Including UX designers in user research / testing processes - considerations

Question

I have been asked previously to participate as user testing processes (formal and informal) and in the screening process the fact that I am also a UX designer doesn't seem to have been an exclusion criteria (just thinking about lawyers in jury panels).

I am wondering if others have had experiences when choosing or screening participants for user research or testing activities to deliberately include or exclude UX designers and why? What are the main considerations that you have had to deal with?

Answer 1

Depends context. Like every single product we suppose have (a) persona(s), products are mainly build upon these considerations and so the needed tests/evaluations are.

Like you mentioned with your first sentence, if the product is addressing the designers or let's say aiming general purpose, there's nothing awkward to getting all the aspects or testing it for every single persona.

And like the case for my prior question here on an academical research for user experience, I had to ask these questionnaires specifically to the designers to being able to see the differentiations more easily. Otherwise getting a result may not be showing the exact situation where these people may or may not understand the aim of the tests.