Explicitly priming shy users unlocks critical, unfiltered feedback
Lindsay Allard · She Thought Her Product Was Obvious - Then Watched 10 Strangers Struggle · Oct 12, 2021 · at 9:59
Lindsay Allard, co-founder and CEO of Playbook UX, explains how to overcome cultural and personality barriers that prevent user testing participants from sharing negative feedback.
0:00 / 0:19exact quote · 19.5s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“If people are kind of on the more shy end or they just don't feel comfortable giving like negative feedback, you can write things like, Hey, it's okay. We want to hear what you have to say, your unfiltered thoughts, your unfiltered opinions. This is how we're going to make our product better. So there's ways to prime people to make them feel more comfortable giving that negative or not any negative critical or helpful feedback”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Lindsay Allard
Asking users if they like a product invites polite false positives
“You're not like, hey, here's a product. Do you like it? Because then when you ask that question, it leads people to say, yeah, okay. They don't want to hurt your feelings, right? They don't want to say, no, I hate it. So you want to understand, like, is this a…”
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”
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 …”
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…”
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…”
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.”