Topic: Decision Illusion

This talk from Dan Ariely is a must see (presented at the TED conference, posted May 2009)

People have visual illusions and cognitive (decision-making) illusions.

In visual illusion we can easily demonstrate mistakes. For example, we can measure to verify if our visual comparison is right.

Cognitive (decision-making) illusion is not easy to see, it’s much-much harder to demonstrate people the mistakes (for example, our selection for an option is influenced by how the information is presented).

We have a feeling, we think we are in control and we are making the decision. It’s very hard even to accept the idea that we have an illusion of making the decision rather than actual decision.

When decision is complex and difficult, and we don’t know what to do, we might pick up what just is chosen for us.  When we don’t know our preferences we are susceptible to influences from external forces such as defaults or particular option presented to us.

When it comes to build the physical world we understand our limitations and we build around it. But when it comes to the mental world, for example when we design the health care, stock markets, we need to remember that we have cognitive limitations.

We like this talk because it highlights our philosophy: “We believe in human”. We believe in human capability and power, which can reach its height when the design (of job or product) takes into account human cognitive limitations.

For us, it means taking into account human cognitive limitations (human factors) in the process of the product design and remove. Asking people to react rapidly for opening elevator door or asking an employee to specify complex business requirements in the head office do not take into account human nature, human cognitive illusion.

From talk of Dan Ariely:

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html