Thread by @mulegirl

I ended up with my subspeciality in design research because the most critical problem in the design of any policy, product, or complex system is that humans have a tough time with critical thinking and evidence-based decision-making.

IMO you can't claim to be doing human-centered design or care about human-computer interaction if you don't take as table stakes that humans are shitty decision-makers who will ignore evidence in the face of hierarchy and in-group/out-group status concerns.

The most striking sentence in this NPR piece about the doctor who discovered that handwashing prevents the spread of disease:

"Doctors were upset because Semmelweis' hypothesis made it look like they were the ones giving childbed fever to the women."

npr.org/sections/healt…

There is a meta problem in gathering evidence.

Data that appears to be quantitative is preferred for ease and afforded higher status. (I say "appears" because on closer inspection it is often neither quantitative nor data)

We "know" this but have a hard time acting on it.

We also know that facts don't change counterfactual beliefs.

This is a very frustrating state of affairs for people who believe in critical thinking and facts and evidence, but being frustrated about it doesn't change that fact either.

A large chunk of my research workshop is about thinking critically and influencing decision-making. If you have a handle on those things, then the tools and techniques are pretty.

Step one is to equip yourself with a more realistic mental model of human behavior.