Most experienced user researchers will recognise the following: When doing a user test, the things participants say during the interview not always match their facial expressions or how they acted during the test. They seem unable to explain what they, unconsciously, feel or think.
To counter this behaviour, we designed the Emogram that helps (student) design researchers capture (unconscious) emotional and intuitive responses of research participants with as little rationalisation by the participants as possible.
The work of Daniel Kahneman [1] is used to explain how the Emogram works cognitively. Kahneman showed that the human brain uses two systems to form thoughts: system 1, intuitive and fast, and system 2, rational and slow. System 1 reacts almost immediately while system 2 thinks things over and tries to rationalise the response of system 1. The continues battle between these systems influences the response of research participants. Because of this, inexperienced design students can easily be put on the wrong foot as they are still learning how to read participant responses.
Not much is needed to do an Emogram: paper, pencil and some sticky notes will suffice. However, because participants sometimes feel that they don’t have enough time to complete the Emogram, also a web version is being developed.
The tool is ‘work in progress’ and there are several issues that need further research. However, first experiences are that student researchers acquire more accurate insights about the participants unconscious thoughts in relation to product design