If you are even remotely involved in user research, a hidden bias could be blinding you to the crucial insights that lead to breakthrough products and profits to match.
Bias is nothing to be ashamed of, everyone (including researchers) has it. In fact, the only group of people that should be ashamed are the researchers who think they have no bias.
Because thinking you have no bias is like thinking you’re perfect. And your not. So there.
That doesn’t mean researchers shouldn’t try to be perfectly impartial. I am a strong proponent that striving for perfection yields excellence, which is why I encourage the research prone to spend a some time at Project Implicit.
Here’s the spiel
Project Implicit represents a collaborative research effort between researchers at Harvard University, the University of Virginia, and University of Washington…Here you will have the opportunity to assess your conscious and unconscious preferences for over 90 different topics ranging from pets to political issues, ethnic groups to sports teams, and entertainers to styles of music. At the same time, you will be assisting psychological research on thoughts and feelings.
If you plan on trying to unearth users’ unconscious preferences, it’s only polite that you try to identify some of your own.
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Article by chris loughnane
Chris is Design Engineer + Sustainability Advocate at a Boston area design consultancy and has written 127 sweet posts for the Product Development Notebook.
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