In todays class we will be looking at different research techniques, and the importance of carrying out research before we design a product. Research is important as we need to find out whether the product we are designing is needed, and whether there is a target audience for it.
The aim of the discovery phase is to find out the problem. This does not involve designing or testing products. Finding out what the problem is opens up opportunities for that problem to be solved. As UX designers we must always be trying to solve problems and overcome issues that users face. ‘Beginners mind’ is a mindset that we should have in the discovery phase, removing preconceptions that we have, and not shutting ourself down to potential pain points.
Desk research, or secondary research, is the first step. It is a cheap and easy way to find out a lot of information. Doing it stops us from re-inventing the wheel when there are already products out there that do the same thing. Some examples of desk research are: news articles, social media, Reddit, and government articles. Getting to know competitors is important, to see what works and doesn’t work for them. Considering direct and indirect competitors in this phase is key as well, as indirect competitors also target a similar user.
We need to research the people that will be using our products, so that we can know and understand them better. We first of all need to find out who are users are, and what their trying to do. With our current project, there is a lot of different users that are associated with university, so we must consider which one we want to target. We must ask them what they currently use and what issues/problems they have with it. Finding out what their goal is important as that is what we need to orientate our design around. A bad example of a product that failed due to no user research was the Segway. It didn’t actually solve any problems, and was 10x more expensive than a bike. MIT didn’t do user research and this product proved how important it is. If they did, they wouldn’t even developed it, saving a lot of time and money.
There are many different user research methods that are used in the UX industry. Behavioural is what people actually do, whereas attitudinal is what people say they do. It is important to focus on behavioural methods, as these are more accurate. Qualitative research gets to the why and how users do tasks, whereas quantitative is more about stats and figures, and how many people did the task. Behavioural and qualitative research is superior to attitudinal and quantitative research. This article by Nielson Norman Group mentions 20 different research methods, and puts them on a X and Y axis framework to understand where each one stands when it comes to behavioural vs attitudinal, and qualitative vs quantitative. There are a lot of different research methods out there, so it is important to utilise them when needed.
A Guide to Using User-Experience Research Methods
Finding the right user to research is half of the work. There is no point researching someone who doesn’t need or won’t use your product. Whenever we can research users who will use the product we should, and our last resort should be turning to other people such as friends and family for research. This overall helps with the accuracy, informing our decisions better. We then done an exercise with our teams where we noted down the different users of a university, what their goals are, and what issues they may face. This helped us understand the scope of how many users there are, and how each one has a different set of goals and problems that they face.
This is when we research into the user by looking into the context that they are using or will be using the product. This involves observing people in a natural context, and asking them questions like why and how they do different things. Asking open ended questions is key here, as it lets them answer the question in their own way, instead of yes and no answers. These questions should be asked throughout the process, getting access into their thoughts and feelings. A good way to think of it is the user being the master, and the designer being the apprentice. Gathering notes throughout helps us keep track of what happened, especially what actions they took, issues they face, and some direct quotations.
Then getting in our teams again we created journey maps, on an issue we had in the past. We chose when our car broke down. I was interviewing, Lucy was the interviewee, and Clodagh was taking notes. I asked Lucy to tell me about where she was, what time it was and what happened. She walked through the story, and I asked how she felt and what steps she took. The issues were clear, she misjudged the water, her car stopped working, and nobody answered the phone when she needed help. An opportunity that could have helped Lucy was an out of hours service that helped her get her car towed out, instead of relying on a friend who worked with cars to do it.
