Everyone has beliefs and prejudices that are mostly unconscious, and these attitudes can lead to bias in research if they are unchallenged. By designing your studies carefully, using as large a sample size as is practical, and writing clear, open-ended questions, you can get useful results with minimal bias.
The Problem of Bias
Beyond the constraints of time and money, bias is the biggest problem with research. Bias means favoring or being prejudiced against something based on personal attitudes. Bias is usually based on limited information and is often unconscious. One important thing to keep in mind about bias is that it is almost universal and UX Researchers need to be constantly checking for it in their research designs.
Kinds of Bias
There are many different kinds of bias that can affect research, but one way to separate them is into researcher bias and participant bias. Researcher bias refers to attitudes and assumptions of the researcher that can influence the behaviors of test subjects and affect results. Participant bias is the attitudes and beliefs of the test subjects that can give false results.
Researcher Bias
When researchers fail to examine their assumptions and beliefs before designing studies, it can lead to researcher or investigator bias. Here are some common forms that can take.
- Confirmation bias—Confirmation bias happens when you start out looking for evidence to prove an assumption instead of gathering evidence and forming a theory that reflects the data.
- Culture bias—The researcher interprets results according to their own cultural attitudes.
- False consensus bias—False consensus bias is the assumption that others think the same way you do or the assumption that anyone who doesn’t agree with you is abnormal. It is easy to overestimate the number of people who agree with an idea or design feature, so it is important to identify and articulate assumptions to check for false consensus bias.
- Primacy bias—Primacy bias is the tendency people have to remember the first participant better than the others.
- Recency bias—Recency bias is the tendency to remember the last thing you heard.
- Unconscious bias—Unconscious bias occurs when a UX Research’s personal prejudices and stereotypes impact the study. It becomes a problem when subjects within a limited set of identity profiles are chosen based on researcher assumptions. This can lead to a lack of representation in the subject and skew the results of the research.
- Availability bias—trying to fill the study quickly and not vetting the participants carefully enough. When this happens, you don’t get objective results.
- Wording bias or framing effect—researcher asks the question in a way that suggests an answer.
- Sunk cost fallacy—The sunk cost fallacy comes into play when time and money have been invested into a project and the team is resistant to changing course. It can be useful to break the project down into smaller phases and designate testing points along the way. This will help the team decide whether to continue or go back and change things based on new insights.
Participant Bias
Researchers need to be careful to construct their tests to produce good results. Here are some types of participant bias that can skew test results.
- Social desirability bias—participants answer what they think researchers want to hear rather than how they really feel. This happens when people want to be liked. They over-report socially desirable behaviors and characteristics and under-report undesirable behaviors and characteristics.
- The Hawthorne Effect—Participants are aware they are being observed, so they are extra careful and don’t necessarily demonstrate how they would actually use the product.
- Response bias -The tendency of participants to want to make themselves look good.
- Acquiescence bias—The tendency of participants to say yes.
Methods for Avoiding Research Bias
UX Researchers can avoid or reduce bias in studies by carefully looking at their own attitudes and beliefs, choosing participants carefully, using a mix of different testing methods, and writing good interview questions.
Create an Assumptions Map
One way to identify team assumptions that might impact the product design is to hold an assumptions workshop before you begin to plan research. Have team members and stakeholders write their assumptions on sticky notes and use the notes to create an assumptions map. The vertical axis of the map represents riskiness. Place risky assumptions, those that would be very damaging to the success of the product if they turned out to be untrue, at the top of the vertical axis with those assumptions that wouldn’t have much impact at the bottom. The horizontal axis represents the difficulty of validation, so place those assumptions that would be difficult to prove true on the left and those that would be easier on the right. Assumption maps are a useful tool for avoiding bias because they give the team a visual representation of what they believe before conducting any research.
Choose Participants Who Represent Your Target Audience
If you can use a large number of participants for studies, that can help avoid bias, but you can’t always get the number of subjects you would like, whether because of time or financial constraints. Focusing on the number of personas you need to create can help you choose the most useful participants for the target audience.
Write a Quality Script
Be sure to ask open-ended, non-leading questions during interviews. Clear, neutral wording of questions that don’t push users to answer a certain way will give you better results and avoid bias.
Use Different Quantitative and Qualitative Methods
Quantitative methods like time-on-task and usability surveys give you objective results, while qualitative methods like interviews and diary studies give more subjective results. A mixture gives a clearer picture.
Competitor Analysis
Finding out what users think of your competitors’ products can give you an idea of how to test your products.
Active Listening
Use active listening techniques when interviewing to avoid bias. Let subjects talk more than you do. Show through body language that you are hearing what they say.
Take Good Notes
Taking accurate and consistent notes is another way to avoid bias. Develop a form to give to note-takers to aid with consistency.
Where to Learn UX Design
If you would like to learn more about UX design and research to switch to a new career, one of the best ways to do that is to sign up for classes. You can choose classes that meet in-person or online to learn design software and other applications. Some people prefer to attend brick-and-mortar sessions when learning new information, but that isn’t always available. Live online classes have a similar set-up with a real-time, remote instructor who can answer questions and take control of your monitor—with permission—to show you how to do things. Training is part or full-time and available weekdays, weeknights, or weekends.
The best way to prepare for a career shift to a field like UX design is to enroll in a bootcamp or certificate program. These are intensive training courses that run from a few weeks to a few months and another plus of training is that you will leave class with a professional-quality portfolio that you can show to prospective employers.
Conclusion
It’s easy to learn UX design and start a new career. Check out Noble Desktop’s UX design classes. Choose between in-person sessions in NYC at Noble’s location or sign up for live online UX design coursesand attend from anywhere. Use Noble Desktop’s Classes Near Me to find other UX design bootcamps in your area.