The truth doesn't cost you anything but a lie could cost you everything. Tania Lang's presentation at UX Australia's Design Research conference March 2019
2. The UX professional
Trainer, Consultant &
Principal, PeakXD
20 years UX experience
4 degrees inc Masters of
Business by Research (user
behaviour) & Human Factors
Grad Cert.
The person
Mum, wife, traveller &
adrenalin junkie
Tania Lang
3. EXPERIMENT #1
Pair up with your neighbour. Check
them out and look into their eyes.
Put your hand up if you think
you are more attractive than
your neighbour.
4. EXPERIMENT #2
Turn and touch hands with your other
neighbour.
Answer Yes/No to “Have you
been to the toilet this week and
not washed your hands?”
Put your hand up if your
neighbour didn’t wash
their hands.
5. What we did in the presentation
Participants were asked to go to www.slido.com and answer the
questions using their own device anonymously
6. The results – audience live
Q. Are you more attractive than your neighbour?
A. 11 people put up their hands (approximately 5% of
the audience)
Q. Have you been to the toilet this week and not
washed your hands?
A. 1 person put up their hand (<1% of the audience)
7. The results – audience online anonymous
Are you more attractive than your neighbour?
Have you been to the toilet this week and not washed
your hands?
9. What I am going to cover today
Why the truth is important
Why people lie
Why lying is hard work
Lie detection technologies & methods
Designing your research to find the truth
Researcher skills – the 3 roles you have to play
A case study – Queensland Government travel survey
10. Why do you think finding the truth in
research is important?
Imagine your own organisation?
What are the implications for your organisation?
What about you and your team?
14. #3 To conceal something we have done (or not done) to save face
15. #4 To influence or achieve a positive outcome for yourself
e.g. According to a study by Scientific American, a whopping 90% of people looking for a date online lie on their profile
16. • #1 To avoid hurting other people’s feelings and please others
• #2 Make ourselves look better and deny socially undesirable traits
• #3 To conceal something we have done (or not done) to save face
• #4 To influence or achieve a positive outcome for yourself
Summary – why people lie
18. • #1 To avoid hurting other people’s feelings and please others
• #2 Make ourselves look better and deny socially undesirable traits
• #3 To conceal something we have done (or not done)
• #4 To influence or achieve a positive outcome for yourself
• #1 To avoid hurting other people’s feelings and please others
Testing a high fidelity design that you designed yourself
19. Image: Martin Kingsley from Melbourne, Australia [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]
Asking a participant how much they would you pay for a product?
• #1 To avoid hurting other people’s feelings and please others
• #2 Make ourselves look better /deny socially undesirable traits
• #3 To conceal something we have done (or not done)
• #4 To influence or achieve a positive outcome for yourself• #4 To influence of achieve a positive outcome for yourself
20. Discussing smoking during pregnancy
• #1 To avoid hurting other people’s feelings and please others
• #2 Make ourselves look better /deny socially undesirable traits
• #3 To conceal something we have done (or not done)
• #4 To influence or achieve a positive outcome for yourself
• #2 Make ourselves look better / deny socially undesirable traits
• #3 To conceal something we have done (or not done) to save face
21. Talking to a researcher about when they did their diary study?
• #1 To avoid hurting other people’s feelings and please others
• #2 Make ourselves look better /deny socially undesirable traits
• #3 To conceal something we have done (or not done)
• #4 To influence or achieve a positive outcome for yourself
• #3 To conceal something we have done (or not done) to save face
22. LYING IS HARDER THAN
TELLING THE TRUTH
Call out the names of each animal
based on the picture you see
Time how long it takes you
24. …ONE MORE TIME
Call out the names of each animal
based on the picture you see
Time how long it takes you
25. 25
Monkey Sheep Hippo
Penguin Donkey Rabbit
Pig Turtle Zebra
Turtle Pig
Rabbit
Zebra
Sheep Donkey
Hippo Penguin Donkey
Call out the names of each animal based on the picture
The Stroop effect – competing mental processes
26. Lying is a complex task that increases
activity in the prefrontal cortex
1. Suppress automatic response
2. Fabricate lie
28. Technologies for lie detection
Polygraph
EEG
Voice stress analysis
Functional MRI
Hands up if you think these
technologies are feasible for
us to use as researchers?
