EuroIA 2019: Improvisation in User Research
Presenting at EuroIA 2019 in Riga, Latvia (photo courtesy of EuroIA)
Latvia! Who knew that an IA career would take you to Latvia? Not I, my friends, not I. Lo and behold, I spoke at EuroIA 2019 in Riga, Latvia, about my favorite subject: improvisation in user research. I got to hang out with some delightful peers, fall in love with pelmeni, and see some pretty incredible architecture.
Slides via Slideshare
Practice Guide & Exercises [PDF]
Transcript:
I. THE EXPO
As information architects, user researchers, and experience designers, our work lives in the realm of ambiguity. Our job, after all, is to make the unclear be clear (in Abby Covert’s words). Much of our practice involves investigating and teasing out and describing things that are beneath the surface, or hazy, or constantly in flux.
When I teach information architecture to beginning students, we spend most of our time learning to be comfortable with uncertainty. This is the hardest part of the course for my students, and rightfully so. Humans are quite uncomfortable with ambiguity. Our brains will actually overrule our senses in order to banish ambiguity.
A few weeks ago, my friend Max came over to hang a piece of his art in our living room. When I asked him what it was, he said it was a shape. Ok. It was a shape. True.
As soon as he hung it, and I sat down on the couch to look at it….and suddenly, this ‘shape’ had become mountains. In Seattle, we’re surrounded by mountains, although I can’t see any of them from my living room. As soon as it had a chance, my brain overrode my senses to make sense of this ambiguous thing.
Today I really want to talk about that ambiguity as it plays out in how we conduct user research.
Facilitating user research may be one of the most uncertain facets of our work in this field. Specifically, facilitating generative user research. Where the entire point is to throw questions out to the world...and not know for sure what’s going to come back. And to do it in a deep and meaningful way, so that we may develop empathy for the humans we’re interviewing.
Developing empathy is about understanding another human, goes beyond assessing how well something works
Indi Young teaches that our goal is to be a true listener, to get in a state of “flow” (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi):
Different brain state; calm
Actively following partner’s words & thoughts with no stray thoughts of your own
Getting a better grip on what the speaker is communicating
This is hard to do. We need to do all of these things, at a specific place and time in an interview with a stranger, in ambiguous situations that make our brains want to override our sensory perceptions.
As researchers, we’re supposed to feel comfortable with this because it’s our job. As humans, we are primed to feel uncomfortable with it. Ambiguity is tough, even if it’s a professional requirement.
This uncertainty can be scary because maybe we feel like our jobs are on the line if we “mess it all up”. If we do the wrong thing. Gather the “wrong” data. Ask the wrong questions, which will give us the wrong answers. And we will make the wrong design decisions. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
What if we weren’t afraid of that uncertainty?
What if we were really good at getting it “wrong”?
What if ambiguity was not the spotlight glaring upon us, ready to highlight all of our flaws, but rather, the stage, holding us up and supporting us as we create?
II. WHAT IS IMPROVISATION?
You know who is really good with ambiguity? Jazz musicians. Jazz improvisers, specifically.
Jazz musicians LOVE ambiguity. Ambiguity is what gives us the freedom to speak our truths, to listen intentionally, and to create music together.
We are all improvisers. Every conversation is a form of jazz.
Let’s look at what the process of improvisation actually is.
Improvisation is often mis-understood as a totally “free” thing, made up on the fly. This actually isn’t true - improvisation is an iterative series of reactions to some input.
Improvisation is also an embodiment of intelleto, “a deep seeing of underlying patterns. Much like Michelangelo revealed the statues that were buried in stone, improvisation is a form, unfolding in real time.” **
[Activity: rain makers group improvisation]
I want to read a passage from Steven Nachmanovich’s book, Free Play:
“When we improvise, patterns unfold, revealing inner structure and rhythm...
...which sets the stage for fateful encounters. Improvising together creates music that comes from a third place that isn’t what either of us would do individually.
The first moves create a space for questions, and that process repeats. Themes unfold, like a detective following a lead. The key to improvising is to make each moment so tantalizing that it inexorably leads us on to the next.”
Doesn’t this sound a bit like a great conversation? Like the best research interview you’ve ever conducted?
When we interview users, we are not merely Interviewing. We are actually improvising within a framework, in order to achieve a deep, rich understanding of another human being in a shared moment in time.
