Session: Maximizing Your Moderation Game

Speaker: Susan Mercer

Track: Usability

Day: Saturday, June 2nd, 2012

Time: 1:00pm

Length: 1 hour

A central tenet of user-centered design is getting good usability feedback to iteratively improve the design. Unbiased moderation is critical in usability studies to ensure accurate, unbiased feedback. Yet in the heat of the moment, even experienced moderators can struggle to avoid asking leading questions, accidentally skewing findings, and stressing participants. This interactive session will teach advanced moderation skills, such as refocusing a participant, that can make the difference between successful and less-than-successful outcomes.

These techniques will help both the beginner and experienced moderator to remain neutral, keep participants at ease, and enhance the overall quality of usability research. Attendees will leave the session prepared to create their own action plans to put these techniques to use and refine their moderating skills.