How (and Why) To Try the Collaging Method

Transcript:

Ben Wiedmaier:

Hi, I'm Ben from dscout. Welcome to a tutorial on the collaging method, which is a way to structure part or all of a user research session. It offers agency to participants and is really useful for sensitive topics. I'm joined by Kyle Soucy, the founding principal of Usable Interface. She'll walk us through what the method is, when you might use it, and what a session looks like in practice with me as the participant. Let's get started. So, hi Kyle, thanks so much for joining me. I really appreciate some of your time and we're excited to learn more about the collaging method.

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah. I am excited to be here.

Ben Wiedmaier :

Yes. I'm wondering if we could start with what that is. I mean, certainly some of our viewers might know of a collage, but using it for research, can you walk through what it is as a research tactic or a research tool?

Kyle Soucy:

Sure. And I get the question a lot because it is not widely used in our industry. I mean, there are people using it. I certainly have used it, but it's not widely adopted. So it's a common question that I get. And simply, doing a collaging exercise really is an elicitation technique. It's about getting the needs of the user through the act of them creating a collage that could reflect their experience with the product. It could reflect their feelings or thoughts about certain things. You can really narrow down on any topic that you want. And pretty much they're creating a collage that really reflects how they feel about something and then explaining why they chose those pictures. And just in that simple activity and that simple act, we gained just a wealth of knowledge that we typically would not get if we sit down with someone with our predefined list of questions, because already we've kind of decided the path the interview's going to take.

Kyle Soucy:

And what I love about the collage is depending on what they create, the pictures they choose, they're really deciding what they want to talk about, which makes it easier for them to talk about it as well, which really makes this method really helpful when you're trying to get to sensitive information, talking about taboo subjects, things that people typically don't want to open up about, especially with a stranger that they just met. So I find a lot of success with this method in particular, when you have sensitive topics to talk about.

Ben Wiedmaier :

Are there particular use cases, or kinds of questions, or a phase of a research project that you have found the collaging method works particularly well for?

Kyle Soucy:

I think it's best used when it's early on in product development, almost at an ideation phase where you're still gathering those user requirements and still trying to understand the user's world in order to design for it. That being said though, I have used it when the product already exists and it's been out there for a while and we really just want to get in touch with how it makes people feel. What is their experience been like? And it's a great icebreaker in those situations where they're just building a collage based on their experience. And I tend to think of this exercise, if I have an hour with a participant, it doesn't have to take up the whole hour. It could just be a 20 minute icebreaker in the beginning, just to get background information.

Kyle Soucy:

So in that regard, it really could be used at any point, but definitely if you're trying to do more persona work or trying to get an understanding of just who that person is a little more indepthly, that's where it's most useful. One of the things that people quickly realize with collaging is it's not one of those methods where it's like, oh great. Now I know where to put the button. That's not what it's about. It's about empathizing and understanding why are we even creating this product? What is the real problem we're trying to solve? And getting in tune with really what they're feeling. And sometimes it's hard to understand the problem and how it makes them feel until you do an exercise like this.

Ben Wiedmaier :

Have you experienced in terms of doing it in person versus doing it over the web? Are there considerations that you would give someone who's maybe unable to do it in person or can? Do you have suggestions on modality?

Kyle Soucy:

It's a very good question. Yes, there are big differences between conducting this method remotely versus in person. It's actually done very differently. So when it's in person, I am coming to the interview with possibly 300 images, very, very random, all cut out. Sometimes they're on stickers. It could be different things. Sometimes they're just taped on and I'm setting them up on a table for participants to choose from. Now, the reason why it's such a huge number of images is because I do not want them to be really, their focused to be too narrow. I want it to have just all sorts of different kinds with no exact themes, no animal themes, no abstract themes. It's really just a hodgepodge of all different things. And I want it to cover negative, positive, just whimsical, all sorts of feelings that someone might have. Because you never know what kind of reaction to an image or a stimulus someone might have.

Kyle Soucy:

So you really want to have a wide breadth of images to choose from. Now with what you did doing the collage remotely, I don't really have control over that catalog of images. The tool that you used Canva or Canva that has a great database of thousands of pictures. And you can type in, if you're feeling like, ugh, negative or something like that or cars or whatever you wanted to type in, you could type that in. And then you could see a bunch of images related to that, which is a slightly different way of going about it. I almost liken it to, if you're doing information architecture, like a closed card sort versus an open card sort, it's very, very different.

Kyle Soucy:

So that's a big difference in how it's being conducted. And I think that definitely changes the results you get, but in the end, the outcome is very similar in that they're still selecting images that represent how they feel about a topic. But yeah, different things to take into consideration. And I personally, as a remote exercise, I have participants perform it as homework prior to the interview. So it's not taking up too much time in the interview. Obviously it's in person. You're spending a good 10, 15 minutes, them creating it and then another 10, 15 minutes possibly of them explaining it.

