Playbook UX co-founder Lindsay Allard explains why early-stage user research must avoid leading questions or premature product demonstrations.
Insight
Founders should have detached third parties conduct user interviews
“I always recommend if, you know, maybe have someone who isn't involved, If it's your baby, you're like, oh my gosh, like, I really want them to like this. So having someone who's a little bit detached is always good”
Insight
Allard: Open-ended questions alone do not remove user interview bias
“You could ask an open-ended question that's like, you know, what do you like about this product? All right, that's leading, right? Because you're already leading them to say that they like something about the product. They might not like anything about it. So …”
Insight
Feature upvoting lacks context and requires qualitative validation
“One of the challenges I do feel like with the upvoting is that you sometimes don't understand the why. Someone might get some user feedback. Oh, you know, I would love this feature, but what, why, why do you want it? What about it do you like? What value is it…”
Insight
Product discounts fail as incentives for B2B user research participants
“If you're a company that's like a B to B software, and you're like, oh, you get like one month free, and they're a person who has no control of the billing, they don't, it really is irrelevant to them, and that their company is going to get a month free on the…”
Insight
Users care about broken workflows, not minor UI styling inconsistencies
“The user does not most of the time really care, to be honest. Like we've put it in front of so many people and they're like, oh yeah, I didn't really notice that. But they do notice when they can't figure out, when they got frustrated.”
Insight
Repeated specific questions unlock deeper usability test feedback
“If you just ask, like spend a few minutes on this website, people are gonna be like, okay, it looks good. You know, Keep asking in different ways, and then you'll get people to kind of open up and say more and give like really interesting feedback that way.”