I think we can learn exactly how to master that art...by practicing the way jazz improvisers practice.
III. PRACTICE
Mastery of a technique comes from practice, and practice is rooted in joy and exploration.
The goal of practicing is to free our brain and spirit up to do other things. Practicing helps us get to a point where we are freed from thinking, and able to be present in the moment of creation. To get to a place where you can get creative...break the rules...and embrace the playful spirit behind creation.
As trumpeter Clark Terry says…”Imitate. Assimilate. Innovate.”
When we practice improvising, we break things down into bite-sized chunks - we isolate techniques and practice them one at a time. We create a plan for how we’re going to practice, and then we put that plan into action.
Before we dive in - I’ve documented all of this stuff in handouts for you that are available here. I want you to be free to concentrate on what we’re talking about today, rather than worrying about all the details of a particular exercise or how you’re going to start practicing all of this stuff when you go home.
These handouts break down:
How to practice
How to make a practice plan for yourself
Detailed exercises from today
We’re going to break these improvisation techniques down into 3 categories:
When to play
What to play
How to play
When to Play
We’ll begin with WHEN to play, because this is the most important lesson.
Music is a sound + silence relationship. The space between notes and ideas is what allows for interaction between parties. Without this space, nothing can be created. We call this the “Play/Rest Approach”.
We often find ourselves in the mode of “fear-based listening”; where we are always thinking about our response, instead of truly listening to the other speaker.
Instead...let’s practice being quiet. Let’s become “egoless listeners”. If this sounds a lot like the concept of mindfulness, it’s because that’s exactly what it is. Thich Nhat Hanh recommends an exercise in which we “resist answering a ringing phone as a form of mindfulness”.
[Activity: Silence defeats awkwardness...eventually. We’re going to be quiet for a little bit, together. 30 seconds of silence.]
Here are some specific ways to practice the Play/Rest approach:
Resistance exercise: in a conversation, when you first feel the urge to speak, don’t do it. When you feel the 2nd urge to speak, do not do it. When you feel the 3rd urge to speak, go ahead and do it. Whether you believe it or not, silence defeats awkwardness.
Use non-verbal feedback: Demonstrate your understanding through non-verbal cues, rather than verbal cues. This will help you get in the habit of being quiet instead of saying things out loud.
Use punctuation in your questions: when you ask a question, make sure it has a clear end. When you have reached the end, close your mouth. Breath through your nose. Make eye contact with the person you have asked the question of. Do not continue speaking.
Identify spoken paragraphs: most people speak in paragraphs. Practice hearing the paragraphs, instead of the sentences. When someone is done answering a question or speaking to you, can you summarize the paragraph? If not, you were not truly listening.
What to Play
Developing melodic foundations & honing your licks
Melody
The melody is the song itself - like, somewhere there’s music, how faint the tune, somewhere there’s heaven, how high the moon...I'll buy you a diamond ring, my friend, If it makes you feel all right...
these are all melodies - the basic notes that comprise the song. The melody functions as a musical compass, guiding the improviser through the song.
We memorize the melody so that it’s completely internalized, so that we have that compass handy and can always come back to it.
In research, I think of melody as the participant. We can practice focusing on the participant, rather than what we need out of the participant.
How we practice:
Hear the Topic: What topic is the speaker currently on? Can you name it? Name it. Get in the habit of being able to name it at the drop of a hat.
Ask about the topic: Focus your questions on that single topic. Stick to the melody at first. Don’t bounce around. Identify the topic the speaker is giving you and keep delving into that. Don’t change the melody.
Let the speaker steer: Fill your head with what the speaker is saying. This overlaps with being an ‘egoless listener’ quite a bit. Practice coming back to what your partner said as a way to stimulate further exploration. For example, “Earlier you mentioned that you had experienced this type of project churn before and didn’t want to repeat that. Tell me about that.” (Later we’ll talk about how to get back on track if they take you very far away from your goals!)
Keep your questions simple: Just as melodies are typically simple series of notes, so should your questions. Practice asking single questions, with a single point of focus.
Guide Tones
Guide tones are the primary notes in a chord progression that highlight the chords being played.
In a musical composition, a chord progression is a succession of chords. Chord progressions are the foundation of harmony in Western musical tradition. In laymen’s terms: it’s the chords that the pianist and the guitarist are playing underneath the melody, to set it in context and give it flow.
