From Data to Insight: The Role of Emotional Intelligence in UX

From Data to Insight: The Role of Emotional Intelligence in UX

In the realm of User Experience (UX) research, the journey from raw data to actionable insights is pivotal. While traditional methodologies emphasize data collection and analysis, integrating emotional intelligence (EI) into this process can significantly enhance the depth and relevance of findings. Emotional intelligence—the ability to recognize, understand, and manage our own emotions and those of others—plays a crucial role in interpreting user behaviors and needs.

 Understanding Emotional Intelligence in UX Research

 Emotional intelligence encompasses several key components:

  • Self-awareness: Recognizing one’s own emotions and their impact on thoughts and behavior.

  • Self-regulation: Managing one’s emotions in healthy ways to adapt to changing circumstances.

  • Empathy: Understanding the emotions of others and responding appropriately.

  • Social skills: Managing relationships to move people in desired directions.

In UX research, these components facilitate a deeper connection with users, enabling researchers to uncover underlying motivations and pain points that may not be immediately apparent through quantitative data alone.

Questions are Fateful - How asking the right kinds of questions leads to better experiences

Questions are Fateful - How asking the right kinds of questions leads to better experiences

We as UX Researchers spend a lot of time looking for problems. Finding and analyzing the causes of problems is something we’re really good at. It keeps designers and product managers coming to us with their hypotheses of why something’s not working, and asking for our help to find out more.

There’s undoubtedly value to the answers and insights we provide in these interactions but we need to take a step back and ask ourselves about the impacts of reflexively spending so much of our energy looking for problems. How does this orientation influence the kinds of data we’re collecting? How does this inform our interactions with participants?

What is instead possible if we look for what is already working well, or has worked well in the past - with what Appreciative Inquiry calls the “positive core?”

Method Spotlight: RITE Testing

Method Spotlight: RITE Testing

RITE testing (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation) is one of our preferred methods and allows us to quickly answer:

  • what is working?

  • what is not working?

With this method, we work with a small subset of participants using an initial design to help us understand quickly what works and what doesn’t. The design is then updated based on this feedback and is put it to the test again the next day - or even in the next session while we continue the cycle of testing and improvement to arrive at a better, more user-friendly design.

Because things move so fast, however, we present some important cautions and considerations when deciding if a project is appropriate for the RITE method.

Reframing UX design "problems" to break free of deficit-based thinking

Reframing UX design "problems" to break free of deficit-based thinking

UX Researchers at Progress often leverage Positive Framing - a method of intentionally shaping a conversation to focus on a desirable outcome and energize ourselves and others towards positive results.

Positive Framing has three steps:

  1. Name it - What is the problem? (the issue, or the thing you don’t want)

  2. Flip it - What is the positive opposite? (the thing which you do want)

  3. Frame it - What is the desired outcome if this positive thing is true?

Of course, we all want to fix problems, but it’s far too easy to get stuck in a negative-focused loop that starts with looking for all problems, trying to fix them, and then looking for more problems.

This keeps us perpetually only looking for what’s wrong and there’s lots of research that suggests that truly innovative design usually happens within a field of positive, generative conversation and ideation.

Read more for specific examples of how we use this technique in our research practice.

Attunement and Presence: A discussion at Seton Cove

This Tuesday, February 9, 12:00-1:00 CST, Progress principals Jon-Eric and Jessica will be speaking at Seton Cove's "Restoring Balance" luncheon series. Please join us for a casual, fun conversation about empathy and connection where we'll discuss some of the emerging science around what happens in our brains, hearts, and bodies as we connect and listen to each other. We'll also have some embodied experiences so that we can go into the rest of the day feeling energized, listened to, and connected.

Register here

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Why remote research often means better research

We’ve typically combined remote and in-person research methods, but things have changed and, to limit the ongoing spread of COVID-19, Progress has transitioned all of our research consulting services to take place remotely.

We have innovated and refined our remote research methods and capabilities for several years prior to the current need to do so, often finding that remote methods add speed and flexibility to our research projects.

We find that conducting research in a remote environment offers repeatable benefits:

  1. Participants often feel more comfortable as they’re speaking to us from their own environment.

  2. We often learn a great deal about the participants’ environment during the course of the sessions, as opposed to speaking with them in a lab environment where all of the surroundings are the same. This is often referred to as an “ethnographic bonus” of remote testing.

  3. As there is no need to travel, we can speak with people all over the world, often within one or two days. Similarly, the client teams are able to seamlessly observe sessions from their own locations.

  4. Study moderators are able to communicate with the client teams during the sessions more easily, via Slack or similar, so that key questions can be answered in real-time, during the conversations.

Connect with us and let’s talk more about how your research can keep going strong remotely!

UX for the People Meetup!

We as UX professionals have a problem. We have lots of problems in fact. We're accustomed to reflexively looking for what problems exist as a path to improvement and that in itself, is a problem. By focusing so much on what's not working and then designing from there, is it possible that we're only finding and solving problems?

What's possible if we dream and design from a place of what is alive and working for people?

We're excited to share with you our experiences incorporating techniques from Appreciative Inquiry into our research projects. Appreciative Inquiry is an evidence-based innovation system that assumes and maintains a positive bias from the beginning and looks for what strengths exist as a foundation for design. It's not just more enjoyable to do so; there's lots of neuroscience behind the benefits of creating from a positive orientation. We've found from experience that shifting the conversations in this intentionally positive direction has dramatic, far-reaching effects on the resulting interactions and solutions.

Join us for an enlivening happy hour where we'll introduce the method and provide some experiences to try it out for yourself!

https://www.meetup.com/UX-for-the-People/events/265214246/

What Limbic Resonance Can Provide in UX Research

Limbic resonance is a theory that our brain chemistry and nervous systems are affected by other people (and other mammals, like our dogs, because they also have limbic systems). In A General Theory of Love, three psychiatrists explain the many implications of this theory.

One implication that we have seen in our own work is that we can affect our participants in a way that allows them to be more present and actually combats the observer effect.

Progress User Experience Research LLC, Austin | Seattlebusiness@experienceprogress.com

© 2024 Progress LLC

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