March 14, 2023 • 21 mins
Danielle Cooley discusses her chapter "The Participant's Well-Being is Your Responsibility."
Sponsored by Watch City ResearchWatch City Research is your trusted UX research partner
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dan Berlin (00:14):
Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of
the 97 UX Things podcast. DanBerlin here, your host and book
editor. I'm joined this week byDanielle Cooley, who wrote the
chapter, "The Participant'sWell-Being is Your
Responsibility." Welcome,Danielle.
Danielle Cooley (00:27):
Hi, Dan. Thanks for having me.
Dan Berlin (00:29):
Thanks for joining the podcast. Can you please tell
us a little bit about yourself?
Danielle Cooley (00:33):
Sure. I am a strategic UX research
consultant, I have been in thefield for a little over 20
years, worked for a wide varietyof large and small public and
private companies in multipleindustries, and have been
running my own practice since2009.
Dan Berlin (00:54):
Are there any industries that you specialize
in? Or particularly like?
Danielle Cooley (00:59):
No, I am intentionally industry agnostic.
My favorite thing aboutconsulting is being able to pull
learnings from one industry andapply them to another. So I
recently had some some real funwith that taking a something
from financial services andapplying it to a healthcare
nonprofit. So that was a big funday for me.
Dan Berlin (01:20):
Nice, very cool. And can you tell us your UX origin
story? How did you discover userexperience?
Danielle Cooley (01:28):
I was an undergraduate student studying
biomedical and electricalengineering. And in the process,
I had to take this course inengineering reliability, which
is basically statistics. If yourcircuit has three diodes, and
you have a batch of 10,000diodes, and it has a failure
(01:49):
rate of point three percent,what are the odds that your
circuit's gonna fail? And howmany redundancies do you have to
put in and like, are you asleepyet, it was so boring. I'm so
glad other people pay attentionto that. But in the course of
that independent study aspect ofthe course, I realized it
doesn't matter if all yourdiodes work if the user doesn't
(02:10):
push the correct button, becausethey're confused. So the rest is
history. So I guess if you countfrom then I've been doing this
since I was 21, which isamazing.
Dan Berlin (02:21):
You mentioned 'if the user doesn't press the right
button.' Was there a moment thatmade you realize that, hey, the
user is so important here, whereyou made that switch from the
diodes to the user, as it were.
Danielle Cooley (02:36):
There was a specific interface in the tools
we used in that undergraduateprogram. Of course, this was
1990s, eight, seven. And so wehad to FTP our files up to
submit them, right. And withoutfail, you would fill out this
(02:57):
little FTP form and at thebottom right of the dialog box
was cancel. And so you'd fill itout, cancel, and you fill it out
again, cancel. And it was Imean, we knew this, but it was
just so natural to hit thatbutton on the bottom-right. And
of course, we're doing this at11:59 with a midnight deadline
(03:20):
on our assignments, right. Andso it was very frustrating. And
somewhere on a tiny disk,somewhere in the box, I have a
screenshot of that dialog box.
And I, I keep trying to figureout how I can find it and like
frame it, but one day, yeah.
Dan Berlin (03:36):
Yeah. So okay, so you discovered that desire to
move to the user side of things?
Can you tell us about yourjourney? So you discovered UX?
How did you wind up where youare today?
Danielle Cooley (03:48):
Sure. Well, I still claim biomedical
engineering is about bridgingthe gap between people and
technology, whether that is a anamputated limb to a prosthetic,
or a failing heart to apacemaker, or a piece of
software to your brain and itscognitive function. So I
(04:09):
maintain that I'm still on theright path. But my first job out
of undergrad was as a businessanalyst in a data warehousing
group at Federal Expresscorporate. And I just ended up
making it my own. We had tocreate this front end for
marketers to access theterabytes of shipping data that
(04:34):
FedEx has. But they weren't SQLprogrammers, which at the time,
that was how you got informationfrom a database. The graphical
interface over a database waspretty new. So we did that. And
I went to the corporate library,I found a book by Ben
Shneiderman. And I devoured itand they sent me and a developer
(05:00):
to a three, four day course. Andagain, I was just devouring it
and writing millions andmillions of notes. And the
developer was like, huh, like,okay, so I knew that was my
thing. And after I left there, Isaid my next job is going to be
(05:21):
a usability job, which was, ofcourse, the word we used then.
And did I got a job at a startupin the Boston area, moved up
there, ended up going to Bentleyfor my master's degree in Human
Factors and Information Designand worked up there for Fidelity
Investments for a while. And thedot com bust happened, I had
(05:43):
about a year to think about whatwas next and ended up at a
consulting company, and thenMasterCard, and then Enterprise
rent a car, and it's just been areally fun journey.
