Love Letters and Break-Up Letters
- Philip Northgraves
- Ned Potter
This is a technique designed to illicit the emotion behind why people respond positively or negatively to your services, by asking them to write a letter to that service either declaring love or "breaking up" with it.
This is by far the most jarring technique described here, and although potentially very revealing it has to be used with care. The concept is to ask the participant to write a Love Letter or a Break-Up Letter to a Service you provide, or potentially to an area or space (but never to a member of staff or indeed any other person…).
By using the construct of a letter rather than just asking someone to describe what they like or dislike about a service, you sometimes get to the emotional heart of how the user feels. You see not just the fact that X annoys or delights them, but WHY this is the case: as such it’s good for identifying pain-points or things people really appreciate. After all, it is so many small things that make up the User Experience.
You will need to book a meeting room as Love and Break-up Letters usually happen in a one-on-one setting (but of all the techniques discussed here, are most likely to work in a small group setting, perhaps as part of a focus group). They also require specific and informed, signed consent from the user.
We used Love and Break-Up Letters in Summer UX and PGRUX. Here are a couple of examples: firstly a break-up letter, then two love-letters.
"Dear online journals,
I'm afraid that I must break-up with you. It has been 3 years and I see no improvements year on year. When I use you on campus it's generally easy, search opens up with little effort and making things so much better for me. However as soon as I try to contact you away from campus, all hell lets loose. I have to login to actually manage to find the right paper (the search function on the uni website being terrible). I need to click through a whole load more links.And repeat for the next paper. Surely when I am even VPN onto the university it would be OK to have automatic access, but this is not the case. There are also journals we have no subscription to which is disappointing and I am already contacting other friends at other unis to have them access the papers and send them to me as their relationships are so much better. So we must end this, sorry."
"Dear flexible loan system.
Thank you for existing!!! I have never studied at a university that has a program of borrowing like this. Thanks to you, I have been able to keep many useful books in my room for almost a whole year, because no one else other than me needed them. Please always stay this way and don't change - You even give reasonable time to return books someone has recalled!"
"Dear lovely library,
Hello. I’m a postgraduate student from China but I’m leaving you in a month. That’s a sad news, isn’t it? I think I’ll miss you when I return to my hometown. Will you miss me?
I love you especially the Morrell part and I think you love me as well. Thank you for providing me such great study and research resources. I enjoy the quiet and nice places you provide me.
However, you also trouble me during examinations cause I never find a suitable seat then. Crowded! Crowded! Crowded! How could I wish that you always reserve a private place for me. Finally, I also thank you for the cafe. I enjoyed the hot chocolate although it tastes different every day.
I’ll visit you again some day. Love you! Thank you soooooo much!"
This technique can be useful for more focused evaluation - for example trying to identify exactly what people love or hate about a service or process.
It’s worth noting that they’re in many ways the most challenging of these techniques for the user - writing a love or breakup letter is an inherently strange thing to do in this setting, and asking them to personify a service in order to write to it is a tricky thing for people to grasp - so it’s only really recommended for groups of subjects who you think will feel comfortable with the concept and fully understand it.
You will need a number of materials to create Love Letters and Break-Up Letters:
| Pens/Pencils and Paper | Stationary for the participants to write their love letters and break-up letters on. |
| Consent Forms | Two consent forms for the user to sign (one of which is theirs to keep). It’s good practice to send this out to the user in advance of the session, so they have time to review it. If using multiple techniques it is possible to roll the consent forms for each technique into one document. |
We wouldn’t recommend coming to this technique cold - in other words, you may already have done an Interview, perhaps preceded by a Touchstone Tour and / or Cognitive Map, and may end the session with the user with the letters. So assuming you’re in a room with the subject and have already established a rapport:
Explain that you’d like them to write a letter to a service or a product (not a person!), either expressing love or breaking up with it. Tell them to focus on the emotion, and try to explain a little about why you’re using this technique
Whilst you don’t want to pressure the user to finish quickly, this is intended as a short exercise so people don’t over-think things - usually 5 minutes or so will suffice
Ask the user to read their letter to you
Ask any relevant questions to better understand their views, and make notes
One final point: if the user appears uncomfortable with this technique or indicates they don’t want to do it (as has happened in one UX project here) never push them - explain that is absolutely fine and either end the session there or move onto another technique.
Most often analysing the letters consists of reading through them and noting trends or significant pain-points for users.
Often break-up letters can reveal minor irritations for users that are relatively easy to fix - so the key becomes noting the areas where change is needed, and then ensuring the relevant people can take it forward. If a love letter praises a particular service it’s important that the person in charge of it knows - not just because it’s nice to get positive feedback, but because we need to know what our students and staff value and appreciate.
Lots of UX practitioners recommend asking the participant to read out their letter whilst being filmed, in order to further capture the emotional aspect of their feedback. This isn’t something we’ve ever done in the Library, because we’ve considered the potential gains to be small, and outweighed by the pressure or feelings of embarrassment / awkwardness it would likely cause in the participants. If you do decide to film the reading of the letters, clearly this would require reworking the consent form to reflect this.