User Centric Design Tip #1 - Interview Attitude

Tip #1: The social answer isn’t the real answer

We can’t deny that it is preferable to interview people to know what they think about this or that rather than think for them and decide what they need and what they love.

But you also have to take care not to fall into another troublesome bias. This other bias is to assume that people say what they think.

Beyond the fact that they might not have understood the question, the truth is that we are complex. We have social personalities for different situations (work, friends, sex, family…) and we also have different private personalities (our convictions, our desires, our needs, our quirks).

When a social personality expresses himself, he does it because he is speaking to someone or some people. What he expresses out loud can be very different from what his private personalities actually think.

So, when we interview people, and when we test utilization, we must be as protocol-based and neutral as possible in order to avoid receiving social answers.

What we look for, for instance, is what people think when they use a product. Alone with themselves, they will not think of a social answer.

How to proceed:

1- Observe and follow a protocol.

2- Train to remain neutral and professional; including learning how to not “join the conversation”, or try to attract or be seduced by the other individual.

3- Test the interview on individuals in order to eliminate the social situations that tend to generate bias

4- Interview only alone persons (really unaccompanied or taking the person apart from others)

Luc-Olivier / me@luc-olivier.design • +33 6 77 08 32 87 • LinkedIn • Web