The key to effective data collection is identifying questions that provide meaningful insights and directly influence design decisions. The goal is to gather information that helps shape design improvements based on user needs.
Picking Questions
Selecting the right questions is about choosing those that will yield actionable feedback. Focus on questions directly addressing the areas you want to improve, ensuring they provide insights that inform design decisions and help you better understand user behavior.
Start with Your Research Objectives
- Define the Purpose: Before crafting questions, clearly identify your research goals. What specific insights are you hoping to gain? For example, if you’re trying to understand why users are dropping off during onboarding, the focus should be on questions related to the usability and clarity of the onboarding flow.
- Align with Business Goals: Ensure your research objectives align with business outcomes. If the goal is to improve user retention, focus on questions that uncover pain points related to user experience, like ease of navigation or task completion rates.
Focus on Actionable Insights
- Ask Questions That Lead to Change: The questions you select should directly inform design decisions. For instance, instead of asking, “Did you enjoy using the product?” consider asking, “What specific part of the product did you find frustrating?” This type of question leads to more specific, actionable feedback.
- Target User Behaviors: Prioritize questions that help uncover the why behind user actions. For example, if users abandon a task midway, ask what part of the process was confusing or why they chose to stop.
Keep Questions Clear and Simple
- Avoid Jargon: Ensure your questions are easy to understand and free from technical jargon. Users should not have to interpret what you’re asking. For instance, instead of asking about the “interface’s responsiveness,” ask how easy it was to navigate or interact with specific features.
- Ask One Thing at a Time: Avoid combining multiple inquiries in a single question. For example, don’t ask, “Was the navigation easy and intuitive?” Instead, ask two questions: “Was the navigation easy?” and “Was it intuitive?”
Consider the User Journey
- Tailor Questions to Specific Stages: Break down the user journey and craft questions that target each stage. For example, questions during the onboarding phase should focus on ease of use, while questions for users in later stages can target task completion and satisfaction.
Ask Why Five Times
The “Ask Why Five Times” technique helps get to the root cause of an issue, by repeatedly asking “why” about a problem or behavior, you can uncover deeper insights that may not be immediately obvious. This method helps you ask more practical questions and understand the underlying reasons behind user actions or challenges.
Define the Problem
- Identify the Issue: Identify a specific problem or pain point in the user journey. For instance, if users consistently abandon a task at a certain point, define that task as the problem that needs to be explored.
- Set the Scope: Keep the scope of your investigation focused on this one problem so that each iteration of “why” remains relevant and contributes to uncovering the root cause.
Ask the First ‘Why’
- Question Initial Observations: The first “why” should challenge the surface-level issue. For example, ask, “Why are users abandoning the task now?” The answer could be that the task is too complicated or confusing.
Dig Deeper with Each ‘Why’
- Keep Asking Why: After receiving an initial answer, ask “why” again. For instance, if the answer to the first question is that the task is too confusing, ask, “Why is it confusing?” This might reveal that users don’t understand certain terminology or steps in the process.
Look for the Root Cause
- Keep Investigating: Continue asking why until you uncover the root cause of the problem. For example, after asking why users find the task confusing, you might discover that the instructions are unclear or that the layout is not intuitive. The fifth “why” often leads to a fundamental design flaw or usability issue that can be addressed.
Use the Insights to Drive Design Changes
- Translate Findings into Action: Using this insight to drive changes once the root cause is identified. For instance, if the root cause is unclear instructions, work on simplifying or redesigning them to make them more user-friendly.
By following these steps, the five whys technique helps you move past superficial observations and dig into more profound, more actionable insights.