Finding detailed specifications for implementing user research methods is easy - but matching specific methods to your particular needs can be a challenge. We'll outline an underlying framework for research approaches so you'll understand why each method works as well as when to use it.
1. UX Process Improved
Integrating User Insight
Aviva Rosenstein
Lead Usability Analyst, Salesforce.com
@uxresearch
arosenstein@salesforce.com
Steve Portigal #UXsxsw
Principal, Portigal Consulting
@steveportigal
www.portigal.com
steve@portigal.com
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2. Why we’re here, what you’ll learn
We believe: insights about people help
teams create great user experiences
We’ll talk about:
– What sort of insights are valuable at different
points in the product development process
– Frameworks that may help you decide how to
go about getting those insights
– Basic skills to get better insights
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3. We Uncover Needs but Also
Reveal New Opportunities
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5. Moving Beyond “Testing”
• More to do than validating our hypothesized
solutions
• Insight inspires the creation of new solutions
• Ask what someone wants, without expecting
to simply go and implement that answer
• Seek to understand why!
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6. What type of insight?
RICH DESCRIPTION
• Gain understanding of user’s
lived experience, values,
desires, environments
• Research design is emergent,
opportunistic
• Data: stories, recordings,
images, artifacts
• Leading indicators
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7. What type of insight?
QUANTITATIVE
• Model behavior, predict
outcomes
• Research design is
fixed, hypothesis driven
• Data: Numbers, counts,
percentages, statistics
• Trailing indicators
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8. User research throughout the product lifecycle
Stage of product lifecycle Prototype Alpha Beta General
Simplified
waterfall
Regardless of the development process used, different phases
of the product lifecycle benefit from different types of insight.
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9. The idealized product lifecycle
(according to a user researcher)
What do we How do we How well did
build? build it? we build it?
Regardless of the development process used, different phases
of the product lifecycle benefit from different types of insight.
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10. How do the insights from
user research fit into the UX process?
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11. The Right Insight at the Right Time
Ideate & Refine ideas, Launch
Plan prototype, build
Iterate and improve
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12. The Right Insight at the Right Time
Take a fresh look
at people
What do we Refine ideas, Launch
build? prototype, build
Iterate and improve
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13. The Right Insight at the Right Time
Use existing ideas as
hypotheses
What do we Refine ideas, Launch
build? prototype, build
Iterate and improve
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14. The Right Insight at the Right Time
Is it working
like we hoped?
What do we Refine ideas, Launch
build? prototype, build
Iterate and improve
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15. The Right Insight at the Right Time
What do we Refine ideas, Launch
build? prototype, build
History provides
context to explore new
opportunities
Iterate and improve
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16. Get to the answers that matter, and
match resources required with risk
Resource
intensive
Quick, techniques:
low cost Ethnographies,
techniques: Diary Studies
Rapid iterative Segmentation
studies, surveys,
Online card sorts, UX evaluations
Live testing and benchmarks,
Eyetracking
Being able to generalize
the results of a study
usually requires more
money and time.
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17. Method selection framework
When
risk is high,
consider
More more
Resources resource
intensive
approaches
Fewer
Resources
More More
SXSWi
Descriptive Quantifiable
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18. Different Methods Work Together
Start with descriptive research, then validate hypotheses
or
Look at abstractions, patterns – then go look at individuals
experiences to develop explanations, understanding
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19. Different Methods Work Together
Music Application Usage
55%
Windows Media Player 55%
55%
38%
RealPlayer 33%
35%
18%
iTunes 23%
28%
18%
MusicMatch Jukebox 17%
20%
7%
Winamp 7%
16%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
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20. Different Methods Work Together
Music Application Usage
55%
Windows Media Player 55%
55%
38%
RealPlayer 33%
35%
18%
iTunes 23%
28%
18%
MusicMatch Jukebox 17%
20%
7%
Winamp 7%
16%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
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21. The UX Community Offers the
Promise of Mastery
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22. SXSWi
Muscles vs. methods
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23. But we must go beyond rote
learning
• There are some human-scale skills that
underpin most (all?) methods and that are
essential if you want to build your abilities across
current and future methods
– Listening
– Synthesis
– Noticing/Observation
– Empathy
– Storytelling
– Modeling
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24. Four (questioning) tactics for
listening
Natural language
Questions without
Answers
Silence 1 Silence 2
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25. Tactic #1 – Natural Language
Talk like your
subject talks!
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26. Tactic #2 – Questions without
Answers
Don’t give
away the
answers you
are looking for
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27. Tactic #3 – Silence 1
After you ask
your question,
be silent
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28. Tactic #4 – Silence 2
After they’ve
answered you,
be silent
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30. Synthesis is Successive
Refinement
• First process the experience you have
collecting data (“in your head”) and then the
data itself (“heavy lifting”)
• You’ll go through and refine it
• Then go through that and refine it
• Repeat!
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31. Synthesis is Ongoing
• Throughout the data collection process
• Storytelling and regular debriefs: What did you see?
What does it mean?
• Go talk about what you saw and write it up
• Get all the detail, don’t worry about what it means
until later
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32. Noticing
• Things that make you go
“Hmm”
• Your attention is grabbed
• Stop what you are doing
• Laugh
• Point
• Cringe
• Don’t understand
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33. Noticing Is Important In UX Research
• Gaps between self-reported
and actual behavior
• Not only what people say,
but how they say it
• Workarounds, hacks, and
kludges
• Process breakdowns
• Artifacts or details to ask
about
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39. Empathy
• Let go of your perspective
• Embrace their perspective
Let go,
Luke!
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40. HOWTO Let Go
• Before you start a project, do a
team-wide brain dump of all your
assumptions and expectations
• Make user sessions about that
user Sometimes the
unpredictable and “real”
nature of interviews will
• Be comfortable asking questions ensure that you do
indeed let go
even if you think you know the
answers
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42. “Methodology should not be a
fixed track to a fixed destination,
but a conversation about
everything that could be made
to happen.”
John Chris Jones,
Design Methods (1992)
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43. I’ve got a tip
(that you
didn’t cover)
that works
well for me…
One new Yeah, I’ve
thing I got a
learned question
today is… for ya…
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