Dan Berlin (05:56):
Yeah. And how about that decision to become a
consultant, what helped sparkthat
Danielle Cooley (06:01):
To go out on my own as a consultant? I mean, I
had worked for a consulting firmand so I knew what that was
like. And for a while, I hadjust seen how much they were
charging the clients for me andhow much I was getting on the
other end of that. And, andgranted, there's a lot of
overhead in a consultingcompany, but I didn't need the
(06:24):
benefits. I didn't necessarilyneed all of those things, and
realized that, hey, the clientand I could split the
difference, and it's win win.
And so that was on my mind. Andthen, two hours after I got back
from maternity leave for myfirst son, they laid me off, and
I said, 'Oh, I guess I'm anindependent consultant now.'
Dan Berlin (06:46):
Wow. All right.
Sometimes it just happens likethat.
Danielle Cooley (06:49):
Often, you do need something to sort of push
you over, that you're on thefence, and you just need
something to nudge you. And it'sa big nudge. But it's worked
out.
Dan Berlin (06:59):
Cool. That's great to hear. Well, thanks for
sharing all of that your your UXjourney, let's move on to your
chapter (07:06):
'The Participant's Well-Being is Your
Responsibility.' Can you pleasetell us about that?
Danielle Cooley (07:11):
Sure. I had a number of experiences where
we've had to be really carefulabout how we approach the
participant in a user researchstudy. And often it was about a
sensitive topic, a horriblehealth diagnosis, horrible
(07:33):
experience with incarceration,just really sensitive things.
And it occurred to me that wetalk a lot about how to get good
data, we talk a lot about how tominimize bias. In our research,
we talk a lot about process andmethod, right. And we tend to
(07:53):
forget even though we're usercentered, right, we're thinking
more about that way end userwho's going to use the product
in six months. And just toremind ourselves to be aware
that the people you need tofocus on in that process, are
these participants, right, whocome in, and even in the best of
circumstances, you know, they'rea little nervous, they've never
(08:14):
been in that situation before,they are probably in a strange
place. Especially pre COVID.
Right. There was much more inlab testing going on. So that
was the inspiration for thechapter.
Dan Berlin (08:29):
Yeah, and I'm glad you did write that chapter, it's
something that has been on mymind for so long, right. And to
your point, we're alwaysthinking about the the ephemeral
user, the user that willeventually benefit from our
work. But we're also we'respending 12 hours with these
people, and we need to be verymindful about those 12 hours.
Danielle Cooley (08:49):
Very.
Dan Berlin (08:50):
Yeah, so tell us more about that. What are some
of the things that folks need tokeep in mind and do during that
hour with participants?
Danielle Cooley (08:57):
Sure. The chapter is broken down into
physical safety and emotional,mental safety. And of course,
physical safety... Both of thosecan be sort of surface level or
deeper level, right? So in termsof physical safety, maybe we
might think more about physicalcomfort, where you've got a
(09:17):
worthwhile chair, you've gotgood lighting, the room is at a
comfortable temperature, thosesorts of things. And then in
more extreme cases, for example,I talked about in the chapter, a
study I did in a car, and thecar was in a parking lot, so
there wasn't driving road safetyinvolved, but we were parked in
(09:42):
a closed car on hot days, wherewe all know car temperatures can
quickly jumped to 110-120degrees for no reason. We
couldn't run the air conditionerduring the sessions because it
would short out the prototype.
We couldn't leave the windowsopen because all of the ambient
noise would come in and wecouldn't hear what the
(10:03):
participant was saying, wecertainly couldn't capture it
well on the recording. So we dida lot of different things like
moving the car during the day soit would stay in the shade in
the parking lots. But the shortversion is sometimes the
participant's physical safety issomething you really need to
think about. Because if youdon't, you might actually harm
them. And certainly nobody wantsthat. On the emotional side as
(10:27):
well, you want people to feelcomfortable, you don't want them
to be nervous or scared, just ingeneral, right? We don't want to
be bad people like that. Butthen in those very, very serious
situations, when you're askingsomeone about their recent
breast cancer diagnosis, oryou're asking them about living
with blood clots, right, theseare really scary things. I had
(10:50):
done a study with patients withCOPD, I'm gonna blank on the
it's a pulmonary disease, right,chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease, excuse me. And one ofthem said, I just don't want to
think about this, I never wantto think about this, I have it.
