23. How do I avoid jargon in my studies?

Drew Freeman: Hey Joe, how are you doing this morning?

Joe Marcantano: I, am well, Drew. I'm excited about the holidays coming up here in the US and ready to get moving on this.

Drew Freeman: Careful, listeners might notice that we've moved our recording schedule from the evenings to the morning. So definitely send us a note if you can pick out the differences and spot things that maybe we don't even spot.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah. I tell you, like, it has been a little easier for me to carve out time on Sunday kind of before the house is awake and moving to get this done. And I certainly feel like we are doing a better job.

Drew Freeman: I hope so. Hopefully the listeners think so too.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah.

Drew Freeman: All right, so let's dive into it. I've got our question for this episode. So from Anonymous, they ask, are there any tips and tricks for translating UX jargon into plain language for discussion guide questions? For example, I always want to ask if something is intuitive, but I know I have to frame that question differently for participants. Sometimes when I make this conversion, I feel like I'm being too broad and it takes more effort to get the intended answer that I'm looking for.

Joe Marcantano: This is a really great question. folks who Follow me on LinkedIn will probably seen that I have posted a couple of times about we should not be using $5 words when $2 words will do. So I love the idea here of kind of simplifying the language, bringing it to more of a less jargony place so that more people can understand it. I love this idea.

Drew Freeman: So this made me think of something that I haven't done personally, but maybe I should start doing, and that is taking my discussion guide, putting it into a tool that has a spell checker that also tells you, like, this is the reading difficulty level. Like, I think word will give you, like this is 12th grade reading level, or this is 8th grade reading level, that sort of thing. I think it's a great idea to copy and paste your discussion guide into a tool like that and just check it out, because we should always be shooting for simple language that almost anybody can understand.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah, I think that there's a fair amount of if I'm using the jargon and kind of sounding the part, then I will come off more convincing. That way. But the risk to that, of course, is that people might not understand what you're trying to say and they might be too embarrassed to ask what you mean by that.

Drew Freeman: Oh, absolutely. So for me, I think the best advice that I can give someone in this position is you have kind of two different modes. You've got your working with stakeholder modes where the jargon is perfectly acceptable and in fact what you should be using. Because the jargon is precise, the jargon has specific meaning within to those stakeholders and in those conversations. But when you're not with the stakeholders, when you're with participants, how would you describe it to your grandma? How would you describe it to your mom or your dad who might not know tech and don't work in tech? That's kind of. I mean, I don't think about that explicitly when I'm writing this, but I m might have when I was first beginning.

Joe Marcantano: I think that one of the things it really comes down to is just knowing your audience, knowing who it is is going to read your discussion guide here. You ask the questions, who's going to be at your readout? Who's gonna look at your deck? It could be that your stakeholders are going to be folks who are not UX mature or not not very knowledgeable in ux. And so that explain it to your grandma level is what you need for your deck. It really just comes down to knowing the audience and going from there. I think.

Drew Freeman: And I think this question asker, maybe not purposefully, but they did put in an important caveat that this is UX jargon because there is industry jargon.

Joe Marcantano: Oh, y might plenty of jargon.

Drew Freeman: That might be perfectly appropriate to include in

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Drew Freeman: your discussion guide with your participants. I used to work in a healthcare IT company and it would have been weird for me to not include that medical jargon because I was talking to Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc. They all knew the jargon and if I didn't use it, that would have sounded out of place and made me feel like an outsider.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah, industry jargon can be really useful with the huge, huge, huge caveat that you've got to be using it correctly. It can help you buy credibility with whoever you're talking with as long as as you're using it in the right way. Drew, you and I had an interview recently where somebody used some UX jargon, but they were using it incorrectly. And that like there's no bigger landmine than to use some piece of jargon, some piece of slang, and be using it in the incorrect way.

Drew Freeman: I was gonna say for both of us, that was a big. I don't know if red flag was the right color, but it was a big, like, yellow, orange flag. At least, like, mmm, this. This gives me questions about this person.

