When we build a product, we make thousands of decisions. We search for patterns, draw conclusions, and act upon limited information. It's all in a day's work. In this talk, I'll explore the 5 most common cognitive biases and how they mislead our product decisions. These include our tendency to value a user's experience more if it coincides with our own experience (confirmation bias) and our tendency to forget that our users are not experts (curse of knowledge). You’ll walk out of this talk with ways to identify when your cognitive bias is creeping into your decisions, as well as tips and tricks on how to outsmart your brain and make better product decisions. This talk is relevant for designers, product managers, developers, founders, managers, and anyone else who finds themselves making product decisions every day.
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1. 5 Ways to Outsmart Your Brain And Make Better Product
Decisions Lauren Gilchrist (@lgilchrist) Lean Agile Scotland
2014
2. About Me Product Manager at Pivotal Labs 6 Years of
Startups
3. Product Decisions are Hard Extreme Uncertainty Incomplete
Information Time Sensitive
4. Were Good at Intuitive Decisions System 1 Gut Instinct or
Intuition
5. Were Pretty Good at Logic System 2 Analytical or
Logical
6. But System 1 is Easily Distracted Which Weighs More? 100
Kilos of Bricks 100 Kilos of Feathers
7. Anatomy of a Bad Decision System 1 blinks System 2
snoozes
8. How System 1 Causes Bad Product Decisions 1. Assumes
Causation 2. Has Selective Hearing 3. Assumes Others Care 4.
Assumes Others Know 5. Underestimates Time & Price
9. 1. Assumes Causation
10. 1. Assumes Causation
11. 1. Outsmart Causation Bias Assume correlation, not
causation Focus on replicable outcomes Fear what you cant
explain
12. 2. Has Selective Hearing
13. 2. Has Selective Hearing Are users actually engaged for a
full hour?
14. 2. Outsmart Confirmation Bias If it sounds too good to be
true, it is Validate with your users Validate with your peers
15. 3. Assumes Others Care Nothing in life is as important as
you think it is when you are thinking about it. - Daniel
Kahneman
16. 3. Assumes Others Care
17. 3. Assumes Others Care
18. 3. Outsmart Focusing Effect Use personas to remind you that
you are not your user Talk to your users
19. 4. Assumes Others Know
20. 4. Assumes Others Know 50 Listeners, 50 Tappers Tappers
listen to a song and tap the beat Listeners guess song Half of
tappers think listeners will guess the song correctly 3% of
listeners actually guess correctly
21. 4. Assumes Others Know
22. 4. Assume Others Know
23. 4. Outsmart Curse of Knowledge Get out of the
building!
24. 5. Underestimates Time & Price Americans remodeling
their kitchens expected the job to cost $18,658 They ended up
paying $38,769
25. 5. Underestimates Time & Price Estimate when you will
finish your thesis 13% of the students finished by their 50%
probable date 19% finished by their 75% probable date 45% (less
than half!) finished by their 99% probable date
26. 5. How to Outsmart Estimate complexity, not time Estimate
for others, not yourself Estimate past actions