Many UX research methods work by showing the decisions your users make, and the paths they take to get there. With think-aloud protocol, you can get an inside glimpse at the cognitions, frustrations, and delights that accompany their every action.
On the outside, users are scrolling through your interface. But on the inside, they’re saying:
- “I expected a button here—where is it?”
- “Why do I need to scroll all the way down the page to sign up?”
- “I’m lost. And this is taking too much time. How do I exit?“
Thoughts like these give you a wealth of contextual insights about what users think about your digital product or service. By introducing the think-aloud protocol to your UX research studies, you can peek into users’ cognitive processes as they interact with your product—and, as a result, create more intuitive, user-centered designs that keep customers engaged for longer.
All ears? Let’s get started.
What is the think-aloud protocol?
The think-aloud protocol is a user experience research technique where participants interact with your product while verbally expressing their thoughts, feelings, and the reasoning behind their actions. Introducing this qualitative UX research technique helps uncover deeper contextual insights: you see what your users do, and get context on why they do it.
There are two main types of think-aloud protocols:
- Concurrent think-aloud protocol: Study participants verbalize their thoughts and feelings as they interact with your product’s interface
- Retrospective think-aloud protocol: Participants remain silent as they interact with the product, then verbalize their thoughts and reasoning when looking back on their task performance (often with a video recording)
Why is think-aloud helpful in UX research?
Think-aloud protocol is helpful in UX research because it gives you insight into your user’s cognitive processes, mental models, decision-making, frustrations, and interpretations of your product and UX design. Instead of only seeing how your users interact with your product, it gives you context around why they make specific choices or take certain actions.
With these layered insights, you can better understand areas in your product that need improvement or iteration. The best part—it’s simple.
Tune in to your users’ inner monologue
Maze Clips help you capture audio and video insights as users make their way through usability testing
How to conduct think-aloud research
Conducting think-aloud research is a straightforward technique that complements various UX research methods—especially task-oriented ones like usability testing, prototype testing, and task analysis.
You can start getting into your users ’ heads in just a few steps.
1. Plan your research study and think-aloud education
Begin by choosing an objective for your UX research project and think-aloud protocol. What questions are you trying to answer, and what do you expect to learn from your participants? You might want to identify usability issues for your app’s sign-up process, or better understanding cognitive load while using a new feature.
Whatever you want to dig into, start by recruiting your participants, and determining the task you’ll ask them to complete. Bear in mind that not everyone will know how to verbalize their thoughts—it’s worth creating a set of instructions participants can follow.
Here’s our example instructions for your next think-aloud project:
Hello [participant],
Thank you for being part of our study!
To help us understand how you use our product, we’d like you to “think out loud” to complete the task. As you interact with the product, please say whatever comes to mind—and we mean whatever.
Don't worry about whether it’s right or wrong, or if it seems relevant to the task at hand! Here’s how to get started:
- Speak your thoughts aloud: As you go through tasks, try and verbalize everything you’re thinking, for example: “I’m not sure where to start,” or “I think this button takes me to the next step”
- Describe what you see: If something in particular catches your attention, share it with us! Feel free to say: “That button looks weird,” or “This section is interesting, but I'm not sure what it does”
- Explain your actions: As you navigate through the product, we encourage you to share your reasoning behind actions such as “I’m clicking here because I think it will bring me to the checkout page”
- Share frustrations: If at any point you feel lost or stuck, don’t hesitate to tell us and verbalize your confusion or annoyance
When in doubt, just share whatever comes to mind! We understand thoughts won’t always come out clear or organized, and that's okay. Our goal is to understand how you experience the product, and we won't judge your responses.
💡 Product tip
Easily add think-aloud education to your user tests with Maze. Write your instructions and advice once, then toggle where and when to show them with Maze’s Think Aloud Education feature.
2. Conduct your research with participants
When conducting think-aloud protocol research, ensure that your—and especially your participant’s—environment is free from any distractions. Even if you’re conducting testing through a UX research or video conferencing tool, your participants will need a clear mind and relaxed atmosphere to voice their thought processes out loud.
Before giving your participant their task, remind them to verbalize their thoughts (even if you’ve already told them!)
If you’re doing a concurrent think-aloud protocol, avoid interrupting or interfering with your participants’ thoughts as they speak. If they suddenly fall silent, encourage them by asking, “What are you thinking now?”
If you’re doing a retrospective think-aloud protocol, consider splitting the test into two sessions with a short break: one for conducting the task and another where you show your participant the recording, and they can explain their reasoning behind their actions.
Make sure to record the sessions so you can re-watch how participants handled tasks and analyze their feedback through verbal reports. You can also have a facilitator present during the meeting to help you take notes during verbalization.
✨ Pro tip
Before initiating usability testing with think-aloud protocol, consider conducting a heuristic evaluation. This set of ten usability guidelines identifies specific bad user experience signs, so you can narrow the scope of your study before using think-aloud protocol.
3. Analyze your findings and qualitative think-aloud data
Now it’s time to start the data collection process! After you’ve completed think-aloud sessions, it’s time to study your recordings to gather user feedback and insights. The think-aloud protocol analysis process involves looking for patterns and grouping them into overarching themes—similar to thematic analysis in qualitative research studies like user interviews and open-ended UX surveys and questionnaires.
- Transcribe participant quotes and label each with descriptive codes like ‘confusion over CTA’ or ‘unclear information requests’
- Organize your codes into broader themes that summarize the issue, like ‘users expressed navigation issues’ or ‘users express confusion because of unclear instructions’
- Prioritize your themes based on the number of users encountering the issue.
Pay special attention to moments when multiple users encounter the same issues. One out of 10 participants struggling to find a CTA might not be concerning, but four users voicing the same confusion is a pattern worth investigating.
