Tuning your Active Listening and User Dialog Skills

1. Active Listening
&
Effective User
Dialogue
Michelle Erickson - merickson@mathworks.com
Joan Wortman – jwortman@mathworks.com

2. Agenda
• Introduction
• Active Listening
• Usefulness and importance
• Skills
• Group Activity
• Effective Dialogue
• How to question for better information
• Tips for challenging situations
• Group Activity
• Summary

3. Housekeeping
• Introductions:
• Who you are
• What do you hope to get from the workshop?
• Lots to cover, but ask questions as we go along!
• Participatory workshop
• 3 breaks

4. Listening and talking
• Two parts to every interaction:
• Active Listening - unbiased and focused listening
• Effective User Dialogue - unbiased and targeted questioning
• Both are critical to effective and meaningful
exchanges.

5. Part 1: Active Listening
Being present and undistracted, communicating
that you are listening, and confirming your
understanding throughout a conversation.

6. “Most people do not listen with the intent to
understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”
- Stephen R. Covey

7. Active listening & UX?
• With users:
• Promotes genuine engagement
• Builds trust and respect
• Helps clarify thinking and ideas
• Uncovers “hidden” information
• Aids understanding of context
• With colleagues and clients:
• Enhances collaboration and invigorates team work
• Improves conflict resolution
• Aids project management

8. Why is active listening so difficult?
• We listen and process words at a much higher rate per
minute than the average speaker can speak
• This extra capacity allows room for our minds to wander.

9. Why is active listening so difficult?
Bury the
bone…
Fire
hydrant…
Play
fetch…
Listen to
Russ...
Active listeners learn to focus all of their brainpower on the speaker.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPDQgaDiDJE

10. Has this ever happened to you?

11. Think of a recent conversation…
…in which you felt that the listener was not
engaged.
What made you feel that way?

12. Behaviours to avoid
• Interrupting
• Assuming you know what the person will say
• Finishing the other person’s sentence
• Changing the subject or moving in a new direction
• Getting distracted
• Discounting the speaker’s feelings
• Rehearsing your response in your head
• Interrogating
• Giving unsolicited advice

13. Who benefits from active listening?
• Researchers
• Designers
• Information Architects
• UX Recruiters
• Managers
• Mentors
You’ll wish everyone had these skills!

14. Four levels of listening
• Distracted
• Defensive
• Attentive
• Active
Harvard Business Review: Listening Past Your Blind Spots

15. What makes listening active?
• Present and tuned in.
• Let the speaker know you are listening.
• Confirm your understanding along the way.
• Engage in the interaction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg8PIK74KO4

16. The Skills

17. Get present
The human mind is easily distracted. Focus and prepare to listen.
• Remove Distractions
• Clear your desk
• Turn away from your screen
• Get in the mindset
• Pay attention to the speaker’s body language
• Be aware of your own biases

18. Show
Let the speaker know you’re listening
• Non-verbal Indicators
• Open body language
• Posture
• Eye contact
• Verbal indicators
• “uh hmm”
• “I see”

19. Exercise
• Stand up
• Find a partner
• Take turns telling each other about how you got here
today. (2 min)
• Practice:
• Showing that you are listening
• Body language - your best and worst

20. Remember…
“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand;
they listen with the intent to reply.”
- Stephen R. Covey

21. Confirm understanding
Techniques
• Reflection
• Clarification
• Questioning

22. Reflection
The only person who can tell you if you understood is the speaker
• Restating
• Repeat key words or last words
• Keep it short and simple
• Paraphrasing
• Repeat using different words
• Careful not to loose important terminology

23. Clarification
Ensure your understanding
• Clear up confusion
• “I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying”
• Check perception and interpretations
• “When you said… what did you mean?”

24. Questioning
Get more information and encourage more thought
• Closed Questions
• “Have you used this feature yet?”
• “So you prefer the blue one or the red one?”
• “To conclude, we’re in agreement that this widget is best?”
• Open Questions
• “What kinds of things do you do with this feature?”
• “What do you think about the colour?”

25. Questioning
Get more information and encourage more thought.
• Probing questions
• “Why did you choose that one?”
• “Can you give me an example?”
• Dangling questions
• “When you pushed that button you expected….”

26. Engage
Techniques
• Show empathy
• Provide feedback
• Offer encouragement

27. Empathy
Validate and show respect for feelings, motives, or situation
• Tune in to speaker’s body language, facial expressions,
and mood
• Hear, recognize, and acknowledge
• “I know how you feel…”
• “You said you’re frustrated and I can understand why.”

