Transcription

Affinity Mapping

Hey there. While discussing about various user research methods in the previous sessions, you learned about user
interviews and contextual inquiry. There are excellent ways of gathering user feedback. It's possible that you'd be
stuck with transcriptions of interviews and bundles of notes and making sense of these is hard. How do you actually
make sense of such large amounts of feedback and then all of that information into something useful? Let's see if our
experts have a method to solve this problem.

Affinity mapping is a process to organize data that is collected through qualitative research methods like user
interviews, contextual inquiry, and break it down into smaller chunks and then organize them into groups that highlight

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a common theme. Affinity mapping is usually used after contextual inquiry sessions and it helps you to organize the
data points gained during the session in a meaningful way.

Affinity mapping is an easy to use economical method to analyze the data collected. It helps the product management
team to learn how a user would like the information to be structured, and then basis the categories created by the
user, you can create the information architecture for the product. This architecture will help you in building the
navigation flow for your product and is very important for users to have a great experience while they use the product.

Now that you know what affinity mapping is, let's look at an example to better understand how you can apply this
method on the data gathered from user research.

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Hi. Today we're going to work on a small process, which is affinity mapping. Affinity mapping is pretty much making
meaningful understanding of the data that has been collected through the user research, through the desires and
through all the needs, and sort of, you know, wish-list of what the users really have given you during the research
study.

So, as you can see, there's a lot of needs and desires. There's a lot of information which is kind of just jumbled up and
put up right there as a very confused board. A lot of thoughts are there on the board. So, if we jump right into it, we
pick up one of the chits and we say, we pick the one that says, can I see seats between showtimes. Now a user said
that they want to see seats between showtimes. From showtime to showtime.

Now we would actually if this is the first, you know, the element that we are trying to group and make meaning of this
data, we don't know any other relationship around this data. So, we're going to put this right on the chart and put it
right in the middle to start with. Now that we've put, you know, one element right on a chart that actually, you know,
look at that chart as that's the sort of organized meaningful data that we're trying to make meaning of that data. And
here we have confused sort of, you know, scattered data, right?

We've just got these results in from our user saying that the users want to, you know, do different things around the,
you know, movie booking experience. So, moving on, I pick another one that says movies with the highest votes, thus
movies with the highest votes have some sort of relationship with the previous chit we picked up? If it doesn't, we put
it in a separate group.

At this point, I've segregated two chits because they have no relationship amongst each other, right. So, I'm going to
pick out another chip, which is fast filling shows. Now fast filling shows, are they somewhat related to or can they be
grouped with, can I see seats between showtimes, or can they be grouped with movies with the highest votes? So,
fast reading shows are more related to showtimes, right? So, just for now, I'm going to put them under showtimes.

Now as you see, there's a group sort of being formulated for showtimes and the first one is more movies related. So,
when you're booking a movie, there're largely three things, you know, three components that you're deciding to book
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within. You will discover a movie; you will pick a show time and you'll pick the seat you want to sit on. So, I'm starting
to, you know, create a bucket in my mind that I need to put all these chips in certain groups. But when you put them
in certain groups, they have further relationships between them. These relationships between them are identified.
Those are what decide what the affinity mapping is and the affinity between those. So, what does affinity really mean?
Affinity means when you have a relationship, or you feel close to something.

Let's go with the next one. The next one is the next show. Now when you say next show, that means particularly a
single show, the next short time available, right? Although it says the next show, a user said, Hey, I should be able to
see the next show, where would you see the next show? You would see where all the short times are. So, I would put
that under the showtimes bucket.

Moving on, if I pick out, can I block seats. Again, seats are not showtimes. Seats come after you pick a particular
showtime, right? So, they come in the process of being not grouped with showtimes, they come as a separate group
because they are seats, because there can be different seats for different shows. So, I'm going to put this as an outlier
as in a different group. I'm going to create another group.

Moving onto the next one, if I pick out, are there any deals or offers that are available for seats? It's pretty obvious
that this needs to go and be clubbed with seats. And the last chit that we pulled out was can I block seats? So, when I
say, can I block seats, everything is revolving around the seat. So, it's very simple that you would put that in the same
group.

So, in our research, we also found out there were some users that just wanted to see movies in a particular format.
For example, if they want to see movies in a 3 D format. So, if you pull out, how can I find 3D movies, you would think
are these 3D movies part of showtime or part of a seat layout? I think they're more part of discovering a movie. So, I
would put that first in the first bucket because they're related to a movie. So, we had one user that said, how can I see
exactly where to sit? Because it's important to know where you're going to be sitting and watching a movie, right. So,
would that come under movies? Would that come under showtimes? I think it's pretty self-explanatory that you would
put that under seats.