29. Method 1 – Ground Truth
Brain Games S02E08 Liar Liar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHJuuuHmQlw
Finding their tell by observing their behaviour when you know they are lying.
Term for the truth regarding whether or not a person actually committed the act they are accused of.
30. Method 2 – Fake vs Real Duchenne smile
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SqlilB1w3g
1 2
31. Other methods – Lying indicators
Fidgeting – touching face
Stalling – repeating question
Stuttering or hesitations
Overgeneralised or irrelevant responses
Inconsistent and contradictory information
32. • Cue to dig deeper and drill down
• Rephrase the question or ask in a different way
• Reassure them that you won’t judge
What do to when you pick a lie
34. #1 Use behavioural rather than opinion based methods
Objective or behavioural
(What people do)
Subjective or opinion based
(What people say)
QuantitativeQualitative
Moderated
usability testing
Focus groups
User interviews
Contextual inquiry
Unmoderated
remote usability
testingDiary studies
A/B & Multivariate
testing
Surveys
Journey mapping
workshops
Site statistics
Task analysis
Ethnography
Eyetracking
Enquiry analysis
35. #2 Don’t test or ‘validate’ your own designs
and make this clear to participants
36. Alpha Stock Images - http://alphastockimages.com
#3 Be transparent and set clear expectations prior to and at
the start of the research session about their data
37. #4 Create the right physical environment –
everything they see or feel
Image source: Flickr Kris Arnold
38. #4 Create the right physical environment –
everything they see or feel
41. Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New
Zealand? (NZ Referendum 2009)
41
#7 Avoid interviewer bias and asking leading
and suggestive questions
48. Pack containing a household survey,
instructions and 5 individual surveys.
Current paper-based survey experience
49. Approach & methodology: Round 1 – 24 user interviews
Interview
introduction &
rapport building
Walkthrough of
paper based
survey
responses
2 4
Participants sent
paper-based
survey & given
travel date
1
Rated paper
based travel
survey
experience
3
Discussion re
desired digital
survey
preferences
5
50. Lie# 1: How and when they completed the survey
• Most said they completed the survey on the night of travel
when they were asked to complete the survey.
• Several admitted to lying about this when we said most other
participants had lied and admitted to completing the survey
the night before the research session with us).
51. Lie# 2: Lying about their trips
• Not recording all of their trips as less effort.
• Not fixing up errors when they realised they had entered trips
incorrectly.
52. • Saying their housemate was overseas so they didn’t need to
bother them to complete the survey.
Lie# 3: Lying about people in household
• Lying about the number of people who lived in the house as
less effort completing the survey.
53. Lie# 4: Everyone claimed to have read instructions
• Evidence of how they completed and observation of
behaviour suggested otherwise!
54. How we applied that knowledge
• Provided clearer contextual instructions
• Greater flexibility to encourage more honest answers
• Addressed reasons they didn’t complete survey when they were
supposed to
• Streamlined the process for entering trips to avoid replication of effort
55. Outcomes and implications
• “The preciseness and
quality of the spatial data
is really good” – Google
place look-ups
• Higher response rate
• Immobility rates (people
claiming they didn’t go
anywhere on the day) are
a lower than in the paper
based surveys
56. So what am I saying?
Use methods to detect when participants
are lying
Design your research to encourage
participants to tell the truth
Be the friend, the therapist and the
polygrapher
60. tania@peakxd.com.au
Facebook: /peakxd
Note - No humans have been harmed in the
creation of this presentation. All participants
shown today have agreed to video excerpts
being used for training & educational purposes.
Questions?