Probing questions: research within research
When facing research with users, we must assure that we give them the opportunity to answer to what we are asking with more detail. We must offer them a chance for them to further explain what their mental process is and the reasons that make them act or feel the way they do.
The role in charge of asking questions during UX research is the moderator, while the notetaker deals with writing down notes that will later facilitate the analysis.
What are probing questions?
To dig deeper in the answers the user gave us, we make a specific kind of question called probing questions, where we try to gather more specific information about the feedback that we are being given.
These questions aim to encourage further thought on a specific topic and achieve a better and broader understanding of the information that we are gathering.
These questions must be open-ended, so that the interviewee can have the chance to explore their thoughts and put their personal feelings into words.
If you want to delve deeper into this kind of questions asked during user interviews, you can read this article: Online surveys: open and closed questions
Typically probing questions are not written in the interview guide, since it’s the person in charge of the research who uses them to answer the person that is being interviewed so that we can broaden and dig deeper into their answers.
These questions are asked to understand what the interviewee specifically wants to say, so we can gather more detailed information about something that they have already mentioned or understand in what the user bases its thoughts about a specific topic or answer.
Types and examples of probing questions
But, how are probing questions asked? There are two kinds of probing questions which we can use to dig deeper in our research:
Probing questions to gather more information
These questions are asked when we need to round up more and deeper information about what the user is telling us.
Examples of these kind of probing questions are:
- Tell me more about that.
- Can you explain to me what you just said?
- What do you mean by that?
- How do you feel about that?
- What led you to that conclusion?
- What were your intentions?
- How should this be to improve its use?
Probing questions to uncover underlying reasons
In this case the objective of the questions is to discover more reasons or hidden motivations in answers that were given previously. These questions are used to find out why people act in certain ways.
A few examples of these probing questions are:
- Why did you feel that way?
- Tell me why you did that.
- Why is it so important to you?
- Tell me why this feature surprised you.
- Why did you choose that option first?
Using different kinds of probing questions during interviews will help us to obtain a deeper understanding about what users have to say about their experiences.
A key technique to ask better probing questions is active listening, so that we can make sure that we understand perfectly what the users mean with their answers, then we will be able to ask the right questions next.
Active listening and probing questions are opposite to leading questions, which we must avoid, since this kind of questions can provide us with biased answers and with little to no value for our research.
If you are new to UX research, the best way to start asking probing questions appropriately is by writing some of them down in your interview guide on each category, this will remind us to ask them and gather more detailed information.
When you need more information and to find deeper meanings, probing questions will be your greatest ally.
Don’t miss out on this User Interview Guide. It is updated to version 2022.
This article is a translation of the following one published on our corporate website:
