The document discusses 7 common mental traps that can undermine user research: habit, false consensus, congruency, confirmation bias, availability heuristic, recency bias, and illusory correlation. It provides examples of how each trap can negatively impact research and recommendations for avoiding each one, such as considering each project uniquely, testing with diverse participants, gathering objective metrics, and verifying findings with large-scale quantitative studies.
Experiments: The Good, the Bad, and the BeautifulTechWell
Through the years, Linda Rising has given presentations about the use of stories instead of science in the industry, so in this session she has decided to be more helpful and talk about experiments. There's an increasing emphasis on experiments as a part of being more innovative but sometimes Linda says we need a nudge and some examples to help us get going. No, this is not too rigorous! Rather than talking about statistics, she is going to explore cheap, easy experiments—what to do, what to be aware of, and our own cognitive biases, including the confirmation bias that does its best to keep us from seeing what's new in our environment. We all need strategies for dealing with that—like involving others who are really doing it. Linda’s goal is to encourage everyone to be a bit more methodical in decision-making and to replace “That won't work” with “How can we test it?” Leave with a plan for one or more experiments to run in your workplace. Improve your scientific vocabulary a bit, and learn some of the cognitive biases that get in the way of good decision-making.
Learn more about these triggers: http://zurb.com/triggers
High user engagement is paramount to anyone in design. Tapping into the psychology of what drives someone to click is key to this high engagement. Every interface is a potential study in human behavior. Knowing which emotional and cognitive strings to pull, designers can have a lot of influence over how people interact with online products. This talk will highlight 9 psychological motivators that will drive user engagement and make your next product awesome.
Get Uncomfortable: Breaking Out of a Creative RutHeather O'Neill
In a funk. Stuck in a rut. Burned out. Complacent. It's happened to all of us. As a new designer, everything is possible, but soon you’ve learned the language, the politics, the expectations... and you constrain your own creativity accordingly. How do you break out of your funk and breath life into your designs (and your creative process) again? In this session we'll flush the proverbial Kool-Aid out of your system and push your boundaries to give you a creativity reboot. Get ready to get uncomfortable.
Experiments: The Good, the Bad, and the BeautifulTechWell
Through the years, Linda Rising has given presentations about the use of stories instead of science in the industry, so in this session she has decided to be more helpful and talk about experiments. There's an increasing emphasis on experiments as a part of being more innovative but sometimes Linda says we need a nudge and some examples to help us get going. No, this is not too rigorous! Rather than talking about statistics, she is going to explore cheap, easy experiments—what to do, what to be aware of, and our own cognitive biases, including the confirmation bias that does its best to keep us from seeing what's new in our environment. We all need strategies for dealing with that—like involving others who are really doing it. Linda’s goal is to encourage everyone to be a bit more methodical in decision-making and to replace “That won't work” with “How can we test it?” Leave with a plan for one or more experiments to run in your workplace. Improve your scientific vocabulary a bit, and learn some of the cognitive biases that get in the way of good decision-making.
Learn more about these triggers: http://zurb.com/triggers
High user engagement is paramount to anyone in design. Tapping into the psychology of what drives someone to click is key to this high engagement. Every interface is a potential study in human behavior. Knowing which emotional and cognitive strings to pull, designers can have a lot of influence over how people interact with online products. This talk will highlight 9 psychological motivators that will drive user engagement and make your next product awesome.
Get Uncomfortable: Breaking Out of a Creative RutHeather O'Neill
In a funk. Stuck in a rut. Burned out. Complacent. It's happened to all of us. As a new designer, everything is possible, but soon you’ve learned the language, the politics, the expectations... and you constrain your own creativity accordingly. How do you break out of your funk and breath life into your designs (and your creative process) again? In this session we'll flush the proverbial Kool-Aid out of your system and push your boundaries to give you a creativity reboot. Get ready to get uncomfortable.
Using Analytics To Solve The Right ProblemsHiten Shah
The challenge for designers is how to measure their design work to ensure that it’s solving the right problems—before the designs are implemented. Analytics are a powerful tool. But if you don’t understand the “why” behind the data, it’s not going to do you any good. This presentation is a crash course in how to measure the success of your work. You’ll learn how to think like a scientist, using a hypothesis-driven approach to design, and creating successful tests to help you improve your work through focused iteration.
The Plateau Effect: Why People Get Stuck...and How to Break ThroughThePlateauEffect
The Plateau Effect is a powerful law of nature that affects everyone. Learn to identify plateaus and break through any stagnancy in your life— from diet and exercise, to work, to relationships.
The Plateau Effect shows how athletes, scientists, therapists, companies, and musicians around the world are learning to break through their plateaus—to turn off the forces that cause people to “get used to” things—and turn on human potential and happiness in ways that seemed impossible. The book identifies three key flattening forces that generate plateaus, two principles to guide readers in engineering a plateau’s destruction, and three actions to take to achieve peak behavior. It helps us to stop wasting time on things that are no longer of value and to focus on the things that leverage our time and energy in spectacular ways.
Anything you want to do better—play guitar, make friends, communicate with your children, run a business—you can accomplish faster by understanding the plateau effect.
http://plateaueffect.com/
What Is Data Visualization And Why Should You CareSavage Marketing
Martijn Verstrepen - Information Lab
Data visualization is about seeing and understanding your data. Only when you understand your data, you can make decisions that will lead to success. In business, sports, education etc. We will show you in 30 minutes with examples why this is important for you and how you could do this yourself, so you will get to results fast.
Design Thinking And True Value CreationSudhir Nain
As the innovation focus expands to encompass user centred design/service design/product design, companies are asking designers to create ideas rather than to simply dress them up.
http://mindpersuasion.com/fearless/
If you want to master anything, all you need to do is practice. But sometimes fear stands in the way. Fear of failure, fear of embarrassment. Get rid of these and you'll be home free. Here's How: http://mindpersuasion.com/fearless/
You can't run a company like 5y ago - QiLi - Murielle MachielsMurielle Machiels
What has changed in the market? What is the impact for organizations? How can you tackle these issues? What is the impact for you as a leader? www.qili.be
Children seem to be naturally curious and try things in a kind of scientific manner, but as we get older this exploratory mindset seems to fade. Why does this happen? (For more on this subject watch the 5-minute video at: www.tinyurl.com/CuriosityVid)
Las empresas pueden mejorar su competitividad con un financiamiento flexible para infraestructura tecnológica en Ecuador. Incluye networking, servidores y seguridad electrónica.
Using Analytics To Solve The Right ProblemsHiten Shah
The challenge for designers is how to measure their design work to ensure that it’s solving the right problems—before the designs are implemented. Analytics are a powerful tool. But if you don’t understand the “why” behind the data, it’s not going to do you any good. This presentation is a crash course in how to measure the success of your work. You’ll learn how to think like a scientist, using a hypothesis-driven approach to design, and creating successful tests to help you improve your work through focused iteration.
The Plateau Effect: Why People Get Stuck...and How to Break ThroughThePlateauEffect
The Plateau Effect is a powerful law of nature that affects everyone. Learn to identify plateaus and break through any stagnancy in your life— from diet and exercise, to work, to relationships.
The Plateau Effect shows how athletes, scientists, therapists, companies, and musicians around the world are learning to break through their plateaus—to turn off the forces that cause people to “get used to” things—and turn on human potential and happiness in ways that seemed impossible. The book identifies three key flattening forces that generate plateaus, two principles to guide readers in engineering a plateau’s destruction, and three actions to take to achieve peak behavior. It helps us to stop wasting time on things that are no longer of value and to focus on the things that leverage our time and energy in spectacular ways.
Anything you want to do better—play guitar, make friends, communicate with your children, run a business—you can accomplish faster by understanding the plateau effect.
http://plateaueffect.com/
What Is Data Visualization And Why Should You CareSavage Marketing
Martijn Verstrepen - Information Lab
Data visualization is about seeing and understanding your data. Only when you understand your data, you can make decisions that will lead to success. In business, sports, education etc. We will show you in 30 minutes with examples why this is important for you and how you could do this yourself, so you will get to results fast.
Design Thinking And True Value CreationSudhir Nain
As the innovation focus expands to encompass user centred design/service design/product design, companies are asking designers to create ideas rather than to simply dress them up.
http://mindpersuasion.com/fearless/
If you want to master anything, all you need to do is practice. But sometimes fear stands in the way. Fear of failure, fear of embarrassment. Get rid of these and you'll be home free. Here's How: http://mindpersuasion.com/fearless/
You can't run a company like 5y ago - QiLi - Murielle MachielsMurielle Machiels
What has changed in the market? What is the impact for organizations? How can you tackle these issues? What is the impact for you as a leader? www.qili.be
Children seem to be naturally curious and try things in a kind of scientific manner, but as we get older this exploratory mindset seems to fade. Why does this happen? (For more on this subject watch the 5-minute video at: www.tinyurl.com/CuriosityVid)
Las empresas pueden mejorar su competitividad con un financiamiento flexible para infraestructura tecnológica en Ecuador. Incluye networking, servidores y seguridad electrónica.
Most Integrated Schneider Solution.
Caso de Exito de Adeatel S.A en proyecto para Correos del Ecuador. En el Centro de Clasificación Regional de la empresa pública Correos del Ecuador.
Research Traps: 7 ways of thinking that keep you from doing great customer re...Wendy Castleman
Presentation given at the joint Silicon Valley UPA/ BayCHI Usability Engineering BOF on September 16, 2008 in Mountain View, CA.
The slides are from a talk about common traps that professional usability researchers make. It also includes suggestions for how to avoid the traps.
5 Corporate cultures that inhibit designing creative solutionsWendy Castleman
Presentation for the Fifth Annual Design Research Conference at the Interdisciplinary Design Institute of Washington State University- January 15-16, 2009
Using Design thinking to create great customer experiencesWendy Castleman
Slides used in a webinar given on January 19 2016 for Medallia. Learn what design thinking is, how to do it, and hear many examples from different fields.
I nuovi mezzi. Il mondo degli eBook: realtà e prospettivestefanogambari
Risorse elettroniche ad accesso remoto e locale nelle biblioteche. Forme del prestito digitale (digital lending) . Statistiche d'uso nelle Biblioteche di Roma
Graham Thomas - The Testers Toolbox - EuroSTAR 2010TEST Huddle
EuroSTAR Software Testing Conference 2010 presentation on The Testers Toolbox by Graham Thomas. See more at: http://conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/past-presentations/
Customer Discovery: Interviewing Tips and TechniquesCIMIT
This presentation aims to share tips for conducting productive interviews and techniques for asking the right questions to help you get the information you need directly from those who matter most... your customers.
Presentation on Decision Making & Critical Thinking with the inclusion of concepts like : 6 thinking hats & 5 whys approach. Be the master of your actions with powerful decision making skills. Its decision making skills which differentiate between an employee and leader. Be a leader, lead your team, lead your life.
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha: Improv, Creativity and CollaborationSteve Portigal
Improv is not "stand-up comedy." It's a series of games with rules that offer huge degrees of freedom within a set of constraints. In these games we bring out a lot of basic, quickly understood and communicated rules of culture that are implicit, not explicit. The activities of design (collaboration, creativity, and design research, for starters) have interesting similarities with improv: All have in-the-moment aspects; we learn upon reflection; there's enormous unspoken interaction and there is often an "aha" moment. Design and improv also have important similarities: the need to collaborate and brainstorm, the importance of breakthrough thinking, the balance between process, structure, and unfettered creativity.
Playing with improv can make us more mindful of the power of listening, and can be harnessed to create a more collaborative work culture, as a way to develop one's own creativity, or to help warm up teammates and clients in workshops and design sessions. In this interactive presentation you will learn more about improv, listening, creativity, and how they all connect together to support one another. No iguanas will be harmed.
Summary of the Persuasive Technology 2009 conference, presented at the Mini-UPA (Boston UPA chapter) conference on May 26, 2009 by Carolyn Snyder, PT 09 attendee.
Ethics - or how to have good manners in your scientific careerJoshua Knowles
Ethics basically means discipline. That is more helpful a thought than to think of it as morals, anyway. What disciplines does a scientist and communicator of science need so as to stay alive, and contribute to the great scientific game? Many of the disciplines needed are the classical social ones of being generous, polite, encouraging, open, honest, modest, and so on. Some others are more specialised, like how NOT to give your best unpublished ideas away at a conference, and how NOT to accidentally copy someone else's great idea they told you in confidence.
Why people don't think rationally, Five types of Psychological BiasesBabu Appat
Decision making is an art. Dexterous decision making requires polished skills. Psychological Bias are the common problem makers, which prevents effective decision making. Let us examine what are the common psychological biases and how to overcome these problem makers. Better decisions are required for business success and better life.
Execution is one of the most overlooked elements of business. Strategy, finances, and market opportunities seem to get a lot more attention. In my own experience, getting an A+ on execution will beat out the other companies who have A+'s in the more traditional areas.
John Griffin, Ford Credit Europe. Normalising failure and making way for succ...IT Arena
John Griffin is currently paving the way for new explorative ways to bring Design to the forefront of the Ford Credit Europe products.
With a background co-founding design consultancies Wolfcub and Pack, he’s spent the last 8 years honing his craft on clients including ASOS, HSBC, Diageo, and Google alongside helping a multitude of start-ups launch their ideas. When John’s not going deep on bringing product ideas to life, you can find him behind the mic podcasting, running the industry event Product Unleashed, or talking about his favorite 80s films to anyone who will listen long enough!
Speech Overview:
Why are we so afraid for our ideas to fail?
Is failure just learning with a bad reputation?
The idea of our ideas failing can not only hold us back from making a start on something but can also leave us in an endless loop of all-talk-no-action.
For teams to truly be successful, failure needs to move from elephant in the room to engrained within your DNA.
- Learn how to ensure all channels are being maximized for your lead generation
- How to avoid the most costly and common pitfalls in managing leads
- Reduce your marketing expenses by optimizing your cost per lead
- Learn the difference between your short and long term pipelines and how to manage both.
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties – USA
Expansion of bot farms – how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks – Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
Kubernetes & AI - Beauty and the Beast !?! @KCD Istanbul 2024Tobias Schneck
As AI technology is pushing into IT I was wondering myself, as an “infrastructure container kubernetes guy”, how get this fancy AI technology get managed from an infrastructure operational view? Is it possible to apply our lovely cloud native principals as well? What benefit’s both technologies could bring to each other?
Let me take this questions and provide you a short journey through existing deployment models and use cases for AI software. On practical examples, we discuss what cloud/on-premise strategy we may need for applying it to our own infrastructure to get it to work from an enterprise perspective. I want to give an overview about infrastructure requirements and technologies, what could be beneficial or limiting your AI use cases in an enterprise environment. An interactive Demo will give you some insides, what approaches I got already working for real.
Essentials of Automations: Optimizing FME Workflows with ParametersSafe Software
Are you looking to streamline your workflows and boost your projects’ efficiency? Do you find yourself searching for ways to add flexibility and control over your FME workflows? If so, you’re in the right place.
Join us for an insightful dive into the world of FME parameters, a critical element in optimizing workflow efficiency. This webinar marks the beginning of our three-part “Essentials of Automation” series. This first webinar is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to utilize parameters effectively: enhancing the flexibility, maintainability, and user control of your FME projects.
Here’s what you’ll gain:
- Essentials of FME Parameters: Understand the pivotal role of parameters, including Reader/Writer, Transformer, User, and FME Flow categories. Discover how they are the key to unlocking automation and optimization within your workflows.
- Practical Applications in FME Form: Delve into key user parameter types including choice, connections, and file URLs. Allow users to control how a workflow runs, making your workflows more reusable. Learn to import values and deliver the best user experience for your workflows while enhancing accuracy.
- Optimization Strategies in FME Flow: Explore the creation and strategic deployment of parameters in FME Flow, including the use of deployment and geometry parameters, to maximize workflow efficiency.
- Pro Tips for Success: Gain insights on parameterizing connections and leveraging new features like Conditional Visibility for clarity and simplicity.
We’ll wrap up with a glimpse into future webinars, followed by a Q&A session to address your specific questions surrounding this topic.
Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your FME expertise and drive your projects to new heights of efficiency.
JMeter webinar - integration with InfluxDB and GrafanaRTTS
Watch this recorded webinar about real-time monitoring of application performance. See how to integrate Apache JMeter, the open-source leader in performance testing, with InfluxDB, the open-source time-series database, and Grafana, the open-source analytics and visualization application.
In this webinar, we will review the benefits of leveraging InfluxDB and Grafana when executing load tests and demonstrate how these tools are used to visualize performance metrics.
Length: 30 minutes
Session Overview
-------------------------------------------
During this webinar, we will cover the following topics while demonstrating the integrations of JMeter, InfluxDB and Grafana:
- What out-of-the-box solutions are available for real-time monitoring JMeter tests?
- What are the benefits of integrating InfluxDB and Grafana into the load testing stack?
- Which features are provided by Grafana?
- Demonstration of InfluxDB and Grafana using a practice web application
To view the webinar recording, go to:
https://www.rttsweb.com/jmeter-integration-webinar
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 3DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 3. In this session, we will cover desktop automation along with UI automation.
Topics covered:
UI automation Introduction,
UI automation Sample
Desktop automation flow
Pradeep Chinnala, Senior Consultant Automation Developer @WonderBotz and UiPath MVP
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey 2024 by 91mobiles.pdf91mobiles
91mobiles recently conducted a Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey in which we asked over 3,000 respondents about the TV they own, aspects they look at on a new TV, and their TV buying preferences.
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Research Traps: 7 ways of thinking that keep you from doing great customer research
1. Research Traps:
7 ways of thinking that keep you from doing
great customer research
Wendy Castleman
Principal User Research Scientist
To be presented at the UPA Conference in Portland, OR in June 2009
22. Avoiding the False Consensus Trap
• Focus on the customer
–spend time watching and talking
• Test with people who aren’t like you
23. What is the rule?
2, 4, 6, 8, ___
Hypotheses:
Each value must be 2 higher than the one before.
How do you test this hypothesis?
Actual Rule:
Each value must be any number bigger than the one before.
24. Congruence
Bias
We jump to conclusions by
only looking at one approach
25. Try out our new idea
for an iPhone application!
26. Congruence
Trap
insufficiently inform the design
Only trying one solution
may miss a better one
34. Avoiding the Confirmation Trap
• Look for surprises, instead of what you expect
• Test out what shouldn’t work
• Consider independent evaluation
35. In American English are there more:
Words that begin with the letter “K”?
Or
Words where “K” is the third letter?
There are 3x as many words
with “K” in the 3rd position
36. Availability
Heuristic
We have a tendency to put too much weight
on what comes easily to mind
40. Avoiding the Availability Trap
• Gather key usability metrics
–(task success, specific error counts, time)
• Don’t rely on your memory
• Look at all of the data
–Encourage others to do the same
46. How to Avoid the Recency Trap
• Gather key usability metrics
–(task success, specific error counts, time)
• Don’t rely on your memory
• Look at all of the data
51. That’s the fourth man
who has bought this version.
I need to find out how
many men buy this…
52. Avoiding the Illusory Correlation Trap
• Recognize the limitations of your research
methods
• Verify magnitude estimations and
correlations with large-scale quantitative
studies
55. Ways to avoid the traps…
Planning
1. Look at every project as unique
2. Consider what you need to learn
3. Identify the best method
4. Test with people who aren’t like you
5. Test several different solutions
6. Test out what shouldn’t work
56. Ways to avoid the traps…
Conducting
1. Look for surprises, instead of what you
expect
2. Gather key usability metrics
3. Consider independent evaluation
57. Ways to avoid the traps…
Analyzing
1. Don’t rely on your memory
2. Look at all of the data
3. Recognize the limitations of your research
methods
4. Verify magnitude estimations and
correlations with large-scale quantitative
studies
My name is Wendy CastlemanI am a wifeAnd a motherMy background is PsychologyBut now I work as an experience design researcherAt a company called “Intuit”… Where I do research to help us design solutions that empower individuals and businesses to achieve their dreams.
In my time as a researcher, I’ve made lots of mistakes that have limited the impact of the research I’ve done. I’m here to talk with you about some common research traps, how to recognize them and avoid them.
It ends up that YOU and I and everyone else around here all have some built in mental shortcuts that help us think efficiently.
This efficient thinking is really useful for our survival. Like, if you are being chased by a bear, you don’t have all the time in the world to try out different escape options to find the best one. You just need to try something right away…
But, these same shortcuts become barriers for research. In order to do great research to inform the design of delightful solutions, we need to break away from our natural biases and get beyond the obvious to the underlying truths. This talk will focus on some of the most common mental barriers, or cognitive biases, that can interfere with doing great customer research.
It doesn’t matter whether you are new to the fieldOr very experienced… we are all at risk of falling for these traps. Fortunately, a raised awareness of the traps can help us successfully avoid them.
Today we are going to go over 7 research traps, understand what they are, why they happen and how to avoid them.
These are the 7 traps, but don’t worry… I’ll go through them one at a time.
Now, I’m not going to admit that I’ve let habit come into play when doing research… nor would I say that it hasn’t… So, drawing from Child Psychology Therapy Sessions, I’m going to use a puppet to tell the story of how some usability researchers may handle these biases. So, Elsie will show us examples throughout this talk.
Let me tell you a story. This is a picture of the street that I live on.For the past year, I lived here.I just bought the house across the street and moved here.Now, driving home after a late night at work… what do you think happened?YES! I drove to the wrong house. Why? Because I was going on auto-pilot… force of habit. I wasn’t thinking, I was just doing what I always do.
Habit comes into play with research. We often don’t really think about the type of research we should do, but instead do the same type of research that we usually do. So, Elsie spends a lot of time in the lab doing usability tests… and when someone comes to her with a new project, she just jumps straight to doing another usability test.
The problem is that all research methods are not the same. By doing what Elsie always does, a usability test, she might end up not learning the key type of information that the project team needs to know. Have you ever done a test that ended up not being that helpful? Maybe it was because you fell for the Habit trap.
With her new raised awareness, now Elsie asks the team a number of questions and figures out which method is most appropriate.
Ross and colleagues asked students to walk around campus with a sign saying ‘Eat at Joe’s’. Those who agreed said that 62% of other people would agree to carry the sign. Those who disagreed said that 67% would not carry the sign. Ross, L, Amabile, T. M. and Steinmetz, J. L.(1977) Social roles, social control and biases in social perception, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 485-494
Example for “False Consensus” is pretty much any product team I have worked on—the engineers and tax dev folks have a tendency to think they are just like the customer and know the problem. They get all wrapped up in the ui design, when they are clearly not accountants! Not sure how you can turn that into a story without incriminating people though. J
There are lots of ways False Consensus can come into play with usability… for example, conducting a cognitive walkthrough and assuming that your insights are the same as a target user. However, another way we fall for this trap is by recruiting participants who are not quite the target audience. Ever invite friends and family to participate in a study? Do your friends and family think like you do? You might have fallen for the False Consensus trap.
Example for “False Consensus” is pretty much any product team I have worked on—the engineers and tax dev folks have a tendency to think they are just like the customer and know the problem. They get all wrapped up in the ui design, when they are clearly not accountants! Not sure how you can turn that into a story without incriminating people though. J
Quicken usability testing was conducted with first-time PC users, including the Palo Alto Junior League in 1984. Intuit’s ambitious goal: to have complete PC novices up and running on Quicken within 15 minutes. (Courtesy of Virginia Boyd.)
