Ethnographic research methods like contextual inquiry were used to understand user experiences of the university library website. Contextual interviews were conducted with students, faculty, and staff, followed by interpretation sessions to analyze the data. This involved creating sequence models of user tasks, affinity diagrams to group themes, and personas. The goal was to gain insights into how users work in order to design services and a website that better meet their needs. Challenges included the time and resources required, but advantages were an in-depth understanding of users and their research processes to inform improvements.
UXPA 2023: How teams hire UX researchers today: A survey of current trends an...UXPA International
An improved hiring process would benefit most UX teams, but hiring managers have much to consider when deciding how to interview UXR candidates. How many stages of interviews? What are the best activities at each stage? Should we do portfolio reviews, take-home projects, neither, or both? How long should the process take? The interview process is critical to all involved; hiring managers need an approach that accurately assesses a candidate’s skills, and candidates need an opportunity to demonstrate their experience that respects their time. In this presentation, we will review data collected from UXR job-seekers and hiring managers, inspect trends and attitudes of both groups, present an illustrative overview of the “average” UXR interview process, and discuss the implications our findings have for your team.
Join us for our new webinar series Putting Users in UX.
Throughout the series we discuss research methods for involving your audiences in user experience design and development.
In episode 1, we start with methods for generating ideas and imagining the future of your app, website, or other digital product.
In subsequent episodes, we’ll examine methods for design collaboration and evaluation as well as some of the important mechanics of planning, conducting and analyzing your research.
Delivering Results: How Do You Report User Research Findings? Bob Thomas
The long, textual written report is dead, isn’t it? So how do you deliver your findings to your clients? Is it PowerPoint? An e-mail? A spreadsheet? Post-it notes? And what do you include? Positive findings? Screenshots with callouts? Just issues? Or recommendations as well? Are they prioritized?
If you ask our panelists, some of us have developed templates that we use and modify for each research activity, and others change the deliverable based on the activity and client.
Jen McGinn, Principal Usability Engineer, Oracle
Eva Kaniasty, Founding Principal, RedPill UX
Dharmesh Mistry, Usability Specialist, Acquia
Kyle Soucy, Founding Principal, Usable Interface
Carolyn Snyder, Founding Principal, Snyder Consulting
UXPA 2023: How teams hire UX researchers today: A survey of current trends an...UXPA International
An improved hiring process would benefit most UX teams, but hiring managers have much to consider when deciding how to interview UXR candidates. How many stages of interviews? What are the best activities at each stage? Should we do portfolio reviews, take-home projects, neither, or both? How long should the process take? The interview process is critical to all involved; hiring managers need an approach that accurately assesses a candidate’s skills, and candidates need an opportunity to demonstrate their experience that respects their time. In this presentation, we will review data collected from UXR job-seekers and hiring managers, inspect trends and attitudes of both groups, present an illustrative overview of the “average” UXR interview process, and discuss the implications our findings have for your team.
Join us for our new webinar series Putting Users in UX.
Throughout the series we discuss research methods for involving your audiences in user experience design and development.
In episode 1, we start with methods for generating ideas and imagining the future of your app, website, or other digital product.
In subsequent episodes, we’ll examine methods for design collaboration and evaluation as well as some of the important mechanics of planning, conducting and analyzing your research.
Delivering Results: How Do You Report User Research Findings? Bob Thomas
The long, textual written report is dead, isn’t it? So how do you deliver your findings to your clients? Is it PowerPoint? An e-mail? A spreadsheet? Post-it notes? And what do you include? Positive findings? Screenshots with callouts? Just issues? Or recommendations as well? Are they prioritized?
If you ask our panelists, some of us have developed templates that we use and modify for each research activity, and others change the deliverable based on the activity and client.
Jen McGinn, Principal Usability Engineer, Oracle
Eva Kaniasty, Founding Principal, RedPill UX
Dharmesh Mistry, Usability Specialist, Acquia
Kyle Soucy, Founding Principal, Usable Interface
Carolyn Snyder, Founding Principal, Snyder Consulting
What UX is, how it works and why it matters. Train your teams to recognize and strengthen the links between customer experience indicators and your overall business performance. Learn how to work with your customers to design successful products, services and experiences.
Slides Ian Multon recently used in his discussion w/ mentees of The Product Mentor.
The Product Mentor is a program designed to pair Product Mentors and Mentees from around the World, across all industries, from start-up to enterprise, guided by the fundamental goals…Better Decisions. Better Products. Better Product People.
Throughout the program, each mentor leads a conversation in an area of their expertise that is live streamed and available to both mentee and the broader product community.
http://TheProductMentor.com
Understanding the basic stuff of user experience design in an application. Create user flow and wireframing 1 on 1 start from understanding the why we need the wireframe, what exactly wireframe and user flow it is, And how to create and implement n digital product design such as application mobile or website.
A brief introduction to User Experience (UX) Research (in English and Bahasa Indonesia). This lecture was delivered on 19th February 2019 at Ciputra University, Surabaya, Indonesia.
