The document discusses the importance of understanding users when designing products. It emphasizes that the designer is not the user and research needs to be done to understand representative users' needs. It provides examples of research methods like surveys, interviews, and contextual inquiry to learn about users. It also discusses best practices for interviewing users such as asking open-ended questions, avoiding leading questions, and maintaining proper etiquette. Personas are introduced as a way to represent different user types through fictional archetypes.

1. Understanding Users
Art Center Interactive Design 4 | Week 2 | Joy Liu

2. So… who exactly is going to
use your product?
and what do we need to know to understand them?

3. One of usability’s most hard-earned
lessons is that ‘you are not the user’.

4. If you work on a development project, you’re
atypical by definition. Design to optimize
the user experience for outsiders, not insiders.
The antidote to bubble vapor is user testing:
find out what representative users need.
It’s tempting to work on what’s hot,
but to make money, focus on the basics
that customers value.
Jakob Nielsen, “Growing a Business Website: Fix the Basics First”, 2006.

5. by The Oatmeal, http://theoatmeal.com/comics/restaurant_website

6. The Five Ws and One H
Why?
Who?
What?
Where?
When?
How?

7. Know your enemy
& know yourself
and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.
Sun Tzu
“The Art of War”

8. Don’t need to reinvent the wheel.
‣ How does the general market feel about this topic?
‣ What are the constraints or cultural impact on this topic?
‣ What are some products that hinder market adoption?
‣ What has been successful for people regarding this topic?
‣ What has been painful for people regarding this topic?

9. Research Methods
tools to help you determine users

10. 1. Survey
2. Interview
3. Ethnographic Research
4. Contextual Inquiry
5. Longitudinal Study

11. Survey
‣ Large sample set
‣ Quantitative data
‣ Pattern discovery
‣ May be shallow
‣ Need to set up good questions beforehand

12. Interview
‣ Qualitative data
‣ Insights into thoughts and ideas
‣ In-depth research
‣ Participants may not be diverse enough
‣ May be skewed

13. Ethnographic Research
‣ “Understand how people live their lives”
‣ Broad range
‣ Observational, nonintrusive
‣ Time consuming
‣ Resource consuming

14. Contextual Inquiry
‣ Combines observation with interview
‣ “I noticed you did x, can you explain why?”
‣ May be intrusive and take users out of their
natural environment

15. Longitudinal Study (Diary Study)
‣ Users document about their experience in a
diary over a period of time
‣ Realistic scenarios, no artificial environment
‣ Post-mortem analysis
‣ Extremely time consuming

16. “Interviewing isn’t the right approach for
every problem. Because it favors depth
over sample size, it’s not a source for
statistically significant data.”
Steve Portigal, Interviewing Users

17. Interviewing Users
the art of asking questions

18. “Do you know anyone else
I can speak to?”

19. Ask Good Questions
‣ cannot be answered with yes or no
‣ cannot lead to a dead-end
‣ cannot suggest answers to participants
‣ no trailing ellipsis

20. Open-Ended vs. Closed Questions
“So do you cook?”
“How do you go about cooking on a weekday?”

21. Leading Questions
“Look at this page, would you say this feature is better than
that one?”
“Is this feature helpful or not helpful to you? Why?”

22. Intention vs. Behavior
“How many times do you plan to go to the gym?”
“In the last 3 months, how many times did you go to
the gym?”

23. Keep’em Talking!
“Tell me more about that…”
“What do you mean by…”
“Help me understand better…”

24. Proper Etiquette
‣ Ask permission to record
‣ Be friendly
‣ Avoid interruption (Respect silence and pauses!)
‣ You’re there to gain info, not establish friendship
‣ Right amount of small talk (it’s a conversation!)

25. Personas
externalize your characters

26. Fictional, archetypal users that lead to
different collections of needs and behaviors,
which help guide decisions.
It allows the team to keep a vivid image of each user group.

27. Biographical info
Demographics
Behaviors
Personality Traits
Needs, Desires,
& Goals
Ideal Features,
UX Goals
Gears &
Equipments
Photo
Representation

28. ‣ Who is John?
‣ What does he look like?
‣ How old is he?
‣ Where does he live?
‣ What does he do for a living?
‣ How much does he make?
‣ What does he use daily?
‣ What does he do for fun?
‣ What does he say?
‣ What is his goals in life?
‣ Why does he need this product?
‣ What is he frustrated about?
‣ What does he dislike?
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29. Persona Worksheet, philosophie.is

30. Persona Worksheet, philosophie.is

31. “Introduction to User Personas”, ux-lady.com

32. Persona Example - philosophie.com
Previous student works

33. Resources & Reading
‣http://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/personas.html
‣http://www.ux-lady.com/diy-user-personas/
‣http://uxmag.com/articles/using-proto-personas-for-executive-alignment
‣http://www.portigal.com/blog/from-sxsw-diving-deep-best-practices-for-interviewing-
users/
‣http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2008/07/preparing-for-user-research-
interviews-seven-things-to-remember.php
‣http://www.slideshare.net/edanzico/user-interview-techniques