UX Digest W53 /2018— Difficult life situations in user tests

Banking is personal. Very personal. There are only very few ”real stuff” things in life more personal then banking. Each time I listen to the calls in hotline or do user tests I realize it. But during the latest user test came a situation which illustrated how deeply personal banking could be and which put me off guard.

So, I was about to moderate a user test session. Nothing seemed odd or was different than during other tests. I met the male test user near the reception desk and greeted him usually. We had a small chat and exchanged the usual news and pieces of politeness. Something told me that gonna be a reserved test user, but I did not understand the issue at first. And only after the usual broadcasting to the observer room was started, the true situation revealed. After being asked some contextual questions, the test user answered that he is about to get divorced. And then it stroke me. The thing is that I am also in a similar situation and got divorced. The stigma attached to this process prevented me from writing and talking about it before, event if it has been already one year from the event, and the fact that the talk got broadcasted in the next room with about 7 colleagues made it no easier.

My natural reaction would be ”I am also divorced. I understand that it is not an easy situation.” Well, a test person already revealed a piece of very personal and relevant information. Why should the moderator not be able also to reveal some personal things? How much personal is too personal in user testing?

Actually, I understood that it was difficult for the person to speak about it and decided to avoid the topic as much as I could. In the end, I gathered enough insights and information regardless of the fact, but I think I could do more. Here are some ideas I had afterward about how to make a test user comfortable and gather feedback even if the life situation he was talking about is difficult or unpleasant to talk about.

So, after encountering the difficult life situation, it is important to consider how relevant the situation is for the context of use and the interactions with the software. If it is relevant, it is important to make the user comfortable. Sometimes it is enough to say: “I know that it is a difficult situation” or “That must been hard times for you” to make the person comfortable.

In this particular situation I understood that it is very important to provide the information about consent and the possibility to refuse answering the questions. The person has to feel safe and in control of which information to provide.

At the same time, it is possible to encourage the test person to provide the information if they choose to do so. It is possible to say “It is important that the software covers the needs of people in your situation. You can provide as much feedback related to your life vent as possible”.

In general, the situation raised two questions for me.

The first one is how much appreciation and validation one brings for the person participating in the user test. At the end, the person brings time and reveals often very personal thoughts and information. Does it make sense to organize user tests just to justify the new feature? Or to rush through the script and tipp all the checkpoints? Why is there is so little interest in the user itself and their life situation during the user test?

The second is how personal one should be allowed to be at work? Which information and insights are appropriate in the working situation? When and how should one reveal the events which had a significant influence on one?

And then understood how much I lacked the person who would say to me “I feel with you. Your input is valuable anyway.”