There are times when while you are all prepared to meet users and gain great insight, you realise that the situation forbids you from any useful observation. There can be a number of reasons for that:
- No space for observation. Here I mean physical space and you can read more on this in a previous post.
- Participant not properly briefed . It is true that sometimes, for whatever reason, participants have not been properly communicated the purpose and format of the session. As a result you are faced with a situation where you simply cannot observe.
- Atypical behaviour. This is an interesting one. You may come across users that represent extreme cases of the subject matter you are researching. This is absolutely fine if you are looking at extreme cases - this sometimes can be extremely useful -
Despair not. While you may need to abandon any hopes of observation, you can still use the time available for an unstructured and flexible interview. During a project in Europe, I came across a participant who invited us to meet him in town and brought some of his friends along. While the situation did not facilitate meaningful observation we used it as an opportunity to conduct an extended couch session. There is no need to tell participants that you need to adapt your approach, at best they will feel bad and at worse, offended.
So, some ideas:
- Adapt your approach
- Small talk helps
- Flexible interviewing. Not standardised
- Allow participants to join in time outs
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