This is a presentation I give to my students to explain the importance and reasons behind User Research as part of User Experience Design. The presentation also shows many examples of practical research methods they can preform as part of their design process via IDEOs popular Method Cards.

1. User
Research
User Experience

2. Try it yourself
Thinking like an
Anthropologist

3. So how do we get to know our users?
• How do we ground design in human action?
• By researching and identifying frustrations/
needs/wants/aspirations/hopes/wishes/fears...
• By asking and observing people we can develop
opportunities for:
• Technological improvement
• Advancing human welfare
• Inducing consumerism
• Developing sustainable ways of life

4. What questions can we answer?
• What wants concerning X do people have?
• Where in work and life do people encounter
friction?
• What needs do people of system X have?
• How do people use system X? Are any of these
uses expected?
• What workarounds do people employ when using
system X?
• Bottom line: Get close to people and exploit your
understanding of them

5. Three general points
• Users of systems are often the first to generate
new innovations therefore we need to be studying
users
• However, most often users can’t tell you what
they need
• But in a dialog with a designer/user researcher
needs can be surfaced
• Envisioning possibilities and grounding ideas in
empirical work go hand in hand

6. How can we gather information from
people?
Say Explicit
What people are able to express in words, but
Think only what they want us to hear.
Do Observable
Watching what people do and seeing what they
Use use provides us with observable information
Know Tacit and Latent
Feel Knowledge that can’t readily be expresses in
words, that can reveal latent needs.
Dream

7. Try it yourself
IDEO Method Cards
Tools for keeping people at the center of the
design process.

8. Four ways to know users
Ask Look Learn Try
Observe people to
Enlist people’s Analyze the Create simulations
discover what they
participation to information you’ve to help empathize
do rather than
elicit information collected to with people and to
what they say they
relevant to your identify patterns evaluate proposed
do.
project. and insights. designs.

9. Ask them how to help
• Word-concept association • Collage
• Un-focus group • Cultural probes
• Camera journal • Draw the experience
• Cognitive maps • Foreign Correspondents
• Survey and questionnaires • Narration
• Card sort • Extreme user interviews
• Conceptual landscape • Five whys
Ask
Enlist people’s
participation to
elicit information
relevant to your
project.

10. Ask them how to help

11. Ask them how to help

12. Four ways to know users
Ask Look Learn Try
Observe people to
Enlist people’s Analyze the Create simulations
discover what they
participation to information you’ve to help empathize
do rather than
elicit information collected to with people and to
what they say they
relevant to your identify patterns evaluate proposed
do.
project. and insights. designs.

13. Look at what they do
• Personal inventory • behavioral mapping
• rapid ethnography • shadowing
• fly on the wall • a day in the life
• guided tours • social network mapping
• still-photo survey • time-lapse video
• behavioral archeology
Look
Observe people to
discover what they
do rather than
what they say they
do.

14. Look at what they do

15. Look at what they do

16. Four ways to know users
Ask Look Learn Try
Observe people to
Enlist people’s Analyze the Create simulations
discover what they
participation to information you’ve to help empathize
do rather than
elicit information collected to with people and to
what they say they
relevant to your identify patterns evaluate proposed
do.
project. and insights. designs.

17. Learn from the data you gather
• Flow analysis • Competitive product survey
• Error analysis • Activity analysis
• Long range forecast • Anthropometric analysis
• Historical analysis • Secondary Research
• Cognitive task analysis • Affinity Diagrams
• Character profiles
• Cross cultural comparisons
Learn
Analyze the
information you’ve
collected to
identify patterns
and insights.

18. Learn from the data you gather

19. Learn from the data you gather

20. Four ways to know users
Ask Look Learn Try
Observe people to
Enlist people’s Analyze the Create simulations
discover what they
participation to information you’ve to help empathize
do rather than
elicit information collected to with people and to
what they say they
relevant to your identify patterns evaluate proposed
do.
project. and insights. designs.

21. Try it yourself
• Paper prototyping • Role playing
• Predict next years headlines • Scenarios
• Experience prototyping • Scale Modeling
• Informance • Be your customer
• Scenario testing • Empathy tools
• Try it yourself • Bodystorming
• Quick and dirty prototyping • Behavior sampling
Try
Create simulations
to help empathize
with people and to
evaluate proposed
designs.

22. Try it yourself

23. Try it yourself

24. Triangulation
Why is triangulation so important?
• All methods have their strengths and
weaknesses
• Users and problems are all unique
• Some users respond better to certain
approaches
• Some problems have different needs

25. Make a plan
1. Have goals and a plan
To make progress, what information is needed
and from whom?
2. Triangulate methods
Example: field work + interview + survey
3. Informed consent (fair treatment of subjects)
Concerns: coercion, lack of authorization, etc.
4. Pilot studies
Debug methods before use

26. Data recoding approaches
1. Notes
2. Notes + still camera
3. Notes + audio
4. Notes + audio + still camera
5. Video
When is it appropriate to use each?

29. Thank
You!
510.813.1398
brad.gerstein@gmail.com
@iambradgerstein
be.net/iambradgerstein
linkedin.com/in/gersteinb