Guerilla User Research in Practice: 10 Tips
TLDR: To understand your users in a broad sense quickly and cheaply, think outside the box and give yourself the freedom to step out of your typical research methodologies. Go to where your users are already and politely ask to speak to them. You’ll be surprised by how much you can learn in a short amount of time!
What is guerilla research?
Guerilla research is a low-cost method to get exposure to a target audience by following a less rigid research methodology. It’s typically done in public spaces like metros, coffee shops, and libraries.
The major benefits of following this method are:
1) It does not require much time or money.
2) You can get high-level insights that you need to inform your early decision making.
3) You can talk to users of competitors or people who do not use any product for the problems you solve. That way, you’ll be exposed to different perspectives.
This kind of discovery is most useful when you are still unfamiliar with the user and haven’t yet defined what the product or feature is going to be. It gives you a glimpse into your user’s life rather than an in-depth understanding. Because of its low cost, it is easier to get buy-in for one day at a coffee shop from stakeholders than for running a research study for multiple weeks. Guerilla user research can be a way to bring user-centered research to organizations that may not be doing it.
The Case Study
At Clio, we’re striving to build legal technology that will change law for good. When Lais Celem, a product designer, changed focus to help lawyers keep track of their tasks. She wanted to get a sense of how a variety of lawyers manage to currently keep track of their tasks and what falls through the cracks. Since this was a high-level research question, guerilla research was something that would get her to the insights quickly — not just about our users but insights about all lawyers.
Here are things that we learned throughout our journey.
Preparation Phase
Tip #1: Begin by writing down your research questions.
Remember, research questions are not interview questions. What do you want to know by doing research? These are your research questions. You might need to ask multiple interview questions or even use multiple research methods to answer your research questions.
Writing out research questions will help determine whether guerilla research is the right method to choose. If you have more than 2 questions or if your questions will require a long, specific task, a guerilla method may not be the best way to go about your study.
Writing out research questions will also keep your scope manageable. You can’t expect to answer more than 1–2 research questions by conducting a guerilla study when you’re only asking people for a few minutes of their time.
In our case, we had one research question: How are lawyers keeping track of their work?
Tip #2: Keep the ask small — prepare no more than 3 questions.
Everyone is always busy. And talking to you is nobody’s priority. So keep the ask small. If you prepare 3 questions, that is plenty to have an interesting conversation.You’ll have follow-up questions that will naturally flow as you talk to people.
From the above research question, we wrote down 3 questions to help guide our conversations with lawyers:
- How do you keep track of the work you need to get done?
- How do you prioritize that work?
- When has your system failed you?
Tip #3: Be creative about where you’ll go.
Think outside the box here. Where are places you will find your target audience? What might they be doing throughout the day? Where are the places you can talk to them where they have more time rather than where they are rushing? If you’re talking to a lawyer, right before court is not a good place to catch them. But the coffee shop next to the courthouse is great because people love having coffee during breaks, and talking to someone for a few minutes there is a small commitment.
Other than coffee shops, think about the library, or other public areas that may be a go-to place for your target audience. Do your research beforehand and learn about what time is best to be in these places.
During the Adventure
Tip #4: Try multiple locations rather than settling into one.
We started our morning at a coffee shop near the courthouse. After lunch, the coffee shop became empty. That made us decide to explore the courthouse. We first stood outside the courthouse but this did not get us attention from people. A lot of people who saw us were trying to make it in time to their court hearing.
We then went indoors and discovered the library inside the courthouse where a lot of lawyers conduct research work. We also learned how to spot who is a lawyer and were then able to target the right kind of people.
By exploring multiple places, we not only uncovered the right places to talk to lawyers, but we also learned unexpected things relevant to our research question.
Tip #5: Bring a notetaker instead of an audio recorder.
Audio recording is not the best way to take notes during guerrilla studies. When you’re asking for a few minutes of someone’s time, you don’t want to spend a minute asking them whether you can record their voice and deal with the recorder itself. It’s also loud in public places.
Taking notes yourself while talking to people may sound like a good idea. But our brain can’t multitask — we switch between tasks quickly. Even the most experienced people will miss things as they are multitasking.
Bringing another person with you has other advantages. You have another person to discuss takeaways with in case you missed anything. Besides, your safety matters most and it’s good to have a buddy with you.
Tip #6: Bring business cards so people can contact you after.
A lot of people forget to provide a way for people to contact them afterward. When you have a quick conversation, people may have to rush off in the end but might want to continue the conversation later. Or they may want to ask you something about your study or your company.
Having business cards at hand will make it very easy to provide a method of contact to people you talk to. However, avoid biasing participants with your company name in the beginning of your conversation. Knowing which company you work for may give them a reaction so help off on the cards until the end.
Tip #7: Signage must be concise but grab attention.
Bring a sign with you that will speak for itself and will help grab people’s attention. That way, people know why you are talking to them if you do or they can come by and talk to you if you are sitting at a coffee shop.
The sign is essential in sending the right message across quickly but is tricky to get right. People are very business and often do not stop long enough to read the entirety of your sign.
It should concisely indicate the following information:
- that you are doing research
- who you want to talk to
- what the ask is
- what kind of incentive they have to talk to you
Our first signage (on the left) was not great. We did not indicate that we are trying to do research. People were confused and one person thought we are trying to get free legal advice.
Tip #8: Your signage should indicate that the ask is small.
The other problem with our signage was that we said “Answer a few questions”. When you’re asking for people’s time they want to know how long they are committing to you. A vague statement does not create the trust they need to talk to you. Instead “Answer 3 questions” would have been clearer.
Tip #9: How you place your signage and yourself matters.
Place the sign at a place where people will see. If you’re at a coffee shop, you can place the sign in front of you on a table and have it be in front of people when they walk through the door.
People shouldn’t have to tap you on the shoulder to indicate they want to talk to you. In fact, nobody will tap you. You should be approachable and open for people to come by.
It’s ok to get some work done as you’re waiting for people to come by. You may not have people talk to you all day. It’s ok to have your laptop open and be getting something done. But as you notice people walking by or walking into the coffee shop, lift your head up and smile. It indicates approachability.
Tip #10: Interjecting people is ok.
A lot of times, you don’t have many people come talk to you. It’s ok to go and approach others with reasonable limits. Context is key before you approach people on the street. If people are rushing around, or look stressed, don’t interject them. Use your good judgement.
Always ask if it’s ok to talk. In our case, nobody said no or even reacted negatively when we asked them. People are nice if you ask nicely.
At the end of the day…
We ended up speaking to 6 people. This may not sound like a lot but when you consider how busy lawyers are, talked to these people gave us enough of a view into how lawyers work. It gave us an understanding of the various ways lawyers keep track of their tasks and the lingo around it.
We ended up spending $15 on coffee, learned a lot about how lawyers keep track of their tasks, and even got other work done in slow times. I’d consider it a successful day on the field!
