In todays class Sian and Dani from ESO came in to give a talk on user research. They are a company that create software for emergency services such as ambulances and firefighters, and their products are used to document patient information, with the key context being that their users are dealing with high-pressure scenarios and will have heavy equipment on like gloves or helmets.
They emphasised a lot the cost of testing, and the importance of ensuring that testing is done before the product is built and in the hands of users. The lower fidelity the testing is done the better, as it can take a day or two to fix a simple prototype compared to when the product is fully built and coded, which could take months to fix. It is best to get the product in the hands of real users as early as possible to avoid this. They also recommended websites like Maze where you can get people to test your product for you can track their audio, mouse clicks, and where they got stuck.
They stressed to us the importance of testing our designs. As designers we often feel like we know what the users want and what is best for the product, but that often brings false assumptions and bias to our designs. They gave an example of a product that was redesigned for iOS using Apples guidelines by another contractor, and this led to negative feedback due to it not being accessible within the context of high-pressure scenarios. This shows that although Apple’s guidelines are generally accessible for everyday use, for the context that ESO’s users are in, it wasn’t. Some testing before the product was built would’ve spotted this, but they thought using iOS would have been safe and users would like it.
This short lecture was helpful as it reminded me to always put the user first, and the best way to do this is to sit down with them and use the product with them through usability testing. I am going to be bringing this thinking into my major project and make sure that I don’t just design what I think would be nice but proven, tested interfaces and flows that users find intuitive and easy-to-use.