So, as you see, we're starting to formulate and we're starting to create three large buckets, which are now showing
movies, showtimes and seats. There were some users that said that they always know the cinema that they want to
watch the movie at, right. So, there's always a few cinemas that you always end up going to. There's not always, you
don't always end up going to many cinemas. So, if the user knows their cinema all the time, then they might start the
booking flow, not by movies, but they might start it by cinema. But it's still starting it through the booking process. So,
I would put that right up front next to, I always know my cinema. There's a reason why I've put it there because it's
not part of movies. Although there are movies, it's the closest affinity to movies, which I will explain in a bit.

Fewer users always said that, okay, we are in Maharashtra. We're in Mumbai. I mean, why do you always show me
movies for Tamil. Or why do you always show me movies which are in, you know, Telugu or a different language? For
that, we decided to give a feature that allows you to change the language and only show movies for a particular
language. Now, if this feature does not influence showtimes, does not influence seats. Hence, it has a relationship to
movies specifically, which is why we would put it under movies.

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A lot of users these days actually decide on going for a movie after they read a review. So, when a user says, can I read
a review, it certainly always means that they're trying to discover a movie. Again, reading a review has a close affinity
to two-word movies, which is why I would start to put it under movies. We also get feedback that users want to, you
know, sit on a particular seat. And sometimes those seats are not available. So, it's important to show them that these
seats are sold out. Hence, we got this feedback in our contextual inquiry that says, can I see sold-out seats? So, again,
it's pretty obvious that I need to bucket this along with the other seat desires.

So, now imagine the users on the short time screen and while the users on the short time screen, you know, they know
particularly which cinema they want to go for it because there's a laundry list of cinemas that have been listed. So, if
a user wants to search for a particular cinema, they would search for it, not in the movie screen, but they would search
for it on the cinema listing screen. So, where the show times are listed? Now showtimes have an affinity with cinemas
because show times are, you know, shown at cinemas. So, I would put that under showtimes.

So, where would you discover movies? You would discover movies on the now showing screen. So, one of our users
says, can I see movies recently released? I'm sure once you've made the decision to, pick a decision to watch a
particular movie, you would go to the showtimes. After the showtimes, you would go to the seat layout. But if you
want to see the movies that have been released recently, you obviously are going to put bucket this into the movie
screen.

A lot of times, we don't get the seats that we want that we always sit on. So, we want users to, you know, pick the
best seats in the house. But what if we could suggest them the best seats, you know, recommend them some seats.
So, one of the users actually reached out and said that, Hey, can you recommend me seats? Now recommending seats
obviously cannot happen on the Showtime screen. And cannot and I cannot give you recommended seats right up
front on the now showing screen, which is your movies discovery screen. So, I would put that again under seats.

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So, a lot of times users know which movie they want to go for and they know that if the movie starts with a particular
alphabet, then it's easy to find it. So, one of the users said, Hey, can I see movies alphabetically? So, what you got to
look out for is that particular word when they say, that their need and desire and the action they want to take is movie
base. Hence, we would again put this under movies.

So, you don't know at many times how many people you're going to watch the movie with. Hence, you need to pick
the number of seats that you're going to be sitting on obviously. And in order to do that, we found out that it's very
important to pick the number of seats that you're going to be sitting on. So, this is a bit tricky one because do you pick
the number of seats on the seat layout, or do you pick the number of seats on the showtime screen? So, for now, since
it says the word seats just at a very high level, I would put that under seats.

So, a lot of times users can filter results by language, but at times, they just don't which language they want to watch
the movie in. So, one user said that, Hey, can I search the movie by language? Can I search the only, like, can I just type
in Hindi movies and get to all the Hindi movies? Yes, you can. So, again, the action search is happening in movies.

A lot of times we don't know shows to go for. But if the system's going to, you know, tell you that, okay, these are
shows that are recommended for you. And I think it's a great feature that one of the users asked for. They said that,
Hey, could you recommend shows for me? So, when it says recommended shores, where would you put that? It
definitely not seats and it's definitely not movies, right. So, I would put that under other words, other sorts of the
category that has the word shows.

When we decided to go for a movie, we often tried to pick the cheapest show and the price of the show have an
affinity to words that categories that they listed under. So, when you say, show me prices for categories, right, I would
put that under showtimes. Why would I put that under showtimes? It's simply because for every show, there is a
particular category, and a particular category has a particular price. Hence, that affinity, that relationship as a grouping
allows me to put it under showtimes.

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A lot of times, we decide to go for a movie or not go for the movie, just purely based on the rating. So, the rating really
influences your decision to go for the movie or not go for the movie or decide to book for it or not. So, when a user
said, I want to see ratings for a particular movie, it's pretty simple that you will not want to see ratings for a cinema
because you always know which cinema you're going to go for. So, it's pretty obvious to put this and you know, this
action is being applied specifically to movies.

These days when we are searching for a particular movie, we often, you know, remember it by an actor, by language.
We remember it by many different things, right? So, one of the users said that, Hey, I should be able to search by an
actor. Now again, this is not related to cinemas or not related to seats, it's not like your favourite actor is going to be
sitting on a particular seat. So, hence again, this would go in the movies bucket because you can search for a particular
movie by an actor.

So, whenever I go for a movie, I know exactly which row I want to sit on. Because of my favourite seats, I always try to
sit in the middle of the cinema, in the middle of the auditorium. So, this is very similar feedback that another user
would have given which says, which rows are available. So, in order to see which rows are available, what would you
do? You would actually put alphabets next to the entire layout so that you can mark the rows easily. So, rows are
related to the seat layout. So, hence, I would put that under the seat layout.

As we all know, a lot of the bookings for, you know, movie tickets happen over the weekend, right? But not all the
time. There are users that still want to book movie tickets for, say a week ahead, or if the movie is just released, then
maybe a few days and not particularly the weekend. So, booking a show for tomorrow, you need to have the ability
to change the date, right. When you have the ability to change a date, you will not change the date on the now showing
screen where the movies are listed. You would change it based on time because there is an expiry on it. So, naturally,
when you think of that, you would put that under the showtime screen.

So, the distance between you and the screen in the cinema hall that you're sitting in is extremely important, because
it changes the entire experience on how you're going to consume that entertainment. So, one of the users says that,

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Hey, which way is the screen? It's very important to know which way is the screen. So, screens, what do screens have?
They have seats. So, I would directly put this under seats.

Now that we've got our larger groupings of now showing showtimes and CTO, let's focus on the now showing where
you discover movies, that particular group. Now infinity mapping is specifically grouping of elements. Simply put and
identified based on certain relationships they have between each other, that you can come up with meaningful data.
That was our core objective when we started. Let's dig a little deeper and just look at some of these chits that have
been listed over here. So, if I pick out movies with the highest votes as one of the chits and go through the entire list
and I try to search for say, can I read a review? So, a review is an action that is user-based. Movies with the highest
votes, votes are also user-based. So, I would put both these chits together. So, let's move these two together for now.

Let's look for another grouping now. Don't show me movies in other languages. So, user particularly wants to filter at
this point. The user wants to filter particular movies. So, if this is a filter, is search also a filter? Yes or no? So, I would

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put this next to it for now because it's behaving as a filter. So, that's another grouping. We found another affinity of
filtering. Let's pick out, can I see movies recently released? This means discovery, right?

So, are there any other chips that are causing the action of discovery from a user? Let's look at that. Yes, there is. How
can I find 3D movies? So, let's put, how can I find 3D movies and put, how can I see recently released movies? Let's
pick out another one that says see movies alphabetically. Now, what is seeing movies alphabetically? That is also a
sort of sorting or a filter mechanism. Again, where would that go? That would again go into filters. Let's pick out the
last one which says, I want to see ratings. Now again, ratings are user-generated. So, we would put that under the
user-generated bucket.

The last one is, I always know my cinema. So, the user always knows the cinema they want to go for. But at this point,
that would be an outlier and that would be alone. That all elements at any given point do not need to be clubbed or
mapped to other elements just because they need to be. They can be standalone elements as well. So, here we have
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a grouping of user-generated actions, movies that are discoverable, a standalone flow, because it's a very strong use
case to see movies by a cinema, and a filter grouping.

Now, each of these elements can be further broken down in terms of hierarchy, in terms of grouping. But we're going
to leave it at this point because the exercises to understand that, okay, we found meaningful data and groupings, and
these groupings can actually be taken and put on an interface in a particular UI format. So, these components create
UI elements that can further be treated by a particular, you know, UI that allows the user to take actions upon them.

That was a really great demonstration of how you can use a simple exercise of affinity mapping to gain insights from
the heaps of data collected to user interviews and contextual inquiry. Let's recap what you've learned.

We started by learning what affinity mapping is. Affinity mapping is a grouping together of relevant data points
gathered during the user research process.

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You start off by writing all the user inputs available on single sticky notes. These are then put up on a board or a wall
after which you start grouping together the different data points based on how similar they are. After some time,
different groups start to emerge, and these groups are named based on a common factor. These groups can be further
refined after discussions with your teammates and these final groupings will give you an idea of the things that the
users would like to see.

During the session, you learned how affinity mapping is the Bookmyshow, based on the user research conducted by
them. You learned how this technique helps them decide how different user requirements are grouped together.

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