User interviews are a great technique for getting to know your target audience. But sometimes people just don’t know how to articulate what they need, want, or feel. We’ll discuss how to use projective techniques, such as image associations, collaging, sentence completion, and others to uncover hidden, actionable insights to fuel your designs.
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Social Desirability Bias
60% of people lied an
average of 3 times in a
10 minute conversation
with someone they just
met.
* Feldman, R.S., Forrest, J.A., and Happ, B. R. (2002) Basic and
Applied Social Psychology, 24(2), 163-170.
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Ask Questions in Unique Ways
• Don’t put the participant on the
defensive
• Use indirect questioning to get
to tough questions
• Not “Why didn’t you…”
• “What kept you from…”
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Story Telling About Pictures
•Have them tell their story
•Great way to uncover
topics important to them
•Use when you don’t know
what questions to ask
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Triading Follow-Up
•Tell the story behind the differences
•Which is more important to them?
•A and B share a characteristic
•C is the only one that has a characteristic
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Laddering Example
• What is the most important feature on
this pizza ordering app?
• Why are deals and coupons important to
you?
• What is it about saving money that is
important to you?
• Why is it important to save for their
college funds?
• Deals and Coupons
• Because I like to save money, and not
have my wife yell at me
• We are trying to save as much as we can
for the kids’ college funds
• Education is expensive, but important. I
want my kids to have better jobs than I
do
Interviewer Participant
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Summary of Methods
What is important
to participants
Uses Recall to
access
memories
Use
Recognition to
access
memories
Assists
articulation
Open Ended
Exploration
X X
Sentence
Completion
X X X
Collaging X X X
Triading X X
Laddering X X X