Vent-UR-ing into the Unknown: The Power of Perspective in User Research
Co-written with Kesta Kemp, User Research Consultant.
Introduction
User research (UR) can lead us down unexpected paths. It builds bridges of empathy that span across cultural, personal and emotional boundaries to ensure that the insights collected become felt rather than heard.
Through our experiences as user researchers, we have engaged with diverse individuals, including those with various health conditions, digital literacy levels and different religious and political beliefs.
In this article, we explore how our user research sessions have cultivated empathy and broadened our perspectives as individuals, allowing us to comprehend the lives of those outside our natural social circles.
Before we get to our practical tips, we want to share some past experiences with you where empathy has helped us to venture into the unknown.
“I couldn’t discuss it with him. He’s a guy — he wouldn’t get it.”
In a workplace health support project, a young male researcher interviewed two middle-aged women whose working lives were impacted by menopause. In both cases, the women raised their difficulties in discussing the impact of this, notably with their male colleagues.
They felt the topic of menopause was shrouded in taboo, resulting in limited societal awareness about its effects, particularly among men. Despite this, both women comfortably shared their reservations about discussing menopause at work during the research session with a man, a scenario they found challenging in their working lives.
The male researcher recognised that this conversation wouldn’t have happened casually over lunch had he been the participant’s colleague. The distinction between himself and the participants’ male colleagues was that he was operating within the parameters of a user interview.
To him, these user interviews felt like privileged conversations typically experienced by professionals in psychology or healthcare, where people can speak freely and confidentially. This experience gave the researcher insights into a condition affecting many, but not himself, prompting him to reflect on how organisations can better foster a culture where individuals have a safe space to discuss the impact of health on their work.
But how can we do this in our daily lives? Practising active listening and valuing moments of silence in a conversation is a simple step. This can encourage people to keep talking. It might feel strange initially, especially when participants share candid or emotional experiences. Yet, creating a safe space for them to speak and acknowledging their feelings can be more powerful than sharing your own opinion on the topic.
“My mum wouldn’t know what a QR code is.”
During a routine usability test of a government service that allows users to upload health documents that support an online application, a team of researchers encountered unexpected feedback.
Users read a page that provided guidance on how to take a ‘digital copy’ of their health document. The content advised users that they can ‘take a screenshot’ of the document ‘that contains a QR code’. Several participants noted that certain family members wouldn’t know what a QR code was, despite the feature’s widespread adoption. Additionally, one participant assumed that ‘taking a screenshot’ meant photographing the computer screen using a smartphone, rather than being a smartphone function itself.
These insights were eye-opening, demonstrating that what seems obvious to us isn’t always obvious to others. This revealed the ‘curse of knowledge’, a form of bias where someone ‘assumes that other people have the same level of understanding of a specific subject as they do’. In this case, designers assumed that users shared their level of understanding.
To address this, it’s recommended to speak with users as if you’re new to the topic, making content more straightforward as needed. For example, explaining “QR code” as “a black and white square” might aid universal understanding.
By virtue of user research and user experience (UX) design being digital roles, it’s reasonable to assume that many of us are digitally literate and well-versed in using mobile and web applications. On the other hand, our users sometimes aren’t. This is especially prevalent when working on public services, which need to be inclusive and accessible to everyone. In these contexts, it is vital that the user research be representative and involve those from often marginalised sub-sections of society, like those who are less digitally confident.
“The government is trying to scrounge money from us”
In research, there are times when you have to navigate heightened and potentially controversial beliefs within discussions. A project focused on workers’ beliefs and approaches to tax and self-employment in a certain industry highlights this. As this project was just after COVID-19, there was a lot of anger in the industry, and the research involved many people who had been out of work for months.
There was varying sentiment towards the government. Some saw them as the ‘evil taxman always picking on the little guy’, while others were desperate for further intervention to ‘control the cowboys’ who gave their industry a bad name. Either way, the conversations often became passionate and much of the sentiment often felt ‘directed’ at the researcher themselves — they were seen as the mouthpiece of the client. In these moments, we reiterated that we were doing research on behalf of an organisation, to misdirected complaints and minimise tension.
As the project focused on these political beliefs, it was important to allow the participant to speak without judgment. One way we ensured that the participants felt heard was to reframe our questions to capture their thoughts, but still make sure we were addressing the goals of our service.
However, within these particular sessions, several derogatory comments that were irrelevant to our research kept recurring. When comments like these surfaced, it was necessary to steer the conversation away rather than explore or respond to these beliefs. We redirected the conversation by asking the participant something else, thus bringing it back to focus.
In challenging situations where participants express controversial or offensive views, researchers must remain non-judgmental and patient whilst listening attentively. If relevant to the research, allow participants to elaborate. To prevent tangential discussions, establish a mental model or decision log of what’s relevant to your research early on.
Our tips for venturing into the unknown:
As discussed across these case studies, there are many ways that we can adapt as both researchers and individuals to have more authentic and beneficial conversations.
Here are our tips for fellow user-centred design (UCD) practitioners on how to approach similar interactions sensitively and respectfully, both for themselves and for the participants.
Active listening & impartiality:
Maintaining impartiality is crucial for receiving unbiased and unfiltered research insights. Participants may attempt to bond with you, but it’s essential to remain neutral, avoiding positive or negative reinforcement.
This prevents ‘interviewer bias,’ where actions like nodding can influence and elicit certain responses. An effective approach is to respond with a neutral acknowledgement like “thank you for sharing” and proceed to the next question respectfully.
Delve into your own ‘positionality’:
Whilst all these tips and skills are essential, it is also key as a researcher to explore your own bias by acknowledging your own position and identity, in relation to the topics you are discussing. We recommend debriefing afterwards with your team to get out any initial reactive feelings and share your findings with one another.
Another way to do this is the Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT). The IAT measures the strength of associations between concepts (e.g., a certain type of people) and evaluations (e.g., great, terrible) or stereotypes (e.g., sporty, nerdy).
Concluding this adventure:
Entering a UCD profession requires inherent open-mindedness. It’s essential for the nature of our work. As detailed within this article, it is clear that this work broadens your perspectives further, propelling you into situations you wouldn’t have otherwise come across.
User research is primarily one-sided. Researchers and stakeholders gain new perspectives, but participants may never learn our thoughts or engage in discourse over a subject with us. It’s not a two-way street, limiting the direct impact we can have on their worldview.
As a researcher, you are presented with a unique opportunity to venture into the unknown and learn things you wouldn’t have imagined. What’s more — you don’t have to agree with people to understand or empathise with them.
Participants are human after all, and sometimes they need to share every bit of their feelings about the topic you’re coming in to research about. They want you to feel what they feel, and it’s up to you to be responsible with what you make of the insights that come from that, effectively.
