A Few Tips for Your Coffee Shop User Research

Lots of design teams are doing coffee shop research these days. It’s a guerilla user research method that will get you some quick insights, but if done wrong you could end up with skewed and biased findings that will lead you down the wrong path. Here are a few pro-tips that will ensure that your test runs smoothly and effectively the next time you venture out of the office and into the wild.

1. Get out of your tech bubble to talk to users

If you’re located in San Francisco (or any other super tech savvy area), get out of town to do your coffee shop research. It depends on what you are testing, but I typically want to talk to people who might represent real users. The chances of getting the reactions of a very opinionated Product Manager are just a little too high at the Blue Bottle cafe in Hayes Valley.

I recently headed over to a coffee shop in Downtown Oakland and I spoke with a variety of people including a Merchant Marine, a Political Activist, and a Law Student. It makes such a difference to take BART a short distance and get out of this crazy city. Choose a cafe that gets good foot traffic, but don’t go during people’s morning commute — they won’t have time to talk to you. I typically go in the afternoon when people are taking a break from their job or working remotely.

2. Grab a non-researcher to come with

Bring a product manager, designer, or engineer with you! Or any coworker who could benefit from exposure to real users. I try to recruit two lucky colleagues to come with me during coffee shop research or any field research for that matter. One PM colleague (Ron) calls it doing a ride-along with a researcher. Like we’re cops! I love it.

This way I can get a couple of people to take notes and those observers get to hear from users first hand, which is so much more impactful for building empathy than me conveying findings later. Also, if I’m showing a paper mock and not using a screen recorder, I don’t bring a bulky video recording setup with me, so this makes those extra observers/notetakers really important!

I usually ask that the notetakers leave behind their laptops and instead go old school with paper and pencil. This is so that they seem present and interested in the participant and because there’s limited space on those tiny coffee shop tables.

3. Make friends with the barista!

I’m an introvert. It’s hard for me to just go up to people who look like they are perfectly happy drinking their coffee uninterrupted. And when I have tried it, they usually say they’re busy getting work done. I’ve also sat with a sign inviting people to come talk to me. No one comes and this is very lonely. Another thing I’ve done is intercept people while they are in line to buy coffee and offer to buy it for them. This works out pretty well, but I’ve recently found a way better tactic.

I go ahead and order coffees for my coworkers and myself and then take that time to ask the person at the counter for their help. I ask them to start a tab and to refer people who order coffee over to me to chat for 5 minutes. They usually say something like “this nice young lady over here wants to buy you coffee if you can take a survey for 5 minutes.” (I’m not exactly doing a survey, but whatever). Then, as they say this, I’m standing nearby waving and smiling big.

Here’s why I think this works better than my own awkward cold open: 1) People are trained to think that anyone who approaches them without invitation is trying to sell them something so their default setting is “no,” 2) The would-be-participant is already interacting with the barista, so the proverbial ice has already been broken, and 3) It feels like you’ve won something when the person at the counter offers you free coffee! It’s like that one millionth shopper at a grocery store feeling — balloons are basically falling out of the ceiling you are so elated that the coffee you were JUST about to pay for has ALREADY been paid for by ME! If you just come talk to me for 5 minutes.☺

One hour and about $35 later, you are done with your research, heading back to the office, and buzzed from drinking so much coffee. You can now start discussing and affinity diagramming with your cohorts.

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