Our goal as improvisers is to hit the guide tones because they contextualize whatever we’re playing within the scope of the song we’re in - they anchor whatever we’re playing so that it “fits”. In order to hit them, we have to know them! So, we memorize chord changes and we try to hit the chord tones while we’re moving through the song form.
In research, chord changes are the research objectives (what are you hoping to learn through this interview?).
How we practice this:
Memorize the structure of the guide: This one is pretty simple - memorize your research objectives.
Label your objectives: boil your research objectives down to single words. Put those words on post-its in your office wall if you need to. Write them down on a single sheet of paper to keep handy until you’re ready to fly without it.
Manage the flow: Write your discussion guide to support a narrative of research objectives that are memorable. Chord changes provide the flow of a song, so your research objectives should do the same.
Signal your lane changes: Sometimes our research objectives may be far apart from each other. When you need to switch gears in order to move to a different objective, practice using prompts that help you signal your shift, such as “We’re going to shift gears here for a bit…” or “Thank you, now I’d like to move to a different topic for a bit…”
Embellishments
‘Embellishing’ is adding to or deleting from the basic melody. (Which you can only do successfully if you’ve already memorized the melody…)
Embellished melodies are an effective way to start your improvisation - trumpeter Louis Armstrong was known for starting nearly all of his solos this way. When we use the melody as the basis for a solo, we call this “quoting”. Improvisers will quote a small bit of the melody, then embellish it, then come back and quote some more of the melody, and then embellish it again.
In research, we can think of embellishments as adding to, or subtracting from, what the speaker says, as a way to generate deeper reflection & conversation.
How to practice it:
Quote the melody: Practice asking about a topic mentioned earlier. First you have to notice the topic (an earlier exercise), then you have to bring it back up again to ask about it. Ask for more detail on something the speaker mentioned. (Conversely, this will help you learn when to accept when a line of conversation is over because you’ll develop a feel for doing this kind of inquiry and you’ll start to feel when it’s not going anywhere.)
Use the speaker’s language: Reflect the speaker’s language back at them. Practice phrasing a question only in words that the speaker has already used.
Explore allusions: An allusion is an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference. Practice noticing when they happen. Then practice asking for clarification on them.
Delete from the melody: Practice asking open-ended questions with a broad topic. These are generally going to be short, and have a clear question mark at the end (building upon an earlier exercise). Spend an entire conversation practicing using only open-ended questions or statements. Get comfortable asking questions like, “Can you tell me about yourself?” or saying “Tell me more.”
Scale Patterns
Every jazz musician develops their “licks”, or formulas and patterns for playing across chords. This is one thing that makes jazz solos recognizable to those who study closely - you can often identify a jazz player by their licks alone.
Scale patterns are groups of several notes played in a certain order, a pattern that works in all chords & keys. You practice the pattern of the notes so that you can play it over a bunch of different chords. They act as building blocks in a solo - you can put a bunch of patterns together to make a solo.
In research, this is akin to developing a vocabulary of questions and prompts that you like and can get comfortable with, and then you adapt them to your needs.
How to practice it:
Pattern Vocabulary: Create a list of questions and prompts that you like. Practice using each of them in a conversation. For example, one of my favorite prompts is simply, “Tell me more.” Another one I really like is, “If you were going to teach this concept to a friend, where would you start?” Generate the prompts you want to try, and practice them individually until you’re comfortable with them. Gather prompt ideas from other researchers you admire, from those who write books about interviewing, from colleagues who always seem to ask great questions in meetings, from everywhere!
How to Play
Phrase Length & Rhythmic Density
A phrase is a musical thought. Rhythmic density is the degree of activity found in a phrase, or a series of phrases (how many notes are you playing in that phrase). I can play long phrases with low rhythmic density, I can play short phrases with high rhythmic density, and all the other combinations possible too.
In research, we can think of phrase length and rhythmic density as the length of my questions or responses, and the intensity of words or concepts in a single question. Using a balance of long, short, high and low intensity, creates balance and keeps the conversation interesting.
How to practice:
Ask short questions: Practice only asking short questions, with the fewest words possible. For generative research, this is the ideal kind of question, so you want to get very comfortable with it. For example, “Tell me more.”....”How so?”....or “Why?”
