Working in the area of UX sometimes feels like a crime drama. Can’t believe it? Then look at these fun parallels between modern UX practices and a modern TV detective 🔎.
If you don’t know Patrick Jane, The Mentalist's main character, I envy you. I wish I could erase my memory and watch this TV masterpiece for the first time again. Patrick Jane, a CBI independent consultant, became a cult character in American crime dramas in the 2010s. Each episode of this show reveals a Patrick Jane with a certain eccentricity, using his keen powers of observation, brilliant mind, and talent for mischief to solve crimes. Despite his lack of limits and disrespect for protocols, he is valued because his tricks and mind games end the cases.
When I reflect on this series, it becomes apparent that the UX area has so much in common with crime scene investigation: the truth is unknown, people tend to disguise their real needs, and you must discover missing facts as soon as possible to build and launch something useful. I’ve never specialized in UX research, but it has been part of my job as a designer for years. When I started, it was an unaffordable luxury for most clients or design teams 🙃.
So, let’s see what we can learn from an original fictional character and apply it in the UX area.
I/ Lesson 1: Understate your role to users
It’s not a secret that people behave differently in the vicinity of police, state officials, or management. Patrick Jane understood that if a suspect or witness realized his real personality, they would try to disguise or tweak facts (either consciously or subconsciously). That’s why our hero preferred to keep his cocky, charming, cheeky, and harmless facade as long as possible.
UX research is no less challenging because we explore human behavior but inevitably influence the findings since we are humans, too. Designers often run the risk of receiving twisted information when they forget to tackle users’ fears and insecurity, for example:
Interviewees believe their boss sent you to assess their skills;
Users think you created this design, and now they try not to offend you;
Customers worry that you’ll judge their computer literacy.
Understating your official role gives precious moments to talk with people more sincerely. In contrast, here is a perfect intro to annihilate research accuracy: “Hello! I’m a Senior UX Designer and Product Manager. Today, I’ll conduct a usability testing session and jobs-to-be-done interview to identify UX gaps in our design…” After hearing that, people would probably flood you with socially expected answers.
Instead, designers should keep their fancy titles to themselves. Try to start a usability testing session humbly, “My name is [...}, and I was asked to check whether this website is useful and clear to you.” Don’t make people think you designed it (even if you did).
Here is an intro phrase I recommend using for a user interview, “I’m a researcher, and today I’d like to ask you a couple of questions about [...}.” Give a simple description without redundant details that may scare people and increase tension.
Depending on the situation, you can even say, “I didn’t design this, so I won’t be offended if you criticize it; please be honest with your feedback!” But it’s on the thin edge between ensuring less biased research and lying.
II/ Lesson 2: "You Don't Know My Boss..."
Patrick Jane usually dealt with manipulative criminals who were sure they would go unpunished. So, he played the role of a “simple and carefree gentleman” and wasn’t ashamed. He realized that exposing his extraordinary mentalist skills would only make people stay within their own shells 🥚. Not only did he hide his intellect, but he also encouraged others to feel superior towards him so that people behaved more freely and revealed their true motives.
Jane's signature look embodies both presentability and the right amount of nonchalance. He looks classy: almost always wearing a 2 buttoned three-piece suit and a dress shirt sans tie — a way to conceal his genius mind behind this sleek appearance and sloppy communication manner.
As an aspiring designer, I was taught the importance of presenting myself, making a good first impression, and standing up for my decisions.
A common misconception in UX research is that you have to appear confident and competent to users. Let me clarify: conducting research is not the same as presenting designs to top management. Any research aims to get people to relax and tell you the truth. The essence of the presentation is to convince everyone that your decision is justified and will help the business achieve the desired results.
Research is not the time to show off. You see the user for the first and perhaps the last time in his life; it will not affect your career; he's not here to impress you. Behave humbly while staying in control of the session. The idea is to blend in, for instance:
Match interviewees’ dress code (within reason, of course). Try not to appear much more formal or extravagant than your interviewee.
Avoid design jargon or terminology you have to explain. However, if you are working in a specific niche (cybersecurity for example), a reasonable dose of your interviewees’ professional jargon will boost your communication.
Be neutral but natural. It is vital to balance impartiality and empathy, detachment from the topic, and normal human behavior (in other words, not being a robot 🤖).
III/ Lesson 3: Deep Dive Into A New Topic
Today, we call this approach “custom safari,” but Patrick Janes practiced it perfectly. If you want to understand your suspects (in our case, users), observe their behavior in their “natural state” and don’t miss the opportunity to change your hat and adapt to your interviewee.
