November 16, 2020
November 16, 2020
As a user researcher, I have a few different nightmares.
The first time I ran a generative research session, I completely bombed it. I dialed in and started the call. My voice was so high-pitched and shaky, I'm surprised the glass in the room didn't shatter. Right from the start, the participant mentioned a specific feature I was not familiar with. It took me over five minutes to ask the same question before comprehending what she was explaining. The participant was frustrated. About 15 minutes into our scheduled 90-minute call, I gave up—nightmare one.
Nightmare two occurred way too recently in my career. About two and a half years ago, I was researching how people book a trip online. I had fought for this project and was so excited to begin. The first participant came in, and I went through my normal warm-up. Then I got into it and asked my first question, "So, I'd love it if you could walk me through the process of booking your last trip." The participant responded with, "Oh, I didn't book it. My partner did."
We had about 85 minutes left, and I had no idea what to talk about. I had made a mistake and forgot the most important recruitment criteria.
Now, finally, nightmare three tends to be a recurring nightmare that a lot of researchers face. This nightmare has to do with the unengaged or difficult participant.
This participant signs up for research for some reason but doesn't typically have anything to say when asked for feedback. Unengaged participants tend to:
These participants are tough to handle because they can cause nightmare one, where you completely freeze and have no idea what to say next. They will give you general information that you know won't positively impact your insights. It is really disheartening to sit with a participant for an hour and not have anything to show afterward.
However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel! After hundreds and hundreds of hours spent with participants, I have started to pull together some common unengaged responses and what to do with them. Since pulling together this list, I have seen a rise in engagement with my participants. I have gone from clenching my jaw and hoping for the best to try this list of strategies. Not only does this help me relax more during interviews, but it also helps the participant and my stakeholders!
I know it can be difficult to face someone who doesn't give you more than one- or three-worded sentences. Or someone who stares back at you with a blank face.
Truth be told, I have encountered quite a few of these participants. I used to want to yell, "Why did you sign up for a research session?!" Now, I take much more calm approaches.
It can quickly become frustrating when participants employ the one-worded answer response.
When you are faced with this type of participant, there are a few different ways to face this.
Sure, we'd love it if there was only praise and no complaints when we show prototypes to participants. However, as a user researcher, your job is to collect actionable and constructive feedback. Gathering this type of feedback can be almost impossible if you are met with the wall of "it's fine" or "I have nothing really to say."
This is so tough because our job is to get actionable feedback, and there is nothing actionable about this! In this scenario, there are a few approaches you can take:
One of the worst situations a researcher can get into is not having participants think aloud during a usability test. If the participant is silently scrolling, you are just sitting there and hoping they verbalize the thoughts you know are in their head.
I have been in this kind of usability test, and it is not helpful. There are a few approaches you can take during this situation:
Sometimes you might get the vibe that your participant feels uncomfortable during the session. This uncomfortable feeling can lead to a lack of rapport, the participant not answering questions properly, and the participant shutting down.
Besides unengaged participants, there are a variety of difficult scenarios you can find yourself in as a user researcher.
It is exciting to find a person who wants to share a lot, but, oftentimes, ramblers can be off topic, which can lead to very unproductive conversations. Try to steer the conversation back to the relevant topic by using segues such as, "that is really interesting, and I want to circle back, but for the interest of time, could we focus on…" or, "I would love to talk about this more if we have time, but there are only X minutes left..." And doing this over and over again to try and get as many useful insights as possible.
If the participant is yelling at you, try not to interrupt them since that generally doesn't help the situation. Try to divert the conversation by saying, "I understand what you are saying, and I want to get back to that later on, but I would like to focus on this…" Another option is actually trying to listen by going on the journey with the venter and using some quotes for insight. If the person is being verbally abusive, you have every right to end the session.
Whenever the participant states a subjective emotion or concept, always dig into what that means. For example, when a participant says something is "confusing" or "helpful," ask them what exactly they mean. Getting participants to clarify subjective emotions is important because what "confusing" or "frustrated" or "easy" means to me is very different than what it means to you. You want to create a shared understanding with your participant.
Not all is lost when you face these participants. Instead of giving up on unengaged participants (or barely holding in your internal screaming), you can get them talking. My final recommendation is to think about research sessions from the participant's point-of-view. They may have never done anything like this before, and they may feel nervous. Consider what it is like to be on that side and empathize with them. Remember that not every research participant and session will be perfect, so sometimes it is okay to throw your hands up and move on.
Nikki Anderson-Stanier is the founder of User Research Academy and a qualitative researcher with 9 years in the field. She loves solving human problems and petting all the dogs.
To get even more UXR nuggets, check out her user research membership, follow her on LinkedIn, or subscribe to her Substack.