UXD - User eXperience Design

Ideas for User Research

User Research isn't limited to sitting behind a glass window, nervously chomping on M&Ms while glaring at the hapless user who’s attempting to navigate through your next killer app. There are different types of user research that can be incorporated throughout the lifecycle of a project, often at minimal costs to the company but with maximum results towards a more usable product.

User research methodologies generally fall into the two broad categories of Qualitative (why is something happening) and Quantitative (what is happening). With Qualitative research, you use a small sample size to discover new insights which can then be tested or proven. Quantitative research uses a large sample size to test or prove something, perhaps one of the insights you uncovered during your qualitative research or to determine the primary browsers you want to support.

Starting with Quantitative Research, here are some methods you should consider incorporating into your next project:

User Surveys uncover what the users say. You’ll get a large sample of responses on your users’ goals, behaviors and attitudes (assuming you have a well-designed survey of course). Surveys allow you to easily gather data on almost any topic and the results can then be ranked and assigned a priority for future design, scoping, etc..

Site Traffic Analysis tells you what your users do. An analytics tool's output tell you how your site is navigated, which pages are abandoned, which content performs well, which browsers you users are actually using, and so on. Your logs files will tell you some of this information as well, but slog through those files just once and you’ll soon realize the value of an analytics tool.

Information from these Quantitative research methods will tell you what is happening but not necessarily why it’s happening. For that, you’ll need to conduct some sort of Qualitative research, such as:

User Interviews let you learn about your users. Either from talking to a person face-to-face or over the phone, interviews yield detailed information about your users’ goals, behaviors and attitudes. They are usually better when conducted one on one rather than in a group because you can remain focused on that one individual and what they're saying. Keep in mind that loosely constructed conversations, rather than a formal script, allow for unexpected tangents that can lead to surprises and insights.

From Field Studies, you’ll gain context about where and how and when people actually use your software (or the competition) as you observe them in their daily routines. From this direct observation, you’ll also gain an understanding of your user’s attitudes and perceptions  which will help in designing the user experience.

Usability Testing is done to observe user behavior. It is different from a field study in that you’re not merely observing the users' actions, but you’re also directing their actions. It lets you watch how people  use your application to perform specific tasks and where they encounter obstacles, which features slowed them down, which elements were confusing, etc. Usability Testing yields a richer quality and quantity of information than a survey.

If the hat fits--do you wear it?

I've just completed the first of three days of usability testing for a new educational online subscription product.  The multiple sessions are stacked consecutively; the 45-minute breaks I thought were ample in theory seemed to last as long as a single gasp today, as our team fought--not always successfully--an unfolding series of unfortunate technology events.

Still, I love the opportunity to do usability testing. I've been very fortunate in my career in UXD to have always worked in environments that did not create an unscalable wall between Information Architects and Usability Specialists. 

If research, including usability testing, can be defined as "diagnosis," and creation, including wireframes, site maps, taskflows, and the like, comprise "design," these two complementary, yin-yang aspects support, validate and enrich each other. I love the opportunity to play both of these roles, to wear both hats. I think it's made me better in each, and takes me back to my early education in arithmetic, where we "proved" the accuracy of any single answer through the complementary operation--the division problem was proved through multiplication, the subtraction problem through addition.

Usability testing diagnoses design. It's the analysis of user reaction as opposed to the creation of user action. Diagnosis looks outward to the users, acting upon the design; design looks inward, to the designers acting in lieu of the users.

User Testing: Shadow Casting Real Use

User Testing is always good. It always yields some worthwhile and occasionally unexpected results. After the ego’s involved recover, they realize it is always better & cheaper to know sooner.

But User Testing is not perfect. If it has a fault, it is this: user testing an existing site is like watching life in a rear view mirror. It’s a reflection of a snippet of experience; a kind of shadow casting of real use.

Often, people evaluate what they have access to and make profound determinations on the basis of what they can see. This can be a very limited view of reality, and tends to reinforce that which has already been invented; to paraphrase a tautology: That which is good exists, that which exists may or may not be good, but it can be tracked within a millimeter of it’s existence.

So it has to be taken with a grain of salt. There are famous business cases of researching an existing context and making regrettable decisions. The research that Ford did as to whether or not they should have a drivers side rear door on the Windstar strongly indicated that consumers did not care. Dodge ignored thier research and added one, taking the market from Ford. What is the lesson? Once consumers saw it, and used it, they realized that it was a valuable addition. Another chapter in Ford's seemingly endless downfall.

To suggest that the fault is the user testing is not quite the whole story. The user testing counted what was known to be countable; what it cannot do is invent, or count what it cannot quantify. However, a mix of interviews, done by objective mediators, can reveal trends that designers & developers may not have considered or may have de-emphasized in thier process.