28. Giving feedback
Sharing information, rather than praise or advice
• Share perceptions of speaker’s ideas and feelings
• Share your own perspective (only if relevant)
• “Something similar happened to me and I decided to…”
• “From my point of view it looks like…”

29. Offer encouragement or assistance
• Don’t give unsolicited advice, opinions or solutions
• “Would you like some help with this?”
• Sometimes people just want to vent
• Tying up a conversation
• “Would you like to talk more about this sometime?”

30. The day after…

32. Self assessment
Fill out the worksheet on your active listening
challenges.
• Take 2 – 3 minutes
• No need to share these with anyone

33. Practice session
• Get into group of 3.
• Each choose a scenario to talk about for the speaker
role:
• Your experience traveling to conference
• Registering for conference UXPA website
• Finding a restaurant for dinner last night
• Recent event in your life

34. Roles:
• Listener: Use the active listening skills
• Speaker: Share a story
• It is best if it is real, but can be hypothetical
• Not a monologue, allow pauses
• Observer: Observe the listener’s skills
• Note the active listening behaviours
• Note any distracting behaviours

35. Practice active listening
• Assign roles: Speaker, Listener, and Observer
• Talk and listen (5 minutes)
• Debrief: (5 minutes)
• Observers: What did you notice?
• Listeners: Did your self-identified challenges show up?
• Speakers: How did you feel?
• Repeat until everyone has played each role.

36. Scenarios
• Your experience traveling to conference
• Registering for conference UXPA website
• Finding a restaurant for dinner last night
• Recent event in your life

37. Debrief
• What did you learn?
• Did anything surprise you?
• Were any of the skills more or less comfortable to you?

38. Active listening summary
• Be present and tuned in.
• Let the speaker know you are listening.
• Confirm your understanding along the way.
• Engage in the interaction.

39. To Recap…
Active Listening
 Usefulness and importance
 Skills
 Group Activity
• Effective Dialogue
• How to question for better information
• Tips for challenging situations
• Group Activity
• Summary

41. Optional videos during break
Ray learns Active Listening
Ray uses Active Listening
Conflict resolution
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA-RaDNVKpw
It's not about the nail

42. Part 2: Effective User Dialogue
Important skills when interacting with users because
users are the experts at their work. We need ways to
engage them and get the information we need to
improve their experiences

43. “People don't want to buy a 1/4"
drill. They want a 1/4" hole.”-
Theodore Levitt
“If I’d asked customers what they
wanted, they would have said a
faster horse.” – Henry Ford

44. Why is Effective Dialogue so important?
Users know what they WANT, but not always what they
NEED
• Important skill to get below the surface level
• But also for working with your development teams, managing
projects and clients, and in general in all of your professional
communications

45. Getting to what users NEED
• Users have a goal – they NEED to solve a problem
• We often don’t know what that problem is
• We have to probe
• Software gets in the way
• It becomes the focus, but it should be supporting actor
• It imposes constraints

46. Effective User Dialogue and UX?
• Helps to understand the problem
• Map out workflows and tasks
• Identify challenges and constraints
• Derive user requirements
• Base our designs on those requirements
• We check in and gather feedback on those designs

47. When do we talk to users?
• Usability studies
• Site visits and contextual inquiry
• Industry conferences
• Interviews
• Out and about…

48. It’s easy right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NGggshaTwE

49. What makes Dialogue Effective?
• Establishing rapport with general questions
• Showing you’re listening and engaged in the exchange
• Getting down to details with specific questions
• Asking unbiased questions
• Checking understanding
• Probing for more

50. Asking questions:
The apprentice mindset
Think of yourself as an apprentice and the
user as the expert who can teach you
everything you need to know

51. The apprentice mindset
Ask questions like:
• “Tell me what you do and how you do it.”
• “Show me everything you do to accomplish …”
• “Tell me why….”
Benefits:
• Useful because it avoids assumptions
• You may learn things you didn’t know to ask about

52. Uncovering rich information
Ask broad and open-ended questions
• “Hmm…that’s interesting; tell me more?”
• “Tell me about what you’re working on right now.”
• “I’m not sure I’m following you, could you explain?”
• “How exactly did you do that?”
• “Why?”

