Humanizing Data: Bridging UX research methods with big data analytics to create better customer experiences.

1. Humanizing Data
Alex Wright
alex@agwright.com | www.alexwright.org

2. About me
1991 1995 1999 2007 2013

3. “It isn’t the consumers’ job to
know what they want.”

4. “When the point of contact between the product and
the people becomes a point of friction, then the
designer has failed.
!
On the other hand if people are made safer, more
comfortable, more eager to purchase, more
efficient – or just plain happier – by contact with the
product, then the designer has succeeded.”
!
Henry Dreyfuss,
Designing for People,1955

11. Why do user research?
To build empathy with others
To identify “trouble spots” in a design
To find the “negative space” where new ideas
can emerge

18. to

20. Etsy’s mission is to re-imagine commerce in ways
that build a more fulfilling and lasting world.

21. “Production by the masses,
not mass production.” - Gandhi

22. Etsy is a certified B Corporation — a new kind of
company that uses the power of business to solve social
and environmental problems.

25. the NSA surveillance scandals).

28. Credit: Mike Brittain

29. Credit: Mike Brittain

30. Credit: Dan McKinley

31. Experimentation

34. But data is … people!

35. UX Research Market Research
What people do
What people say
Behavior and context
Attitudes and emotions
Interaction Storytelling

36. Methods
Usability testing
Surveys
Ethnography
Focus groups
Contextual inquiry Customer panels
Card sorting Sentiment analysis
Scenario design Personas
Segmentation
Eye-tracking
UX
Research
Market
Research
Heuristic analysis Market trends

37. Sold
Orders

39. Analyzing insights

40. Quantitative vs. qualitative
http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/LR-slide-2-resized.jpg

41. Qualitative
Inductive
Subjective
Emergent
Quantitative
Deductive
Objective
Conclusive

42. Behavioral
Eye tracking
Attitudinal
Summative
usability testing
© January 12, 2010 15
Qualitative
Quantitative
Formative
usability testing
Ethnographic
research
Focus groups
Participatory
design Card sorting
Surveys
Individual
interviews
A/B Testing
Analytics
Diary studies
Customer panels

43. Why usability testing?
Identify “trouble spots” in a design
Ensure an early focus on user goals
Increase likelihood of adoption

44. Nielsen

45. Usability heuristics

46. Nielsen’s heuristics
Based on a factor analysis of 249 usability
problems
Widely accepted as the baseline principles of
usability engineering
Molich, R., and Nielsen, J. (1990). Improving a human-computer
dialogue, Communications of the ACM 33, 3 (March), 338-348.

47. Visibility of system status
The system should keep users informed of what
is going on, through appropriate feedback within
reasonable time.

48. Match between system and
the real world
The system should speak the users’ language,
with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the
user, rather than syste-oriented terms. Follow
real-world conventions, making information
appear in a natural and logical order

49. User control and freedom
Users often choose system functions by mistake
and will need a clearly marked “emergency exit”
to leave the unwanted state without having to go
through an extended dialogue. Support undo
and redo.

50. Consistency and standards
Users should not have to wonder whether
different words, situations, or actions mean the
same thing. Follow platform conventions.

51. Error prevention
Even better than good error messages is a
careful design which prevents a problem from
occurring in the first place.

52. Recognition rather than recall
Minimize the user’s memory load by making
objects, actions, and options visible. The user
should not have to remember information from
one part of the dialogue to another.

53. Flexibility and efficiency of use
Accelerators - unseen by the novice user - may
often speed up the interaction for the expert user
such that the system can cater to both
inexperienced and experienced users. Allow
users to tailor frequent actions.

54. Aesthetic and minimalist design
Dialogues should not contain information which
is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of
information in a dialogue competes with the
relevant units of information and diminishes their
relative visibility.

55. Help users recognize, diagnose,
and recover from errors
Error messages should be express in plain
language (no codes), precisely indicate the
problem, and constructively suggest a solution.

56. Help and documentation
Even though it is better if the system can be used without
documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and
documentation. Any such information should be easy to
search, focused on the user’s task, list concrete steps to
be carried out, and not be too large.

57. Interviewing

58. Probing
“Tell me more”!
“Help me understand”!
“Why do you say that?”!
“Talk about ...”!
“Walk me through this...”

59. Controlling for bias
Avoid leading questions
Ask questions grounded in personal experience
Avoid complex, lengthy questions
Don’t defend; don’t offend

60. Three kinds of interviews
Structured
Semi-structured
Unstructured

61. Structured interviews
Exacting wording and sequence of question is
predetermined
Good for quantitative research (e.g. opinion polls)
Produces highly valid, comparable results

62. Semi-structured
Topics selected in advance
Sequence and wording determined over course of
the interview
Some questions may go unasked
Script may evolve over the course of the project

63. Unstructured
Questions emerge in context
Good for early stage, exploratory research
Most likely to produce unexpected results

64. Assessing validity
Credibility
Is the participant believable?
Transferability
Can the findings be applied to others?
Confirmability
Can the findings be replicated?

65. Exercise

66. KJ Analysis

67. KJ Analysis
Created by Jiro Kawakita (1960s)
!
Powerful method for fostering group consensus
!
Very well-suited to analyzing research results
!

69. Ground rules
Put one idea/observation on a post-it note
!
Place the notes on the wall
!
As a group, cluster them into categories
!
Then, label the categories
!
No talking!
!