Stay focused. If you have something to discuss with your fellow observers, just jot it down so you don't forget. We can save jokes, discussions and distractions for later. Our main goal during the interview is to watch how the user performs tasks.
Be careful not to distract or bias participants. Your reactions, fidgeting, sighing, posture, facial expressions, noise from phones or clothing, and so on, can easily change the participant’s behavior and comfort level.
Don’t engage participants in conversation, offer advice, correct them, or answer their questions, because introducing new information or giving unintentional clues can bias the research results and even invalidate that session’s data.
Let the interviewer know that If you want to ask the participant a question. Just write your question in chat that UX researcher created in advance or raise a hand (literally or via reactions in the conference tool we are using). Interviewer will ask your question or give you the word when the right moment comes.
Make as many notes as possible. The goal is to record the participant's speech and behavior that's relevant to our research goals and questions. But don't stop there - make notes about anything that seems significant, interesting, or important. Every little detail might be valuable later, during analysis.
Even when you see others taking notes, write your own observations too. This will help us gain a diverse perspective on what happened during the session, which will greatly improve the research quality. Plus, others might miss something you noticed.
To structure your notes use Observer map: the template that follows the structure of the interview and lets you quickly arrange your notes in accordance with research questions. This will streamline the note-taking process and make it easier to quickly analyze and understand your notes. Example:
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