I believe that person inparticular had smoked. And so he
felt responsible for his ownillness. And he just did not
(11:13):
want in general to talk aboutit. Of course, he had agreed to
participate in the study. But itwas a very emotionally fraught
situation. And the point of thearticle is, of course, that we
need to think about thesethings, because it's morally and
ethically right. But also, youget better data when people feel
(11:36):
like they can tell you thetruth. That they're in a safe
space, they're not worried abouthaving to use the bathroom, or
when can I get back to the airconditioning? You get better
data that way.
Dan Berlin (11:50):
Yep. How do we handle that? With the more...
especially on the more emotionalside of things. We want to get
good data for our clients andfor these interfaces and
experiences that we're creating.
And that only comes from gettingtruthful, real data. So how do
we get that out of participantswho may have great information,
(12:11):
but be emotional about it.
Danielle Cooley (12:16):
One thing we did, Dan, when we were doing a
study with cancer patients waswe needed patients who had been
recently diagnosed, but we werenot going to go as far as to
call people who had beendiagnosed that week, or even in
the last two or three weeks,it's still too raw. So we tried
(12:37):
to find a time period, wherethey wouldn't have forgotten how
they felt, but they were maybepast the initial trauma of that
diagnosis. And we ended up withpeople who had been diagnosed
about six months ago. So theyknew what was going on. And we
did get great data in thatstudy, and went on to launch a
(12:59):
really useful, usable productfor those patients.
Dan Berlin (13:03):
That's a very practical important tip. Thanks
for that. And another thing thatcomes to mind here is that even
though it's uncomfortable forthe participant, that doesn't
necessarily mean that they wantto stop the conversation. I've
had conversations withparticipants where it seemed
uncomfortable, and I'm like,'Hey, do you want to do wanna
take a break?' And like, 'No, Iwant to get this out. You know,
this is great.' So it's alsoimportant to keep that in mind
(13:26):
in terms of whether to stop ornot, or whether they want to
keep going.
Danielle Cooley (13:30):
Absolutely. And your chapter is a little bit
about wearing your therapisthat. Right? Where there's a lot
to that, right? But sometimesyou are just there to listen,
certainly you don't pretend tobe any sort of qualified medical
professional, but they justsometimes need to get it out
some of these, especially themedical diagnoses, right, or,
you know, drug incarceration orsomething like that is very
(13:53):
isolating. And it's notsomething that you can talk
about very frequently with toomany people. I've taken to
telling people in general, just,no one's going to be hanging on
your every word like I'm goingto be for the next hour. At any
point in your life, no one isgoing to be as interested in
what you have to say as I willbe for the next hour. So please
tell me everything.
Dan Berlin (14:14):
Yep. That's a nice little thing that people can add
to their their standard introsthat make people feel at ease
and comfortable to get it allout. So we talked about
emotional aspects back there,but what about physical, you
know, what are some of the otherthings that we need to be
keeping in mind as we have thesesessions? Probably more so for
the in person, I would think,but maybe remote as well?
Danielle Cooley (14:36):
Sure. I mean, there's not much you can do
about someone's physical comfortin a remote session. Certainly,
you can make sure they'recomfortable with the technology
you're using. Give them as muchwarning, offer to maybe call
them the day before and do apractice Zoom or something like
that. And that I think tends tohelp them feel better during the
(15:02):
session. In person, we just wantthe room to be as comfortable as
possible. We want thatautomotive study, for example,
like we moved the car, right sothat it would be in the shade,
we ran the air conditionerbetween sessions to cool down
the car as much as we could, andintentionally had to schedule
sessions with a substantial gap.
So we could do that. And thosetend to be the kinds of things
(15:28):
that we talked about always, youknow, let them take a break if
they need to, some of thesessions can be longer. I mean,
we're getting away from that inmost domains, but some of them
just you need a two plus hoursession to get through
something. So for breaks, makesure they've maybe had a chance
to use the restroom before thesession starts those sorts of
(15:51):
things.
Dan Berlin (15:53):
Yeah. Any other stories from your time of
running running sessions whereyou had something to deal with
whether it was emotional orphysical, and you needed to make
sure that the participant wasokay?
Danielle Cooley (16:06):
Yes. And this is not my story. Although I was
there, I was not moderating thesession. There was, in a
physical lab, a participant camein and had very overwhelming
body odor. And the moderatorreally was sort of, what do I do
with this? The moderatorcouldn't be in the room with the
(16:29):
person because the smell wasoverwhelming. And there was
another session scheduled almostimmediately afterward. And the
decision was made to cut thatsession short. And then they had
to figure out how to, which isnot that challenging, right? You
just say thanks, we've gotteneverything we need from you,
here's your incentive, have afabulous day. And so they did
(16:52):
that. But of course, they didn'tget data from that person. And
then they use that extra time tobring in a fan actually and air
out the room as much as possiblefor the next participant. So I
mean, yeah, you do this longenough and you see a lot of
things. That was, that wasdefinitely an interesting one.
