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The Illusion of Knowing

One of the best habits you can build for your life is a regular learning cycle. A common way to learn is to read books, listen to podcasts, watch talks, or take courses. This is a great way to "borrow an expert's brain" for a bit, but will it really help you know something?

There is a huge difference between consuming the content and knowing the content. In learning psychology, this is called the Illusion of Knowing, and it's everywhere.

The Illusion of Knowing exists because learning in general is misunderstood.

Here are four signs you may not be learning properly:

1) Repetition: "I read that book twice so I get the material"

Re-reading and re-watching material does nothing to strengthen the learning. What's important is that you understand the ideas behind the content rather than memorizing it verbatim. Quiz yourself or apply the concepts behind what you learned to a project instead of reviewing content.

2) Overconfidence: "I listened to a podcast about that. Let me give you some advice."

We tend to overestimate our abilities when we haven't practiced something. This is known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Talking about design concepts gives the illusion of expertise, but it doesn't mean you can bring those concepts into your design practice. Challenge yourself to create something new from every concept you learn so that you're not parroting facts and talking points.

3) Simplicity: "That's a simple process. Just follow these steps."

Watching an expert can give you the feeling that design is simple. Once you start to apply the process yourself, you will quickly realize there are tacit skills involved that you haven't mastered. Feedback from an expert will help you understand the complexity to avoid over-simplification.

4) Ease: "This class is easy, but I'm learning a lot."

Learning requires building new neural pathways, and this should be an effortful process. If learning is easy, you're probably not learning anything new. Ask for a more difficult assignment or request detailed feedback if you find the learning to be easy, otherwise you'll be wasting your time.

Learn, Create, and Share

The best way to avoid the Illusion of Knowing is to apply what you've learned to a project immediately.

This is a process I've followed to learn from non-interactive education like books and videos:​​

As a designer, you probably have a desire to create. This is a good behavior for learning because it develops real-world problem solving skills. In education, we call this Project-Based Learning, and it's perfect for designers.

Instead of simply reading a book, why not write a book summary and post it online? Even creating a summary of your learnings can help make the learning stick, and the more you share your learning, the more feedback you will receive from others!

Learn More

If you want to dive further into the topic of learning, check out my talk from last night's Guild Meetup:

If you want the slides, you can access the presentation in Figma here.

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Until next week, keep developing good learning habits.

-Jeff Humble

Designer & Co-Founder of the Fountain Institute

P.S. We've still got a few spots in our next advanced UX class so apply now before the seats fill up!