Ways to f**k up user research

Common mistakes when conducting discovery and how to avoid them

As a designer you can be forgiven for feeling a guilty pang of uncertainty early on in user research. The discomfort too often leads to rushed discovery, full of compromises, bad habits and short cuts.

None of these mistakes resolve the discomfort, they just kick the can down the road. Check out some examples of these mistakes below.

The never-ending story

When you lack clear, relevant goals, you operate to a roadmap that is repeatedly extended as your insights continue to lack relevance.

This happens when your requirements are missing or outdated, causing a lack of understanding. Due to this, you don’t know who to speak to, what to ask them or what to do with your findings.

A lack of cooperation causes this. Along with a lack of curiosity. Such as teams who decide they have the answer before conducting any research, placing a huge bias on everything they do.

Ironically, feeling like you don’t have time to flesh out and refine a problem space can actually lead to extended deadlines.

I remember when studying English Literature, I apologised for updating the title of my dissertation after doing further reading. My professor said “you should be proud, it’s the scholarly thing to do!”

So…

Next time a project lead tells you there’s no time to answer your questions, push back.

Use the Lean UX Canvas to guide your questions. This is filled in at the start of a project and revisited throughout.

Copying homework

Too many product teams get requirements from the existing solution. Such as basing a journey on how a current tool works. Or lifting design patterns.

Sometimes, the problem lies with what isn’t done or what happens next in the wider user journey. Get a picture of your user’s needs and goals. Don’t start with the tool.

So…

Next time a colleague tells you to use screenshots of an app for user research, push back.

Follow a Jobs to be Done approach to profile your user’s needs and behaviours. Supplement your research by reading documentation and speaking to key stakeholders.

Reverse interviews

Users won’t lead interviews as well as you. Don’t just sit back and watch as they click about a shared screen. You should have a firm grip on the scope, agenda and timekeeping of an interview.

Sometimes you should let a user digress, if there is value or to build rapport. But be prepared to interrupt. You can apologise for this in advance.

Participants are happy for you to lead if it means they finish on time and there is a clear agenda. Interviews go awry when there is no scope, questions are vague and the participant feels you ‘need some help’.

So…

Next time a participants digresses from a question in an interview, ask yourself, “Is this a valuable rabbit hole? Do I need this to build rapport?”

While practice makes perfect, Nielson Norman Group have a great guide to preparing and conducting user interviews.

Serving unprocessed data

Don’t throw unstructured data over your shoulder for colleagues to sift through and process. There should be structure and highlights.

Just like research questions aren’t interview questions, raw interview data does not equate to insights.

It can help to bring the structure you’d present research under into your interview where possible. So a template for your notes ahead of time.

This is also cool because some users love to see your notes at the end of an interview (if you are allowed). It can be validating to feel so understood and is great for relationship building.

So…

Next time you consider sharing your interview, ask yourself “what are the key learnings of this? How long will it take someone to glean that from what I’m sharing?”

Consider reading this UX Design Institute guide on presenting UX research findings.

Backseat UX

If the client could do UX, they wouldn’t need you. And they won’t be able to run interviews because you’ve sent them ‘your questions’.

There is a time and a place where it is useful to leverage a stakeholder as a force multiplier for UX. But there will always be times when you need to get ‘bums on seats’ and ask the questions yourself. Don’t be palmed off with emails and DMs instead of real research.

So…

Next time a stakeholder asks to run your research themselves on tomorrow’s standup, push back.

Consider Mailchimp’s guide to stakeholder management for how to build relationships, handle conflict and get the most out of collaboration.

Forgetting the person

Good interviews are relaxed and enjoyable, even when fast-paced. If you have to be pushy, explain at the start. Show genuine gratitude for their time. They are doing you a favour.

Pay attention to body language and ask if you think they might be tired or confused. Practice active listening. And please, get the scope right. If you are running a multi-hour session, place breaks every 45 minutes. Do not sacrifice breaks if you are running over.

And don’t keep people late. If you run out of time, your scope was probably too wide. Consider another session when this does happen.

It should go without saying that this is important because you are a nice person. UX is a human-centred craft. But it’s also important that you don’t make users regret interviews, or you’ll run out of participants pretty soon.

So…

Next time you are tired, or nervous, or distracted ahead of an interview, remember they are giving you their time and doing you a favour. Will you honour that by preparing before and being kind during?

Although it’s for workshops and not interviews, consider reading The Workshop Survival Guide to understand how empathy for participants equates to better collaboration.