Dan Berlin (17:10):
Yep. You bring up a great point, though, of
elegantly cutting short thesession when you need to. So
that's an extreme example thatyou have brought up, but we
often have to do that, whetherit is because the participant
isn't right for the session, orthey're obviously really
uncomfortable, and they're notthere. They're not talking
(17:30):
anymore. Various reasons.
There's a great skill to buildup, elegantly cutting it short.
Danielle Cooley (17:36):
Yes. I would imagine there are a lot of back
pocket phrases that people usefor that. But yeah, I tend to
just really lay it on thickabout how much we learned from
them, and how much we appreciatetheir time. And not just you're
done, right? But while we'vegotten so much information,
(17:56):
maybe even tell a little whitelie that we intentionally booked
too much time just in case andhere we go. But yeah, I've never
really had anyone question it.
They just say thank you and theyleave.
Dan Berlin (18:10):
You got through that much more quickly than a typical
session.
Danielle Cooley (18:14):
Yes
Dan Berlin (18:14):
And thanks for all that information. Anything else
from your chapter that you werehoping to convey here today?
Danielle Cooley (18:21):
I don't think so. I think just keeping those
participants in mind as much asthat end user is a really
important part of our work.
Dan Berlin (18:31):
Yep. Yep. Another story I wanted to convey here
today was walking someone downthe stairs for a fire drill, or
actually, not a drill, it wasthe fire alarm going off. One of
the most important things youneed to do is stay with the
participant, right? And makethem feel comfortable as you're
doing that and standing on thestreet with them and making
(18:51):
small talk. I think I've donethat like four times in my
career. Just bad timing, Iguess. But it's all about just
making that participant feelcomfortable, and then hopefully
picking up on it on the sessionwhen you get back. Great. Well,
thanks for all of that. In ourfinal segment, we'd like to get
career tips. So is there acareer tip that you can convey
(19:13):
to the UX folks out there?
Danielle Cooley (19:15):
I would say get out there and speak. Get out
there and present. It certainlyhas been one of the most, I
don't know, I don't want tooverstate it right, but
pleasant, positive, rewarding.
And not exactly lucrative,right, but professionally
profitable things I've everdone. And I was lucky enough to
(19:38):
get some mentors who helped mestart that early. There are
many, many conferences andevents with lower barriers to
entry, you know, submit aposter, do a 10 minute talk.
Some specifically have slots forfirst time speakers or students
and doing that improves yourconference attendance experience
(20:01):
so much. It helps you meet a lotof new people, it helps you
really get to learn yourmaterial really, really well.
Right? You know it well enoughto explain to other people then
you do a good job. And itcertainly helps with your
just... presence. I think beingmore comfortable speaking to
(20:21):
people. I'm very comfortablewith it. But I'll tell you, I
always want to get off thestage. I'm like, well, I'm a
little sweaty, like, maybe I wasmore nervous than I thought. But
it that certainly helps in myconsulting as well. And I can
think on my feet a lot betterthan some of my colleagues who
don't speak.
Dan Berlin (20:41):
Yep. Yep. And it builds confidence. Right? As you
said, you're, you're envelopingyourself in this topic. So
you're going to become extremelyknowledgeable about it and be
able to talk to anyone about it.
And that's huge for confidence.
Danielle Cooley (20:54):
Absolutely.
Dan Berlin (20:55):
Yeah. And to your sweating point, I always believe
if you're not sweating a littlebit, you're not doing it right,
because you're not paying enoughattention.
Danielle Cooley (21:00):
I'll remember that next time Dan.
Dan Berlin (21:03):
Well, great. It's been a wonderful conversation.
My guest today has been DanielleCooley, who wrote the chapter
Your Participant's Well-Being isYour Responsibility. Thanks for
joining me today here, Danielle.
Danielle Cooley (21:13):
Thanks again for having me, Dan.
Dan Berlin (21:15):
Thanks for listening everyone, today. Hope you
enjoyed this and have a greatrest of the day. You've been
listening to the 97 UX Thingspodcast, a companion to the book
97 Things Every UX PractitionerShould Know, published by
O'Reilly and available at yourlocal bookshop. All book
royalties go to UX nonprofits aswell any funds raised by this
(21:36):
podcast. The theme music isMoisturize the Situation by
Consider the Source, and I'myour host and book editor Dan
Berlin. Please remember to findthe needs in your community and
fill them with your best work.
