The Pocket Universal Methods of Design, Revised and Expanded

029	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. ...