There are hundreds of cognitive biases in existence.

Image credit — Visual Capitalist

But most designers don’t utilize them effectively.

Here are 8 super powerful cognitive biases that can save hours in your design process: 👇

I’m just kidding, there is no such thing as these are the most powerful biases.

In fact, let's start moving away from cognitive biases as your way to “do” behavior design — it does not help you, your customers, or your employees.

If you are to use anything, you should base it on data rather than it being derived from pure theorizing, which is how most biases are presented.

As Michael Hallsworth has written before:

“Theories of behavior often try to explain phenomena that are complex and wide-ranging.

Trying to cover this variability can produce descriptions of relationships and definitions of constructs that are abstract and imprecise.

The result is theories that are vague and “weak” since they can be used to generate many different hypotheses — some of which may actually contradict each other”.

Furthermore, “focusing on lists of biases distracts us from answering core underlying questions.

-When does one or another bias apply? -Which are widely applicable, and which are highly specific? “

I’ll conclude here by saying that In a current project, I am working on, with 2 other behavioral scientists, we did not even once mention a cognitive bias in our evidence reviews, data synthesis, or our interventions — and this includes thousands of data points we have looked at.

We need to go beyond explaining people in biases, as what works in a lab, should not be copied onto a website, app, process, policy, or experience.

We are more complex as individuals than that because there are so many factors playing a role in our behaviors.

Learn behavior beyond biases and you will really start to see a change.

P.S. — I also don’t enjoy headlines like the one I used but thought I’d add it in to set the tone of the article.

Robert