Thanks for listening.
Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of
the 97 UX Things podcast. DanBerlin here, your host and book
editor. I'm joined this week byDanielle Cooley, who wrote the
chapter, "The Participant'sWell-Being is Your
Responsibility." Welcome,Danielle.
Danielle Cooley (00:27):
Hi, Dan. Thanks for having me.
Dan Berlin (00:29):
Thanks for joining the podcast. Can you please tell
us a little bit about yourself?
Danielle Cooley (00:33):
Sure. I am a strategic UX research
consultant, I have been in thefield for a little over 20
years, worked for a wide varietyof large and small public and
private companies in multipleindustries, and have been
running my own practice since2009.
Dan Berlin (00:54):
Are there any industries that you specialize
in? Or particularly like?
Danielle Cooley (00:59):
No, I am intentionally industry agnostic.
My favorite thing aboutconsulting is being able to pull
learnings from one industry andapply them to another. So I
recently had some some real funwith that taking a something
from financial services andapplying it to a healthcare
nonprofit. So that was a big funday for me.
Dan Berlin (01:20):
Nice, very cool. And can you tell us your UX origin
story? How did you discover userexperience?
Danielle Cooley (01:28):
I was an undergraduate student studying
biomedical and electricalengineering. And in the process,
I had to take this course inengineering reliability, which
is basically statistics. If yourcircuit has three diodes, and
you have a batch of 10,000diodes, and it has a failure
(01:49):
rate of point three percent,what are the odds that your
circuit's gonna fail? And howmany redundancies do you have to
put in and like, are you asleepyet, it was so boring. I'm so
glad other people pay attentionto that. But in the course of
that independent study aspect ofthe course, I realized it
doesn't matter if all yourdiodes work if the user doesn't
(02:10):
push the correct button, becausethey're confused. So the rest is
history. So I guess if you countfrom then I've been doing this
since I was 21, which isamazing.
Dan Berlin (02:21):
You mentioned 'if the user doesn't press the right
button.' Was there a moment thatmade you realize that, hey, the
user is so important here, whereyou made that switch from the
diodes to the user, as it were.
Danielle Cooley (02:36):
There was a specific interface in the tools
we used in that undergraduateprogram. Of course, this was
1990s, eight, seven. And so wehad to FTP our files up to
submit them, right. And withoutfail, you would fill out this
(02:57):
little FTP form and at thebottom right of the dialog box
was cancel. And so you'd fill itout, cancel, and you fill it out
again, cancel. And it was Imean, we knew this, but it was
just so natural to hit thatbutton on the bottom-right. And
of course, we're doing this at11:59 with a midnight deadline
(03:20):
on our assignments, right. Andso it was very frustrating. And
somewhere on a tiny disk,somewhere in the box, I have a
screenshot of that dialog box.
And I, I keep trying to figureout how I can find it and like
frame it, but one day, yeah.
Dan Berlin (03:36):
Yeah. So okay, so you discovered that desire to
move to the user side of things?
Can you tell us about yourjourney? So you discovered UX?
How did you wind up where youare today?
Danielle Cooley (03:48):
Sure. Well, I still claim biomedical
engineering is about bridgingthe gap between people and
technology, whether that is a anamputated limb to a prosthetic,
or a failing heart to apacemaker, or a piece of
software to your brain and itscognitive function. So I
(04:09):
maintain that I'm still on theright path. But my first job out
of undergrad was as a businessanalyst in a data warehousing
group at Federal Expresscorporate. And I just ended up
making it my own. We had tocreate this front end for
marketers to access theterabytes of shipping data that
(04:34):
FedEx has. But they weren't SQLprogrammers, which at the time,
that was how you got informationfrom a database. The graphical
interface over a database waspretty new. So we did that. And
I went to the corporate library,I found a book by Ben
Shneiderman. And I devoured itand they sent me and a developer
(05:00):
to a three, four day course. Andagain, I was just devouring it
and writing millions andmillions of notes. And the
developer was like, huh, like,okay, so I knew that was my
thing. And after I left there, Isaid my next job is going to be
(05:21):
a usability job, which was, ofcourse, the word we used then.
And did I got a job at a startupin the Boston area, moved up
there, ended up going to Bentleyfor my master's degree in Human
Factors and Information Designand worked up there for Fidelity
Investments for a while. And thedot com bust happened, I had
(05:43):
about a year to think about whatwas next and ended up at a
consulting company, and thenMasterCard, and then Enterprise
rent a car, and it's just been areally fun journey.
