Sometimes, they lie…
Who lie?
Your users
Why would they lie?
Actually, they don’t lie with intent to deceive, but lies are resulted when they couldn’t express precisely what they wanted to say.
What’s the lesson here?
As user researchers and designers, we have to be very careful when we process user inputs and feedback. Don’t just take users’ words at face value, but take the effort to truly understand the “why's” behind what they say.
This way, you will be able to take the correct action — addressing the real issues rather than a phantom problem that does not actually exist.
A case study
I recently chatted with a customer who told me that he doesn’t like that our UIs are so consistent that it makes things difficult to use.
Me (channeling my inner Simon Sinek) : “Why is a consistent UI a bad thing?”
Him (paused to think for a moment, then elaborated): “What I meant to say is, I often have a hard time differentiating the different objects on the UIs because they look the same. I’d love to be able to identify the type of objects just by glancing at them without having to read the properties…”
Me: “OK. If we apply a different visual treatments to the different objects, would that solve this problem?”
Him: “Yes! That’s what I am asking!”
Most users aren’t prepared nor equipped to articulate their opinion and feedback with precision. As a result, it is our job to not just ask the right questions, but to help guide users in expressing their perspective, and to disambiguate what they try to tell us.
