• How do you build a question – that can help you to determine a problem to try solving?

  • Think about what you really want to know. You want to know specific stuff, right?

    • For example, you might not need to know whether or not a person likes the bus system – you want to know specific things they like, or dislike, or find funny, or want more of, or want less of… “I love the bus system!” or “I don’t really like the bus system…” isn’t that useful without why.

  • Try to make the question as easy to answer as possible. In general, people – especially people you’re surveying or asking questions off the street – don’t want to “think too much” about answering, so ideally, you come up with a question or two that is really easy and quick to answer.

    • For example, if your challenger were about restaurants, What was the most frustrating thing about the restaurant you ate lunch at today? could be a good question (but it’s FAR from the only good question). It prompts people for a specific thing, but allows them some freedom to answer whatever that you can draw specific stuff out of.

    • ALSO! Imagine, someone might say “I didn’t eat lunch at any restaurant today!” If only one person you talk to out of many says that, OK, maybe they’re an outlier. If a bunch of people say that… What if they say “What, I haven’t had lunch yet, too early” – you can learn something from that too! It may not be what you intended to learn, and it may or may not be useful to your product development process – but that’s what user research is all about.

  • A good recipe: one piece of context + one piece of specificity + one piece of broad question

    • Context: Include a quick question that helps you learn about who a person is, or why they are here / using the thing you care about / etc. (YOU might want to know - why are they in NYC, are they often here, why are they in Times Square, how they arrived here today…) You could consider something like “How did you get here today? Train, bus, walking?”

    • Specificity: You want to give the person answering something to latch on to. It’s easier to answer what you like/dislike/hate/want to change about fast food restaurants than it is to ask about restaurants – because with just restaurants, the person answering has to either be broad in their answer or select their own answer boundaries. Too broad, and they may feel that they need to ask more questions in order to give you an answer. You want them to feel like they have all the information they need to answer your question.

    • Broadness: You also want the person answering to feel like they have freedom to answer so they’re not trying to think of a very specific word, idea, concept, etc. What is your favorite thing about the menu at the last fast food restaurant you ate at? could be a great question in some situations, but if you’re truly approaching people in a public area (e.g. not people who definitely eat at fast food restaurants) they might feel a little stuck – imagine, “Well… I wasn’t really thinking about the menu?” or “Umm, I didn’t eat at any fast food restaurants recently.”

      • On the other hand, “Did you eat at fast food restaurant today? Why or why not?” would give you a little bit more information about how people are thinking about choosing restaurants, and What is your favorite thing about the last restaurant you ate at? gives them a little bit of freedom, but is also specific – they should think about ONE restaurant and pick a favorite thing about it. (There are still problems, of course, but it’s hard to make your questions perfect. For a first round of user research, this is fine.)