Dan Berlin (05:56):
Yeah. And how about that decision to become a
consultant, what helped sparkthat
Danielle Cooley (06:01):
To go out on my own as a consultant? I mean, I
had worked for a consulting firmand so I knew what that was
like. And for a while, I hadjust seen how much they were
charging the clients for me andhow much I was getting on the
other end of that. And, andgranted, there's a lot of
overhead in a consultingcompany, but I didn't need the
(06:24):
benefits. I didn't necessarilyneed all of those things, and
realized that, hey, the clientand I could split the
difference, and it's win win.
And so that was on my mind. Andthen, two hours after I got back
from maternity leave for myfirst son, they laid me off, and
I said, 'Oh, I guess I'm anindependent consultant now.'
Dan Berlin (06:46):
Wow. All right.
Sometimes it just happens likethat.
Danielle Cooley (06:49):
Often, you do need something to sort of push
you over, that you're on thefence, and you just need
something to nudge you. And it'sa big nudge. But it's worked
out.
Dan Berlin (06:59):
Cool. That's great to hear. Well, thanks for
sharing all of that your your UXjourney, let's move on to your
chapter (07:06):
'The Participant's Well-Being is Your
Responsibility.' Can you pleasetell us about that?
Danielle Cooley (07:11):
Sure. I had a number of experiences where
we've had to be really carefulabout how we approach the
participant in a user researchstudy. And often it was about a
sensitive topic, a horriblehealth diagnosis, horrible
(07:33):
experience with incarceration,just really sensitive things.
And it occurred to me that wetalk a lot about how to get good
data, we talk a lot about how tominimize bias. In our research,
we talk a lot about process andmethod, right. And we tend to
(07:53):
forget even though we're usercentered, right, we're thinking
more about that way end userwho's going to use the product
in six months. And just toremind ourselves to be aware
that the people you need tofocus on in that process, are
these participants, right, whocome in, and even in the best of
circumstances, you know, they'rea little nervous, they've never
(08:14):
been in that situation before,they are probably in a strange
place. Especially pre COVID.
Right. There was much more inlab testing going on. So that
was the inspiration for thechapter.
Dan Berlin (08:29):
Yeah, and I'm glad you did write that chapter, it's
something that has been on mymind for so long, right. And to
your point, we're alwaysthinking about the the ephemeral
user, the user that willeventually benefit from our
work. But we're also we'respending 12 hours with these
people, and we need to be verymindful about those 12 hours.
Danielle Cooley (08:49):
Very.
Dan Berlin (08:50):
Yeah, so tell us more about that. What are some
of the things that folks need tokeep in mind and do during that
hour with participants?
Danielle Cooley (08:57):
Sure. The chapter is broken down into
physical safety and emotional,mental safety. And of course,
physical safety... Both of thosecan be sort of surface level or
deeper level, right? So in termsof physical safety, maybe we
might think more about physicalcomfort, where you've got a
(09:17):
worthwhile chair, you've gotgood lighting, the room is at a
comfortable temperature, thosesorts of things. And then in
more extreme cases, for example,I talked about in the chapter, a
study I did in a car, and thecar was in a parking lot, so
there wasn't driving road safetyinvolved, but we were parked in
(09:42):
a closed car on hot days, wherewe all know car temperatures can
quickly jumped to 110-120degrees for no reason. We
couldn't run the air conditionerduring the sessions because it
would short out the prototype.
We couldn't leave the windowsopen because all of the ambient
noise would come in and wecouldn't hear what the
(10:03):
participant was saying, wecertainly couldn't capture it
well on the recording. So we dida lot of different things like
moving the car during the day soit would stay in the shade in
the parking lots. But the shortversion is sometimes the
participant's physical safety issomething you really need to
think about. Because if youdon't, you might actually harm
them. And certainly nobody wantsthat. On the emotional side as
(10:27):
well, you want people to feelcomfortable, you don't want them
to be nervous or scared, just ingeneral, right? We don't want to
be bad people like that. Butthen in those very, very serious
situations, when you're askingsomeone about their recent
breast cancer diagnosis, oryou're asking them about living
with blood clots, right, theseare really scary things. I had
(10:50):
done a study with patients withCOPD, I'm gonna blank on the
it's a pulmonary disease, right,chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease, excuse me. And one ofthem said, I just don't want to
think about this, I never wantto think about this, I have it.
