Thinking aloud
Why?
Understand the reasons behind user behaviour, or uncover the mental models of the user in a usability test.
How?
Ask users to think aloud (say everything they are thinking) while performing a task in a usability test. As thinking aloud is quite unnatural, you remind users regularly to keep on voicing his/her thoughts. Since children are bad at voicing their thoughts, this technique can only be applied from the early teens on.
Ingrediënts
- Put the user at ease.
- Remind the user regularly to think aloud.
- A usability setup, including tasks.
In practice
The thinking aloud protocol is standard practice in usability testing, but can also be used in other situations to better understand the user's mental model.
- Universal Methods of Design (Hanington & Martin, 2012) spends a couple of pages on thinking aloud. In the Dutch version chapter 87. P180-181
- Thinking aloud is promoted and explained in Steve Krug's: Rocket Surgery Made Simple. Krug, Steve. Rocket surgery made easy. Uitgeverij Thema, 2011