022 Critical Incident Technique

Understanding how users experience your product at critical moments to optimize future designs

• Ask individuals to describe a situation with your product or service.

• Collect positive and negative experiences through directed storytelling, interviews, or diary studies to identify:

– The incident cause: What were the events leading up to the critical incident?

– User actions: What were the behaviors that took place during the incident?

– User sentiment: How did the user feel during the incident and afterward?

– Incident outcome: Did the user change how he or she behaved after the incident?

– Ideal outcome: What are possible future outcomes?

• Representative scenarios cover possible explanations and recommendations.

• Prioritize and triangulate with other research to gain a better understanding of situations that have a profound impact on user behavior.

See also   Diary Studies • Directed Storytelling • Interviews

The Critical Incident Technique focuses on how people solve problems, with the goal of optimizing and recreating successful results and eliminating the negative, counterproductive ones.