I believe that person inparticular had smoked. And so he
felt responsible for his ownillness. And he just did not
(11:13):
want in general to talk aboutit. Of course, he had agreed to
participate in the study. But itwas a very emotionally fraught
situation. And the point of thearticle is, of course, that we
need to think about thesethings, because it's morally and
ethically right. But also, youget better data when people feel
(11:36):
like they can tell you thetruth. That they're in a safe
space, they're not worried abouthaving to use the bathroom, or
when can I get back to the airconditioning? You get better
data that way.
Dan Berlin (11:50):
Yep. How do we handle that? With the more...
especially on the more emotionalside of things. We want to get
good data for our clients andfor these interfaces and
experiences that we're creating.
And that only comes from gettingtruthful, real data. So how do
we get that out of participantswho may have great information,
(12:11):
but be emotional about it.
Danielle Cooley (12:16):
One thing we did, Dan, when we were doing a
study with cancer patients waswe needed patients who had been
recently diagnosed, but we werenot going to go as far as to
call people who had beendiagnosed that week, or even in
the last two or three weeks,it's still too raw. So we tried
(12:37):
to find a time period, wherethey wouldn't have forgotten how
they felt, but they were maybepast the initial trauma of that
diagnosis. And we ended up withpeople who had been diagnosed
about six months ago. So theyknew what was going on. And we
did get great data in thatstudy, and went on to launch a
(12:59):
really useful, usable productfor those patients.
Dan Berlin (13:03):
That's a very practical important tip. Thanks
for that. And another thing thatcomes to mind here is that even
though it's uncomfortable forthe participant, that doesn't
necessarily mean that they wantto stop the conversation. I've
had conversations withparticipants where it seemed
uncomfortable, and I'm like,'Hey, do you want to do wanna
take a break?' And like, 'No, Iwant to get this out. You know,
this is great.' So it's alsoimportant to keep that in mind
(13:26):
in terms of whether to stop ornot, or whether they want to
keep going.
Danielle Cooley (13:30):
Absolutely. And your chapter is a little bit
about wearing your therapisthat. Right? Where there's a lot
to that, right? But sometimesyou are just there to listen,
certainly you don't pretend tobe any sort of qualified medical
professional, but they justsometimes need to get it out
some of these, especially themedical diagnoses, right, or,
you know, drug incarceration orsomething like that is very
(13:53):
isolating. And it's notsomething that you can talk
about very frequently with toomany people. I've taken to
telling people in general, just,no one's going to be hanging on
your every word like I'm goingto be for the next hour. At any
point in your life, no one isgoing to be as interested in
what you have to say as I willbe for the next hour. So please
tell me everything.
Dan Berlin (14:14):
Yep. That's a nice little thing that people can add
to their their standard introsthat make people feel at ease
and comfortable to get it allout. So we talked about
emotional aspects back there,but what about physical, you
know, what are some of the otherthings that we need to be
keeping in mind as we have thesesessions? Probably more so for
the in person, I would think,but maybe remote as well?
Danielle Cooley (14:36):
Sure. I mean, there's not much you can do
about someone's physical comfortin a remote session. Certainly,
you can make sure they'recomfortable with the technology
you're using. Give them as muchwarning, offer to maybe call
them the day before and do apractice Zoom or something like
that. And that I think tends tohelp them feel better during the
(15:02):
session. In person, we just wantthe room to be as comfortable as
possible. We want thatautomotive study, for example,
like we moved the car, right sothat it would be in the shade,
we ran the air conditionerbetween sessions to cool down
the car as much as we could, andintentionally had to schedule
sessions with a substantial gap.
So we could do that. And thosetend to be the kinds of things
(15:28):
that we talked about always, youknow, let them take a break if
they need to, some of thesessions can be longer. I mean,
we're getting away from that inmost domains, but some of them
just you need a two plus hoursession to get through
something. So for breaks, makesure they've maybe had a chance
to use the restroom before thesession starts those sorts of
(15:51):
things.
Dan Berlin (15:53):
Yeah. Any other stories from your time of
running running sessions whereyou had something to deal with
whether it was emotional orphysical, and you needed to make
sure that the participant wasokay?
Danielle Cooley (16:06):
Yes. And this is not my story. Although I was
there, I was not moderating thesession. There was, in a
physical lab, a participant camein and had very overwhelming
body odor. And the moderatorreally was sort of, what do I do
with this? The moderatorcouldn't be in the room with the
(16:29):
person because the smell wasoverwhelming. And there was
another session scheduled almostimmediately afterward. And the
decision was made to cut thatsession short. And then they had
to figure out how to, which isnot that challenging, right? You
just say thanks, we've gotteneverything we need from you,
here's your incentive, have afabulous day. And so they did
(16:52):
that. But of course, they didn'tget data from that person. And
then they use that extra time tobring in a fan actually and air
out the room as much as possiblefor the next participant. So I
mean, yeah, you do this longenough and you see a lot of
things. That was, that wasdefinitely an interesting one.