Affinity mapping is another user research analysis method for analyzing think-aloud protocol insights. With this analysis, you review your sessions for user reactions, pain points, or comments. You then write each insight on a sticky note and group similar ones into clusters. As groups emerge, label each cluster with an overarching theme. Finally, reorder insights based on frequency and impact.
Can’t conduct a think-aloud protocol session with participants?
Consider doing a cognitive walkthrough. In this evaluative research method, researchers and designers ask themselves questions about a task from the user’s perspective to evaluate intuitiveness.
Usability testing with think-aloud: An expert example
To find out more about using the think-aloud protocol in real-life research settings, we spoke to Kate Varga, Senior UX Designer at Creative Navy, about her experience conducting usability research with think-aloud techniques.
Kate and the Creative Navy research team conducted field research studies at SOCAR gas stations in Switzerland, where they observed and interviewed multiple users to learn about their digital products. The aim of the user research was to discover the complexities and pain points that cashiers experience when using the point of sales (POS) application.
“Our goal was to gather as much information as possible about how employees used the interface to complete their daily tasks. We applied the think-aloud method to gain insights into their interactions and workflows while on-site in Zurich.”
While the team also conducted user interviews to get an understanding of the challenges employees were facing when using the point-of-sale system, it was working alongside the SOCAR team that truly revealed the existing software’s shortcomings.
“The think-aloud approach allowed us to discover a variety of ways to complete a single task.
“We observed employees using shortcuts that weren’t intentionally programmed by the development team, which had become part of the workplace knowledge passed on to newer employees.
“We also noticed how the interface was used differently from one station to another, highlighting variations in workflow and adaptation across locations.”
This research enabled the team to identify an inventory of UX problems, most of which could never have been anticipated during the product development process. This included things like glare on the POS screen from the overhead lighting or how the layout of the desk made it difficult to tap some areas of the POS touchscreen.
With this knowledge in hand, Kate and the team set out to build a better user experience for all stakeholders using the POS system. This involved iterative research and design sprints, which culminated in an overhaul of the existing digital products used by employees and customers alike.
SOCAR's point-of-service system
But using the think-aloud protocol in user research isn’t all pros—there are also some challenges to watch out for:
“While the think-aloud method was effective, it had limitations in this environment due to the noise and the employees’ need to interact with customers. We often had to wait for a pause in their work to ask questions, which made it challenging to follow up in real-time, especially when tasks were tied to specific customer transactions.”
Let’s take a closer look at both the pros and cons of this research technique.
The pros and cons of think-aloud research
Think-aloud research lets you learn about your users' thought processes, feelings, and emotions. But like any other UX research technique, it has both advantages and disadvantages.
Pros of think-aloud research
Some of the main benefits of using think-aloud research with user testing include:
- Flexible and agile application: UX researchers can conduct the think-aloud protocol at any stage of their UX workflow, alongside a range of methods like usability studies and task analysis. It’s suitable for agile product development and user-centered design UX frameworks where user feedback and rapid iteration are prime concerns.
- No additional resources: You’re already conducting a UX research project, so why not fortify your learnings with contextual insights? You can run think-aloud protocols alongside other UX research methods, meaning you won’t need additional time. Likewise, think-aloud protocols don’t require extra equipment to conduct.
- Direct insight into user thoughts: With think-aloud protocol, you’re getting real-time access to your users’ motivations, frustrations, and expectations while seeing them interact with your product. These in-depth insights give you contextual insight, helping you uncover why users make specific choices.
Cons of think-aloud research
While the think-aloud protocol can certainly help gain insight, it does have disadvantages to consider:
- Can be difficult to multitask: Ideally, you want participants to glide through your interface, confirming that your product is intuitive and easy to use. However, many participants might struggle to complete specific tasks while they verbalize their thought processes, especially if the task is complex.
- Increased observer bias: Certain users might say what they think you want to hear, or act differently while observed. This can be to ‘please’ the research tester or to make themselves appear more competent, ultimately skewing the data. UX cognitive biases can alter behavior and negatively affect feedback authenticity.
The think-aloud method is a core technique in user research, but it works best when combined with other methods to get the most comprehensive insights.
Kate Varga
Senior UX Designer at Creative Navy
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Educate users on the think-aloud protocol with Maze
The think-aloud protocol is a useful UX research technique that can help you uncover a wealth of user behavior insights. You won’t just uncover how users navigate your product but why they make specific choices.
With a specialized UX research platform like Maze, you can make adding the think-aloud protocol to your research studies easier than ever.
Maze is a comprehensive user research platform that empowers businesses to uncover user insights at the speed of product development, with tools for Live Website Testing, Prototype Testing, Card Sorting, Interview Studies, and more.
With Maze Clips, you can capture audio and video recordings of participants to better understand their why when making certain decisions. Maze’s Think Aloud Education automatically adds an extra screen that educates participants on how to speak out loud during the test—making it easier for you to get richer, more authentic qualitative insights.
Help your participants provide deeper insights with think-aloud education, and enjoy the benefits of providing users with a top-notch user experience.
Tune in to your users’ inner monologue
Maze Clips help you capture audio and video insights as users make their way through usability testing
Frequently asked questions about think-aloud protocol
What is a think-aloud strategy?
What is a think-aloud strategy?
Think-aloud strategy is a UX research technique in which participants verbalize their thoughts, feelings, and expectations while interacting with your product or service. This method lets you gain contextual insights into your users’ cognitive processes, problem-solving, and reasoning.
What are phrases for think-aloud?
What are phrases for think-aloud?
Specific phrases that participants might share for think aloud protocol include:
- “I’m going to try…”
- “I expected this to…”
- “I thought this would take me to…”
- “I’ll try clicking here to see if it works.”
- “I’m going to click here because I think it will…”
