The user research team of one: Practical tips for a remote user research project
Takeaways from remote user research projects conducted over the past few years
The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed a lot of research from the field to remote. And there have been many articles shedding light on how to tweak or adapt research methods to online and virtual tools.
For most of my projects, I am a user research team of one and my research audience is spread throughout the world. Even before the pandemic pushed us into our home offices, I could not afford, both financially and time-wise, to travel and conduct qualitative user research in the field. So most of my research gets conducted through the beautiful and enabling world of the internet -with me recruiting, communicating and conducting the research online. Although there are lots of articles that discuss the right methodologies and their virtual adaptations, sometimes you are looking for some basic aspects to start with that they don’t seem to shed light upon. I have been in that place and here are some very practical tips that I distilled from my experience with qualitative exploratory research. I hope some of them help you in your context.
Communicate clearly about tools, time and tech-savviness of your interviewee.
So, let’s start at the beginning. Once you have zeroed in your interviewees or respondents, you will need to communicate to them about how you are going to make it happen.
Be very clear and use simple language to convey to your users what tool would you converse them with and how could the user get on the tool.
Not all users are comfortable or savvy with all digital tools, so sometimes you have to onboard them or explain in simple steps what is needed. If you are not bound to a particular tool for your research, then offer them the option to suggest their prefered tool for an interview.
My template for the first contact looks like this:
If you are interviewing across time zones, please be very clear about that in your message and confirm that they have understood it right.
Gather a big pool of respondents.
If you are working with a recruiting company to get your respondents, you may sail through the recruiting process. But if you are like me who has to go searching in a big database of potential respondents who have volunteered their name for research, be prepared for a low reply rate. In my experience, for every 30 emails I send out, I get 5 interview confirmations.
Be ready for no shows and politely follow up.
It may not happen often in cases where you offer a reward or incentive to the interviewees but in my situation where such is not the case, for various reasons, my interviewees just don’t show up.
My answer to that is a polite follow-up and see if they are still interested and ready to reschedule the interview.
Always have a Plan B, C and D.
I have encountered different kind of situations where the said conferencing tool may decide to not work on the respondent's side, or the respondent’s computer microphones don’t work at the last moment, or despite all communication, the respondent has not prepared themselves with technology as needed. Ensure that you consider all possible situations and have worked out alternatives.
My alternatives list goes like this- Microsoft Teams> Skype> Whereby>Desk phone and recorder.
And, sometimes despite all this, it may not work out. Be forgiving to yourself and work with what you managed. Also, learn from your past experiences.
Decide your methodology- notetaking, recording and transcription.
Creating a high-level research plan in the beginning helps. It doesn’t need to have all nuts and bolts but it could be like an operating manual you can go back to if you want to confirm some aspect you are unsure about.
Everyone has different styles they are comfortable for conducting their interviews-some prefer to take summary notes, some prefer to record and transcribe and cluster their notes to analyze. Choose your modus operandi-whatever you are most comfortable with.
If you are recording, please convey this to the interviewee beforehand so that they are not taken by surprise. If you need legal disclaimers signed, please inquire and get those signed beforehand.
Notetaker is helpful but if you are doing it alone, prepare for the worst-case scenarios.
It is always helpful to have a notetaker if you are conducting the interview, but many times, as is the case with me, I am a doing it all by myself. So I prefer to record and make some notes when possible. I go back to the recording and transcription to get more notes later.
Sometimes, you may want to dedicate yourself completely to ask questions and not get distracted by note-taking. Prepare accordingly.
Know the limitations of your tool and design your tasks accordingly.
In one of my observation sessions, I realized that the online tool that I was using didn’t show the pop-up window that opened on my interviewee’s screen. This was not helpful and I had to ask him to speak his actions aloud, it was informational but not what I had intended out of the exercise. So, please check such scenarios if they are critical to your research goal and plan and ensure that your tool supports you in all your investigations.
Do a quick review of your interview and brain dump a high-level summary at the end of the session.
After the interview, you may feel drained, but since the experience and your observations are fresh in your mind, it’s best to do a quick download or debrief of whatever your brain registered during the interview/activity. Even if you have the recording and transcriptions, you may lose out on the nuances you noticed during the research activity as they fade over time.
Do let me know if you have any other interesting tips and tricks as a user research team of one, I am always looking forward to learning more and honing my practice.
Till then, happy listening and asking!
