Understanding Users

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 Content

• Concept of User Research

• Qualitative vs. Quantitative
• Qualitative Research Explains
• Qualitative Provides
• Qualitative Benefits
• Types of Qualitative Research

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 Understanding User / User Research

“Empathy is at the heart of design. Without the understanding of what

others see, feel, and experience, design is a pointless task.” —Tim Brown,
CEO of the innovation and design firm IDEO
1. To create designs that are truly relevant to your users
2. To create designs that are easy and pleasurable to use
3. To understand the return on investment of your user experience (UX)
design

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 Qualitative Vs Quantitative Research

• Quantitative Research
o Produces quantitative data, such as statistical information
o Tells you how many, how much
o The science – provides strong evidence for general characteristics of human
psychology
−Primarily used in scientific experiments
o May overlook nuances of specific users that are important to product design

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 Qualitative Vs Quantitative Research

• Qualitative Research
o Detailed knowledge of the users for whom you are designing
o Information about the constraints of the problem
o Information about business/organizational goals
o More descriptive
−Tells you what, how and why in rich detail

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 Qualitative Research

• Helps to identify patterns of behaviour among users and potential users

• Examples
o Behaviors, attitudes and aptitudes of potential product users
o The domain of the product to be designed
−Technical, business and environmental contexts
−Vocabulary and other social aspects
o How existing products are used

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 Cont…

• Can help us design products by

o Providing credibility and authority to the design team
o Uniting the team with a common understanding of domain issues and user concerns
o Empowering management to make informed decisions about design issues
• In design, qualitative research methods
o Faster and less expensive
o More likely to provide answers to important design questions
o More Flexible
o More useful answers
−Reveals current problems of the computer based system
−Context of the product used
−Identifies basic goals and current tasks
−Explains broader aspects of product use

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 Qualitative Research

• Types of qualitative research

o Stakeholder interviews
o Subject matter experts (SME) interviews
o User and customer interviews
o User observation/ethnographic field studies
o Literature reviews
o Product/prototype and Competitive audits/analysis

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 Stakeholder Interviews

• Stakeholder – anyone with authority and/or responsibility for the product

being designed
• Stakeholder interviews should occur before any user research begins
• Interview should be one-on-one
• Optimum duration should be of an hour.

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 Cont…

• Key members of organization

o Managers
o Engineer
o Marketing people
o Sales people
o Communications
o Customer support
• External
o may be business partners, investors, suppliers, distributors, etc.

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 Cont…

• Type of information to gather from stakeholders

o Primary product vision
o Budget and schedule
o Technical constraints and opportunities
o Business drivers
−Design team to understand what the business is trying to accomplish
o Stakeholder’s perceptions of the user

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 Subject Matter Experts (SME)

• Subject Matter Expert(SME): experts on the domain within which the

product will operate
• Often experts users, but may not be current users of the product
• Knowledgeable about the domain but they aren’t designers
• Necessary in complex/specialized domains
• Will want access to SME’s throughout the design process if your domain
requires SMEs

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 User Interviews

• Users : the people who are personally using the product to accomplish a
goal
o Should be the main focus of the design effort
• Should interview both current and potential users
o How the product fits into their lives or workflow
o What users need to know to do their jobs
o Current tasks and activities the product is required to accomplish
o Goals and motivations for using the product

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 Cont…

• Should interview both current and potential users

o Mental model : how users think about their job and activities, as well as their
expectations about the product
o Problems and frustrations with current products
• Best information – observing user’s behaviors first-hand
o Take notes
o Ask clarifying questions about situation and behaviors in real time

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 Customer Interviews

• Customers of a product: people who make the decision to purchase a

product
o For consumer products, customers are often also users
o For enterprise, medical / technical products, the customer is often an executive or
IT manager with distinct goals and needs

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 Cont…

• Need to understand customer’s:

o Goals in purchasing the product
o Frustrations with current solutions
o Decision process for purchasing a product of this type
o Role in installation, maintenance and management of the product
o Domain-related issues and vocabulary

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 Ethnographic Interviews

• A combination of immersive observation and directed interview

techniques
• Contextual Inquiry – based on a master-apprentice model of learning
o Observing and asking questions of the user as if he/she is the master craftsman
and the interviewer is the new apprentice
• Helps the designer understand how the user does his/her job

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 Literature Review
• Design team should review any literature pertaining to the product or its
domain, including:
o Product marking plans
o Brand strategy
o Market research
o User surveys
o Technology specification and white papers
o Business and technical journal articles
o Competitive Studies
o Web searches for related and competing products and news
o Usability studies and metrics
o Customer support data such as call centre statistics
• Use these to formulate questions for SMEs and stakeholders

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 Product/Prototype & Competitive Audit/Analysis

• Design teams should examine

o Existing product
o Chief competitors
• Provides
o Helps get a sense of the state of the art
o Questions during interview

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 Cont…

• Expert /Heuristic Review

o Current products
o Competitive products should be undertaken
• Provides
o Familiarizes the design team with the strengths and limitations of what is
currently available to users
o General idea of the current functional scope of the product

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 Other Types of Research

• Market demographics and market segments – uses data from focus

groups and market surveys to group customers by demographic criteria
such as age, gender, educational level, zip code, etc.
o Can accurately forecast marketplace acceptance of products and services
o Good for determining the viability of the product
o Excellent for convincing management to build the product
o Challenge – understanding whether someone wants to buy something is not the
same thing as actually defining the product

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 Summary

• Difference in qualitative and quantitative research

• Discuss in detail qualitative research technique
• How to prepare for ethnographic interviews
• How to conduct ethnographic interviews

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 Reference

• https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/user-research-what-it
-is-and-why-you-should-do-it
• https://www.toptal.com/designers/user-research/guide-to-ux-research-met
hods
• https://www.hotjar.com/blog/qualitative-vs-quantitative-user-research/
• https://www.nngroup.com/videos/5-qualitative-research-methods/

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