No excuses user research

@lily_dart lilydart.com Lily Dart Freelance user experience design & research No excuses user research

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Most of us are plagued by opinion-driven design

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Design and development based on subjective opinion, not objective data

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research When we can’t agree, it’s the highest paid opinion who gets to break the tie

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Forced to prioritise features based on internal wants and pressures Make design and language decisions based on project-leader preferences Become focused on delivery speed and uptime over usability and product fit

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research For most of us, this sucks

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research To counter to subjective opinions, we need objective data

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research We just don’t have the time, money or people to do research.” “ Excuse

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research We already have a site that people use. Why do I need to know more about those people?” “ Excuse

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research We already know what our users want.”“ Excuse

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research We don’t know enough about the behaviour or needs of our users

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research User research doesn’t have to be time consuming, expensive or difficult

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Method Usability feedback through complaints and bug reports Method

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Bug reports, where no functional bug can be identified, are a potential source of user feedback.

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research The problem does not exist between chair and keyboard.

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research If you’ve handled ‘PEBCAK’ reports, then you’ve been handling usability feedback.

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Complaints are feedback borne of frustration and dissatisfaction. They often reveal the best insights.

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Identify potential usability issues in our interfaces Identify mis-matches in product features and user expectation Reduce the amount of non-functional bug reports and complaints we receive

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Record reports in a system that allows tagging Tag reports with appropriate labels; e.g. “usability” and “login” Check back regularly until you have enough for analysis

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research I’ve just tried to make a payment on my credit card but the debt is still showing the same amount.” “ Two days ago I paid £300 off my credit card, and the payment still hasn’t shown up. Has the payment bounced?” I tried to pay off my credit card, the money has left my account, but isn’t showing up on my statement.” “ “ #usability #card-statement #usability #card-statement #usability #card-statement

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research I have just moved house and am trying to update my address, but the button won’t work.” “ Recently I changed my surname after getting married, but can’t seem to make the change on your system.” I want to update my profile photo, but the page won’t save it.” “ “ #usability #profile #usability #profile #usability #profile

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research An individual bug report or complaint isn’t enough to give us certainty of an issue Not everyone has the time or motivation to provide feedback or log bugs Consider the size of your user base, ease of reporting and the severity of the issue

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Users who report issues in anger are unintentionally doing you a favour.

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Identify usability issues Identify product misunderstandings Reduce complaints and bug reports Complaint and bug report analysis can help you to:

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Complaint and bug report analysis Dev time None Analysis time 30 mins +

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Method User feedback through transaction audits Method

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research A transaction audit allows us to capture feedback from users at the point of success, or failure.

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Transaction audits are usually single questions or short forms that we ask users to fill in at the end of their journey.

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Transaction audits give us on the spot feedback about user interactions They can tell us why a user was unsatisfied, and give insight into improving our sites They give users a simple route to feedback when they may not otherwise be motivated

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research testtransaction.com Did you find what you were looking for? Yes No

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Thanks for your feedback. testtransaction.com Did you find what you were looking for? Yes No

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Thanks for your feedback. testtransaction.com Did you find what you were looking for? Yes No If the user answers yes, submit the form.

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research testtransaction.com Did you find what you were looking for? Yes No

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Did you find what you were looking for? Yes No What were you looking for? Send testtransaction.com

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Did you find what you were looking for? Yes No What were you looking for? Send testtransaction.com If the user answers no, submit the response immediately. The text field should be optional. If a user fills it out, update their response.

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Thanks for your feedback. testtransaction.com We use all of the feedback we receive to improve the site.

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research How was your shopping experience today? We’re sorry. What could we have improved? Send testtransaction.com

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Keep questions as simple and straightforward as possible to maximise responses If a user completes a transaction regularly, don’t keep asking them Reserve audits for key user journeys, or keep them discrete for content feedback

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Audits can be created from scratch, or can be embedded using an external survey tool If you’re using a survey tool, the only additional feature you’ll need is ‘branching’ Some tools also allow you to add a hidden field to pass the URL of the page the form is on

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research So that transactions audits do not become intrusive to users, they must be optional.

