The Cranky Product Manager asks what to do when you’re stymied when interviewing a user.  In her example, she asks a broad question, and the user responds with a list of details that they want fixed in the application.

I think that scenario is familiar to everyone who has ever tried to interview users.  I usually handle this situation by reviewing the list and trying to understand what brought us to the point where this is the interaction that the user wants to have with me.  Are there items on their list that are so important to them that these items block them from being able to consider anything else?  Are there categories of problems on their list that tell me that there’s a bigger problem to solve here?  Are they trying to accomplish a workflow that we didn’t consider or didn’t get right?  Is the overall problem one of death by a thousand papercuts?  If I can identify a trend in their list, I can make more headway in making user experience improvements that go beyond filing 23 bugs.

Another option in handling this is “tell me more”.  “Tell me more about item #3 here.  Can you show me what happens?”  This gets them talking about the context of item #3, and puts it in perspective of what they’re trying to accomplish when they run into the problem that they’ve identified that they want you to fix.  It can give you the insight that you need to address the underlying problem.

When you receive a list like this, you must be open to the feedback that you get, analyze it carefully to understand what the problems are, and make informed decisions about the next steps to take (which might or might not be doing exactly what is outlined by the list).