Ben Wiedmaier :

So now Kyle and I, after breaking down a bit about what collaging is as a methodology and when you might use it, I am actually going to serve as a research participant in this section here and Kyle's going to walk us through what she would do or might do in a typical session. So Kyle asked me, what was it again, Kyle? I think it was about commuting, right?

Kyle Soucy:

Yes. Yeah. To pick out five images or at least five images that really reflect your experience good or bad with commuting. And just assuming that that was our research topic, perhaps we were creating an app or something that had to do with that, that would be our starting off point, just to demonstrate this method.

Ben Wiedmaier :

And you gave me a few days notice, both about the topic and you released Canva, which is a tool we'll talk about in a bit, which is how we did this exercise here. About how long do you typically give participants when you're doing it remotely before? Because certainly when you're in person it's happening right there. Do you have a lead time that you'd like to give participants when you're doing it digital?

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah. Not too long. If I give them too much time, they're going to wait to the last moment anyway, to do it. Like anything like with the survey. You could give as much as two weeks. I would not give more than that. Typically, when you give them the one week and then the three-day reminder, that's when you start seeing them come in. So it just happens. I would say the moment they're recruited within a few days of that is really nice to get it done within that time. So it's fresh. They're not like, oh yeah, I talked to someone a week or two ago about some interview. What was that again? It's in their mind. So if you can get them that link right away it's usually better.

Ben Wiedmaier :

And I'll say as a participant, for those of you watching, who are asking, what was it like as the participant side, Canva offers a fairly straightforward UI. There was set of images that I could search through on the left-hand side. Kyle had given a template, a sort of blank template. And is that a stock template that you use Kyle, that you provided? It had some picture blocks and it had some sections where I, as the participant knew to write a caption. So that's where I selected my images from the left. And then I wrote why I selected that image underneath each of the images. Do you typically use that template that you shared with me?

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah. It's just modified slightly from one of theirs that they have there.

Ben Wiedmaier :

Cool.

Kyle Soucy:

They have templates for everything, everything in anything. And it's not a collaging tool. For anyone that's not familiar, Canva is just a graphic design tool, almost like Photoshop, but it's for the people without graphic design skills like myself, that we can pick it up and use it. And it is really, user-friendly. It's very easy to navigate, as you said. So I've had success with having people use this tool to do collaging remotely. There are others out there. I just found that this works. So I just stick with it.

Ben Wiedmaier :

Yeah. Actually, that's a nice segue into how you and I might not be the most graphically gifted. Let's share with the folks at home my collage. And again, this was about commuting and Ben from People Nerds lives in Chicago land area. So commuting is a big part of my life. So this was a topic that Kyle and I workshop and I was really excited to share some images. So Kyle, why don't we have you share your screen and we'll maybe walk through what sorts of questions you might ask or how you might kick off the session. Or what you might do,

Kyle Soucy:

Sure.

Ben Wiedmaier :

Running a collage session.

Kyle Soucy:

Okay. And you can see my screen okay?

Ben Wiedmaier :

I can.

Kyle Soucy:

Okay. Excellent. All right. So again, thank you so much for doing this. I know it can seem a little bit nerve wracking to be put on the spot, but it is great to demo what this can actually do. And this collage that you created, it really is a great ice breaker to starting this research. So I don't necessarily have to sit down with a clipboard with predefined questions instead, I'm giving the control over to you, the participant to lead the discussion. And it's all based on what you chose to include in your collage. So for instance here, what I really loved about your collage is that you had a great mixture of both the benefits and the cons of pros and the cons of commuting. And it was nice that that just organically happened.

Kyle Soucy:

You chose here, a benefit of commuting is that it allows me to live in nature, further from my place of work. This image reflects what commuting enables me to do. I thought that was really great. And I was probably at this point, if I was doing this for a research session, I would dive into like, oh, wow. So how far out of the city do you live? And what kind of things in nature do like to do? What does it enable you to do? Just a whole line of questioning there.

Kyle Soucy:

The image below about how part of the negative side of having that commute is that feeling of constantly checking the time and rushing. You said here, even if I'm not late, I experience commuting as one of vigilance and harried energy. It's really interesting just to understand that feeling that you have. And I'm actually curious to know, like, based on that image, how do you manage your time? Do you have a certain app that you use to keep track of things? Do you use an Apple watch? Or what are your tools for staying on top of the time there?

