunity for bias. My tip for designers is, for every design you create, create two more that are totally different to get you thinking and looking at things from a different angle.
The takeaway from the event was for members of larger communities in Latin America to come together and create a manifesto addressing the challenges and opportunities facing UX as an industry in the region and to document a process for improving growth. I was just one of speakers invited to start that process by sharing knowledge with the community and speaking on best practices, bringing educational material to the event. The conference gave UX visibility in a place that we don’t have a lot of presence. There aren’t a lot of UX events that happen there and we wanted to expose attendees to some higher-level design thinking and to provide resources.
The four-hour workshop combined research, real-life experiences in my role with at Ultimate Software and sometimes comical examples of how we are unintentionally are affected by bias. I also led hands-on activities with the participants focused on reducing and working with bias in research and design.
Read my interview on bias with Ideas Digitales Aplicadas.
I believe the workshop would be beneficial to anyone who talks to customers and is looking for better ways to frame conversations and understand where they might have any hidden bias in the way they are setting up their work. I have since presented this workshop at two additional events including my local South Florida UX (SOFLUX) Group.
Testimonials
From SOFLUX version of this workshop:
Nicole Matos • UX/UI Design Teaching Assistant at Ironhack
This morning, I attended a really informative #SOFLUX talk @Ultimate Software by Lauren Schaefer about bias and cognition. Among the many interesting things I learned, what stood out was that we all have a limited daily amount of attention. Our system 1 brain is responsible for quick & automatic thinking, while system 2 is for deliberate cognition. It was a great reminder that our products should be usable not only in a calm & focused testing environment, but that they should be effortless enough to use in our users’ messy & busy everyday lives.
Alexandra Jimenez • Product Designer
I had to give my mind a break before posting about the incredible (and enlightening) #SOFLUX Cognitive Bias workshop I attended yesterday.... information overload is an understatement! I love psychology and always have, but when I tried to sit down and read “Thinking Fast and Slow” a couple of years ago I realized just how hard it is to understand the systems and biases of the human mind. Thank you Lauren Schaefer and Shane McWhorter, Ph.D. for creating a workshop that has finally inspired me to go back and finish the book and created a simpler way of understanding the many complexities of ourselves.
Maikel Millo • UX/UI Designer
So grateful for Lauren Schaefer and the UXPA International group at today's Workshop on "Brain Secrets: How Bias Affects Your Design & Research." 🙏 I enjoyed everyone sharing their knowledge and experiences with design and their viewpoints/understanding of the topic. I learned a lot about bias and got to dive deeper into my own biases and how they affect the decisions that I make.
