I have moderated several usability studies and watched dozens of other, professional, moderators conduct usability studies, before the one I did yesterday for Usability I. So there weren’t a lot of surprises. One was how difficult Papa John’s made it to report a complaint on line. You’re never going to get true customer feedback with a process so difficult. The other thing that surprised both me and my participant was how hungry we were for pizza by the time we were done!
I actually thought I did better than I expected. I am by no means a born moderator. I am not an extrovert, not much of a “people person” and find that, unless I’ve had some sort of creative input into what I’m watching, or working on, with the participant, I find usability sessions a bit dull. This is less true of this particular exercise than usability at work. The usability joke at work is: What’s more boring than doing your own taxes? Answer: Watching someone else do theirs.
It was fairly easy for me to remain unbiased. I don’t have a lot of emotional investment in Papa John’s one way or the other, and even during parts where my participant was very critical of the site, it wasn’t personal to me. This has not always been true in previous usability studies where the participant is actually criticizing something I worked on, especially if I put a lot of thought and effort into it.
I think I cut my participant off just once and tried to make up for it. For the most part, I think I allowed my participant to speak and tried not to introduce bias in the way I asked the questions. My responses were intended to be encouraging without being judgmental and often were simple acknowledgments like “OK” or “I see.”
Altogether, a pretty good session with some useful insights, especially on the positive side: Seeing the motion graphics of adding toppings to your pizza order and on the not-so-positive: trying to register a complaint with the corporate office.
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