UIEtips: 3 Questions You Shouldn’t Ask During User Research

UIEtips: 3 Questions You Shouldn’t Ask During User Research:

When we prepare for our user research sessions, it’s easy to focus on the questions we should ask. But what about the ones we shouldn’t ask?

Our goal, of course, is to learn everything we can. We need to leverage the research time to ensure we’re filling our brains with the information. Then we’ll need to create great designs.

In today’s UIEtips, I look back at an article from last year. I talk about three questions I’ve learned not to ask in sessions. By avoiding these questions, we get to the information we need faster.

Read the article, 3 Questions You Shouldn’t Ask During User Research.

Dive deeper into user research with Steve Portigal’s workshop Immersive Field Research Techniques at the User Interface 16 Conference, November 7-9, 2011. Steve will show you simple and effective field techniques for a deeper look at your users.

And once you’ve learned what you need from your research, you’ll want to put it in a format that helps you speed through your design process. That’s exactly what scenarios help you do and, coincidentally, why we’ve asked Kim Goodwin to return to this year’s User Interface 16 Conference to repeat her popular workshop on Designing with Scenarios. She’ll teach us how to make scenarios work.

You can find out about Kim, Steve, and the other great UI16 experts at UICONF.com.

Have you compiled your own questions that you shouldn’t ask? Share your list below.