These days, it is much easier to empathize with other people's experiences. I'm talking about observation and contextual interviews (where we ask the respondents to comment on their actions) if you have access to users, documentaries, YouTube blogs, and professional communities if you want to prepare to meet real users and ask them thoughtful questions.
A striking example is a project that I learned about from former colleagues who were conducting product discovery (in-depth research before creating a new product) for an international logistics company. They decided to observe the work of the delivery service and ended up witnessing a problem that the couriers did not dare to report to their superiors.
The application was designed for European addresses and did not consider local realities. Couriers simulated using the navigation function only because it was required to proceed to the next step. Honestly, I don't believe this could have been learned from a user survey or workshops with customer management.
IV/ Lesson 4: "Certainty is Mother of Fools!"
Patrick Jane used this line often throughout the 7 seasons, and the questions that followed made the suspect wary. But what does this have to do with UX research?
It's about the ability to ask clarifying questions and improvise to gain UX insights. Of course, our task is much simpler than Patrick's: we do not have to provoke criminals to obtain irrefutable evidence for the court. But what detectives and UX specialists have in common is the desire to extract valuable information from the information noise. This pushes us to move away from protocols and scripts and dig deeper. Even the best script for an interview, usability testing, or workshop won’t consider all nuances.
In qualitative research, you can't just read prepared questions out loud and call it a day, otherwise robots would already be doing the task for us.
I learned that what you want to know doesn’t equal the questions you ask:
Research questions are what you want to know so you can make better design decisions. You keep them secret from respondents; they are for your team's internal use only. For example: Will people buy this app? What is their main problem? Why are we worse than our competitors? In the case of The Mentalist, this is equivalent to the question " Who is the killer?" "
Interview questions are what you ask. They are formulated in a certain way because not every answer can be obtained directly. For example: Please tell us the last time you ordered grocery delivery. How often do you buy books online? They are reminiscent of Patrick Jane's question " What were you doing after 10 pm last Friday?"
If the team agrees on the first ones in advance, the second ones remain at the researcher's discretion. For example, in one case, you ask a single question, “ Tell me, when was the last time you… ” and get a lot of insight from a talkative, relaxed person. But another respondent gives you the information in small fragments, so you have to ask clarifying questions: “ What did you order?” How did you choose? Which payment method did you choose? Why? " etc.
V/ Lesson 5: Don't Take Words At Face Value
Why is Patrick Jane so fun to watch? Because he always allows the suspects to justify themselves and come up with plausible explanations in a naive attempt to divert suspicion from themselves. The suspects should have kept quiet instead of trying to mislead the mentalist 👣.
Surprisingly, this has a lot to do with UX. Everybody lies. Some people want to appear more knowledgeable than they are. Others are afraid to share their opinion unless they know how it will be used.
UX designers are often called "user advocates," but it's important to critically evaluate their suggestions.
If a person states that a feature needs to be added to a product, but cannot provide a single example of how something similar has helped them in the past, it is unlikely that you should follow their lead. If a business owner says an app is successful but can only back it up with employee feedback, their assessment is likely too optimistic. And so on.
If you notice inaccuracies and inconsistencies, the best option is to keep asking questions, and perhaps your interlocutor will begin to doubt his words. For example:
Product owner: Hey, Vitika! We need to have an export feature so that users can download nice-looking PDF reports.
Designer: Just for my understanding. Can you please explain the context of this feature idea?
Product owner: Well, I think it’s pretty clear. Export is a standard thing for engineering applications. Probably, there should be a button or icon above the dashboard; a user clicks, and then a PDF with our logo…
Designer: Carlos, sorry for interrupting. I’m asking this not out of curiosity but because I want to get it right. If you remember the user interviews last month, engineers usually copy-paste data from the dashboard into a PowerPoint template with their company’s branding…
Product owner: That’s a very good question. I need to double-check it.
So, we need to trust but verify. Carefully listen to what you’re told, don’t show skepticism or suspicion, and continue asking questions until you reach the root cause of a problem.
VI/ Conclusion
Of course, the lessons I learned from the series cannot be compared to the reliable and established UX research methodologies. However, I am glad to see that there are more dedicated researchers nowadays who are working hard to gain valuable insights that can guide businesses in the right direction.
So, if Patrick Jane were a UX guru like Don Norman or Jakob Nielsen, he would probably give us the following advice:
Don't scare people away with buzzwords.
Don't brag about your achievements to respondents - this is not an interview or a presentation for top management.
Whenever possible, observe users in their “natural habitat.”
Always have a few contextual and follow-up questions in stock.
All people lie (often unintentionally). Double-check the information received.
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