UXPA 2021: Journey Mapping Tools and Techniques: Research, Design and Action ...UXPA International
Presented by Josh DeLung. Journey mapping is a commonly used methodology in customer experience (CX) research that helps organizations understand different aspects of their relationship with customers. Through research, the hypothesized experience at each touchpoint with a customer is refuted or validated. This effort tells organizations where they are positively influencing customer retention and word-of-mouth or negatively influencing it. Once this is documented (mapped), the organization can more effectively plan actions that will result in a better experience. And by tying key CX metrics to sales or other goals, they can use journey mapping as a tool for uncovering CX investments that have the best return for the organization.
In UX strategy, journey mapping is an effective way to understand which touchpoints intersect with systems that could benefit from improved usability to increase user satisfaction, whether those users are employees, customers or citizens. This session will cover a four-step approach to effectively integrating journey mapping into your organization’s UX strategy process, inclusive of the applicable research methods and tools that help make journey mapping most effective.”
An Introduction to the World of User ResearchMethods
What is user? Why do we do it? How do we do it? User Research Consultants, Dr Jennifer Klatt and Ben Smith from Methods Digital (https://methodsdigital.co.uk/) have kindly put together this slide deck to take you through the basics.
Praticing Anthropology in Business and DesignAmy L. Santee
This is a presentation I gave to Dr. Jeremy Spoon's undergraduate Applied Anthropology class at Portland State University on May 19th, 2015. I discuss my educational background, academia-to-work transition, work experience, and how I apply my anthropology training to my work as a User Experience (UX) Researcher.
A Practical Guide To Mixed Methodologies For UX ResearchUXDXConf
We've all heard it. The best UX research method is the mixed-method. By combining both qualitative and quantitative data the better you can understand your users. Is there such thing as too much data?
In this session, Alina will talk through how to manage your user insights to tangible actions and plan for your team. She will talk through:
- How in Allegro user insights is collated through research, big data and behavioural sciences but what happens next;
- How to prioritise your data/insights;
- What challenges can you encounter and how to solve them; and
- What best practices she uses to ensure the team is aligned in understanding these insights.
- what is UX?
- why is it important?
- a brief history and future of UX
- general ux principles
- enterprise ux
- ux project approach
- ui design principles
- ux tools
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to NOT repeat it.
We know the old adage, but the other reality is that there's nothing new under the sun. The same goes for the practice of User Experience (UX) and it goes back further than you might think.
History can be fun – especially when we see how it relates to our ever-expanding and shifting industry of today. This presentation is geared to new practitioners who want to understand the foundations of our field and veterans who would like to see a different perspective on our profession. Let's look at the practice of UX through a historical lens at some of man's most creative pursuits and demonstrate the parallels between the past and today's design trends.
Kate Williamson and Cait Vlastakis Smith — UX Designers at Centerline Digital — explore the differences between UX and UI.
Good UX is the manifestation of deeply understanding people.
Learn more at: http://www.centerline.net
Ethnography for impact: a new way of exploring user experience in librariesAndy Priestner
Presented by Andy Priestner at the SCONUL Winter Conference at the Royal College of Physicians on 21st November 2014.
A brief exploration of why librarians should be adopting ethnographic research methods in order to secure a more complete picture of user experience in their libraries. Incorporates details of three recent ethnographic research projects at Cambridge Judge Business School which have delivered many practical outcomes and directly impacted and improved service delivery.
Understand people to design great experiences: An introduction to user researchMing Lee
An introduction to user research for those who want to start doing user research or work with researchers. Covers how research can save you time and money, the dimensions of user research, and an overview of research methods. The presentation also includes tips on how to work with researchers and how to ensure your findings have impact on your product or service.
What UX is, how it works and why it matters. Train your teams to recognize and strengthen the links between customer experience indicators and your overall business performance. Learn how to work with your customers to design successful products, services and experiences.
Slides Ian Multon recently used in his discussion w/ mentees of The Product Mentor.
The Product Mentor is a program designed to pair Product Mentors and Mentees from around the World, across all industries, from start-up to enterprise, guided by the fundamental goals…Better Decisions. Better Products. Better Product People.
Throughout the program, each mentor leads a conversation in an area of their expertise that is live streamed and available to both mentee and the broader product community.
http://TheProductMentor.com
Understanding the basic stuff of user experience design in an application. Create user flow and wireframing 1 on 1 start from understanding the why we need the wireframe, what exactly wireframe and user flow it is, And how to create and implement n digital product design such as application mobile or website.
A brief introduction to User Experience (UX) Research (in English and Bahasa Indonesia). This lecture was delivered on 19th February 2019 at Ciputra University, Surabaya, Indonesia.
UXPA 2021: Journey Mapping Tools and Techniques: Research, Design and Action ...UXPA International
Presented by Josh DeLung. Journey mapping is a commonly used methodology in customer experience (CX) research that helps organizations understand different aspects of their relationship with customers. Through research, the hypothesized experience at each touchpoint with a customer is refuted or validated. This effort tells organizations where they are positively influencing customer retention and word-of-mouth or negatively influencing it. Once this is documented (mapped), the organization can more effectively plan actions that will result in a better experience. And by tying key CX metrics to sales or other goals, they can use journey mapping as a tool for uncovering CX investments that have the best return for the organization.