Joe Marcantano: Exactly.

Drew Freeman: Okay, so back to the, like, initial question that this person asked. Are there any tips and tricks for translating UX specific jargon into plain language? For me, I think, for me, they seem to be struggling with the word intuitive. So let's maybe start there.

Joe Marcantano: yeah, I agree. Let's break this down. Let's start with intuitive. Maybe we should come up with, an accepted definition of intuitive.

Drew Freeman: I was just gonna say that.

Joe Marcantano: Awesome. So how would you just define intuitive?

Drew Freeman: Again, trying to use your two $2 words instead of $words. Something is intuitive. If it is easy to understand, it is clear. I think I'll leave it at that. I think if it's easy to understand and it's clear, I think that is a good layman's definition for intuitive.

Joe Marcantano: So while you were doing that, I just googled it to kind of get.

Drew Freeman: The dictionary definition to tell me how wrong I am.

Joe Marcantano: No, no, you're not wrong at all. using or based on what one feels to be true without conscious reasoning. Instinctive. So I like that word, instinctive.

Drew Freeman: Instinctive is a good word.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah. So it's, you know, what feels right without having to think about it and put effort into it.

Drew Freeman: Natural.

Joe Marcantano: That's a great word too. Yeah.

Drew Freeman: I think natural is even better and more simple than instinctive.

Joe Marcantano: Agreed.

Drew Freeman: Instinctive is maybe a $3 word. Natural is a 1 or 2 $2 word.

Joe Marcantano: We've gotten down to $.

Drew Freeman: So if you are, as the moderator writing your discussion guide, if you are wanting to ask, is this thing intuitive, maybe you can just replace, you know, does this feel natural? Does this feel clear? Is there anything that's confusing? Is there anything that's unclear? Are those are the immediate kind of substitutions that I make in my own brain when what I know I'm trying to ask about is intuitiveness.

Joe Marcantano: The other way to do it is to not bring up intuitiveness at all with your participant. So let's say you're testing an app to buy movie tickets, and you want to see if buying the tickets is intuitive. Ask them to buy the tickets on the prototype and then ask them to rate how difficult it was getting. Both are rating from them of difficulty. But you're also watching and you can see if they pause and spend 10 seconds thinking about it, you can see if they Misclick or go to the wrong screen, you can make that determination. Was this intuitive based on those two.

Drew Freeman: Factors, then 100% the only thing that I will I'm going to yes and yes, absolutely do that. Because we all know that what participants do in terms of actions carries more weight than what they say.

Drew Freeman: But or and it's also important to ask, you know, what do you think? Was this clear? Was this easy? Did you find anything confusing? Do both.

Joe Marcantano: Yes, for sure. You definitely need to do both because you don't know what's going on inside someone's head if they don't say it out loud.

Drew Freeman: Well, and this is another place where, and you have to be careful with this, but this is another place where I love saying something like I noticed you hovered over this button for a little bit. Can you tell me what you were thinking as you were doing that? Or you know, I heard that you were frustrated. You were saying that you were frustrated. Can you tell me more about that? That kind of thing that doesn't get into, that doesn't directly ask them was this intuitive? But really that's kind of what I'm asking about.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah, I completely agree. The asking outright if something is intuitive. I, I can think of maybe a handful of times I've ever done that. It's always kind of been this kind of circumventing the word

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Joe Marcantano: and asking in other ways.

Drew Freeman: So I think about the question, is this intuitive? That is your research question. That is what you are trying to learn. But hopefully by now, as a UX researcher, you understand that we don't ask participants the research questions directly. We have to craft and frame the questions that we ask to them so that we get the answer to the research question. But we don'want to tell. We don't want to let the participant know what we're actually trying to figure out. So I think short answer, like just to give you a couple of, you know, copy paste, one for one replacements. If you are finding yourself in a discussion guide after a task wanting to write down is this intuitive? I would substitute things like is this clear? Is this confusing? Or you know, did you find anything confusing? Did you find anything unclear? Those types of words.

Joe Marcantano: Another way that you could look at this is you could with your stakeholders, define what intuitive means. You know, I love that idea, we just did it. But you could say with your stakeholders, you know, okay, the goal is that they can complete this task in under 60 seconds while staying on the intended path. If they hit those two marks, we're going to say this is intuitive. And so now it's checking for these two marks, probing about when we get off the marks, and then we are making the determination as researchers. Yep, we've hit the two benchmarks. We're going to say that this is intuitive.

Drew Freeman: I love that idea and I especially like that idea because sometimes I think researchers are scared to use their own interpretation skills and instead want to rely on the participant telling them and not deviating beyond that. But like you said, if I know what the benchmarks are, I can use my brain like I'm a smart person as a researcher and interpret whether or not this participant found this easy or intuitive or whatever word you're looking for.

Joe Marcantano: The final piece we should talk about when it comes to intuitiveness is that's a little bit subjective. What is intuitive for one person will not necessarily be intuitive for another. And what is intuitive for one group of people will not be intuitive for another group. And, the example that immediately came to mind, Drew, you and I were both in the United States. It is normal and natural for us to drive on the right side of the road. And when we walk, we naturally walk a little bit to the right side. But if you grew up in the UK where people drive on the left side, the natural intuitive gut thing that you want to do is be towards the left. That does not make either one wrong. So what is intuitive for one group may not be intuitive for another.

Drew Freeman: I did in college. I studied abroad in the uk and I was constantly aware as I was walking down the side walk, like, am I walking with traffic? Am I getting in the way? So, like, yes. Can confirm one thing.

Joe Marcantano: I love little tidbits. If you ever go to London, at all of the crosswalks painted on the ground, it says look left. Because I found myself as I was crossing streets, I would look to the right to look for oncoming traffic.

Drew Freeman: Yep. I just, I absolutely, no matter if it was a one way or not, started looking both directions just to make sure.

Joe Marcantano: And, I think I reversed that when I was saying it. But they have an indicator on the ground to tell you this is the way traffic'going to come from. Looks that way.

Drew Freeman: Yes. Very, very smart. Love that. Great ux.

Joe Marcantano: Hey, folks, Joe here wanted to take quick second to ask for your help. We want to hear from you, our, listeners. We'd like to know what you want us to talk about. What questions do you have in order to make this show be the most beneficial for you? We want to talk about your questions. Send those in to inside uxrmail.com. you can remain anonymous if you'd like and you'll get to hear us talk about your questions. Thanks, all.

Drew Freeman: Okay, so let's broaden this question out beyond the word intuitive or maybe what are some other words that you find yourself having to find and replace?

Joe Marcantano: For example, so one that comes to mind is that, you know, we use the phrase call to action or cta. That's

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Joe Marcantano: not necessarily something that participants know what that means.

Drew Freeman: I'll be honest, I don't like the phrase call to action. I don't even use the phrase call to action with stakeholders.

Joe Marcantano: I find that. I agree. It's not my favorite. It feels like a mouthful rather than just saying the submit button or like.

Drew Freeman: The the thing we want users to do.

Joe Marcantano: Yes. But I've also learned that knowing your audience, communicating in their vernacular. Right. So if my st'using that phrase. But that's not what I say to the participants. I'll say, what do you think you should do here? Or what are you expecting to be able to do here? Things like that.

Drew Freeman: I love putting the question at the end of tasks. What do you expect to do next? Or what is your next action? I love that question.

Joe Marcantano: Yep. I usually ask something like what is your expectation of what's going to happen next?

Drew Freeman: Yeah. What do you think is going to happen when you click this button? Love it.

Joe Marcantano: Yep.

Drew Freeman: Love that.

Joe Marcantano: Drew, I wa want toa tackle something else that our anonymous question asker said here. So sometimes when I make this conversion, I feel like I'm being too broad. I want to tackle this for a second, this notion of like having super broad questions. Because my immediate gut reaction is if you're doing an idi, if you're doing something moderated, I would much rather we start super broad and have follow up questions to narrow us in. If the participant doesn't answer in a way that we expect. Rather than like starting really narrow and having the participant miss the mark and having to like kind of bring them back in that way.

