Seminar 3 ENT302TC

ENT 302TC
Cutting-edge Practice in
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Seminar 3
User Research: Qualitative Research Methods
November 17th , 2023
Prepared by:
Dr. Tong HE (Sophie)
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XJTLU ENTREPRENEUR COLLEGE (Taicang) 西浦创业家学院 (太仓)
Entrepreneurship & Enterprise Hub (EEH) 创业与企业港
Residential Area 宿舍生活区

Step 1: Empathize: Study the values of your users.
You should gain an empathetic understanding of the problem you’re trying
to solve, typically through user research.
Empathy is crucial to a human-centered design process such as design

thinking because it allows you to set aside your own assumptions about
the world and gain real insight into users and their needs.
How? Use the following methods to study your users:

- Observe: Watch users go about their business.
- Engage: Interview and interact with users.
- Immerse: Put yourself in their shoes.
“Design Thinking.” Interaction Design Foundation, https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/design-thinking. Accessed Sept 24th, 2022
“Design Thinking.” Adobe, https://www.adobe.com/uk/creativecloud/design/discover/design-thinking.html. Accessed Sept 24th, 2022
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Mini Case
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Empathy Map of StepBeats
Think and feel?

Hopefully, the music could keep pace with the
running tempo while I run.
Hear? See?
My friend said that he Running is usually
wish he could rhythmic. But there is no
communicate with me music app functioning
while running and share like this.
his playlist.
Say and Do?
It is very cool to create music while running.
I would recommend this function to my friends
who has the similar hobby to me.
Pains Gains
The current music app cannot match the Dynamic adjusting and creating music which
needs of sports enthusiasts and music lovers. is aligned with the running speed
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What do you think about the products below?
As a customer, are you going to buy them?
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Apply Design Thinking in Your Prototype Project
Source: google images. Extraction date: Jan 27th 2023

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Cognitive Structure
• The term “cognitive structure” refers to “the factual knowledge (i.e. beliefs) that
consumers have about products and the ways in which that knowledge is
organized” (Alba and Hutchinson, 1987, p. 414). By linking newly acquired
knowledge to existing knowledge, consumers develop cognitive structures in
their memory.
• Cognitive structures guide the thinking and behaviour of consumers in many
aspects of consumption (Christensen and Olson, 2002). In particular, they help
individuals process incoming information and interpret the world in a meaningful
way by reducing the input from the confusing and complex environment which
individuals inhabit (Chisnall, 1995; Zinkhan and Braunsberger, 2004).
• Cognitive structures are often displayed as networks of cognitive categories and

the linkages between them. A system of means-end chains can then be seen as
an extract from the cognitive structure that is regarded as being significant for
explaining consumer behaviour.
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Empathy Map
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User Research: Qualitative Research
Qualitative Research
• Depth Interviews
• Focus Groups
• Projective Techniques
• Laddering
• Means-End Chain Approach
Means-End Chain Approach (MEC)
• The Means-End Chain Theory (MEC) is a value-based, cognitive

model that facilitates the better understanding of decision-
making and consumer behavior.
• It connects the tangible attributes of a product (the means) to
highly abstract and intangible personal and emotional values
(the ends) (Olson and Reynolds, 2001).
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Special Extra My kids have I am a
Family
Chemical cleaning cleaner good
Formulation power clothes parent Security
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Activity 1
(20 mins)
① Product or service attributes (A)

② Consequences of product usage
and service consumption (C)
③ Values as the desired end-states
of consumers (V)
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232702309_Consumer_motivations_in_the_purchase_of_organic_food_A_means-end_approach/figures?lo=1&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=organic
Laddering
• Laddering is a qualitative marketing research technique, which seeks to
understand why people buy and use products and services.
• Which feature do you like best?

• What does the feature do?
• What does the functional benefit do for you?
• What does the benefit do for you?
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Example Interviews Using Laddering
• Moderator, “What do you like best about your phone?”

