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The test of silence

You have worked really hard on a new feature; an UI component, a library, an api, ... Then the moment is finally there. You will put this feature in the hands of your users for the first time. You enter the meeting room where Alice, your key user is waiting full of excitement. You put her in front of your laptop, open the browser and go to the page showing this new feature. And then...silence. Alice is just staring at the screen and does nothing…

Now there are 2 things you can do; you can do nothing and give Alice the time to figure it out herself or you can start to explain the feature, give Alice some clues on how to use it or even take over the laptop and start demonstrating it yourself.

We are typically tempted to do the second thing and start to guide our user when we see him/her struggle. But the moment you do that you lose an important opportunity to get insightfull information on how a user will perceive and experience your work.

Learn from your users their mistakes

So next time you have a meeting with Alice, try “The test of silence’'”. Let her interact with your work without explaining it. Keep your mouth shut and  resist the urge to help and correct when you see Bob making mistakes.

Before you show him your new feature, explain that you will stay quiet and just watch while she interacts with your feature. Ask him to talk out loud about what she is thinking and feeling when using it. 

Why is this important?

The reality is that when you create something, most of the time you will not be there when users see your work. If you create a presentation and send it around, you are not there when users check your slides. When you deploy a new feature in your system and your end users try it for the first time, you are not there either.

Therefore it is really important that you confront the users with your work without providing information. That is the only way you get some insights on how most users will perceive your work.

So next time you have to share some of your work, give it a try…

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