#17: Podcast episode #2, No one cares about your opinion, Hot hand and Sunken cost fallacies
[Update]
Expanding on the newsletter format a bit. My new UX Career podcast episodes are getting their own spot. Also, decided to go back to sharing interesting things I find around the web. A while ago, this was one of the main sections, but it started feeling like a chore when I was pulling several links in each newsletter issue. Didn’t feel right. Now, I will be adding this section only if something stood out to me. I consume a lot of information and the vast majority of it is not worth the cognitive load =) I’ll see how it goes this time. My goal is not to keep you informed of the latest week’s news, but rather learn something that I find valuable, deep, and profound.
In addition, next week, I am starting a journey of becoming a certified accessibility specialist. The training should take 2-3 months, and then the exam. I want to keep a log of what I’m learning and will likely be sharing these along the way.
[UX Career podcast]
Episode #2: Q&A with Mark Wilson
Mark is the UX director at a Vancouver-based digital agency TTT Studios. Mark shares his story, his thoughts on how to stand out from others and his 15-page resume, what makes a good portfolio and resume, the future of the UX design job, switching careers, and a lot more.
Previous episodes
[From around the web]
Valuable insights about design critiques and what kinds of questions critics should ask to provide more value to the designer.
Stakeholder: I’d like to see that banner to the top — that will be better.
Designer: I agree that we believe this information is what’s most important to customers — is that where you are coming from?
Designer: This design also accounts for the fact that we require them to give us some data inputs first, so I need that to come first in the flow. But here’s what I hear you saying: “How might we either remove the need for that data entry, or draw more attention to the banner?” Is that right?
No one cares about your opinion 🔗.
[Cognitive biases]
Hot hand fallacy
People tend to think that a person who experiences a successful outcome has a greater chance of success in further attempts.
This is a very interesting one. Think of a basketball game. There is often a perception that the player who has been scoring a lot of points earlier in the game will keep doing so later in the game, aka being on a roll, aka winning streak. Frankly, I recall having similar thoughts when watching games. This was considered a cognitive bias for a long time (starting in the 1985 “Hot Hand in Basketball” paper).
Here is a twist… Apparently, there is some newer evidence (2003 and later) showing that this is indeed true (at least, in some sports) 😯 A good illustration that the scientific community is still learning about how our brains work. The curious idea here is that previous success can change a person’s attitude, confidence in themselves, which can reduce the anxiety and calm the nerves, and impact the future success rate. A lot of this depends on the mental state 🧠
Sunk cost fallacy
The more time/resources a person invests into an idea/endeavour the more attached they become.
Yesss… This is one of the most common problems in the startup world. After pouring a ton of time and money into their idea, it is getting harder and harder to accept the fact that their enterprise has failed and you need to move on. This fallacy leads many people to keep “throwing good money after bad”, refusing to believe that their startup is dead in the water.
There are a lot of examples from many industries - utility companies being overly reluctant to terminate economically unviable nuclear plant projects, people buying tickets to a game that they realize they are not enjoying, but still staying till the end, or continuing watching a bad movie till the end even though you are wasting your time (this happened to me a few times 🙃)
Disclaimer: All opinions are my own. They don’t represent any of my current or previous employers’ views.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_hand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect
Photo Credit: Markus Spiske from Pexels