What to do when your participant just... doesn't get it
#awkward
What better way to get your research session off to an absolutely dreadful start than for your participant to just… not get it??
This used to throw me into a total tailspin. Sometimes a participant would look at the screen for a few moments and then open with a comment so completely leftfield that I wouldn’t even know where to grab hold.
It was highly disorienting for me!
The temptation to simply explain what they ‘should’ be seeing so we could get back to the session plan was often very strong! But once it had happened a few times I learned not to panic and even managed to turn this awkward moment into a great opportunity to learn. As usual, the most useful thing to do is start by finding out more about what’s going on in their heads.
So how would you explain what you’re seeing here?
Tell me what this screen is about? What can you do here?
I’ve found that 99% of the time this will make it much clearer why the participant is seeing something so different to what was intended. It’s either going to be one of two things:
There’s been a miscommunication about the scenario. Maybe you used a word that means something slightly different to them. In this case you can learn how to better explain your scenario in upcoming sessions, and you can even learn how you might need to take care with the language you use in your product.
Something about what’s on the screen is sending them down the wrong path. This is actually brilliant! Maybe your information hierarchy is wonky and drawing their focus to the wrong thing. Maybe there’s a button label or heading that has different associations for them than what was intended.
Once I have a clearer understanding of exactly what the participant is seeing and why, I then allow myself to indulge in some user research contraband…. Explaining the product to the participant! My objective here is to get the session back on track so that the upcoming tasks make sense, but also crucially to avoid embarrassing the participant by making them feel the misunderstanding was their fault.
“I see! So you’re thinking _________, right? That’s so helpful for me to understand. What is actually going on on this screen here is _________ but it’s really helpful to know that this wasn’t clear to you. That’s exactly why we’re doing sessions like these!”
And breathe.