7 Learnings from Interviewing Vulnerable Respondents in UX Research
I have a question.
What is your most memorable research project last year?
For me, I faced my biggest fear. It was interviewing vulnerable people with sensitive topics.
I have a confession to make. I always avoid discussing topics that will be triggering emotionally. It is not my forte. When my respondents are on the verge of tears, I might end up with teary eyes or shed a tear or two as well. Hence, interviewing people with a topic that evokes negative emotions is hands down my biggest fear as a researcher.
Back in my university days as a psychology student, I was always taught to keep my emotions in check when meeting with vulnerable people whether in counseling or research.
I struggled a lot. I thought I would never be a good psychologist because I could not keep my emotions under control during a session. It led me to pursue a different path after graduating. Here I am working as a UX Researcher.
I thought I would be talking to users only and would never encounter challenging clients like I used to back in psychology school. I thought would never be in a position where I had to pull myself together and keep my emotions in check during an interview session. Little did I know, I was about to face the elephant in the room.
Being a UX Researcher in a consultancy, I had to be ready to be assigned to various projects. Throughout my 1,5 years journey in SomiaCX, I had been assigned to research products from software, and digital apps, to gaming hardware. I met students, content creators, business owners, homemakers, e-sport gamers, and many more.
My highlight of 2022 would be interviewing scam victims. It was the time when I had to face the elephant in the room — meeting vulnerable respondents, this time as a UX Researcher.
Last October, I was assigned to interview people who fell victim to scammers with my colleague, Bhagas.
Our client, a communication platform, wanted to explore the scam motives commonly found in Indonesia. We met people who fell into product scams, job scams, and investment scams with total losses ranging from thousand hundreds of Rupiahs to millions of Rupiahs.
Some of our respondents came from lower Social Economic Status. They fell into job and investment scams. They were enticed and thinking of getting extra income for their family but ended up losing their money.
The scams impacted many aspects of the respondents’ life. Not only was the financial loss troubling to most of them, but also trust was broken and conflicts emerged from the scams.
There was a mother who fell sick because she was troubled and in despair because she lost the money supposedly for paying bills and groceries. A husband stopped talking to his wife because he felt ashamed of losing millions of his hard-earned money to an investment scam.
There were 7 learnings from interviewing vulnerable respondents in user research. Let me break it down.
1. Building rapport would be the break or make the interview session
During the recruitment, the respondents were informed about the research topics. They knew what to expect during the interview sessions. They were aware that we would have discussions around their scam experience.
As a researcher, I knew this research would be extra challenging. From the respondent’s point of view, it would be hard to be vulnerable and open up about the experience with some strangers you just met to talk about traumatic experiences.
Talking about falling into scams evokes sadness, shame, anger, frustration, and hopelessness. Hence, the first step of the interview– the building rapport part was the break or make the moment.
We started the interview with a self-introduction and stated how sorry we were for their experience. By addressing how sorry we were, we showed that we empathize with their situation and we were not being judgemental of their experience. It was a nice gesture to show that we care for and respect them.
2. Arrange the question’s flow
Our discussion guide started off with general questions and gradually move forward to address the scam experiences. The general questions were warming-up questions. We asked the less intrusive questions, eg: their daily life, the apps they use daily, etc. Then, slowly progressed to ask general questions related to scams.
I made sure to take notes on what were their responses to these questions. By observing their reactions & answers to the general questions, I was able to predict how the session might go when we reach the most challenging part of the research–talking about how the scam happened and how they felt about it.
3. Using emojis to describe emotions
Acknowledging and expressing emotions in some cultures was tricky. It was uncommon for us, Asians, to express our emotions.
We, Asians, were raised to suppress our emotions, especially when facing adversities like sadness, anger, shame, etc. Hence, when asked to describe the emotions that we felt, we often had a hard time.
Trust me, most Indonesian will say “biasa aja” or “just so so” when asked about how they feel about something.
To overcome this cultural barrier, we used an array of emoji pictures to help our respondents to describe their feeling. Instead of asking them directly about how they felt, we asked them to pick an emoji that represent their feeling before, during, and after the scam. Then, we asked them the reason why they picked the emoji. With the help of the emojis, we got more elaborated answers about their feelings.
This is not the original stimuli deck, but we used something similar to the picture below. On our stimuli, we displayed 14 pictures for the respondents to choose from.
4. Be humane
Earlier, I talked about how I was taught to keep my emotions in check no matter what happens. After getting my feet into the research professionally, I learned that it was almost impossible to do.
Then, what we can do? For me, it’s giving appropriate responses when the respondents were telling their stories. I reacted to their stories. I nodded, smiled, chuckled, and even felt sorry.
From the POV of the respondents, I think It would be such a bummer to see the researcher not responding to you with gestures or facial expressions at all throughout the interview. So, I beg to disagree with my professors at school, I prefer to show my emotions to my respondents during research but still keep the mindset of a researcher on duty.
I take a time to think about the appropriate responses when I was baffled.
I sometimes don’t give follow-up questions right away when I sense that the respondents were not comfortable continuing.
I give the respondents some time to pull themselves back together before continuing.
I smile or chuckle when they tell me funny stories.
5. Observe the microexpressions
Recalling memories triggered emotions as well. It would be disturbing for the respondents since the negative emotions resurfaced. As a researcher, we need to watch out for the discomfort and know where to stop.
Pay attention to their facial expressions. Teary eyes, not making eye contact, quavering, and choked up were signs of uneasiness. If you observe their discomfort, give the respondents some time before probing with more follow-up questions.
Since our research was done remotely, each interview session lasted longer than usual since we took time to let the participants tell their stories comfortably.
6. “You are not their shrink”
One thing to highlight is that you are a researcher in a UX research study, not a counselor or therapist. It is really important to set up boundaries.
Some participants might end up oversharing because they felt comfortable sharing their stories with you thanks to the rapport. They might see the session as a safe place to release pent-up emotions.
As a researcher, we have to keep in mind that we have a research goal and it is not a counseling session. Hence it is our responsibility to lead them back to our main topic when they go too far.
7. Take a breather in between sessions
In SomiaCX, the consultants worked in pairs. I worked with my colleague, Bhagas on this project. We took turns moderating the interview sessions. When I ran the session, Bhagas was the note-taker and vice versa.
I have never been so grateful to have a partner to take turns in moderating the session. Trust me, interviewing respondents was tiring. And, talking about traumatic experiences was even tougher.
I learned that after the session, I was drained.
Why? This time, I had to be extra focused and paid a lot more attention to my choice of words when asking questions or probing to keep the session conducive. That’s why having another researcher to moderate the next session was nice because you get extra time to recharge.
If you do not have a colleague to take turns in conducting the interviews, you can try to arrange a small break in between sessions. Since we usually had back-to-back sessions due to remote research, we always allocate at least an hour before we continue to the next session.
A quick breather will do you a big favor.
This project was one of my highlights of 2022. It helped me to face things that I used to avoid at all costs–interviewing vulnerable people.
It opened my eyes that conducting interviews with vulnerable respondents was challenging yet manageable if the researcher successfully build a good rapport at the beginning of the session.
It taught me how to have a genuine conversation even with sensitive subjects. To me, the biggest lesson learned was to be considerate to the respondents without sounding like or looking like a robot.
Have you ever researched vulnerable people? How was your experience? Share your learnings in the comment below. I would love to hear your stories.
Thank you for reading!
Thanks to Bhagaskara Setiawan