One evening back when telephones were mounted on walls, my dad answered a call, the phone cord piled on the floor next to his foot. My mom listened to the local news while making dinner, and my brother and I sat at the kitchen island, surrounded by the papers and books we needed to do our homework.
After listening to the caller for a moment, my dad said, “Sure, if she wants to.” He covered the phone's mouthpiece and made eye contact with me. "They're looking for someone between ages 15 and 18 to answer some questions," he said. "Do you want to take it?"
Although I could tell from his narrowed lids that he wasn't sure it was worth it, my own eyes lit up. I was excited that anyone wanted to know about my life. "Yeah!" I said, and took the receiver down the hall to my brother's bedroom.
I leaned against the closed door, hanging on the survey administrator's every word, carefully selecting my answers from the options she gave me.
It didn't take long, however, for me to be able to predict the patterned questions and answers. Initially, I was entertained, and proud I could know what someone in real life would say before they said it. But soon, the repetition grated on me, especially as I could hear dinner getting close to ready, with Mom tearing lettuce for a salad and Dad getting flatware out of the drawer.
My enthusiasm for sharing quickly fading, I interrupted the administrator. "Could you mark 'no' for every answer in this section?"
"I'm sorry, miss, I have to read each question in its entirety."
Undeterred, I tried to explain that I didn't have to hear each question to be able to answer them accurately, since they were clearly patterned. I even started to rattle off what I thought would be the next question. The administrator was unconvinced, and she restated her obligation to read each question.
I sighed and stuck with it for a few more minutes, twisting the stretched phone cord in my fingers. But as I heard two chairs being pulled out from kitchen island, I made the choice that I had been reluctantly postponing. "I have to go. This was supposed to take 10 minutes, and it's been 20."
She told me that if I didn't finish, they wouldn't be able to use my answers. Though I hadn't yet taken Econ 101, I knew that the time I'd invested in this diversion was simply gone, and not something I needed to protect. I declined, sighing. I walked back out to the kitchen, to tell my family what a disappointment the call had been. Perhaps unfairly to the administrator, I did end up raising my spirits by roasting the experience and getting a few hearty laughs out of my dad.
The people we study are the focus of UX research. They're who we want to understand, of course! But they are also the people who have to experience the study itself, and that experience effects whether and how fully they participate.
I can guess that the reasons for the survey’s methodology were indeed based in well meaning principles, and I can't know whether other teenagers were unwilling to endure the whole thing. And yet, I expect that I wasn't the only one to bail, and I wonder how it shaped their results.
Regardless, the experience instilled in me a respect for my participants' time and intelligence. When I plan my studies, I aim to make them pleasant and efficient, whatever that means for the methods I choose. In the end, I believe the effort benefits us all, getting useful results and providing positive experiences for everyone involved.
Thanks for joining me for the first of four Finding Out issues introducing the roles of people in UX research. The next introduces what we owe the people who use our research.