It’s well known that when a participant asks a question, we shouldn’t answer it, because we want to see if they can figure things out on their own.

But participants’ questions are also signs of usability issues. More often than not they ask questions because they didn’t understand something. So we need to unpack that.

Unpacking

Why did the question arise in the participant’s mind in the first place? After all, the UI should tell them everything — they shouldn’t be having questions. What is making them uncertain?

#1 Unpacking technique: Little bit of silence

• Participant: “What timezone is this?”
• Researcher: [remains silent]
• Participant: [feels compelled to fill the silence] “I really hope that it’s my timezone so I don’t have to do the conversion in my head. But it’s not clear.”
• Researcher: [now that we unpacked the usability issue, we can safely answer the question, so the participant can continue the task as if this issue wasn’t there] “This happens to be GMT. But I understand what makes you wonder.”

Silence is a tricky thing though.

It’s ok to remain silent if the participant is not expecting an answer from us. E.g. when the question is a rhetorical one, or when it’s just part of their thinking process.

But when they participant is looking at us, expecting an answer, silence doesn’t work. Remaining silent would make the impression that we didn’t hear or didn’t listen. So, when the participant expects an answer, we should rather apply one of the below techniques.

#2 Unpacking technique: Reflection — restating the participant’s question

• Participant: “What timezone is this?”
• Researcher: “So you are wondering what timezone this might be…”
• Participant: [feels encouraged to explain more] “I really hope that it’s my timezone…”

#3 Unpacking technique: Asking back

• Participant: “What timezone is this?”
• Researcher: “What do you think?”
• Participant: [feels encouraged to explain more] “I really hope that it’s my timezone…”

Asking back (#3) is a simple and great way to get that information. But Reflection is better (#2) because it also trains the participant to think out loud… It is almost as if we were holding their train of thought for them until they are ready to pick it up again… So elegant and so effective. Participants will get the hang of thinking aloud and the next time they have a question, they will automatically go and try to answer it — thinking out loud.

Thanks for reading. I am a Sr UXR at SAP Emarsys. I am writing a book with such bite sized usability testing tips. Would you care beta reading it?