Thread by @RohanIrvine

Day two @UXAustralia!

The keynote is Dan Brown presenting 'Questions: The Most Essential UX Tool'

#uxaustralia2020

What do designers want?

When you ask this question the most obvious answer is a seat at the table.

But why?

They want to have a voice, they want to influence decisions, and they want to provide answers.

Dan finds this puzzling.

Answers are only part of the equation, UX is just as much about asking questions as it is answering them.

Questions are everywhere in user experience.

Any activity related to UX has questions.

You can't DO UX without experience.

Why haven't we thought more deeply about how we ask questions?

User Interviews:

There are questions you ask participants

and there are questions you ask yourself

Dan is sharing an example about a project to design a new app to help builders gain eligibility to take a written exam.

One of the questions he asks is:

When you didn't get eligibility to the exam, what did you do?

This question came from an internal question:

Does the exam eligibility product need to support a "no, but..." option?"

In the design process we:

Come up with a hypothesis
Create a question for yourself
Create a question for the user

Questions are a central driving force propelling how design works.

Discovery is like an ultimate question asking process:

Dan created a 2x2 model.

Diverging x Converging
Defining the problem x Crafting the solution

Dan's model

Gather:

What are some of the gaps in my knowledge?

Process:

What is most important out of what we gathered?

Explore:

What if we created a product that does X/Y

Focus:

How do we make this real?

Questions play a role in every aspect of the design and discovery process.

Dan has a more comprehensive view of the model in his book.

We use a lot of tools in design.

What questions do we need to ask our tools?

We need to ask—

What is the purpose of the tool?
What is the configuration of the tool?
What is my intention with this tool?

We can challenge questions the same way we challenge tools.

Note: For the rest of the talk Dan is going to exclude questions you ask yourself.

Dan recommends Warren Berger's book about creating more beautiful questions.

How to craft a questions.

Purpose:
There are different kinds of information you can bring into the world for UX.

Confirm your understanding — validate
Expand your knowledge — plumb
Improve understanding — clarify
Set the stage — prime
Judge opportunities — open possibilities

Questions that validate:

You have a hunch and you want to see if it's correct.

'When was the last time you read to your child?'

Questions that plumb:

You want a deeper understanding of a topic

'Tell me about a time you used that information in a conversations with a colleague?'

Sometimes these types of questions lead to a hidden category.

Questions that clarify:

You need a better understanding of an ambiguous topic.

'How might protocols differ between two clinical trials'

Questions that prime:

You want to put the participants in a right mindset.

'What are the main milestones on your roadmap for the next 12 months?'

Questions that open possibilities:

You want to see if the participant has new ideas.

'How might you re-organise the elements on this screen?'

What is a questions intention?

Dan has three categories of intentions for quesitons

Empathise:

The question is intended to show the person that you understand.

"I know it must seem like a career is so far away. Do you see anything that gets you excited about planning ahead?"

Engage:

The question is intended to show the person you are here to learn.

"I have no idea what it's like to be a teenager growing up in the 21st century. How does seeing these things fit into your world view?"

Build Trust:

The question is intended to build a connection.

"I need your help fine tuning the information we show about each career, can you show me?"

Question Myths:

"Yes-no questions are bad!"

It's okay if that's the first kind of question that pops into your head.
Most people don't say just yes or no.
You can always ask a follow up.

Question Myths:

"Make it casual, make it comfortable, make it personal"

You have limited time, and may never speak to this person again.
An interview sometimes bucks the norms of most polite conversation.

Question Myths: Don't ask leading questions

"You might bias the answers"

Your participant is self-aware but may also need help.

Dan will give us 4 dials that we can turn up and down as we ask questions.

Scope
Examples
Context
Perspective

Scope — Broaden or narrow the question

"Tell me about the last time you..." and expand from there.

Examples — Encourage the participant with answers you've heard before

"Would you like to look at the requirements for renewing your license, or maybe looking at the requirements for another state?"

Context — Pointing people to the topic of the interview

"Imagine you're at the beginning of x"

Establish more context to have people in the right mindset for people

Perspective — Choose where to position the participant in the question

"Let's say you were giving advice to a friend on how to x"

Cultivating a Questioning Mindset.

Gives permission to ask naive and basic questions.
Embraces knowledge and experience.
Considers the participant's experience.
Encourages fine-tuning questions.

A question mindset creates:

Compassion — Respect their perspective
Humility — Show them you care
Curiosity — Gain deeper understanding
Awareness — Integrate

On a final note —

We in the user experience world are being asked to look at a complex system and make heads or tails of it. A Questioning Mindset is crucial to this.

There is MORE to a system than meets the eye.

I want more than a superficial understanding of a system.

When we have a better understanding of the connection of elements in the systems it makes it easier for use to dismantle that system and rebuilding it into something that's better.

Thanks @brownorama!!

#uxaustralia2020 #uxaustralia

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