• Respondent, “Getting real-time sports scores” [feature]
• Moderator, “What is important about that?”
• Respondent, “I know what’s happening right away.” [functional benefit]
• Moderator, “What does that do for you?”
• Respondent, “I can tell my friends, as soon as I know.” [higher benefit]
• Moderator, “What does telling your friends right away do for you?”
• Respondent, “I am the go-to guy for sports. My friends expect me to know. It is
what we talk about.” [emotional benefit]
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Prototype communication Strategies:
User Persona:
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Laddering
• Laddering is one research method for researchers to gain a deep
understanding of a phenomenon. It provides a way to gain deeper
insights into the consumers’ personal values and basic motivations and
to examine the consumer’s individuality in depth while still producing
quantifiable results.
• Recently, laddering has been used successfully in domains such as
relationship marketing (Paul et al., 2009), sales management (Deeter-
Schmelz et al., 2002, 2008), business-to-business relationships
(Henneberg et al., 2009), services marketing (Gruber et al., 2006, 2009a,
b) and higher education (Voss et al., 2007).
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Activity 2
(20 mins)
Conduct an interview for your group members using laddering approach, and
draw a means-end chain analysis chart as your research findings
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Schwartz’ Theory of Human Values
Source: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-3-319-90167-1_4.pdf
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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
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Activity 3: Practice Your
Data Interpretation and
Analysis
• Although mobile commerce has been popular
nowadays, the growing trend of using mobile
devices to purchase complex products has
reached its limits, among which, mobile
insurance was ranked among the least attractive
businesses in m-commerce (Statista,2013).
• Therefore, insurance consumers with existing
knowledge about mobile insurance, but inherent
resistance were interviewed.
• A laddering interviewing technique was used to
retrieve chains of attribute, consequence and
value relations.
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Please classify the 11 pieces of interview quotes on your table from
11 customers, and abstract/converge them into higher order value.
As a manager of the mobile insurance company, what are you going to do?
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Coding
• Coding was an iterative process of (re)coding data, splitting and
combining categories, generating new or dropping existing categories,
in line with content analysis techniques (Krippendorff, 2004; Strauss and
Corbin, 1998).
• Categories were identified through phrases and key words which
respondents used during the laddering interviews, as well as from
concepts derived from the literature review and Schwartz’s (1992) value
list which provides an overview of generally held values.
• In this connection, Schwartz (1994, p. 21) defines values as “desirable
trans-situational goals, varying in importance, that serve as guiding
principles in the life of a person or other social entity
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Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563217302194
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From Your Examiners’ View…
How should we present research processes and findings…
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563217302194 43
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Where you should start from…
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Key Takeaways This Class
• User Persona is not based on a single interview and an analysis on a
single person. It is representation of a group of your target customers.
• Do not jump to the solutions too fast. You need to conduct “enough”
interviews to find out insights, common patterns and achieve “theory
saturation”.
• Data collection is the first stage… then data interpretation and coding is
also very important in guiding your prototype design…
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Homework:
• Practice different interview techniques

• Develop your research plan for your prototype project
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Discussions:
• When do you use qualitative market research?
• When do you use quantitative market research?

Stadium 体育馆
Next week…
Phase 2 二期
➢ Distinguish different types of market research

Student Centre
➢ Understand benefits and
Sports Ground 学生中心of different
drawbacks research
Admin Centre methods
体育场行政中心
➢ Introduce quantitative method
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ENT 302TC

Residential Area 宿舍生活区

Empathy is crucial to a human-centered design process such as design

How? Use the following methods to study your users:

Think and feel?

Residential Area 宿舍生活区

Source: google images. Extraction date: Jan 27th 2023

• Cognitive structures are often displayed as networks of cognitive categories and

• The Means-End Chain Theory (MEC) is a value-based, cognitive

① Product or service attributes (A)

• Which feature do you like best?

• Moderator, “What do you like best about your phone?”

Where you should start from…

• Practice different interview techniques

• When do you use qualitative market research?

• When do you use quantitative market research?

➢ Distinguish different types of market research

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