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User research tips for your team and stakeholders

Involving your team and stakeholders to participate in user research interviews either as observers or note-takers helps in the collaboration and brainstorming of ideas.

Here are some tips we share to help others understand how to get the most out of participating or conducting research sessions. Walk through this list with everyone involved in the interviews so you can have a more meaningful conversation of the themes together.

Before the session starts

• Introduce yourself and whoever is there, explaining why they are there
• Reiterate the purpose of the session
• If you offered an incentive, say when they will receive it, how much and how
• If you are recording, make sure participants have signed a consent from
• Consent can be withdrawn at any point. Before you record, make sure the participant agrees again to be recorded
• Reassure the participant about how the recordings will be used and shared
• After this housekeeping preamble, ask if the participant has any questions

Data protection

• When doing user research, you are dealing with personal data so get advice on how to handle their details
• If the participant requests for anonymity, it is our duty to remove any information in the recording and notes that can identify the individual

During the session

• Listen & observe actions and expressions
  “I noticed you said [x], could you explain more?”
• Don’t ask leading questions
  Don’t ask — “Would this save time for you if we did this…?”
  This implies that what you built saves time. Instead,
  Do ask — “How might this affect your efficiency, if at all?”
  If you want to know more about leading questions, read here
• Let the person leading lead. The lead will prompt you when it is OK to ask a question
• Answer questions with questions
  “What do you want to happen?”
  “What do you expect if this happened?”
• Keep questions broad and open-ended as answers can be biased based on how you ask
  Don’t ask — “Do you like this?”
  Do ask — “What do you expect when [x] happens?”
  “What do you normally do when you are doing [task]?”
  “How are you feeling when you do this [task] now?”
• Follow the pace of the user: don’t ask too many questions all at once
• Allow for silence: most of the time silence means they’re thinking
• It’s not about you, it’s about them. Let them talk. Focus on asking the questions and them responding

After the session

• Do a quick gathering of high level themes/observations as a group after each interview

For the observers

• If you are observing, it is OK to just observe and not ask questions. Instead, take notes to make the most out of the session
• If you are remote, you should join 5 min before the session starts

This list was compiled by Elisa Baliani ‌who is a UX Research Lead at Springer Nature and Cleo Ngiam.