Roundup: Improvisation in User Research
I have a working theory that being a successful IA/researcher/designer does not necessarily mean you must be good at vanquishing ambiguity in favor of clarity per se....it’s that you are cool with ambiguity, that you are open to it, and not afraid of it (you are brave, to borrow part of Abby Covert’s formula presented at IAC20).
As my career has progressed I’ve realized that ambiguity doesn’t often scare me; after some careful investigation I realized my training in jazz improvisation has a lot to do with that.
It’s not like I’m just sitting there in ambiguous conversations and “riding the wave”...it’s that I have developed this invisible toolset that helps me react to ambiguity and move through it without being afraid of it. So, I’ve started talking a lot about the improvisational toolset I’ve developed, setting it in the context of conducting user research.
The traditional way to practice jazz improvisation is to “imitate, assimilate, then innovate”. It’s a tried and true practice that helps jazz musicians learn the building blocks for creative expression by learning from the masters, developing their muscle memory, and eventually developing the confidence to take risks and find new ways to improve their craft and create space for brilliant ideas.
Jazz musicians thrive in ambiguous situations, using them to communicate deeply with others, to get to a third place of creativity where new ideas take flight. User research facilitating requires us to do the same — only, we don’t really have an established practice for imitating and assimilating. Many of us don’t often have the chance to watch others ‘perform’ at facilitating user research, or see how skilled facilitators actually developed their facilitation skills.
Like jazz, there certainly is an art to good research facilitation, and its components are learnable. We can get better if we know what and how to practice.
Resources on Improvisation in UX/User Research:
