Warning: This post contains a strong opinion

A woman who worked as a nurse on critically ill patients (90-year-olds with cancer, premature infants so underdeveloped that they had little to no life expectancy) was charged with 17 cases of murder after her colleagues rattled on her. She was then reported by her superior to the authorities. What happened after was nothing short of the modern equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition.

It became one of the most famous processes the small country had ever seen. Reporters were all over it. The stories they printed started off and ended with an air of suspicion. Unfortunately for the prosecution, they had no evidence and thus had no real case. Panic struck by this, they turned to statisticians to produce calculations of the odds of her being guilty. The number was 342 million to one that she hadn’t done it. One hard metric. Who could disagree with math?

Court illustrators were also on board the guilt train, drawing her more like a witch from the stories of the Brothers Grimm than a real person. The way she was portrayed in the media emphasised the negative image they tried to create about her. Sunken cheeks, a pointed nose and an icy look, she was depicted as a diabolic figure. A witch. After her acquittal, she said that what she suffered from the most were the misleading sketches.“I didn’t recognise myself”, she said, “All I saw was a murderess ”.

Over the following years, the case resembled a witch hunt rather than a fair trial. Throughout, the nurse maintained her innocence. And you better believe that the prosecution put the thumbscrews on real tight. This strong-willed woman, however, never budged.

Not unlike the world’s most notorious witch hunt in Bamberg Germany where more than 1000 ‘witches’ were put on the stake by Johann Georg Fuchs “Hexenbrenner” von Dornheim, here too the lawyers, journalists, prosecution and judges smelled blood. They were already convinced that she had done it, they knew the outcome that they were working on, now they only needed to prove it. Their only evidence: a team of hysterical adolescent nurses who ratted on a colleague and a handful of bloodthirsty prosecutors.

But the nurse was a far cry from being a monster. She had a history of helping people where and whenever she could. All that she wanted in return was to be liked, loved even. A warm place to stay. A home. People who could keep her safe from the world. What she got were anger, mistrust and betrayal.

It was in a society that prides itself on being one of the most democratic in the world: Holland. A country that fights for equal rights and fair justice. A country that tells China that there is something wrong with how they approach human rights. That country was about to lock a nurse up for life for doing her job. When it was time for the verdict, the judges were so brainwashed by their own emotions that on the judgement day they gave her the impossible sentence that would eventually lead to her release. As they read the verdict out “life in jail and compulsory admission to a psychiatric institute for an undetermined period of time” I heard her cry out in the courtroom “But I didn’t do it!”. That didn’t matter. After an evil look from the judge, they put her behind lock and key for no less than 6 years. Six years before justice took its course. Everyone with a clear eye could see that something was wrong, and slowly but surely other, louder voices raised out of the crowd.

With the help of two very dedicated people who fought the misgivings of justice, another kind of story started to develop. That of a judicial error. That of a witch hunt of an innocent woman. Slowly but surely other people started telling other stories too. Stories of a beautiful person who had been led to the pyre. And after 6 years the minister of justice stepped in and demanded her immediate release. In hindsight, it is clear to see how wrong the trial was. How badly put together. But why were so many people convinced of her guilt?

Researchers point at two psychological effects to explain this phenomenon:

➡ The availability bias. This is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person’s mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method or decision.

➡ The Confirmation bias. This bias suggests that people don’t perceive circumstances objectively. They pick out those bits of data that make them feel good because they confirm their prejudices. This way, they may become prisoners of their assumptions.

UX research

These phenomena also plague UX researchers. I have seen it in others and may have succumbed to it myself. Before you start the research you ‘already know’ what the outcome is that you are looking for, subconsciously.

People who make suggestions that do not align with your thinking are ignored.

The person (often the person who initiated the research) who benefits from certain results cherry-pick only that feedback that supports it. I have had owners of companies ignore the conclusions of my research, and 5 out of 8 candidates, entirely because “they did not know what they were talking about”. For a follow-up session, this person requested to speak to just one person from the previous who gave “the right type” of feedback. I kid you not.

This is why UX research is best done by people who are 100% independent. I have worked with a company called Braingineers who ‘read’ focused brain activity (frustration, attention, joy) of the candidates as they perform the tasks silently. These metrics are easy to analyse and because it is hard data, nobody challenges them. Even if it is not what they want to hear.

Unfortunately, this is not possible when you are a suspect