Because of the confirmation bias, we tend to fall victim to another bias … the congruence bias. Take this example. You see a sequence of numbers and are tasked with identifying the rule. Your hypotheses is that these are a sequence of even numbers, increasing by 2. If you fill in the next value to determine the accuracy of your hypothesis, you are likely to put in the number 10. But, this is a direct test. It is possible that 10 would be okay but your hypothesis is not true. If you test the indirect hypothesis, you might choose 9. Because, if your hypothesis is true, then 9 should be FALSE.
The team is coming up with a new iPhone app and asked Elsie to find out what people think about the idea and how to make it better. She tests the application… and suggests usability improvements… what’s wrong with that? Well…
Ideally, Elsie will test multiple in a pseudo-usability test to gauge directionSome might not turn out to solve a big enough of a problem for her customers (X)Some might be best combined into one (O and arrow)
Turn T & 6, not 6 & L. If there is a 6 on the other side of L, that doesn’t tell you anything. If there is an L on the other side of the 6, that is consistent with your hypothesis, but doesn’t tell you if you are right. If there is an L on the other side of the 4, that doesn’t mean anything either (maybe all even numbers have L’s… that wouldn’t mean that your hypothesis would be wrong, or maybe some 6’s have Ls and some have Rs). Only if you turn over the T and found a 6 would you be able to determine that your hypothesis definitely isn’t right.
Elsie goes looking for the data that supports her hypotheses…
Soon after the Quicken launch, Scott and his team started doing surveys where they asked a number of demographic questions. One of the things he learned was that 48% of customers said they used Quicken in an office or both at home and in an office. This made no sense to anyone on the team, as it was clearly intended for personal home users, so they ignored it. They repeated the study 18 months later. That time they found that 49% said they used it in an office. So they ignored it again. But the anomaly kept gnawing at him, and a year later Scott started calling and visiting these customers to figure out why…
Someone is asked to estimate the proportion of words that begin with the letter \"R\" or \"K\" versus those words that have the letter \"R\" or \"K\" in the third position. Most English-speaking people could immediately think of many words that begin with the letters \"R\" (roar, rusty, ribald) or \"K\" (kangaroo, kitchen, kale), but it would take a more concentrated effort to think of any words where \"R\" or \"K\" is the third letter (street, care, borrow, acknowledge); the immediate answer would probably be that words that begin with \"R\" or \"K\" are more common. The reality is that words that have the letter \"R\" or \"K\" in the third position are more common. In fact, there are three times as many words that have the letter \"K\" in the third position. Tversky, A. & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgments under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185, 1124-1131.
Have you ever conducted a study with multiple people, then been asked to summarize what you found without having the time to go back and analyze all of your data? If so, you too have probably fallen victim to the availability trap.
Tracking and counting can help make this more objective. Even if it’s just taking a couple of minutes to tally up what you recall finding…
List the following: - the last 3 movies you saw in 2008 - the prior 3 movies you sawWhich was easier?
Elsie does a usability test… and sees which button people click on a particular screen. Immediately after the last participant, the product manager asks her how the study went and what they saw on that screen. Elsie says, “Most people clicked Continue”. However, as you can see… that just isn’t true. She’s fallen victim to the recency trap. This is especially likely when you have more participants. Common on site visits too, where time elapses between sessions and you have a greater chance of forgetting.
Again, the key to avoiding this trap is to take a moment and review your counts…
A study was done with teenaged girls. They were asked to describe the relationship between weight and happiness. What do you think they found? The teenagers thought there was a negative correlation between weight and happiness. In truth, there is no correlation at all.
Elsie is noticing patterns… that’s fine, but if she actually claims the relationship to be true, she can lose credibility if it ends up that it isn’t.
Elsie’s instincts are right on here… notice a pattern and seek to discover if other data supports it.
So those are the seven traps. Now that you know about them…