Will You Book a Jetpack Instead of a Car?

Asking the right questions needs some practices and the right attitude.

Asking the right questions is not as easy as you thought, especially when you’re doing user research through an interview. User research is about understanding how users think, feel, and behave, with the goal to design the best experience for your product. If you have read about Paradox of Choice, asking users to predict their future behavior (e.g “Will you use…” or “What will you choose…”) is not that accurate. Users are not good at that. Many times what they say they do is totally different from what they actually do. Users are also not good in thinking of the solution for their problems. Almost all of them can’t clearly articulate their problems, not to mention the solutions to their problems. So how can you ask the right question, and get into the real needs/problems of the users? I would say that you can ask almost anything for the first question (this needs to be an open-ended question though), and the crucial thing is the subsequent question: “Why is that important to you…?” or “How would that help you in…?”, or simply ask “Why?” Ask for at least 3–5 WHYs/HOWs, and most of the time you can get into the real needs/problems of the users.

Example, let’s pretend that you’re working on a ride-hailing service, and you’re thinking of adding a jetpack booking to your existing app:

Q1 — You: If we have an additional service where you can book a jetpack, instead of a car, will you use it?

A1 — User: I’m not sure. Probably not.

(Some people stop here, and come to a conclusion that jetpack booking is a bad idea, 90% of our users said NO. For a user research, you need to continue).

Q2 — You: Why?

A2 — User: I’ve never seen anyone used it before.

Q3 — You: Why do you need to see someone used it before?

A3 — User: I need to make sure it works and safe. I really have no idea how it works.

Q4 — You: How do you usually learn about something new?

A4 — User: Some recommendation from friends, videos or stories on Instagram.

Q5 — You: Why is it important to get recommendation from your friends?

A5 — User: I need to trust the service, and I trust my friends.

You got the point, right? Now you can narrow down your challenges into specific needs/problems, which helps you to focus on exploring some solutions:

• How might we build trust to the jetpack booking?
• How might we create engaging stories on Instagram about the jetpack service?

Some say you need to interview at least 1,000 (or 10,000?) people before you can be an expert. That’s a lot of user interviews. Let’s put a realistic goal: aim for at least 2 user interviews per week to practice the WHYs and HOWs, and hopefully you can be better at asking the right questions after 3–4 months.

If you understand Bahasa Indonesia, I’m writing “The Book of UX Design” (Kitab UX Design in Bahasa Indonesia). It contains usual stuffs like the basic of UX Design, Design Sprint, User Research, and some unusual stuffs like Behavioral Economics and Growth Hacking. I wrote it through blog posts for now, and if it turns to be good (means a lot of followers and likes ❤️❤️❤️), I might publish it as a printed book. Check it out here: Kitab UX Design.