Listening is the most important skill in user research, so let’s master these 9 field-tested skills!
by Frank Spillers
CEO/CXO @ Experience Dynamics
Listening is the most important skill in user research- so let’s master these 9 field tested skills!
You’ve heard it a million times: good listening is vital. In user research, it is especially important that you become a good listener. If you hear what you want to, that’s politics. If you miss vital detail, that’s careless. If your agenda overshadows your user, you miss the empathy opportunity.
Listening is critical if you want to become an Outside-In design organization. Here are some tips we teach in our UX Certification training:
- Learn to probe, artfully. User research is all about allowing the user’s story to unfold. It’s best performed in context, so they can relax and remember, share and reveal. If you are user testing, it’s usually in a lab or online but many of these skills still apply. Tactful probing means you ask without the person knowing what’s behind your agenda.
>>Start by taking an informal, conversational approach. Formality puts everyone on guard and creates tension.
2. Ask open-ended questions. Open-ended conversations go places, closed-ended questions are dead-ended, and eliminate probing (skill 1 above). Note: The exception is that closed-ended questions can be used to clarify something you think you heard.
>> Open-ended: What/Why/ How…Closed-ended: Is/Do/ Would/ Have etc.
Print out and memorize these great open-ended prompts from Mary Alice Osborne:
Examples of open-ended questions:
- How would you…?
2. What would result if…?
3. How would you describe…?
4. How does…compare with…?
5. What is the relationship between…?
6. What would happen if…?
7. How could you change…?
8. How would you improve…?
9. How do you feel about…?
10. Why do you believe…?
11. How would you go about solving the problem…?
12. What could improve…
3. Learn to ‘uh-huh’. If you sit silent, the user might think you are thinking and not listening. Guttural sounds like “uh-huh” or “Oh, right, okay” provide a validating listening response.
>> Learn to make utterances instead of needing to talk back or paraphrase all the time.
4. Master pacing and leading. Pacing means you are tracking with “uh-huh’s” for example. Leading means you are interrupting (this should be deliberate) or doing the asking.
>> Moderating the interview means you need to subtly balance time, questions, and listening. Pace to show listening. Lead to perform moderation.
5. If user testing, ‘reverse question. User testing is not a place for open questioning unless it’s before or after the test. During the test, the user should be doing most of the talking (95% at least).
>>If the user asks you a question such as “Is this what you want me to do?”, you can ask a reverse question to avoid committing to answer-giving. “Is that what you would expect to do/see there?”
6. Give space. Particularly important if you are dealing with a sensitive topic or person (elderly, a person with a disability or in a non-local culture etc).
>>Giving space means let the person talk, without having to tag everything that’s said. It also means physical space, eg if you are a man interviewing a woman alone at home, don’t cross her safety zone. So this is a call to minding body language while sharpening non-verbal skills.
7. Use whole-body listening. This means using your other-person-focused energy and intention to indicate receptivity. Listening with your whole body means your thoughts and heart are open (eg you’re allowing empathy to do its work). This is called being present, activating charisma or presence, as in the opposite of looking at your phone while ‘listening’!
>>Make eye contact unless you’re with a ‘don’t look to talk’ person — cultural differences apply!; Wait for your turn; Be still with no fidgeting or hand/foot movements and face the speaker (if appropriate to #6 above). Deeply listen instead of thinking or analyzing.
8. Clarify what you think you heard. But don’t over-clarify or put words in the users mouth. Combining observation with listening should help you understand context.
>> Try “Let me see if I got this right…”
9. Empathize- get “oh wow, oh no” details. Empathy is actively involved in active, whole-body listening. If you’re not “feeling their pain”, it’s probably a sign of low rapport or weak listening. Asking open-ended questions and showing interest, without being disrespectful, will usually prompt users to tell their stories.
>> Try “Tell me about a time when you couldn’t X (find this, do this, solve this). Take me through the steps”.
Follow these 9 listening skills and you’ll collect better data, see and understand more clearly and be able to re-tell your team what you heard so that you activate their empathy.
A final word about empathy. When I first started working seriously as a UX consultant in 1999, I used to think empathy was an aspirational goal — something to think about but not put in a bottle and take back to the product team. Fast forward 10 years to working with and teaching Design Thinking and Emotion Design and now it’s clear to me that empathy is the key to learning from our users (10 years beyond that time). Gathering good user data can not be underestimated. Users have stories to share, those stories can activate empathy and can directly lead to better design decision-making.
Good listening skills in user research are the key to bringing rich, powerful and impactful user data into your UX design process. Good listening techniques are the power ‘soft skill’ — artful listening wins every time.
About the author: Frank Spillers, CEO/ CXO of Experience Dynamics, a leading UX consulting firm with Fortune 500 clients worldwide.
For over 20 years, Frank has been a seasoned UX consultant, Researcher, Designer, and Trainer. He is an award-winning expert in improving the design of digital products, services, and experiences. Frank is a Subject Matter Expert in UX Design, UX Management, Accessibility, Emotion Design, Service Design, Localization UX, Lean UX, VR/ AR UX Design. He provides private corporate training and offers courses to the largest online design organization in the world (Interaction Design Foundation). In 2001, Frank founded UX consulting firm Experience Dynamics. He provides deep learning opportunities at UX Inner Circle.