Drew Freeman: 100% broad is not bad. Broad is just a starting point and.

Joe Marcantano: This is something that you can you obviously stress test in your dry run. But maybe there is a question that is legitimately too broad, that no one gets to your meeting right away. That's fine, tweak that question. But I would much rather start broad, figure out where they're kind of coming from, what they're thinking, and then I have follow up questions that I can kind of noodle us down to the right spot if we need to yeah.

Drew Freeman: Really a discussion guide is a, funnel. You start broad at the beginning of your discussion guide and the beginning of your session and you narrow down as you go through the session. So not only is a discussion guide as a whole funnel, but there are multiple funnels within that one discussion guide. So like after a task I'm gonna start a new funnel, start broad, and then narrow it down with my follow up questions and I'm gonna repeat that over and over again. So as you're writing a discussion guide, just keep thinking about funnels and that'll help guide you in the right direction.

Joe Marcantano: Now when it comes to being too broad in an unmoderated test, that can be a little more dangerous. I think that it's okay to be a little more specific, in an unmoderated test because you are not there.

Drew Freeman: You don't get that opportunity for follow up questions.

Joe Marcantano: Exactly. So that's one of the things that makes a soft launch so critical. In an unmoderated test, make sure you're getting the answer, you've created the right context, and then, you know, it's okay to be a little bit more specific, you know, dare I say even a tiny bit leading, so long as you're not leading them to the answer.

Drew Freeman: But if you're leading them to the section that you need them to be talking about.

Joe Marcantano: Exactly.

Drew Freeman: You're leading a horse to water, you're not telling them how to drink.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah. So moderated and unmoderated, huge difference there on when it comes to being quote, too broad.

Drew Freeman: So let's hit the last part of this question, which is it takes more effort to get the intended answer that I'm looking for. What's your take on that?

Joe Marcantano: So, I, would first question, like why you think it should take a certain amount of effort, like what's the benchmark you're using that you think that this is more or too much. So that's where I would start. But the other thing I would say is maybe you're right. And it's okay to tweak the wording of your questions in a qualitative study halfway through. I'm not saying you're asking fully different questions. I'm saying maybe you add a caveat to narrow the scenario a little bit to get people thinking in the right way or you help guide them a little more. Your qualitative moderated studies, it's much less important. You're not doing the math for statistical analysis there. So it's much less important that you'be Asking the exact same questions word for word, verbatim, every single time.

Drew Freeman: The thing that I want to point out here is that, you have to remember that the goal is to get answers to our research questions.

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Drew Freeman: And sure, it might be quicker, it might be less effort if our participants understood that UX jargon. Because that's what jargon is for, it's for streamlining conversations, basically. But as soon as you remember, well, they don't have that, then this magical, like, well, it could be faster if they understood the jargon. That doesn't exist. Like, I have to go plan B because plan A doesn't exist. So no more. Is it like more effort now? It's just the expected amount of effort. So I think just that little mind shift is a really important thing. Like also, I don't care if it takes more effort. The goal is getting that participant'feedback that helps me answer my research question. As long as I can get that feedback in the amount of time that I have, I'm good.

Joe Marcantano: I know that this question was kind of geared towards discussion guides. Shall we touch briefly on, you know, jargon and you know, big words index?

Drew Freeman: Sure, yeah, we can do that. And I think you've already touched on it a little bit, which is you have to know your audience.

Drew Freeman: If you're talking to, let's say, a group of designers and coders and developers, you know, they understand what language they use to talk about certain things and try to use that language as much as you can. If you're talking to project managers and executives who might not use that exact language, try to understand what language they use to talk about it, and be a chameleon, be a translator, whatever analogy helps you here, but try to speak the language that your participants and your stakeholders are speaking. And if that means that you have to use one set of language with your participants and a completely different set of language with your stakeholders, then that's what you have to do to be the best communicator that you can be.

