User Research

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD User Researcher

at early stages of development

 About me

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 Agenda today
1st hour:
USER RESEARCH
Qualitative User Research

Why?

How?

2nd hour:

User research at early stages of design

processes

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 What to remember after this lecture:

You are not the user - be curious!

Dare to go lo-fi

Co-create - to find out what is important to the user

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 Expectations from you?

Something you are curious to learn

more about?

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 Katter

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 User “ Your customers are not you.
They don’t look like you, they don’t

Research
think like you do, they don’t do the
things that you do, they don’t have
your expectations or assumptions.

If they did, they wouldn’t be your

customers;
they’d be your competitors”

Mike Kuniavsky

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 User research is about finding out
users’ motivations, needs and behaviors,
their pain-points and pleasures.

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 What is the user researchers’ responsibilities?

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

Bring Empathy
for the users to
the design process

Empathy is at the heart of

design. Without the
understanding of what others
see, feel, and experience, design
is a pointless task.
Jane Fulton Suri, Ideo
 user
Provide
feedback
on features

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 Identify
innovation
opportunities

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 User research types
Quantitative: What happened, Qualitative: Why?

to what extent?

Log data Interviews,

observation,
co-creation

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 User Research work

Frame Gather Make ideas Co-create Test to learn Share the

research inspiration tangible story
Involve users in Gather feedback,
questions the creation find out what
Inspire new thinking Find ways to let Craft a human
process to find works/don’t work
by discovering what users experience story to inspire
Identify out what is
people need design ideas. others to action
important important to
Prototype!
questions to them
drive
innovation
forward

User research provide Insights

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 User Experience
- what is it to you?

Take 2 min to discuss

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 User Experience

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 Deeper User Research Insights
Researching UX means encountering an

iceberg of insights

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 Deeper User Research Insights

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 User wants is not user needs

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 What core values
can you bring to the
users’ life?
Don’t get locked
into solution-mode

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 Good user research questions focus on
What? How? Why?

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 Do people like my design?

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 Instead, try to understand:

Detailed, inspirational information about users that help

you move forward in your design process.

For example

What are the pain-points?

What are the pleasures? Why?
What other services do the users like?
How do they use them?

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 Interviews

● Avoid leading questions

● Avoid close-ended questions
● Take your time - don’t be afraid of silence
● Check back with the participant “Did you mean
that…”?

Ask why...and why

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.
 Discussion in pairs 3 min

● What knowledge about users would help you to do your design task?
● Can you come up with some research questions that will help you find out
about users’ needs, motivations, behaviors, pain-points?

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 What do you need to know to move forward in your
current project?

METHODS
In pairs, take 2-3 min to start formulating questions for possible user research

EXPLORATIVE - EVALUATIVE

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 Behavioral

Qual Quant

Attitudinal
Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.
 Behavioral

A/B testing
Usability Testing

Field Research
Qual Quant

Diary Study
Survey

Interviews
Attitudinal
Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.
 Triangulate!

Behavioral

A/B testing
Usability Testing

Field Research
Qual Quant

Diary Study
Survey

Interviews
Attitudinal
Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.
The best results come
from testing no more
than 5 users and
running as many small
tests as you can afford
EVALUATIVE -

Usability Studies
Discovering usability issues by observation and
asking participant to think out loud when interacting
with the product.

Explore for example:

Time-on-task
Efficiency
Satisfaction

Jakob Nielsen
System design must include not
only the design of innovative
technologies, but their artful EXPLORATIVE -
integration with the rest of the
social and material world.

Field Research
Understand behaviours, user needs and motivations as
they unfold in the users’ own world. Go on home-visits,
observe and interview.

Lucy Suchman
Lucy Suchman - Ethnographer and Legend of the Green Button

Lucy Suchman
& the green button
Spotify Project Title 00.00.2015 Proprietary & Confidential
 Diary studies

Understand behaviours, user needs and

motivations as they unfold over time.

Can be videos, photos, text, sound

recordings.

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 Co-creation
● Asking the participant to join in ideation
● About finding out what is important to users

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 Co-creation
STEPS
1. Decide on participants
2. Arrange a space, get the necessary supplies (often pens, Post-its, paper, maybe art supplies),
and invite them to join.
3. Use methods such as brainstorming, role plays, rapid prototyping, mindmapping to pin-point
problem space and user generated solutions
4. Capture the feedback your group gives you
5. Analyse the results - what is important to our users? What user needs emerge?

Literature Tip on Co-Designing:

Context mapping Visser, Froukje Sleeswijk, et al. "Contextmapping: experiences from practice." CoDesign 1.2 (2005): 119-149.
Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.
 Wizard-of-Oz
Human emulating the machine

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 Steps in User Research

PREPARE CONDUCT RESEARCH ANALYSE AND SHARE & OWN INSIGHTS

RESEARCH SYNTHESIS RESULTS

Plan the activity Collect data Go from data to insights Make use of the findings
● Understand
limitations ● Share summary of
● Interview and ● Look for patterns/themes in data evidence and insights at
● Select research observe people
method show & tell
● Co-create ● Identify insight owners of
● Plan the study ● Collect data
● Schedule insight actions to
from other/ incorporate into design
participants secondary
● Research method sources
review
● Identify tools
● Assign roles

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 Discussion in pairs 5 min

● Who are your users? Where can you find them?

● Will you have a prototype?
● Is there elements of co-creation that you can bring in?

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 Break

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 How do you research what doesn’t exist?

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.
 We need to explore how people will
think, feel and react in future situations.

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 Challenges for UX research

● In-depth, UX data needed at early design phases (Visser et al. 2005, Özçelik
Buskermolen et al., 2012)

However…

● UX aspects such as emotions and behaviours are challenging to express

(Sanders 2002)
● Risk of over-emphasising ease-of use over hedonic values (Yogasara 2014,
Arhippainen, 2009)
● Most UX research today use interviews + questionnaires (Pettersson et al., 2018)
● Research today typically address existing or close-to finished products
(Pettersson et al., 2018)

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.
Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.
Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.
Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.
 How can UX data be elicited
for input to novel concepts in
early design phases?
● Multiple methods explored
○ Co-creation, enactment, Wizard-of-Oz,
collages, etc
● Product & context representations
explored
○ VR, storyboards, interactive prototypes,
paper prototypes, lo-fi driving simulators,
small-scale scenarios etc

Looking for personal, specific and

contextual experience data
Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.
Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.
Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.
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 ACT/INTERACT

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 ACT & REFLECT - trigger reflections by making

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

 EXPRESSING EXPERIENCE

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.
 Research similar technologies

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.
 Literature recommendations
Experience Prototyping Buchenau, Marion, and Jane Fulton Suri. "Experience prototyping." Proceedings of the 3rd conference on Designing interactive systems:
processes, practices, methods, and techniques. ACM, 2000.

Design Techniques Pettersson, Ingrid, and Wendy Ju. "Design Techniques for Exploring Automotive Interaction in the Drive towards Automation." Proceedings of
the 2017 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems. ACM, 2017.

Co-Designing: Context mapping Visser, Froukje Sleeswijk, et al. "Contextmapping: experiences from practice." CoDesign 1.2 (2005): 119-149.

Understanding Users: Contextual inquiry Holtzblatt, Karen, and Hugh Beyer. ”Contextual design: Design for life”. Morgan Kaufmann, 2016.

Rehearsing the future Halse, J., Brandt, E., Clark, B., & Binder, T. (2010). Rehearsing the future. The Danish Design School Press.

Speculative Design https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2w27TPQxDk

Ingrid Pettersson, PhD.