Five user research methods you've probably never seen

Five user research methods you have probably never seen Oz-IA 2010

The five methods? ✤ cultural probes ✤ the “shop-a-long” ✤ visual analytics ✤ controlled vocabularies for user feedback ✤ the self-recruiting website

I have an admission to make ✤ You were expecting me to talk about things like those shown on the previous slide ✤ I’m happy to talk about them at another time, but there’s something much more serious to talk about ✤ You see, I’m a user research specialist, I go out into the ﬁeld and talk to users ✤ And sometimes it’s kinda scary...

Field research is dangerous!

Field research is dangerous! ✤ Well, at least scary :) ✤ Every day researchers are being hit on, sat on, poisoned, accosted, emotionally scarred and generally made to feel uncomfortable by freaky people...err, I mean research participants ✤ Let me illustrate with a story...

Sam’s story “I felt so dirty”

Sam’s story ✤ It was about 10:00am and I arrived at the participant’s ﬂat. I knocked on the front door and was met by a middle aged man dressed in a dressing gown and Ugg boots. I introduced myself and then entered the premises. ✤ We sat down at a desk in the study to conduct the interview. At the relevant time I asked him to show me some of his favourite sports websites (since that was what we were researching). It was when he started to type in a URL that I noticed to autocomplete bring up several previous websites. ✤ One of them was ….. keshasparty.com ✤ I tried to pretend not to notice, but he knew I had seen it. I knew he knew I knew. He said "hrrrmmm it's amazing how disgusting the internet is". I threw him a incredulous look. ✤ It was then I noticed the Ke$ha and Lady Gaga posters all over the walls. He tried to explain that it was just the same as with Pete Townsend, he only ever went to those websites for research purposes. ✤ I started to backed away until I reached the front door, but then he stripped off the dressing gown and started ‘singing’ “I woke up in the morning feeling like P Diddy”. I ran….I was scarred for life, and I’ll never be able to look at an address bar the same way ever again!

So, five user research methods you have probably never seen...

1. Make up excuses

If they answer the door like this

Or this...

Don’t even try to knock on this

“Sorry, I left my _____ in my _____ at _____”

Or use when you hear... ✤ “Urrrgh, I really shouldn’t have drunk so much...this morning” ✤ “Oh my, aren’t you’re a strapping lad?” ✤ “I don’t have any chairs, we’ll have to sit on my bed” ✤ “Have you ever heard of Amway?”

2. Develop a sudden allergy

“I’m allergic to Brazil Nuts”

You should also be allergic to... ✤ Any “beverage” cooked or stored in a large vat ✤ Home-made snacks ✤ Vicious pets who “just want to say hello”

3. Ignorance

“What porn?”

4. Use your equipment

Voice recorder taser

The way of the tripod

5. Unarmed combat

S-I-N-G Solar plexus, Instep, Nose, Groin

Solar plexus

Instep

A practical demonstration

“I have to go, I’ve been double booked!”

“No thanks, I’m allergic to food”

“So, how about that cultural probe?”

“Hey, I’m just trying to do my job!”

“This is going to screw with my sample size!”

“Say hello to my little tripod”

“Thank you...and don’t forget, your privacy is important to us!”

A word from Captain Bleedin’ Obvious If you’ve come this far and not ﬁgured out this was a joke, don’t forget to rush out and buy my book and DVD set entitled AFRaiD - Australian Field Research Danger-avoidance self defence techniques for researchers, available in the foyer for $59.95

About Patrick Kennedy ✤ Patrick is an experienced web design, IA and UX practitioner ✤ He specialises in understanding audiences and their needs through user research, and using that knowledge to inform strategy and the design of online experiences ✤ He is Design Research Lead at News Digital Media ✤ He blogs at Pat’s Point of View (www.gurtle.com/ppov/) ✤ He’s on twitter as @PatrickKennedy

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Five user research methods you've probably never seen

by Patrick Kennedy on Oct 08, 2010

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Five user research methods you’ve probably never seen — Presentation Transcript