Ben Wiedmaier :

I use anxiety and [inaudible 00:12:30] for dread at missing the train. For anyone who's watching, who takes maybe a commuter rail or Amtrak it's, doesn't come as frequently as maybe a city-based train. So I just leave a lot more time. And I loved that image on the first column in the middle of the guy, of bonkers eyes looking at the watch because that's really what it is. I have a watch, I check it quite frequently. And it's really a thing. Do collages ever have so many images that you don't get through them all? Or as you're going through the images, maybe reach theme like saturation, or do you try to get through each image with a participant?

Kyle Soucy:

I try to get through each image and I typically do. So if I'm designating some time in my interview to do a collaging exercise, it's usually about 20 minutes or so out of an hour. So if I have an hour with a participant, I might take 20 minutes of that to discuss their collage. And that's, if it's remote. Remote, meaning like they've had this as a homework exercise to submit their collage beforehand.

Kyle Soucy:

If it's in person, I build in another 10 or 15 minutes to build the collage itself. I find as an extra tip too, if you're doing this in person, leave the room while they're creating the collage. I leave for five minutes. I say, take your time, look over the images and I walk away because, when someone's looming over your shoulder, it can be hard to just relax and really take the images in. So then I come back in, I write a few notes and when they're ready, they're ready and we discuss the collage. So it can take up a big portion if you're in person to do this. But I find again, if the topic is sensitive, if it's taboo in any way, or if it's just hard to get people to open up, it's just worth the time to get them to do this because they can just more easily talk about things that they normally really wouldn't talk to a stranger about.

Ben Wiedmaier :

And that is another question that I had. Commuting is something, as you can see by my captions, I'm quite, I guess, passionate about. You and I are initially touched base because, and we'll link it below, you were able to give, or you were generous enough to give some of your time for a Roundup that People Nerds were doing on sensitive or taboo topics. And you said, actually, this whole method is quite well-suited for that. Do you often have participants not write captions? Or I guess in what ways is collaging a way that helps folks talk about things that might be difficult to, or surface things they hadn't thought about? Sometimes the act of writing can be potentially problematic. I am someone who is pretty easily able to write about commuting, but have you ever heard of times where you don't opt to have captions? Is maybe where I'm getting.

Kyle Soucy:

I always have them do captions. I always find that that's the gold. It's not so much the picture that they pick out. It's the reasons behind it, where the good stuff is. And if they can, even if it's just a word or two, a phrase, it doesn't have to be a lot. Like Ben, you were great about putting like a couple sentences. That's wonderful. Typically, I'll get them to write two to five words to caption each image and that's okay. Even if they put one word it's enough for me to say, huh? You picked out this image and I see you labeled it with this. Tell me more about that. Why did you label it with that? And that's really interesting. I find sometimes if you're using the same set of images and we usually use a set of like two to 300 images, if you're doing it in person, so you have a good amount, they're varied.

Kyle Soucy:

There's no themes running throughout them. It's just very random mix of images. And if two people pick out or more pick out the same image for different reasons, that's pretty cool. I always find that fascinating. But you were asking about the sensitive topics. That's where this method really shines. I find you can do this with anything, something like commuting. I mean, it's not hard to talk to people about their commute. You don't really have to dig in deep to their soul. But when you're talking about an illness, I've done chronic pain studies, cancer patients, talking to them. If you've had to talk to people about anything medical related, I've talked to women in their menstrual cycles using collaging. Lots of different topics out there. With the chronic pain study, I'm sitting down with someone, perfect stranger, I'm able-bodied to really understand and empathize with what somebody is going through when they live day in and day out with really only two options to be under the influence of a narcotic, which is not really living or being in pain.

Kyle Soucy:

And that's just like, whoa, what are they feeling? And for me to connect with them doing something like this was really eye-opening. One person picked out a picture of a gun and they captioned it with suicide.

Ben Wiedmaier :

Wow.

Kyle Soucy:

And that was powerful. It was like, whoa. And asking him about that, I have to tread lightly because even though they put it in the collage, even though they captioned it, it doesn't necessarily mean they want to talk about it. It allows them to open up a door. But I think I've said before, do they want to walk through it?

Kyle Soucy:

So you really have to be very vigilant, very aware of whether or not they're comfortable. And when they do start talking about it, it's nice because it's not like I've actually sat down with someone said, was the pain ever so bad that you wanted to commit suicide? It's like, whoa, where'd that question come from? They chose to lead us down that path and talk about how this affects their family and their mental state and everything. So in that way, I really don't know if there's a better method out there to really getting people to open up about something so personal and private.

Ben Wiedmaier :

Do you have memorable experiences of a collage that really struck you, that really was like, revealed to you something so unexpected about the thing that then really helped you make recommendations? Because as you said, this is a user research methodology at the end.

