Cognitive Biases & Principles Flashcards
👀 Hick’s law
More options lead to harder decisions.
Hick’s Law predicts that the time and the effort it takes to make a decision increases with the number of options. The more choices, the more time users take to make their decisions.
💼 Confirmation bias
People look for evidence that confirms what they think.
People tend to search for, interpret, prefer, and recall information in a way that reinforces their personal beliefs or hypotheses.
👁 Priming
Previous stimuli influence user’s decision
Subtle visual or verbal suggestions help users recall specific information, influencing how they respond. Priming works by activating an association or representation in users short-term memory just before another stimulus or task is introduced.
🚐 Cognitive load
The total amount of mental effort that is required to complete a task. Too much info -> too high cognitive load
⚓️ Anchoring bias
Users rely heavily on the first piece of information they see (i.e. showing the most expensive plan first so others look cheap in comparison)
👉 Nudge
Subtle hints can affect users’ decisions.
🍰 Progressive disclosure
Users are less overwhelmed if they’re exposed to complex features later. An interface is easier to use when complex features are gradually revealed later.
🎯 Fitt’s law
It’s easier to aim the bigger the target is
🐠 Attentional bias
Users thoughts filter what they pay attention to
💔 Empathy gap
People underestimate how much emotions influence user behaviors
⛵️ Visual anchors
Elements used to guide user’s eyes
🌶 Von Restroff effect
People remember more items that stand out
🎖 Visual hierarchy
The order in which people perceive what they see
🔭 Selective attention
People filter out things from their environment when they focus
✈ Survivorship bias
People neglect things that don’t make it past a selection process (focus on 0.1% that succeeded)
🕶 Sensory adaption
Users tune out the stuff they get repeatedly exposed to
🍒Juxtaposition
Elements that are close and similar are perceived as a single unit
🚦 Signifiers
Elements that communicate what it will do (suggest usage by using expressions users already know or by obvious shapes)
🎭 Contrast
Users’ attention is drawn to higher visual weights
🚨 External trigger
When the information on what to do next is within the prompt itself
🕺 Decoy effect
Having a 3rd option that’s asymmetrically dominated and easy to discard. Influences the user’s decision between 2 options.
🔘 Center-stage effect
People tend to choose the middle option in a set of items
🖼 Framing
The way information is presented affects how users make decisions
🍣 Law of proximity
Elements close to each other are usually considered related
🍬 Tesler’s law
If you simplify too much, you’ll transfer some complexity to users
🧨 Spark effect
Users are more likely to take action when the effort is small
🥏 Feedback loop
When users take action, feedback communicates what happened
😻 Expectations bias
People tend to be influenced by their own expectations
👥 Social proof
Users adapt their behaviors based on what others do
🦄 Scarcity
People value things more when they’re in limited supply
💭 Curiosity gap
Users have a desire to seek out missing information
🖲 Mental model
Users have a preconceived opinion of how things work
👨👩👧👦 Familiarity bias
People prefer familiar experiences
👼 Halo effect
People judge things (or people) based on their feelings of one trait
☎️ Miller’s law
Users can only keep ± 7 items in their working memory
🍱 Unit bias
One unit of something feels like the optimal amount
🌊 Flow state
Being fully immersed or focused on something
🕹 Skeuomorphism
Users adapt more easily to things that look like real-world objects. Interface objects that mimic their real-world counterparts
🎁 Reciprocity
People feel the need to reciprocate (respond) when they receive something
👑 Authority Bias
Users attribute more importance to the opinion of an authority figure
🏺 Pseudo-Set Framing
Tasks that are part of a group are more tempting to complete, as humans are drawn to completion.
🎰 Variable reward
People enjoy rewards, especially unexpected ones
🎊 Group Attractiveness Effect / Cheerleader effect
Individual items seem more attractive when presented in a group (have a few use cases, testimonials, blog posts before you publish)
🚰 Curse of Knowledge
Not realizing that people don’t have the same level of knowledge (less technical than you think)
🎉 Aha! Moment
When new users first realize the value of your product
📮 Self-Initiated Triggers
Users are more likely to interact with prompts they set up themselves
✏️ Survey Bias
Users tend to skew survey answers towards what’s socially acceptable
🎭 Cognitive Dissonance
It’s painful to hold two opposing ideas in our mind
🥅 Goal gradient effect
Motion increases as users get closer to their goal (speed up their behavior. more motivated by how much is left to their target, not how far they’ve come)
👍 False consensus effect
People overestimate how much other people agree with them
⏰ Recency bias
It’s easiest to remember the last thing you heard
🥇 Primacy bias
Remember the first participant most strongly
🧑🦽 Implicit bias
The collection of attitudes and stereotypes we associate to people without our conscious knowledge
⚓️ Sunk cost effect
Users are reluctant to pull out of something they’ve invested in
🤝 Social desirability bias
Answering questions based on what the answerer thinks the asker wants to hear.
📆 Availability bias
When you rust the user recruitment or skip screener questions to attract a bigger pool of users even if they don’t fit the qualifications or characteristics that you’ve already determined are present in your ideal user.
🚆 Aesthetic-Usability effect
People perceive designs with great aesthetics as easier to use
💫 Feedforward
When users know what to expect before they take action
💈 Occam’s razor
Simple solutions are often better than the complex ones
🎗 Noble Edge effect
Users tend to prefer socially responsible companies
🎏 Law of similarity
Users perceive a relationship between elements that look similar
🔦 Spotlight effect
People tend to believe they are being noticed more than they really are
🗓 Fresh start effect
Users are more likely to take action if there’s a feeling of new beginnings.