In UX strategy, journey mapping is an effective way to understand which touchpoints intersect with systems that could benefit from improved usability to increase user satisfaction, whether those users are employees, customers or citizens. This session will cover a four-step approach to effectively integrating journey mapping into your organization’s UX strategy process, inclusive of the applicable research methods and tools that help make journey mapping most effective.”
An Introduction to the World of User ResearchMethods
What is user? Why do we do it? How do we do it? User Research Consultants, Dr Jennifer Klatt and Ben Smith from Methods Digital (https://methodsdigital.co.uk/) have kindly put together this slide deck to take you through the basics.
Praticing Anthropology in Business and DesignAmy L. Santee
This is a presentation I gave to Dr. Jeremy Spoon's undergraduate Applied Anthropology class at Portland State University on May 19th, 2015. I discuss my educational background, academia-to-work transition, work experience, and how I apply my anthropology training to my work as a User Experience (UX) Researcher.
A Practical Guide To Mixed Methodologies For UX ResearchUXDXConf
We've all heard it. The best UX research method is the mixed-method. By combining both qualitative and quantitative data the better you can understand your users. Is there such thing as too much data?
In this session, Alina will talk through how to manage your user insights to tangible actions and plan for your team. She will talk through:
- How in Allegro user insights is collated through research, big data and behavioural sciences but what happens next;
- How to prioritise your data/insights;
- What challenges can you encounter and how to solve them; and
- What best practices she uses to ensure the team is aligned in understanding these insights.
- what is UX?
- why is it important?
- a brief history and future of UX
- general ux principles
- enterprise ux
- ux project approach
- ui design principles
- ux tools
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to NOT repeat it.
We know the old adage, but the other reality is that there's nothing new under the sun. The same goes for the practice of User Experience (UX) and it goes back further than you might think.
History can be fun – especially when we see how it relates to our ever-expanding and shifting industry of today. This presentation is geared to new practitioners who want to understand the foundations of our field and veterans who would like to see a different perspective on our profession. Let's look at the practice of UX through a historical lens at some of man's most creative pursuits and demonstrate the parallels between the past and today's design trends.
Kate Williamson and Cait Vlastakis Smith — UX Designers at Centerline Digital — explore the differences between UX and UI.
Good UX is the manifestation of deeply understanding people.
Learn more at: http://www.centerline.net
Ethnography for impact: a new way of exploring user experience in librariesAndy Priestner
Presented by Andy Priestner at the SCONUL Winter Conference at the Royal College of Physicians on 21st November 2014.
A brief exploration of why librarians should be adopting ethnographic research methods in order to secure a more complete picture of user experience in their libraries. Incorporates details of three recent ethnographic research projects at Cambridge Judge Business School which have delivered many practical outcomes and directly impacted and improved service delivery.
Understand people to design great experiences: An introduction to user researchMing Lee
An introduction to user research for those who want to start doing user research or work with researchers. Covers how research can save you time and money, the dimensions of user research, and an overview of research methods. The presentation also includes tips on how to work with researchers and how to ensure your findings have impact on your product or service.
User research for Product Managers - Product Tank London Jan 17Morag McLaren
As the head of product for a User Experience Research company I gathered feedback from our clients to help other product managers get user research embedded within their companies.
We talked about getting buy-in from stakeholders, getting started with UX and proving its value and also some of the common tools and methodologies involved.
Why User Research is must in Product DevelopmentPuneet Arora
User research deals with understanding the users, their habits and needs in its very basic terms. This analysis leads to better insights about the user(s) and leads to better products.
Please visit: https://in.linkedin.com/in/puneetkum
Google Chromecast Usability Report by Team User FriendlyReed Snider
This usability report for the Google Chromecast® was carried out by team User Friendly of the Bentley University Testing & Assessments course in the Human Factors in Information Design graduate program.
The Google chromecast product was given to a set of 45-80 year old participants who were instructed to simply "set up the device". This project was not organized by Google and all rights of the terms used are attributed to Google® under Alphabet®.
Mental Modeling For Content Work: Contextual Inquiry, Personas and PlanningDaniel Eizans
Slides from my Confab 2014 workshop: Mental Modeling For Content Work.
Anyone working in content strategy knows that dealing with messy web content is a difficult task. Creating effective, engaging content that’s relevant to potential users and customers while supporting a good information architecture is even more difficult.
Take some of the guesswork out of content by investing more time in the upfront planning and inquiry, getting to the bottom of who your users really are. Spend a day with Daniel Eizans and learn how to conduct contextual inquiry, develop more relevant personas, and mental model your way to a better content strategy.
Daniel will bring real, field-tested examples of personas and mental models that have impacted organizational content strategy and take attendees through a series of hands-on exercises that will immediately add value to content planning and production.
You will:
Learn about the fundamentals of contextual inquiry and how to conduct this type of research when creating personas
Understand how to create more effective personas for content creators and content planners
Plan content with others using a modified mental modeling technique driven by inquiry and persona data
Receive tools and templates for bringing this technique to your clients or organization.