Joe Marcantano: The thing I love about your first example there, I think you said designers, coders and developers. That is a group where there's going to be some overlap in language, but it's not. Those Venn diagrams are not perfect circles laid over each other, of course. So it is a matter of not just like knowing the jargon or knowing how they speak their language, it's knowing what words are in common amongst all those groups so that you can communicate to all three groups simultaneously.

Drew Freeman: M h. And this is where whether you're working for an agency or you're an internal, researcher having a point of contact that you can be a trusted reviewer to tell you, you know, this isn't the right language to use. You should say this instead. Super, super important, super valuable.

Joe Marcantano: The thing to keep in mind here is that if you make a deck or you have a readout and you use a word that is not a part of the vernacular of one or more people in that readout, they are not going to stop you and ask you what that means. They are not going to go to Google and look that word up. Maybe some of them will, but most will not. They're just going to ignore that point.

Drew Freeman: Or try to figure it out from context.

Joe Marcantano: And maybe they'll get it wrong.

Drew Freeman: And maybe get it wrong.

Joe Marcantano: So it is much more important that.

Drew Freeman: You be understood error on the side of simplicity and universal language.

Joe Marcantano: Agreed. Drew, you and I work with somebody who is much more quant versed than a lot of folks. And he does such an incredible job of taking these complex quant heavy concepts and breaking them down into plain English. I think it's a superpower. And whenever I read or review his decks, it's always like, ah, this is outside my area. But I understand what he's saying.

Drew Freeman: I love his examples becausee what he does that is, I think, so helpful for people who do not speak quant, as it were, is he will say person A will say this and it's so quant jargony. And then he says, okay, how can we make that better? Person B says this and it explains what the stakeholders actually need to know.

Joe Marcantano: Yep, I love it. Drew, anything else you want to hit before we, land the plane on this question?

Drew Freeman: I think the thing that I will leave this question ask her with is don't be afraid to dumb down, quote, unquote your questions as much as you feel like you have to to get to, I don't know, let's say like a fifth grade or an eighth grade reading level. I think that's what you're shooting for. And typically that's gonna mean no jargon unless you are talking to specific people within the industry as your participants. And then you should be using the jargon that is common in that industry. But be prepared to say the jargon. Parenthetical explanation.

Joe Marcantano: You said something that made me think of a really easy way to sum

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Joe Marcantano: everything up here. If you were conducting sessions, if you were going to do moderations with children with fifth graders, you would not bat an eye about. Okay, I need to simplify this language and bring it to the level of my participant. Why would we think anything different if we are doing sessions with adults who just have a different area of expertise?

Drew Freeman: Well, and this is something that I learned in my former work life as with that software IT company, there is tons of research out there that says most adults in the US understand or can comprehend written language at I forget if it's 5th or 8th grade, but it's somewhere in there. At a middle school level that is who we should be targeting for because that is the like that is the average adult in the US target that middle school level of reading comprehension.

Joe Marcantano: It makes complete sense because you, as you get into high school and into whatever secondary education you go for, that's when you start to we're not all taking the same classes anymore. We're starting to branch out a little bit. Somebody might take an extra science class, somebody might take an extra math class, whatever. And we all sort of start to test out and find our niches at that point.

Drew Freeman: Well, and even then, if you write something that is comprehendible to at a middle school level, someone with more education and a higher reading comprehension is still going to be able to understand that and get your meaning just as well. So you're not losing anything by simplifying your language.

Joe Marcantano: Completely agree.

Drew Freeman: All right, well I think that's a really good place to leave it. So thank you. Question asker. It's a great question. I'm really glad that you as a researcher are thinking about these kinds of things. If you want to ask a question, you can send us an email insideuxr@gmail.com and if you'd be so kind, please give us a like and a subscribe on your podcast platform of choice. That's really helpful for us. If you'd like to support the show, you can do that through the link in the show Notes. I'm Drew Freeman. And I'm Joe Marantano and we'll see you next week.

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