Member-only story
Why you’re not supposed to ask “What do you like about this product?” and other close-ended questions to your research participants
Research starts with asking open questions and patiently listening before creating solutions. And even seemingly harmless closed-ended questions have negative consequences.
There is an Italian restaurant nearby my home in Barcelona, in the Sant Andreu district. As its logo and name show, this bistro is dedicated to the grandma of the owner.
As you step into the restaurant, you see the pictures of this memorable woman through different episodes of her life, captioned in Spanish. For example, there's a mujer (woman) section with pictures of a young and attractive person in her early twenties. There's also a madre (mother) section right across, with the same person gazing at you, in her mid-thirties now. She has a slightly more rounded face and a more tired but also more pleased look in her eyes.
Regardless of the intention, there seems to be some sort of rigid categorization taking place, arguably from the point of view of the male gaze. Being a mother is somehow not compatible with being a woman anymore. Womanhood is left behind upon having kids.
You might be asking: So what? How's this relevant? This is just an example, quite a tangible one, to show that how we frame people and things matter: both for those that are framed and for their viewer who then thinks of them in a certain way.
Okay, in the case of our small neighborhood restaurant, maybe how to decorate is up to the owner and his taste. But on the contrary, how we frame our questions when we do research and engage with our study participants matter. This informs how we build our product.
Especially when we democratize UX Research, and have non-researchers talk to users, it's even more important to avoid rigid categorizations that come about upon asking close-ended questions.
