User Research: Methods and Best Practices Flashcards
Aim of User Research
Place people – users – at the center of the design of your product (tangible or not tangible).
—To drive your design
—To assess the value of your solutions
—To assess the impact of your product
What is User Research?
Covers a wide range of methods!
—Ethnographic interviews with target group
—Classical usability studies
—Quantitative measurements of return on investment (ROI) on UX design
User Research Methods - Quantitative Research
—Surveys
—Formal Experiments
—Systematic Observation
Provide measures of user behaviour, in the form of statistics which can be analysed.
User Research Methods - Qualitative Research
—Diary accounts
—In-depth interview
—Focus groups
—Ethnography
—Usability tests (to some degree)
Provide deep understanding of the experiences and daily routines of the users.
Which Research Methods to choose?
- Identify your goal
- What are you trying to identify?
- What is the nature of your project?
- What is your budget?
- What is your time span?
Meaningful Designs
Get to know who will be using your design
Design Thinking first rule is to empathise with your user
* Identify several users and conduct interviews and observations in their natural contexts
* In the beginning of the design… and validate ideas throughout project’s lifetime
Easy and Enjoyable Designs
High Level of Usability
* Users have to LOVE to experience your design… otherwise they will love others’ product
* How…? User Tests
What is the ROI of your design?
Invisible effort until product is finished!
* Invest on user studies to show that the iterations with users returned on more sales!
* User studies: A/B testing or user patterns
Timeline for Design (6)
Research - Research to develop understanding about your users
Define - Compile research and observe where user’s problems exist
Ideate - Generate wide range of ideas
Prototype - Build real tactile representation of ideas
Test - Return to users for feedback
Implement - Launch product and go back to step 1 for next release
Design Development process
Project start
Define user requirements
Concept design
User testing of prototypes
Detailed design
Field trials (ROI)
Project launch
If there is no user? (new app?)
Integrate user research:
—As soon as possible
—Schedule enough time
—If there is not enough resources prioritise the things that you can apply user research
—Start with paper prototype!
Searching for Users
- Choose users that have the same characteristics that your aimed user
- Target at all age groups involved
- Recruit participants who represent your target group/end users
- Be aware that recurring to colleagues to perform tests may come with some bias
- Promote the inclusion of people with disabilities
User requirements and how to look for
Requirements
* Age
* Location
* Experience
How to look for?
* In your network
* Posting on social media
* In specialized forums
Research Plan
- Purpose: what you want to find out and how you are going to get it?
- Method: Depends on time and budget constraints. For example, Direct observations with a user; online survey; qualitative interviews, etc.
- Participants
- Location
- Script
- Consent: What type of data is going to be collected; Who is going to have access to data; Participation is completely voluntary
- Communication
- Timeplan
Movie streaming App - 1. Purpose
The purpose of this study is to find out how/when our target group watches movies. When, where and how does watching movies interleave with the other daily routines? There is the need to understand these issues in order to develop features that are most relevant to our group.
Movie streaming App - 2. Method
We will do 8-10 interviews to understand how and when they watch streamed movies
Movie streaming App - 3. Participants
People aged 18-35, who use movies on-demand app and watch at least 1 movie per week. Due to time constraints we will recruit in the proximity through our network and social media.
Movie streaming App - Questions
How often do you watch a movie per week?
In what circumstances do you watch such movie?
Where do you watch?
Can you describe a typical situation?
Movie streaming App - Data and Analysis
Interviews will be video recorded, using two cameras.
A thematic analysis to discover the main themes.
Movie streaming App - 4. Location
Interview participations at home or in the park because they are places where watching movies occur.
Have the opportunity to see the kind of equipment used
Movie streaming App - 5. Script
Introduce yourself and the study – make sure that every participant has the same information.
Ask permission to video record and establish privacy issues.
Questions may be posed in different order to engage the participants.
Possible tasks that participants have to perform.
Movie streaming App - 6. Consent
Send an email with the explanation of the study and the on the day explain it again!
Movie streaming App - 7. Communication
We plan to bring a designer to be present during the interview. A the end of the research we plan to do a workshop to brainstorm some ideas from the results. A document with all the research will be written.