A Guide to User Research (for People Who Don't Like Talking to Other People)Stephanie Wills
Here are some methods and tips for user research noobs, care of someone who made the jump from academic to digital strategy. Much thanks to @mattypilz.
Presented at EuroIA17, September 2017; World IA Day NYC, February 2017; Interact, October 2016 (London, UK); earlier versions in 2014 at UXPA Boston (Boston, MA, USA); in 2013 at Interaction S.A. (Recife, Brasil), Intuit (Mountain View, CA, USA), Designers + Geeks (New York, USA); in 2012 at UX Russia (Moscow, Russia), UX Hong Kong (Hong Kong, China), WebVisions NYC (New York, NY, USA); in 2011 at the IA Summit (Denver, CO, USA), UX-LX (Lisbon, Portugal), Love at First Website (Portland, OR, USA).
This is something of a successor to my talk "Marrying Web Analytics and User Experience" (http://is.gd/vK34zS)
Impact the UX of Your Website with Contextual InquiryRachel Vacek
A contextual inquiry is a research study that involves in-depth interviews where users walk through common tasks in the physical environment in which they typically perform them. It can be used to better understand the intents and motivations behind user behavior. In this session, learn what’s needed to conduct a contextual inquiry and how to analyze the ethnographic data once collected. We'll cover how to synthesize and visualize your findings as sequence models and affinity diagrams that directly inform the development of personas and common task flows. Finally, learn how this process can help guide your design and content strategy efforts while constructing a rich picture of the user experience.
Impact your Library UX with Contextual InquiryRachel Vacek
A contextual inquiry is a research study that involves in-depth interviews where users walk through common tasks in the physical environment in which they typically perform them. It can be used to better understand the intents and motivations behind user behavior. In this session, learn what’s needed to conduct a contextual inquiry and how to analyze the ethnographic data once collected. I'll cover how to synthesize and visualize your findings as sequence models and affinity diagrams that directly inform the development of personas and common task flows. Finally, learn how this process can help guide your design and content strategy efforts while constructing a rich picture of the user experience.
UXPA 2023: UX Fracking: Using Mixed Methods to Extract Hidden InsightsUXPA International
Users do not always accurately describe what they mean or feel. There are many reasons for this, ranging from politeness to poor introspection, to lack of sufficient technical vocabulary. Fortunately, UX researchers have tools in their trade to deduce what was really meant. We call this UX Fracking, a mixed methods approach that is optimized for extracting hidden user insights. We will illustrate the dangers of inadequate, superficial research, and how this may lead to outcomes incapable of addressing the users’ core issues. We will explore ways to avoid these pitfalls by leveraging mixed research methods to test hypotheses about the users’ intent and needs. This starts with a thorough understanding of who the user is, their goals, and how they work today, to an approach that combines surveys, interviews, and comment analysis with behavioral observation, and finally, validating the newly discovered user insights with the users themselves.
Redesigning the Open Access Institutional RepositoryEdward Luca
This lecture presents a redesign project of UTS's institutional repository, OPUS. It explains some of the challenges faced by libraries in ensuring eRepository participation, and investigates three user groups - academics, librarians, and information seekers. User experience principles are used to address issues around navigation, terminology, and visual identity.
Presented as a guest lecture to Designing for the Web (Spring 2016) students.
First lecture from the MHIT 603 masters course at the University of Canterbury. The course teaches about Design and Prototyping of Interactive Experiences. This lecture provides an introduction to Interaction Design. Taught by Mark Billinghurst, July 14th 2014
User Interface Design: Definitions, Processes and PrinciplesMoodLabs
An introduction to User Interface Design, often called UX / UI. Presented by David Little, User Interface Designer, DDH from King's College London Digital Humanities program.
Ethnography in Software Design - An Anthropologist's PerspectiveKelly Moran
Ethnography claims its roots from the field of anthropology. How can a technique used for such a seemingly exotic purpose be useful in the modern world of software design? Revealing and most importantly understanding user needs requires sensitivity, empathy, and a disciplined approach – all of which can be found within ethnography. This talk outlines the basic components of an ethnographic perspective, explores a case study from a recent engagement between projekt202 and an enterprise software company, and highlights how the impact of this research ripples through the software development process.
Practicing Anthropology in Design and BusinessAmy L. Santee
On March 1st, 2018 I returned to Dr. Jeremy Spoon‘s undergraduate Applied Anthropology class at Portland State University, to give a presentation on doing anthropology in design and business. In the presentation, I discuss my educational background, academia-to-work transition, career experience, my evolving perspective on practicing anthropology, and how I apply anthropology in user experience, design and business.
What is Ethnograhic Research, why is it done, when do you do it? how to do research ?
Is a methodology in investigating very
Complicated design challenges.
Ethnography is the recording &
Analysis of a culture or society
Finding are based on both
Quantitative and Qualitative
Requirements Engineering for the HumanitiesShawn Day
This workshop explores how requirements engineering can be employed by digital and non-digital humanities scholars (and others) to conceptualise and communicate a research project.
requirementsEngineeringAs the field of digital humanities has evolved, one of the biggest challenges has been getting the marrying technical expertise with humanities scholarly practice to successfully deliver sustainable and sound digital projects. At its core this is a communications exercise. However, to communicate effectively demands an ability to effectively translate, define and find clarity in your own mind.
