The Dunning-Kruger Effect describes a cognitive bias in which people with limited abilities or knowledge tend to overestimate themselves.

Competent people who are aware of the complexity of a situation are aware of the risks and difficulties in this area and often assess the resulting situation more critically or with more difficulty.

The basic problem with this bias is that people who lack knowledge in a particular area are unaware of their incompetence precisely because of this lack of knowledge – in other words, precisely because one is incompetent, one does not know that one is incompetent.

This effect is not equally pronounced in all people. People who are very competent in one area are better able to assess their incompetence in other areas. It is also suspected that in people who are strongly inclined to do so, this is due to a lack of metacognitive abilities.

Origin

The Dunning-Kruger Effect goes back to the research of psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger.

  • Dunning, D., & Kruger, J. (1999). Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121–1134.

Application in UX and UI design

The Dunning-Kruger Effect has direct implications for UX and UI design, particularly in the design of user-friendliness and learning curves. Users with little experience may believe that an application is easy to use until they encounter unexpected problems.

Strategies for taking the Dunning-Kruger Effect into account in design:

  • Guided onboarding: a well-thought-out onboarding process can protect new users from misjudgements and gradually introduce them to more complex functions.
  • Progressive disclosure: Advanced features should only become visible when users have reached a certain level of experience, to avoid overwhelming them or giving them false confidence.
  • Help systems and error prevention: Clear error messages and supportive hints can help inexperienced users develop realistic expectations of their abilities.
  • Expert mode vs. beginner mode: UX designs that take into account different user skills (e.g. "simple mode" for beginners and "advanced mode" for experts) can meet the needs of both groups.

Impact on the User Experience

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Further information