Confusion in user research
In “Ships in the Night (Part I): Design Without Research?” (ACM interactions, May/june 2009), Steve Portigal addresses the role of user research in design. He points this interesting example of people/companies who mistook how to to carry out research, see this quote from a book he mentioned:
“[T]hey put a design in front of customers and say, “What do you think?” And the customers say, “Well I don’t know; I don’t know if I like this; it’s new; it’s scaring me; it’s too big; it’s too round; it’s too square.” That’s the kind of response you get. People who use this kind of research come back and say to the designers “People think this is too square-you’ve got to make it more round.” Most customers have a hard time articulating their design preferences. You can do far better by watching, listening, and observing.”
And here is what Steve says:
“I’m a big fan of “what do you think?” questions because they let the participant respond on their own terms first. But to be effective, there’s much more to consider: What do people tell you first; how do they tell you; what reasons do they give; how can you triangulate that response against other things you’ve learned about them; and how can you help them get to a point where they’re engaged enough in this new idea to give a meaningful response? And of course, we don’t have to take these answers literally and make our design more square or more round; we can see that those responses are trailheads to follow for a deeper understanding of how this new thing is or isn’t making sense to them.“
Why do I blog this? This is an interesting problem I often encountered when chatting with people/companies who express some concern/skepticism about user research. The conversation sometimes lead to a similar discussion about “we have done it, we asked people what they wanted and it did not work”. There seems to be a confusion between user-centered design and asking people what they want/need.
May 2nd, 2009 at 7:44 am
[…] For another great perspective on the pitfalls of not asking ”why?” check out this blog entry. […]
May 14th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Crucial issue indeed. Usability testing should be about asking people to perform specific tasks using various prototypes in a real setting, and then eventually clarifying their needs or suggestions for improvement. If we only go through the “what do you think?” approach, we collect pure subjective views that might be difficult to digest for designers.