Similar to Contextual Inquiry: How Ethnographic Research can Impact the UX of Your Website (20)
From Siloed to Connected - Using Engagement as a Means to Improve the Culture...Rachel Vacek
An organization's culture is complex and unique, and is made up of deeply seated values, beliefs, expectations, traditions, and motives that shape how employees respond to situations. In this session, learn how a small team in an academic library’s IT division has sought to enhance its culture, reduce the number of silos, improve the employee experience, and expand potential partnerships throughout the library and beyond. We’ll share how we gathered and prioritized ideas and subsequently offered programming with opportunities to learn from one another and from guest speakers. We touch on some of the documentation we put in place to bring some consistency and structure to onboarding. We’ll also discuss the training we offered to raise awareness of racism and better understand how racism appears on the job, particularly in IT work, as well as how we encourage colleagues to critically examine how to bring that lens to our division and overall library through meaningful action.With the move to being completely remote in March 2020, the team also hosted sessions that addressed communication, productivity, and social challenges within the division’s culture. Finally, we’ll highlight how we’ve assessed all this work and made strategic efforts to make the framework for the various programs reusable in coming years. Attendees of this session will leave with a plethora of ideas and considerations for how to enhance their own library culture through engagement, information sharing, and assessment.
Search, Report, Wherever You Are: A Novel Approach to Assessing User Satisfac...Rachel Vacek
In an effort to assess user experience and satisfaction with searching the University of Michigan Library catalog, we developed an online data collection tool that captured both data on user searches and their reports on various aspects of the search experience. We successfully piloted the tool, demonstrating both the usefulness of the assessment data and the readiness of the tool for use with a larger group of campus stakeholders. We focus in this paper on the features and deployment of the data collection tool, and we also discuss our pilot phase findings and our plan to use the tool in future assessment work.
Our Website Redesign Project and the Creation of a DEIA statementRachel Vacek
This presentation was delivered at the User Experience Leadership in Academic Libraries Meetup at North Carlonia State University Libraries in Raleigh, NC, on Monday, November 4, 2019.
Personal README Files: User Manuals for Library StaffRachel Vacek
Teams at three libraries are using personal README files to improve communication. As README files tell you how to use software, personal README files tell you how best to interact with teammates. Presenters will share the hows, whys and benefits of incorporating personal README files into your team's practice.
Presentation given at the Designing for Digital Conference in Austin, Texas, on Monday, March 9, 2020.
Transforming Organizational Culture Using UX StrategiesRachel Vacek
Many libraries hope to reimagine and transform their organizational cultures as well as their physical and digital spaces to better represent their expertise, collections, and resources, and to meet the evolving needs of their user communities. Some libraries use assessment and user experience methodologies to "prove" their value and to demonstrate student success. In this 60-minute presentation, the presenters will discuss the importance of how establishing user-centered values for the library can be an impactful strategy coupled with empowering library staff to become UX advocates. They will present methods, team structures, and approaches used within their libraries aimed at facilitating organizational and cultural change that puts the user at the center of service design, collaborative partnerships, and strategic and data-driven decisions.
Practicing intentionality in team and project workRachel Vacek
As part of our library's website redesign project, we are working to intentionally espouse and elevate principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in our work to ensure they inform and accompany all stages of a project, and to be a model for other projects. Learn how we're integrating these principles into team formation, project structure, communication and assessment plans, user research, and how this work impacts the library.
http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/150634
Transforming library culture with a Digital Accessibility TeamRachel Vacek
By intentionally creating positions that incorporate accessibility into job responsibilities, and through the formation of a Digital Accessibility Team (DAT), our library has been able to further establish a culture of accessibility advocacy and awareness. Learn about DAT's accessibility services, including consultations, evaluations, and support for those who want to build accessibility best practices into all stages of projects and service design.
http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/150635
Service Design: Thinking Holistically About Services and TechnologyRachel Vacek
In Spring 2017, our library started to transform how it designs and implements its virtual and physical services iteratively through user and staff engagement and service design thinking. Service design is a user-focused technique that involves understanding and planning for user needs, service touchpoints, and employee and user workflows. This presentation will use a case study to illustrate how we integrated user needs, current and future library services, and technology in the redesign of a web application and the service offering. Attendees will learn the basics of how to create a service blueprint.
Customizing Discovery Interfaces: Understanding Users’ Behaviors and Providin...Rachel Vacek
Customizing a library discovery layer using open-source software enables libraries to tailor services to its users, understand user behavior at user, department, and campus levels, and build integrations with library and campus services. Learn how and why a research library built a discovery interface to consolidate multiple interfaces into one.
This presentation was given on March 5, 2018 at the conference Electronic Resources & Libraries, in Austin, TX.
Challenges and Opportunities in Customizing Library Repository User InterfacesRachel Vacek
This presentation will dive into the ongoing challenges that academic libraries often face when improving the user experiences of out-of-the-box and open source repositories. Fueling the challenges are the ambiguity and fast-changing nature within the field of digital scholarship and the constant flux of technology platforms and tools. Fortunately, many libraries are paying more attention to users’ motivations and responding by designing user interfaces that support particular formats and contexts. We’ll explore emerging opportunities with repositories in looking at how far libraries should go in providing customizations to balance stakeholder and user needs, and how to plan for users’ ever-shifting expectations.
