Workshop: Not to prime is a crime

Thursday 7th October, 9am–5pm

Regrettably, this workshop is now cancelled.

How do we get more from our users in user-testing situations?

This is a big question for UX practitioners, as often we don’t get to see users as much as we’d like and it is my assumption (right or wrong) that ‘user-testing’ is actually the most common way many UX professionals engage with users.

For some years now we have been setting our users homework as a ’Primer’ to assist. Whilst the technique’s we use are not new, we note that they are not used much in UX – and with the results we have seen – we wonder why?

By getting users to complete a homework activity ahead of workshops, interviews or importantly – user-based testing sessions - we have found that participants were engaged to discuss a given topic, and more relaxed about the session overall.

The homework we set not only performs a highly valuable role as an ice-breaker to kick-off and ground the evaluation session. It assists to anchor discussions and often reveals associations and subconscious links that the participant may not have thought to mention if they were responding off the cuff.

I can hear some cry ‘bias’ and ‘influence’ – but these techniques have been used in psychology within a clinical setting for a long time – for the same reasons – to get more from interviews or sessions.

We have also found that by setting a homework activity, that asks users to consider a topic in a ‘broad’ sense, we can proactively influence the mind set of the user and ameliorated the “test” Setting; anxiety is minimised and users are ‘primed’ to participate. The benefits as we have observed them are that users are primed:

• To think about a given topic in a broad sense,
• To consider their emotions and feelings,
• To engage their right-brain ‘creative’ thinking side,
• So that it is their ‘unconscious’ mind is leading the way on a given topic.

So what is this workshop about?

This workshop will focus on practical exercises to complete and learn the process to put to use in your own projects; use case studies where we have used this method to illuminate the path forward; and overview the cross-cultural effectiveness of the method. It will outline how the process helps practitioners take their methods a little further, leading to a better outcome than standard task based testing alone could have offered.

Overall, the great news is that after attending this workshop you will understand how ‘priming’ not only offers a tangible example of the value of the customer-centric approach that UX professionals offer to a client. You will also be able to apply this to your own world, with immediate benefits.

After this workshop you will be able to:

• Take home simple but effective method that you can put to use immediately
• Be aware of how to ‘dig a bit deeper’ with your research and user-based interactions
• Have a clear outline for how you can kick-start this approach on your projects now!

Read a little more detail on the method in the article written by Jodie for Johnny Holland; but most importantly – come along to the full day session and join in the fun!

Presenter

Jodie Moule, Director of Symplicit Pty Ltd. Psychologist, food lover and mum.

Jodie is a passionate user experience advocate. She is Co-founder & Director at Symplicit, a User Experience Design Consultancy that focuses on assisting clients to create great experiences for their customers. Her background as a Psychologist means understanding human behaviour is a core philosophy.

However, she is really interested in how to combine this understanding of human behaviour with good design thinking, to help change business models and create innovative products for Symplicit’s clients.

Jodie always gets excited to talk at a more practical level about conducting user experience research in the corporate environment, and share some of the novel approaches she has developed to try to uncover a little more about what goes on in the users day-to-day life.

You can find Jodie on Twitter as @jodiemoule or follow the Symplicit team @symplicit.