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Hawthorne effect 0:53
A 53-second explainer of Hawthorne effect, narrated over the same demo you can try yourself.
Try the interactive Hawthorne effect demo
What this video covers
The Hawthorne effect is the way people change their behaviour when they know they're being watched. Under observation we tend to try harder, follow the rules more closely and act how we think we should - so what you observe isn't quite what people do when no one is looking.
Flip "being watched" on and the behaviour tidies up - more effort, more care, fewer shortcuts - even though nothing else changed. That shift is the Hawthorne effect, and it's exactly why a feature can sail through a moderated usability test and then struggle in the wild: people behaved better because someone was looking. Account for the watcher when you read your results.
