The dark side of user interviews: Lessons learned from wrongful convictions
By: Shelly Shmurack
Tags: Product Design, User Research, Product Management, True Crime, UX

The Innocence Project has documented over 375 DNA exonerations in the United States, 21 of these cases served on death row, and with an average time served of 14 years before exoneration.

Approximately 25% of the wrongfully convicted confessed and 11% pleaded guilty to a crime (later proven) they did not commit.

This can be hard to grasp for those of us encountering these numbers for the first time, But as hard as it is to believe, innocent people confess to crimes they did not commit even when their lives are on the line. If the human mind is so prone even at grave risk to their own freedom, think about the impact of these biases on lesser life-changing occasions.

As product professionals- we try to solve problems for our users. We want to provide them with value and make their lives easier.

To achieve this- we try to talk and interview our users as often as possible, This helps us to better learn about their pains, needs, behaviors, and mental models.

But if are not aware of the risks, we might end up getting some ‘false confessions’. These false confessions could skew our results and potentially derail us to the wrong directions completely. And by doing so, setting up our product, and even our company, for failure.

Here are 3 psychologically distinct types of false confessions and what we should do about them when they come up in user interviews.

1. The voluntary false confessor

This type of false confession is usually attributed to an internal psychological state/need or by some kind of external pressure (not by police or someone in authority).

For example, individuals may feel compelled to falsely confess out of a need for attention, because they feel compelled to punish themselves, due to a breach in their touch with reality or out of a desire to protect the actual perpetrator.

The voluntary in user interviews:

This type might be telling us false feelings and thoughts, perhaps specifying someone else's feelings and thought that they believe they are helping.

They might be trying to tell us what they think we want to hear- in order to stay in the situation longer and fill their need for attention.

2. The compliant false confessor

This type of false confession is usually attributed to the massive pressure the individual is feeling in the interrogation situation that leads to their confession.

They present an immediate need to exit this situation, get away with punishment, or even get some kind of possible reward.

The compliant in user interviews:

This type will be illustrated by feeling pressure in the situation, feeling uncomfortable in the situation, and possibly, a need to fill in every silence.

Another demonstration of it could be an increased interest in a possible reward led by a thought that they need to perform the interview in a certain way in order to receive it.

3. The internalized false confessor

This type of false confession is usually attributed to police interrogation tactics that cause an individual to doubt their own memory. This may lead them to believe that they have committed the crime even when they did not.

This could be attributed to harsh interrogation techniques (long hours, sleep-deprived), or by suggestive methodologies- including lying about forensic evidence that proves the individual has committed the crime until they believe they have.

The internalized in user interviews:

This type is at high risk of reflecting the interviewer's thoughts & feelings they see and now their own.

What can we do?

In order to make sure we prevent the human factors that might skew our research, here is a list of rules for your next user interview:

Make the situation as comfortable as possible, and try to eliminate any stress. The interviewers should always be directed to speak only on their own feelings & thoughts and no one else’s. Make sure to remind the interviewers that there are no right and wrong answers. Make sure the interviewers know they will receive the reward (if there is one) regardless of their answers. And most importantly, Make sure not to suggest feelings, thoughts, ideas, or problems that the interviewers had not brought up themselves.

Remember, if you detect one of the following issues in a user interview- consider disregarding the interview completely. it is always cheaper to waste a little time and possibly money on finding a new candidate than developing the wrong product.

Hopefully, one day our legal systems will also understand this as well.