This presentation was part of a NISO and NASIG webinar, "Library As Publisher, Part Two: UX and UI for the Library's Digital Collections" and was presented on March 14, 2018.
Transforming an Organization through Service and Space Design StrategyRachel Vacek
Learn how one library is engaging with its user community to implement a service framework to transform its organizational capacity to design, deliver, and iterate high quality virtual and physical services in 21st century learning and research environments. This framework, through pilots and prototypes, informs future space transformations and will help create aligned and impactful user experiences. Presenters will share strategies and UX tools for engaging an organization in this type of work.
Fostering Great Experiences for UX-Tasked Student WorkersRachel Vacek
Library UX work can include conducting user research, analyzing data, managing stakeholder expectations, and making design recommendations. This can be overwhelming for solo UX librarians or small teams. In this session, learn how different institutions are utilizing student workers to assist with UX projects and providing them with great learning experiences. Hear the benefits, challenges, and success stories of student workers with UX responsibilities and how they can make a strategic difference in your library.
Fostering Organizational Change through Service and Space Design StrategyRachel Vacek
In Spring 2017, the University of Michigan Library completed an engagement with brightspot strategy, consultants who worked with our academic user community and staff to design a service framework and space strategy to guide our organization's work into the future. This holistic framework and philosophy have the potential to transform our large organization's approach to designing and delivering aligned and impactful user experiences. A Service Design Task Force was formed to take this strategy and begin to design pilots and prototypes for new and evolved services and spaces, with a particular focus on enhancing the library's ability to partner around consultation, digital scholarship, and designing for emergence. The three members of the Task Force represent expertise in learning and teaching services, user experience, space design, discovery services, and web technologies. Our goal in this work is to transform our organization's capacity to design, deliver, and iterate high quality virtual and physical services in 21st-century learning and research environments within the library through user and staff engagement, rapid prototyping, and design thinking. In our presentation, the Task Force members will share current and future strategies for engaging the organization in this work, including tools and formats for design and discussion that have supported our work with the library community. We'll also discuss next steps for piloting and prototyping new service ideas in existing library spaces in order to inform future space transformations.
Keeping UX Practical: Integrating User Experience Practices into ProjectsRachel Vacek
I participated in a Library Journal webcast on September 27, 2017, along with New York University’s Iris Bierlein and Emerald Publishing’s Kat Palmer, called “Smoothing the Path of the Research Journey: Designing for User Experience Excellence in Academic Libraries.”
This presentation is 1 of 3 presentations from that webcast.
Abstract: Leading scholars and librarians have used assessment techniques from personas to eye tracking to pin down just what are the best practices in user experience design for academic libraries. But different campuses have different needs, and as technology changes–and user expectations evolve in response–great UX remains a moving target. This webinar will cover the essential UX tools to designing an excellent experience for your own unique users–and share some key takeaways from sponsor Emerald’s own research.
Own the User Experience: Provide Discovery for Your UsersRachel Vacek
In the past several years, discovery systems have come a long way in enabling library staff to customize their user interfaces. However, there are still limitations to what a library can do to meet its particular user community’s needs. Fortunately, technology has advanced to a point where it’s becoming easier to use off-the-shelf, open source components to compliment your discovery index in order to create a highly configurable discovery environment. In this session, learn about how and why the University of Michigan Library chose to build a new discovery interface, the advantages and additional responsibilities of doing so, and considerations for your own discovery environment.
Customizing Discovery at the University of MichiganRachel Vacek
Panel of 3 ARL libraries will highlight the customized implementations of their respective discovery services and discuss the need for flexibility in discovery to meet institutional goals as well as the needs of diverse users. Panel will discuss trends in discovery UX related to APIs, vendor interfaces, and user personalization.
Assessing Your Library Website: Using User Research Methods and Other ToolsRachel Vacek
This is a presentation given to the Oklahoma chapter of the Association of College and Research Libraries. It's about using web analytics and content audits as well as a variety of user research methods to better understand your users and assess and improve your website.
This is a keynote presentation that I presented to the Oklahoma Chapter of the Association of Research Libraries on looking at how academic library websites in the next few years might look, and how the research and design process has evolved in the past decade or so.
Hitting the Road towards a Greater Digital Destination: Evaluating and Testin...Rachel Vacek
Since 2009, the University of Houston (UH) Libraries has digitized tens of thousands of rare and unique items and made them available for research through its UH Digital Library (UHDL) based on CONTENTdm. Six years later, the need for a digital asset management system (DAMS) that can facilitate large scale digitization, provide innovative features for users, and offer more efficient workflows for librarians and staff has emerged. To address these needs, UH Libraries formed the DAMS Task Force in the summer of 2014. The group’s goal was to identify a system that can support the growing expectations of the UHDL.