Dan Berlin (17:10):
Yep. You bring up a great point, though, of
elegantly cutting short thesession when you need to. So
that's an extreme example thatyou have brought up, but we
often have to do that, whetherit is because the participant
isn't right for the session, orthey're obviously really
uncomfortable, and they're notthere. They're not talking
(17:30):
anymore. Various reasons.
There's a great skill to buildup, elegantly cutting it short.
Danielle Cooley (17:36):
Yes. I would imagine there are a lot of back
pocket phrases that people usefor that. But yeah, I tend to
just really lay it on thickabout how much we learned from
them, and how much we appreciatetheir time. And not just you're
done, right? But while we'vegotten so much information,
(17:56):
maybe even tell a little whitelie that we intentionally booked
too much time just in case andhere we go. But yeah, I've never
really had anyone question it.
They just say thank you and theyleave.
Dan Berlin (18:10):
You got through that much more quickly than a typical
session.
Danielle Cooley (18:14):
Yes
Dan Berlin (18:14):
And thanks for all that information. Anything else
from your chapter that you werehoping to convey here today?
Danielle Cooley (18:21):
I don't think so. I think just keeping those
participants in mind as much asthat end user is a really
important part of our work.
Dan Berlin (18:31):
Yep. Yep. Another story I wanted to convey here
today was walking someone downthe stairs for a fire drill, or
actually, not a drill, it wasthe fire alarm going off. One of
the most important things youneed to do is stay with the
participant, right? And makethem feel comfortable as you're
doing that and standing on thestreet with them and making
(18:51):
small talk. I think I've donethat like four times in my
career. Just bad timing, Iguess. But it's all about just
making that participant feelcomfortable, and then hopefully
picking up on it on the sessionwhen you get back. Great. Well,
thanks for all of that. In ourfinal segment, we'd like to get
career tips. So is there acareer tip that you can convey
(19:13):
to the UX folks out there?
Danielle Cooley (19:15):
I would say get out there and speak. Get out
there and present. It certainlyhas been one of the most, I
don't know, I don't want tooverstate it right, but
pleasant, positive, rewarding.
And not exactly lucrative,right, but professionally
profitable things I've everdone. And I was lucky enough to
(19:38):
get some mentors who helped mestart that early. There are
many, many conferences andevents with lower barriers to
entry, you know, submit aposter, do a 10 minute talk.
Some specifically have slots forfirst time speakers or students
and doing that improves yourconference attendance experience
(20:01):
so much. It helps you meet a lotof new people, it helps you
really get to learn yourmaterial really, really well.
Right? You know it well enoughto explain to other people then
you do a good job. And itcertainly helps with your
just... presence. I think beingmore comfortable speaking to
(20:21):
people. I'm very comfortablewith it. But I'll tell you, I
always want to get off thestage. I'm like, well, I'm a
little sweaty, like, maybe I wasmore nervous than I thought. But
it that certainly helps in myconsulting as well. And I can
think on my feet a lot betterthan some of my colleagues who
don't speak.
Dan Berlin (20:41):
Yep. Yep. And it builds confidence. Right? As you
said, you're, you're envelopingyourself in this topic. So
you're going to become extremelyknowledgeable about it and be
able to talk to anyone about it.
And that's huge for confidence.
Danielle Cooley (20:54):
Absolutely.
Dan Berlin (20:55):
Yeah. And to your sweating point, I always believe
if you're not sweating a littlebit, you're not doing it right,
because you're not paying enoughattention.
Danielle Cooley (21:00):
I'll remember that next time Dan.
Dan Berlin (21:03):
Well, great. It's been a wonderful conversation.
My guest today has been DanielleCooley, who wrote the chapter
Your Participant's Well-Being isYour Responsibility. Thanks for
joining me today here, Danielle.
Danielle Cooley (21:13):
Thanks again for having me, Dan.
Dan Berlin (21:15):
Thanks for listening everyone, today. Hope you
enjoyed this and have a greatrest of the day. You've been
listening to the 97 UX Thingspodcast, a companion to the book
97 Things Every UX PractitionerShould Know, published by
O'Reilly and available at yourlocal bookshop. All book
royalties go to UX nonprofits aswell any funds raised by this
(21:36):
podcast. The theme music isMoisturize the Situation by
Consider the Source, and I'myour host and book editor Dan
Berlin. Please remember to findthe needs in your community and
fill them with your best work.
Thanks for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.