Movie streaming App - 8. Time plan
The recruit of participations occur on week X. The interviews on week X+2, followed by the analysis and the workshop should occur at week X+4.
Ethics and User Research
Why? Humans
Responsible for participants welfare, being completely open about what we do with data, and keep them safe.
How:
- Be honest
- Be sensitive
- Be truthful about your participants
- Obtain Consent
- Do no Harm
- Be conscious about user data
- Participants’ time is precious
Be honest (Ethics and User Research)
- Tell the truth about the purpose
- Tell to whom you work for
- Tell what are the results for
Imagine that your participants hate company X … what should you do? Be honest
Be sensitive (Ethics and User Research)
- Put yourself in the shoes of the participant
- Reassure your participants that there are no correct behaviors
- Be aware of cultural limitations!
Be truthful about your participants (Ethics and User Research)
- Represent what participants do or express honestly
- Leave preconceived ideas out of the research
- Do not think that you do know everything
- Be truthful about how many ideas support your previous thoughts
- Quoting is an excellent way of communicating results + number of opinions
Obtain Consent (Ethics and User Research)
- Inform about what you are doing, how you are doing and for what you are doing!
- Be aware of local policies!
Be conscious about user data (Ethics and User Research)
- Guarantee the anonymity of the data, so take care of how you keep the data
- When quoting find some fictional name
- Think about how long do you need to store the data of the user research
Usability Testing - Why?
- Do we meet user expectations
- Business decisions match user needs
- Uncovering errors
- Discover how users perform tasks
- Are we doing the right things?
- Get opinions!
- Cheaper to stop and make changes to prevent a catastrophe!
Types of Usability Tests
Low fidelity Tests (paper prototypes)
High fidelity tests (fully functional prototypes)
Down the hall tests
4-step Process for Usability Tests
- Create a test plan
- Facilitate the test
- Analyze case data
- Create test report
- Create a test plan (Process for Usability Tests)
Scope of work
Recruit users
Identify objectives
- Facilitate the test (Process for Usability Tests)
Observe users
Identify issues
Identify solutions
- Analyze case data (Process for Usability Tests)
Assess user behavior
Analyze user click path
Identify problem areas
- Create test report (Process for Usability Tests)
Review video footage
Identify design issues
Identify best practices
Core elements of Usability Testing
Facilitator - Guides participant through test
Tasks - Realistic activities participant might perform
Participant - Realistic user of product
Usability Test Metrics - Objective Metrics
Time on task: How long did it take the participant to complete the task
Effort: E.g. count nr of clicks necessary to complete the task.
Nr. of confusions: Count the nr of times the participants express confusion or doubt.
Nr. of errors: Count the nr of times the participant makes an incorrect action when trying to complete their task.
Success rate: Count how many users were able to complete a task.
Failure rate: Count how many users where not able to complete a task.
Partial success: Measure if users are able to complete subsets of the task.
Usability Test Metrics - Subjective Metrics
During the test:
- Stress responses: Note when the user appears stressed.
- Confusions: Note when the user appears confused or expresses confusion.
After the test:
Ask the participants to rate:
- Subjective Satisfaction
- Perceived effort or difficulty
- How the interface looks
Interview the participants about:
- Thoughts and opinions
- Confusions
- Did the interface meet their expectations
Preparing an Usability Test Plan - Before
—Areas to Focus
—Potential usability issues
—What tasks will be tested
—How many users?
—Which groups of users? → Personas!
—Which groups are more important?
—What part of the product is going to be tested?
—Goals for testing each part
Preparing an Usability Test Plan - Test Plan
Goal
Test tasks (scenarios)
End states (answers)
Equipment needed
Preparing an Usability Test Plan - During
Introduce the users to the test
Purpose of the test (emphasise that there are no correct or wrong and that every answer is a help!)
Give a list of tasks to be completed with your product
Think Out Loud (researcher to follow!)
Move along tasks whenever you are ready!
I would be happy to answer your questions at the end
What are Ethnographic Interviews
Ethnographic interviews are used by social scientists and educators today to get the informant’s or interviewee’s perspective on their beliefs, values, and understandings of life and other topics or cultural events.