Ask long questions: Sometimes you run into a tough speaker who needs some handholding. Practice only asking long questions in a conversation, and see what happens. See how it feels.
Vary the density of questions: Practice focusing a question on a single topic. Next, practice asking questions that broach 2 or more topics. Which one feels better? (Hopefully, the first. But sometimes you need to know how to employ the second, especially if you are trying to point out 2 dissonant thoughts and want to unpack them, which is an earlier exercise).
Articulation
Articulation is simply, how you attack a note. We can play it gently, or harshly. We can play it staccato (really short), or stretch it out. We give a single note character through articulation.
Articulation group exercise
Hi! (short) and Hiiiiiii! (long)
I see (short) and I see….(long)
In research, we can articulate the same concept or question in many different ways. This can help facilitate understanding if our participant doesn’t understand the question, or it can generate deeper conversation by exploring some other facet of the concept simply by rephrasing it.
How to practice:
Ask again, but different: Take a single question and practice different ways to ask it. In this exercise, you can use the same words, there are no strict rules for how you can say it “differently”.
Circumlocution: when we learn a new language, a helpful tool to employ if you don’t know the word for something is to circumlocute, or to talk around it. Now, sometimes we do this when we’re avoiding something, but in this case, we’re going to practice it not for that, but so that we can push ourselves to think of different ways to describe a concept, rather than saying the concept itself. You won’t want to employ this method all the time (because it’s rather wordy), but it’s a very helpful tool to keep in your back pocket if there’s some misunderstanding that you can’t seem to find your way through.
Time Feel
Time feel really means playing in a relaxed manner, regardless of tempo. To get good at this, you have to practice playing in many tempos.
In research, this means getting comfortable with the mood and pace that your participant is setting in the interview.
How to practice:
Identify the mood: What mood is the speaker setting? Are they relaxed, anxious, worried? Practice actually identifying that mood. Then take a moment to consider what you want to do about it. Do you want to mirror it? Try to change it?
Watch your tone: Practice being curious and light. Play around with how you phrase various questions to accomplish “curious” versus “demanding”. Learn how that feels. With someone you trust (and who is in on the game) you can practice having an entire conversation in a ‘demanding’ and ‘harsh’ tone. Now practice having that same conversation with a curious & light tone. How does that difference feel? What did you do differently? Become fluent in this.
IV. DENOUEMENT
So there we have it. Learning how to improvise is not rocket science.
You have learned what to practice. Now you just need to go out and do it.
And as we all own our improvisations, we are not going to be afraid of making mistakes, of doing the wrong thing, asking the wrong questions.
The German composer George Frederic Handel is credited with saying that the measure of music is “producing great results from scant means”. This kind of bricolage - or making due with the materials at hand - is a fantastic means for creation. It creates a place for the most ingenious solutions. Even if we do make “mistakes” in the process.
Because mistakes are powerful. They are a creation in themselves. A pearl, even, is the result of a mistake.
“Do not fear mistakes. There are none.” -Miles Davis
V. Sources
Berliner, Paul F. Thinking in Jazz: the Infinite Art of Improvisation. The University of Chicago Press, 1994.
Covert, Abby. “Abby the Information Architect.” Abby the Information Architect, http://abbytheia.com/.
Crook, Hal. How to Improvise: an Approach to Practicing Improvisation. Advance Music, 1991.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. “Flow, the Secret to Happiness.” TED, 2004, https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.
“How Our Brains Overrule Our Senses.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 7 Dec. 2015, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151207131743.htm.
Kuniavsky, Mike, et al. Observing the User Experience: a Practitioners Guide to User Research. Morgan Kaufmann, 2012.
Nachmanovitch, Stephen. Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art. Stephen Nachmanovich, 1990.
Palmer, Christopher Michael. “An Analysis of Instrumental Jazz Improvisation Development among High School and College Musicians.” University of Michigan, 2013.
Portigal, Steven. Interviewing Users How to Uncover Compelling Insights. Rosenfeld, 2013.
Pressing, Jeff. “Improvisation: Methods and Models.” Generative Processes in Music, The Psychology of Performance, Improvisation, and Composition, Nov. 2001, pp. 129–178., doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198508465.003.0007.
Werner, Kenny. Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within. Jamey Aebersold, 1996.
Young, Indi. Practical Empathy: for Collaboration and Creativity in Your Work. Rosenfeld Media, 2015.