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Transaction audits are not surveys.

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research They are satisfaction gauges, or red flags for underperforming transactions.

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Transaction audits can help you to: Gather feedback at the point of success or failure Identify unsatisfactory transactions Receive continuous user feedback

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Gather feedback at the point of success or failure Identify unsatisfactory transactions Receive continuous user feedback Transaction audits can help you to:

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Transaction audits Dev time 30 mins + Analysis time 1 hr +

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Method Content and language analysis through search logs Method

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Internal search logs are a rich, often untapped, source of insights about user behaviour and needs.

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Search log analysis reveals the value of “search returned no results”

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Search logs can help us to identify content missing from our site that users want or expect They can reveal when we’re using different language or categorisation than our users They can give us an indication of how easy our popular content is to find

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Top search queries Klingons Daleks The Doctor Vulcans A.I. Borg Cardassian Ferengi Hirogen Romulan Delvian Time Lords Jedi Wookie Bajoran Robots Kardashian Peacekeepers Weeping Angels Ood 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 On aliens4eva.com; a site about alien races in Science Fiction.

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Klingons Daleks The Doctor Vulcans A.I. Borg Cardassian Ferengi Hirogen Romulan Delvian Time Lords Jedi Wookie Bajoran Robots Kardashian Peacekeepers Weeping Angels Ood 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Top search queries which don’t return results

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Klingons Daleks The Doctor Vulcans A.I. Borg Cardassian Ferengi Hirogen Romulan Delvian Time Lords Jedi Wookie Bajoran Robots Kardashian Peacekeepers Weeping Angels Ood 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Top search queries which don’t return results 1. User language and categorisation doesn’t align with site content

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Klingons Daleks The Doctor Vulcans A.I. Borg Cardassian Ferengi Hirogen Romulan Delvian Time Lords Jedi Wookie Bajoran Robots Kardashian Peacekeepers Weeping Angels Ood 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Top search queries which don’t return results 2. Content that users are searching for does not exist on the site

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Klingons Daleks The Doctor Vulcans A.I. Borg Cardassian Ferengi Hirogen Romulan Delvian Time Lords Jedi Wookie Bajoran Robots Kardashian Peacekeepers Weeping Angels Ood 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Top search queries which don’t return results 3. Misspelling means some users can’t find pages they are looking for

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Top search queries in the top 20 most visited pages Klingons Daleks The Doctor Vulcans A.I. Borg Cardassian Ferengi Hirogen Romulan Delvian Time Lords Jedi Wookie Bajoran Robots Kardashian Peacekeepers Weeping Angels Ood 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Losing traffic for popular content to other sites in natural search Some popular pages are harder to discover through the site navigation User interface promotes some content, increasing the amount of page views

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Top search queries in the top 20 most visited pages Klingons Daleks The Doctor Vulcans A.I. Borg Cardassian Ferengi Hirogen Romulan Delvian Time Lords Jedi Wookie Bajoran Robots Kardashian Peacekeepers Weeping Angels Ood 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 4. Navigational routes to some popular content may be convoluted

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Search query analysis results User language and categorisation doesn’t align with site content  Content that users are searching for does not exist on the site  Misspelling means some users can’t find pages they are looking for  Navigational routes to some popular content may be convoluted 1 2 3 4

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Consider the timeframe for analysis; do external factors affect your traffic and search terms? Consider the size of your user base when deciding on depth of analysis Test out top search terms in your search engine; where do they appear in the list of results?

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Search log analysis can help you to: Identify missing or difficult to find content Identify non-user friendly language or categorisation Reveal poor information architecture

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Search log analysis Dev time 10 mins + Analysis time 1 hr +

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Identify usability issues and reduce usability related bug reports and complaints Gather continuous feedback on transaction success and user satisfaction Improve poor information architecture by aligning it to user language and categorisation

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Using all of these methods on a project would likely take less than 8 hours a month.

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research Reduced uncertainty Better outcomes Less conflict

@lily_dart lilydart.com No excuses user research User research is the cure for opinion-driven design.

@lily_dart lilydart.com Lily Dart Freelance user experience design & user research Any questions?