Think slow, not fast

Growing up, my parents told me to “think before I speak”. Their words carried more wisdom than I initially realized. Our brains aren’t patient; our brains want answers, quickly. Their race to retrieve an answer leads to an assumption or cognitive error. Our assumptions and cognitive errors are biases. If we want to combat biases, we need to think slower.

Training our brains to think slower will require patience and persistence. However, a faster method is thinking in another language (if you know one). When thinking in a non-native language, our thought process slows down. Although adults can learn foreign languages, we don’t grasp them the same way as children because our brains are fully developed. So, it takes us longer to conjure foreign words.

As a designer, you need to help your audience think slower to avoid a cognitive error. You should apply the framing effect in your design. The framing effect is when we frame information that can affect the outcome of a recipient’s response. Ask yourself, “Does this choice have a hidden impact on my user that I’m not used to thinking about? Or, is this choice going to help my user combat a bias they might likely succumb to otherwise?” When answering this question, brainstorm ideas on how you can slow down your user’s thinking process.