? How to ask good questions when doing research for your business

This week we are talking about conducting research for your business and collecting relevant and insightful data about your market and clients. Our featured expert is Kelsie Gillig , co-founder of?Spark Research Collective?and a UX Researcher. Kelsie designs and conducts end-to-end UX research projects with her colleagues, but also manages all Spark business operations. Additionally, she is a full-time UX Researcher at a SaaS company, where her job is to always be championing user perspectives to creatives, marketers and executives found through her research.?

How to ask good questions when doing research for your business

Getting actionable insights to fuel your business strategy begins with asking the right questions to the right audience in your next survey, poll or interview.

In this article,?we will provide tips on how to craft good questions that you can use in your next research study to get the answers you need to determine your business’s next move.

We also equip you with guiding frameworks to build a successful interview interaction?through asking the right questions and knowing how to organize them in the most productive way.

Know the Difference: Research Objectives vs. Research Questions

Any research study consists of a web of interconnecting questions that operate on a number of different levels — directed to targeted audiences.

If you are conducting a research study — whether live or asynchronous, there are best practices you will want to follow in crafting their test plan and/or discussion guide to extract the most value from these conversations.

To write an effective discussion guide, the researcher needs a clear understanding of the goals of the research project.?Sometimes these objectives are written as research questions. At Spark, these objectives and questions are typically gathered through meetings between project stakeholders and the researcher(s). Some examples are:

• What use cases and pain points are [x professionals] trying to solve with your product/service?
• What pain points do users of your product/service have?
• Why is retention low for users of your product/service?

These research objectives and questions frame the overall domain of the research you are designing and the insights you hope to uncover.

But note, the questions above are?NOT?the questions a researcher will ask participants verbatim in an interview. Rather, they are?used as framing devices?to create participant-facing questions that get to the answers a researcher wants indirectly.

Pro-Tips for Crafting a Test Plan or Discussion Guide

When creating a discussion guide or test plan, follow?two?key principles.

1. A vital practice to crafting a good conversation is putting yourself in your participant’s shoes as you write each question.?Always ask yourself, could I answer this question in an interview if I were in my participant’s shoes?
2. Think of the conversation flow of an interview like an unfolding story?— and organize questions appropriately to allow for introductions and rapport building, getting to the meat-ier questions that will address your specific, narrow research questions, and provide room for future-thinking and reflective questions at the end of the conversation.

Writing these guides and crafting these questions helps you to imagine the human being on the other end of the screen (or table if in-person) you will be interviewing, prepare for the session, and be ready to improvise and perfect follow-up questions that will inevitably arise in the interview.

How many questions should you?ask?

It is often easy to focus on content over conversational flow when crafting a discussion guide.

While it might be tempting to pack in as many questions as you craft your discussion guide or test plan,?do not underestimate the importance of saving time in a session to establish rapport, create transitions in the conversation, and come to closure.

Creating a comfortable interview experience for a participant is?always?the best way to elicit the most valuable insights and really reach them and the details of their experiences.

So while the number of questions you ask will vary from study to study,?always ask fewer questions than you think you have time for. Buffer about?10 minutes?of the conversation to be used to create flow and ask follow up questions.?

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More about Kelsie

Prior to Spark and her industry career in UX, she was a graduate researcher with expertise in linguistics and anthropology, studying how language impacts political identity in Spanish Basque communities across multiple generations. When Kelsie’s not working, you’ll find her rock climbing with friends on the Barton Creek Greenbelt or playing fetch with her labrador retriever, Nora.?

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The Spark Team

Meet Kelsie, Megan and Kelton of?Spark Research Collective, a collaborative team of anthropologically trained research professionals that design and conduct research projects to identify and synthesize insights for our business clients and their teams that inform their goals and help them build effective strategies for success and growth.

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