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In a previous life, I was a Professional Writing major and part-time journalist. I contributed to my school's student newspaper, as well as the faculty and staff newspaper, and almost every week for two years, I wrote an arts column for the Pittsburgh City Paper - Western PA's leading alternative newsweekly [read my old clips].

In part one of this series, we examined some of the more problematic personality traits user researchers are likely to encounter in their work. Now that we've seen how individual personalities can put a damper on your day; let's explore some ways to overcome the problems inherent to each.

UX researchers are exposed to a broad cross-section of people and personalities, especially when it comes to conducting user tests. Frequently, the people we encounter are willing, helpful participants to the research process - but what happens when respondents aren't so willing or helpful?

Originally published: Aug 18, 2010 The participant was struggling. While he was a high-volume customer who had bought tons from this site in the past, today he wasn't getting along with the checkout process. Confusion happened in both directions: the shopper didn't understand what the site was trying to tell him and the site definitely didn't understand what he wanted.