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah. The gun one definitely stands out for me. I'll probably never forget that one. There was one with a woman that had her lips, it was a close-up of her lips and they were sewn shut. And the person's saying, this is how I feel that I can't, I'm never allowed to really voice my frustration, my real feelings. It just was so powerful and to think like, wow, that's how somebody feels. Recently, I did again on the other side, the flip side where it's not too sensitive of information to do a method like this, gift giving. So I think it was one or two years ago, I did a collage to understand how people felt about gift giving, what their experience is like. Some people really love it. Some people absolutely hate it and dread giving gifts and thinking of new things to get people.

Kyle Soucy:

And this app that we were creating was supposed to help make gift giving easier. And the participant picked out this black dark forest, it was just eerie and she captioned it with, this is how I feel when I have to start this process. And it's like, wow. It's like, that's why we're building this app. People feel lost. They don't know where to begin. It's a lot of pressure to give a gift and to always think of something unique. And it's like, okay, now we're all on the same page as, why are we even building this app to begin with? And I think that's that empathizing tool that it really does a good job with.

Ben Wiedmaier :

Yeah. For me, when I sometimes struggle with stakeholders, they may not read my reports. They might be interested in video. I know when I've worked with product or product design teams, they like images and visuals. And so I love thinking about this as a delivery method that can really connect with your stakeholders who might be visual learners. We can take that concept from the classroom. You don't just want to do papers or just classroom discussions. You want to have a variety so that it connects to folks. And again, I'm thinking about whether you're a product designer or you're an engineer, reading a quote versus seeing an image that someone selected to go along with that quote versus watching a video, those different things can really help drive home the impact of what it is that you're surfacing here.

Kyle Soucy:

Absolutely. It's so powerful. Images, music, there's so many different kinds of stimuli out there and how you react to them, it can be very personal. So when you share an image and say, Hey, a participant that we talked to pick this out for this reason, it might strike other people differently. But I think that's, what's so powerful about art in general. And that's what this is, is really an art exercise, is what it reveals about the person, why they choose that picture. And that does, more than a quote or anything, I think that really does stick with them. You have to be careful though that some people in the audience that you're presenting this data to could take it quite literally. I have experiences where marketing folks will sit in and be like, ah, they picked out the person with their hands in the air going, yay. Okay. So all of our brochures, everything has to have that in it. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, it's not about that imagery. It's about why they chose it. The feeling that it evoked.

Kyle Soucy:

So we don't want them to literally take these images and run with them. But again, getting them to understand more about what it evoked inside them and it made them feel. That's the whole point. So you got to make sure that everybody is understanding really the message behind this, the true data behind what this collage revealed.

Ben Wiedmaier :

Absolutely. And as someone who finds himself in marketing, when you do find those messages of reticence, you do want to say, yes, let's use it. Are there other questions or other things that you want to make sure folks know when conducting a session? We've talked about going through the images, allowing the space for the participant to describe why it is that that image resonated with them. Are there other things that you would recommend for folks?

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah. Don't be afraid to try it. It's something new. It's something different. I know it can seem very out of the box and just strange to do something like this. But I think that when you try it, even just as an ice breaker exercise, it doesn't have to be the whole focus of the interview. Just 20 minutes in the beginning, just to get them to say, Hey, let's get to know you a little bit better. It's just, it's really, you'll be amazed by the results.

Kyle Soucy:

There is one, I would say pitfall to avoid, one thing I noticed. One time we were doing this in-person collaging exercise and we had this image. It was a gross image. It was disgusting of, I think it was like a bloody injury or something like a closeup of a wound. Two people picked it out for really the same reasons. One captioned it gross. The other captioned it disgusting. And it had nothing to do with the topic whatsoever. And it was a distraction. And so we just realized we had to pull it from the pool of images because it was just too distracting. So sometimes that can happen when you have that in-person study that if you're bringing the images, don't be afraid to change them if you're finding that they're distracting rather than opening them up.

Ben Wiedmaier :

That's a great point. That's a really good point. And thank you so much for the time Kyle. This was really good. I've learned a little bit more about myself again, as People Nerds, like many other offices decide whether or not to go hybrid and remote commuting was very top of mind for me. So do check out Kyle's resources. She has spoken eloquently about this in other places. We'll drop those below. Follow her. Kyle, you're on LinkedIn I know. You said you're in some user research groups. Are there other places that folks can find you and read your writing?

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah, you can find me on Twitter @KyleSoucy. My website is usableinterface.com and,

Ben Wiedmaier :

Perfect.

Kyle Soucy:

I'm around.

Ben Wiedmaier :

We will send them there. Well, thank you so much, Kyle. It was great to see you again. And go out and try this method folks. It is certainly something that can help surface empathy and display it in a different way.

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah. Thank you so much.