Putting the ‘U’ back in User Experience
Building a new product has never been easier. But creating a product that people actually want to use — and possibly pay for — is hard.
My guess is, it’s becoming harder as time progresses. Customers are becoming more demanding and have grown accustomed to getting what they want, when they want it — also known as instant gratification — .
As a result we have a customer base with higher expectations, a lot less patience and a high demand for convenience and ease of use. Customers expect to be at the very center of what your company does. Period. The sooner companies realise this and take appropriate measures, the more chance they have to stay relevant in the age of the customer.
Last week I had another one of those conversations. To give you some background on me: I work for different organisations (usually) in a leading UX role and help them with whatever UX challenges they face. You might have had this conversation at some point too. It’s where I talk about the added value of having actual face-time with users and how it can help improve the quality of a product. With face-time, I mean a real conversation where you sit down and try to understand how users think, you find out what motivates them and what their current struggles are. It all starts with empathy.
Empathy is something at the very core of user experience design. A UX designer is the user’s advocate and truly needs to understand the user base if you want to create something which comes remotely close to what these people need, want and/or expect. It’s not to be confused with sympathy, which is more like looking down from above and saying:
“Ah too bad, I’m so sorry for you.”
Doing an (semi structured) interview and establishing a dialogue is the best way to get started. This form of qualitative user research gives us the opportunity to discover something new, open our eyes to something we didn’t even think of before or didn’t consider an issue. As user experience professionals we don’t have all the answers, but what we can do is research and investigate to identify patterns so that we can creatively solve people’s problems in new ways.
So let me tell you how I recently helped KPN iTV, the largest digital TV provider in The Netherlands, to get in sync with their customers to create a better product. Let’s start with some basic ground rules.
Every user test should start with an interview
You need to get to know the participant (at least a little!) to be able to put into perspective what his/her thoughts and opinions are of what you’re showing him and the things you’re asking about. Include asking about personal information and habits related to the product you’re working on. Without it, you will lack perspective and context. It could even rob you from finding patterns.
Pick the right location
Since we’re starting with a (short) interview, think about the location. Is an office space the right location, or the station or a café? Either of these could be considered fine. But if you’re discussing personal things, like finances or intimate topics, you might want to pick a more private location. Also, consider the length of the interview and whether the participant would be distracted in the space you’re in. I find a calm but friendly environment, with no distractions, works best (unless it’s part of your test of course!). Think you need to have a fancy UX lab to do user testing? No, don’t let the lack thereof stop you! It does make it easier and KPN does have a UX Lab, so I conveniently made use of that location. But I have done previous research and user tests in other locations.
Create a safe environment
Make sure the participant feels comfortable by explaining what (s)he can expect during this session and how long it will take. If observers are in the room, introduce them and mention why they are there. Offer him/her something to drink, open with chitchat or an ice breaker. Make sure to emphasise that there are no wrong or right answers and you want them to answer honestly. Explain that the only objective you have is to make the product better by getting to know their personal opinion, preferences and situation.
Avoid yes/no questions
What you want to do during an interview, is avoid yes/no questions and get the participant in story telling mode. Have them tell you about specific incidents in their life, especially those related to the problem that your product will solve for them. Get them to walk you through how they currently do things— better yet — have them show you what they do, the steps they take and/or what process they go through. By doing this, you will see stumbling blocks and most importantly, identify opportunities.
This is something we are not able to get from web analytics, A/B tests, surveys or some other type of quantitative research, because these always have some sort of baseline. Letting go of the familiar will enable us to discover something new and previously unexplored.
Less talking, more listening
The participant should be the one who’s talking. Only when you truly listen and know when to ask follow up questions, will you touch on valuable information that is going to help you uncover pain points and identify opportunities. Don’t be hesitant to dig a little, because what people say and what people mean can be two different things at times. What you want to do is go below the surface and uncover the root causes, not just the symptoms. You can do this by asking “Why”-questions. To make sure you understood correctly and didn’t miss anything, you can do a short recap of what the participant said.
Don’t believe everything you hear
Remember what Nielsen said about not listening to users? Well, what he meant was that looking at users’ behaviour will tell you much more than what they say they do. You can’t really get any sensible answer from questions like, “what would you do if…” or “imagine that…”
Nielsen actually listed the pros and cons of doing interviews if you’re interested.
Over the years there have been numerous studies on what people do when they win the lottery. You might have guessed it, but the findings are very different to what people say they would do if they would hit the jackpot! Hint: most of them actually continued working after winning.
Therefor, keep questions relevant to past behaviour. Ask them how they currently complete a task or solve a problem. But keep in mind that it can be difficult for people to solely rely on their memory and tell you what they did exactly or how they did something in the past. Especially in regard to a user interface — Johnson-Laird debunked this myth back in the 80's— , there is just too much going on unconsciously to explain through verbal protocols how they failed or succeeded in completing a task. So if you have a prototype or some kind of flow they can go through, show it to them! Observe how they interact with it and give them specific tasks to complete.
Beware of over-positive or too-agreeable answers. This is usually a sign that you have a participant who is trying to please you. Remember that he’s not consciously trying to mislead you, he’s just in an agreeable state of mind and probably ‘wants to do well’.
Ask non-leading questions
And whatever you do, don’t lead the participant! Keep your questions neutral, without leading them in one direction or another.
Don’t: “How angry did you feel when this happened?”
Do: “What did you think or feel when this happened?”
Don’t: “Do you use this feature?”
Do: “Tell me about the last time you used this”
If you’re showing participants screens, a prototype or a sketch, keep reading.
Be patient
Give participants time to figure something out and observe how they try and work through it. Don’t be scared of silence. When they’re stuck, encourage the participant to solve the problem himself and to try things out. If they have questions about what it should do, answer with a question: “what do you think it should do?” or “what would work best for you?”. Only help them if they’re really stuck and you notice it’s starting to cause them stress.
Don’t sell
Don’t explain more than what is really necessary. Don’t tell them why you (or the team) did what you did. The best things don’t need an explanation. Try to stay as close to the real world as possible. When a user would interact with the system, app or web site in real life, would he get a narrative? So avoid smoothing out that path and just give it to them straight — as they would consume it in real life — . If you are the maker of whatever you’re showing the participant, consider another team member conducting the test for you and join as an observer just to make sure to rule out any bias that might slip in. But don’t feel bad if this is not within your reach. Fact is that this is not a luxury always available to us.
And so, we have kickstarted a real, honest dialogue with our users by connecting with them on a human level. We still have a lot to do and a lot to learn. But it’s so energising to have this train moving!
Thoughts to leave you with
To create products that people love, we definitely need data. We need numbers on a large scale to interpret and learn from and to shed light on what is going on. But this is just a part of it, because behind all those numbers are people. To fully understand your customer base you need to interact with them to see what they think, feel and struggle with. Look at the person and fully understand what it is that frustrates and motivates him/her. I guarantee you, it will be worth it ten times over.
Want to know more about how to make user experience work? You might like my article: Why Product is Dead and Experience is Killing it.
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