The “baby duck syndrome”: how interaction with the interface affects the occurrence of cognitive biases

Abstract

Mobile and computer interfaces are heavily present in our everyday life. At the same time, any interface is regularly updated and undergoes various design changes – both to introduce new features and to improve usability based on user experience research. Given this context, adaptation to changes becomes an important aspect of user experience as it determines the nature of further interaction with the interface. One of the phenomena associated with the evaluation of interface updates is the "baby duck syndrome" – tendency to prefer the old version of the interface over the new one. In this review we elaborate on a number of similar cognitive biases (mere-exposure effect, endowment effect, status quo bias) and analyze specific features of the "baby duck syndrome" in relation to them.