Laws & Patterns
Cognitive Bias

Survivorship Bias

Don't just focus on successful outcomes, failures are equally informative.

Definition

Survivorship bias is a logical error of concentrating on the people or things that made it past some selection process and overlooking those that did not, typically because of their lack of visibility. In UX design, this could mean only considering successful user interactions and ignoring instances where users struggled or failed to complete tasks.

Do

  • Consider both successful and unsuccessful user interactions when making design decisions
  • Analyze why certain parts of a design failed and how they can be improved
  • Use both positive and negative data to inform future design iterations

Avoid

  • Don't ignore or dismiss failures as outliers or irrelevant
  • Don't base design decisions solely on successful outcomes
  • Don't overlook the importance of learning from unsuccessful designs or features

When to apply

  • When analyzing user behavior data
  • When iterating on existing designs
  • When evaluating the usability of a product or feature

Related topics

Similar principles

Have this and 100+ more in your pocket.

Download on the App Store
Next principleTemptation Coupling