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Contextual Inquiry: How Ethnographic Research can Impact the UX of Your Website
1. How Ethnographic Research Can
Impact the UX of your Website
Rachel Vacek, Head of Web Services
LITA Forum, Minneapolis, MN
November 14, 2015
@vacekrae
4. Once you invite [ethnographic] practices into the
the everyday way of doing things, it can be
institutionally transformative. It takes time. It is
inexact at times. It requires reflection, the
backing away from assumptions, it involves
being uncomfortable with what is revealed.
- Dr. Donna Lanclos,
Anthropologist,
UNC Charlotte
http://www.donnalanclos.com/?p=305
9. So how does ethnographic
research fit in with UX?
10. See the experience from user’s perspective
Appreciate significance of cultural differences
Understand motivations behind actions
Observe hidden behaviors
Learn routines in doing research
See how the user recovers from problems
Embrace user’s individual experience
11. …and fit in with libraries?
Better understand our users
Apply gradual improvements
Tailor services appropriately
Adapt to changing demands
Make evidence-based decisions
Expand the knowledge of our colleagues and
profession
18. Our research
Web and click analytics
Heat maps
Qualitative and quantitative content audit
Literature review
Review of web design and development
trends
Stakeholder focus groups
Usability benchmark
Competitive review
19. We thought that gathering
and analyzing user data
together to get
a shared understanding
of the users’ contexts
would be valuable.
23. It’s a user-centered design (UCD)
ethnographic research method
It’s a series of structured, in-depth user
interviews
The interviewer asks the user to perform
common tasks that he/she would normally
do
24. Human computer interaction
engineers created the
methodology in the late 1980s.
It’s based on theories from
several disciplines, including
anthropology, psychology and
design.
Contextual inquiries have rarely
been documented through
formal scholarly communication.
27. Unlike web analytics, we can understand the
intent behind their actions. If it’s unclear, we can
ask them why they did something a certain way.
28. Unlike surveys, we can interact with the users
and observe what they are doing. This is much
more accurate than self-reporting.
29. While surveys can be excellent tools for many questions,
and are attractive for LIS professionals because they can
reach many people economically, effective surveys
require knowledge of survey design and validation,
sampling methods, quantitative (and often qualitative)
data analysis, and other skills that require formal training
many LIS professionals do not possess. … Without
rigorous survey design and validation, data can lead to
results that are invalid, misleading, or simply not
meaningful to answer the question at hand.
- From “#DitchTheSurvey: Expanding
Methodological Diversity in LIS Research”
http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2015/ditchthesurvey-expanding-methodological-diversity-in-lis-research/
30. Unlike usability testing, it’s not under contrived
conditions in a laboratory-like setting. It’s what
they would really do in real life, not tasks we
designed to test specific parts of the system.
31. Unlike focus groups, an individual user is able
to talk about and show us in detail the way
he/she does things without the influence of
others.
32. …relying strictly on what students tell us in
focus groups is potentially incomplete … focus
group participants may share only what they
think we want to hear or they may fail to
accurately describe their library use. Listening is
important, but observation can yield unexpected
revelations.
- Stephen Bell, From the Bell Tower
column, Library Journal
http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2015/06/opinion/steven-bell/not-liking-what-users-have-to-say-listen-anyway-from-the-bell-tower/#_
34. The open-ended nature of the
interaction makes it possible to reveal
tacit knowledge.
The information produced by contextual
inquiry is highly reliable and highly
detailed.
The technique is very flexible as you
can conduct interviews anywhere your
users are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contextual_inquiry
35. Users can show us
what they do
rather than tell us,
and we can better
understand why
they do it.
37. Contextual Inquiry
Interpretation Sessions
Sequence Modeling
Affinity Diagramming
Visioning
Storyboarding
User Environment Design
Persona Development
Interaction and Visual Design
Paper Prototypes and Interviews
Product and System Requirements
Talk with users, capture key
issues, understand as a team
what is important to users, and
consolidate the data
Set a direction based on what you
know about your users
Inspired by https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/contextual-design
Design a system to support all the
research
Iterate designs and systems with
users
38. Contextual Inquiry
Interpretation Sessions
Sequence Modeling
Affinity Diagramming
Visioning
Persona Development
Set a direction based on what you
know about your users
Inspired by https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/contextual-design
Talk with users, capture key
issues, understand as a team
what is important to users, and
consolidate the data
We are only going to review this first
half of the contextual design process.
40. November
2014
Researched
different user
research
methods
Defined the
goal of
contextual
inquiry
Planned the
interview
questions
Prepared IRB
application
December
2014
Applied for IRB
approval
Obtained
money for
participation
February
2015
January
2015
Prepared
materials and
gave training
about
contextual
inquiry to Web
Services dept.