53. Getting to real details - BEST
The present
• Ask about something they are working on right now
• Watch them work

54. Getting to real details - GOOD
Resent past, specific events
• Ask about “the last time” or “the most memorable time.”
• Ask “Have you…?”, not “Would you…?”
• “Can you show me some recent examples from your
work?”

55. Getting to real details - AVOID
Speculation
• The future
• Generalities
• What ifs

56. Uncovering still more…
The 10 second rule
• “Is there anything else you want to talk about?...”

57. Biased questions
http://vimeo.com/38348326

58. Biased questions
• What’s wrong with asking biased questions?
• In general, people seek to please others.
• Power of suggestion. Customers will give answers they think
we want to hear.
• It’s not as obvious as you might think
• Don’t you love it?
• What do you like about this?
• Do you like this?
• What do you think of it?

59. Practice unbiased questions
Which of these are biased questions?
1. Should the widget be a drop-down?
2. Do you like the drop-down widget?
3. Do you like the widget, or don’t you like the
widget?

60. Practice– unbiased questions
Situation:
You are designing a new mobile app to help conference
attendees manage their time at a UX conference. You
will be questioning conference attendees to learn about
their current problems, requirements, and the features
you’ll need to design.
• What are some unbiased questions to gather
requirements?

62. Challenging situations
When you: What to do and ask:
Talk too much  Use the 3 second rule
 Ask the user questions about their work
 Employ Active Listening skills
Don’t know what to say  Begin with small talk
 Have 3-4 unbiased questions ready

63. Challenging situations
When you: What to do and ask:
Jump to solution space Shift focus to the user’s goals and problems:
 “What were you trying to accomplish by using
this feature?”
 “What challenges have you encountered?”
 Adopt the Apprentice Mindset
 Ask for an explanation in layman’s terms
 Ask “why?”
Don’t understand what
the user is talking about

64. Challenging situations
http://vimeo.com/38415739

65. Challenging situations
When the user: What to do and ask:
Moves into
solution space
Understand their problem:
 “Why are you suggesting this particular solution?”
 “What is the problem you’re having?”
 “How would this solution help?”
Goes off topic  Hear them out; let them talk about what’s
currently on their mind (as time permits).
 Determine if/how it’s related to the topic you
need to cover.
 Bring them back on topic:
o “Thanks for telling me about … Now, I really
want to understand this other aspect of your
work.”

66. Challenging situations
When the user: What to do and ask:
Misunderstands a
product feature
 Correct any important or dangerous misconceptions.
 Understand how they’re using it and why
o “That’s an interesting (not wrong) way to use …”
o “Is this how you typically use this feature?”
o “What are you trying to do?”
Is disgruntled  Empathize and acknowledge their frustration or
anger
 Understand what they’re trying to do and why
 Let them know you’ll investigate the issue, pass
it on, or come back to it.

67. Your challenging situations
What challenges have you encountered while talking to users?
How did you handle them?

68. Self assessment
Fill out the worksheet on your conversational
challenges.

69. Question practice session
Scenario:
You have an idea for a new app to help conference
attendees find nearby pubs. You decide to talk to fellow
conference attendees to understand what choices and
features the app should have.

70. Prepare questions
• Write down five questions to ask.
• Find a partner and review each other’s questions.
• Revise question as as needed.

71. Practice session
• Break into groups of 3.
• Assign roles: Questioner, User, and Observer.
• Ask questions while Observer takes notes (5 minutes).
• Discuss the findings of the Observer (5 minutes).
• Repeat until everyone has played each role.

72. Group debrief
• What were some challenges you faced in the practice
sessions?
• Did you learn anything about your own style and
challenges?

73. Recap…
Active Listening
 Usefulness and importance
 Skills
 Group Activity
Effective Dialogue
 How to question for better information
 Tips for challenging situations
 Group Activity
• Summary Discussion

74. Summary
• Active Listening
• Present and tuned in
• Show you are listening
• Confirm understanding
• Engage
• Effective User Dialog
• Ask unbiased questions
• Uncover rich information
• Overcoming challenges

76. References
• 7 tips for effective listeners
• Harvard Business Review: Listening Past Your Blind Spots
• Listening Skills
• Reflecting
• Asking effective questions
• Empathy
• Giving Feedback
• Additional Videos
• Ray learns Active Listening
• Ray uses Active Listening
• Conflict resolution
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA-RaDNVKpw
• It's not about the nail

77. Acknowledgements
Michelle Erickson
Donna Cooper
Reeve Goodenough
Jeff Goodwin
Ryan Kiel
Ramya Adusumilli