Biased by Design

At any given moment we’re faced with countless bits of information to process so that we can form judgments, make decisions, and get through the day. We’ve developed mental shortcuts to avoid becoming overwhelmed but these shortcuts have a downside: they often lead to fallacious reasoning and unintended results. Designers are just as vulnerable to the blindspots and fallacies that come with cognitive bias as the people who use the products and services we design. It’s impossible to eliminate biases, but we can seek to understand them and identify how they might impact our design decisions.

Additional Resources

Thinking, Fast and Slow

A must-read by Daniel Kahneman for anyone interested in diving deep into the world of cognitive bias.

Designing for Cognitive Bias

An excellent book by David Dylan Thomas explores the logic powering human bias and how to start designing more consciously.

Just Enough Research

This book by Erika Hall is focused on design research but explores how to spot your blind spots and biases during research.

18F User Experience Design Guide

A starting point for proactively engaging with bias to help us improve the credibility of our research.

Daniel Kahneman Explains The Machinery of Thought

An overview on the machinery of thought which divides the brain into two agents, called System 1 and System 2.

Biases | The Decision Lab

The science is clear: humans take mental shortcuts. Here you can read about why we do this and how you can avoid it.

Design Psychology: 4 Principles that Empower Designers

You might not know it yet, but you beautiful designer, have an almighty power in your hands: the power of Design Psychology.

How to Avoid 5 Types of Cognitive Bias in User Research

Cognitive biases can skew user research, leading to design changes that don’t address your customers’ real needs. Build digital products that users will love by mitigating these common biases.

About this website

This website is a resource for breaking down the most common cognitive biases that designers must deal with during the design process. It’s by no means a comprehensive list, rather a dive into the ones that are the most common during the design process. They are also the ones that have the potential to influence design decisions and impact the products and services we help to build.

About the author

Jon Yablonski is a Senior UX Designer with a passion for empowering people through digital tools that augment their abilities. He is currently helping the world learn from its data as a Senior Product Designer at Mixpanel.

Colophon

Tools used to create this site include Figma for design, Hugo for static site generation, and Hugo Pipes for asset processing. Typography is set in Financier Display and Financier Text by Klim Type Foundry, and IBM Plex Mono by Mike Abbink and Bold Monday.