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

1. The truth doesn’t
cost anything. But
a lie could cost you
everything.
Tania Lang
Peak XD

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?

8. 60%
of people can’t
have a 10 min of
conversation
without lying at
least once

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?

11. WHY PEOPLE LIE

12. #1 To avoid hurting other people’s feelings and to please others

13. #2 Make ourselves look
better and deny socially
undesirable traits

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

17. Think
about these
research
scenarios

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

23. 23
Monkey Sheep Hippo
Penguin Donkey Rabbit
Pig Turtle Zebra
Call out the names of each animal based on the picture

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

27. LIE DETECTION METHODS
AND TECHNOLOGIES

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

33. 10 RESEARCH TIPS TO
ENCOURAGE THE TRUTH

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

39. 39
#5 Encourage anonymity and consider if
you really need to record the session

40. #6 Allow bonding time to build trust and rapport

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

42. 42
#8 Show empathy & don’t judge participants

43. 4343
#9 Probe and ask follow up questions

44. 444444
#10 Explore sensitive topics towards the end
and/or get users to project

45. RESEARCHER ROLES &
SKILLS

46. #3 To conceal something we have done to save face
46
3 ROLES RESEARCHERS HAVE TO PLAY
Polygrapher
FriendTherapist

47. A CASE STUDY
A QUEENSLAND GOVERNMENT
TRAVEL SURVEY

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

57. https://uxcourses.peakxd.com.au/uxc or http://bit.ly/2HG8BVE

59. https://tinyurl.com/peakxd

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?