Study was
awarded
Exempt status
by IRB
Refined
interview
questions
Recruited and
trained library
stakeholders
41. March
2015
Ran pilot
interviews
Recruited and
interviewed
users
Conducted
interpretation
sessions
April
2015
Continued to
interview users
Conducted
interpretation
sessions
Created
sequence
models
Created
personas
May
2015
Consolidated
sequence
models
Did affinity
diagramming
Did visioning
Prepared final
report
43. The interview process
Interviews were scheduled in advance at location where
user typically did research
Interviewer and note taker conducted
1-hour interviews with each user
Utilized master/apprentice model
Each participant received a gift card
Captured audio as well as hand-written notes
2-hour interpretation session followed each interview
within 24 hours
49. Undergraduates (8)*
Geology and Geophysics
Civil and Environmental
Engineering
Biochemistry
Business Finance
Graphic Design
Chemical Engineering
History
English Literature
Graduate Students (3)
Construction Management
Social Work
Library & Information
Science
Faculty (1)
Classical Rhetoric
* Three of the undergrads were also students in the Honors College
51. M.D. Anderson Library
Quiet zones
Business zones
Learning Commons
Instruction Room 106-R
Academic Research Center
Department of Earth & Atmospheric Science
Computer Lab
Student Center – Legacy Lounge
The Nook coffee shop
Faculty member’s office
53. Goals
1. To make sense of data
2. To understand intent
3. To move towards insights
54. Interviewer tells the story of the interview
Interview note taker helps tell the story
Interpretation session note taker records
thoughts and observations of the team as notes
for an affinity diagram
Moderator keeps the meeting focused on the
session objectives and makes sure everyone is
involved
Designer generates sequence models as the
interview story is told
Stakeholders contribute thoughts and
observations
61. Interpretations of events, use of tools,
problems, and opportunities
Important characteristics of the work
Breakdowns in the work
Cultural influences
Design ideas
Questions or uncertainty about something from
the interview
Insightful user quotes
62. Thoughts were captured in a Word document
template so we could easily print them out onto
sticky notes.
64. At the end of the interviews and interpretation
sessions, we had:
User profile data that helped us build personas
Captured notes that were combined to build an
affinity diagram
• We generated ~75 notes per interpretation
session
A list of insights from discussing the data
A series of sequence models for an individual
participant
66. A sequence model is a diagram that
show the order in which each
participant completed each of their
tasks.
A consolidated sequence model is a
diagram that displays all the
participants’ diagrams together.
67. A model provides a shared
understanding of the user data, a shared
language for the design team, and an
easily understandable deliverable for
communication outside the design team.
- Jon Kolko, Founder
& Director of The Austin
Center for Design
http://www.jonkolko.com/projectFiles/scad/IDUS215_03_Ethnography_AnalyzingData1_ContextualDesign.pdf
68. The step: The actual thing the user did at the
appropriate level of detail.
The trigger: The situation(s) that prompts a user to
start a new task or a particular step. A trigger always
starts a sequence.
The intent: The reason, known or unconscious, the
user is doing the task or the step. The more intents
you can identify, the better for your future design.
A breakdown: A point in the sequence where the
direct path to fulfilling the intent breaks down, and
the user must devise a workaround or quit.
69. • Interpretations of events, use of artifacts, problems,
and opportunities
• Important characteristics of the work
• Breakdowns in the work
• Cultural influences
• Design ideas (flag with DI:)
• Questions for future interviews (flag with a Q:)
• Insightful customer quotes
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/contextual-design
70.
71.
72.
73. The sequence models help
direct design decisions
on what to do as well as
what not to do.
74. We learned what breakdowns exist
and can make design decisions
to help users more easily recover
from the inevitable breakdowns.
76. Hierarchical representations of the issues for
your user population built from interpretation
session affinity notes
Group the data into key issues under labels
that reveal users’ needs
Show the common issues, themes, and
scope across all users
Issues and themes translate well into user
requirements and user stories
78. Top Level: Theme
Second Level: Consolidated
user needs, often articulated in
the voice of the user
Third level: Individual user
needs, always in the voice of
the user
Fourth Level: Ideas, insights,
and observations from the user
interview interpretation
sessions
79.
80.
81.
82. Major themes of our affinities
Discoverability of resources
Valuing physical space and their resources
Information overload
Organization and efficiency
Collaboration and exploration
Lack of confidence and trust
Importance of resource medium
(These are from the green sticky notes.)
83. User needs
Full library discovery
More personalized user experience
Get to resources and info quickly
Find library resources library through Google
DRM free resources
Printer-friendly e-resources
Simple, clean design
Point of need assistance
Mobile friendly
85. Personas are fictional characters created to
represent the different user types that might use
a site, brand, or product.
They embody the characteristics, behaviors,
and needs observed through user interviews.
They help project team members and
stakeholders develop a shared understanding
of what the users might need in a variety of
scenarios.
89. Visioning is where the team uses the
consolidated data to drive conversations
about how to improve users' work.
A vision includes the system, its delivery, and
support structures to make the new work
practice successful.
It sets a possible design direction, without
fleshing out every detail.
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/contextual-design
92. Contextual Inquiry
Interpretation Sessions
Sequence Modeling
Affinity Diagramming
Visioning
Storyboarding
User Environment Design
Persona Development
Interaction and Visual Design
Paper Prototypes and Interviews
Product and System Requirements
Talk with users, capture key
issues, understand as a team
what is important to users, and
consolidate the data
Set a direction based on what you
know about your users
Inspired by https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/contextual-design
Design a system to support all the
research
Iterate designs and systems with
users
93. What were the challenges of
doing contextual inquiry?
94. It’s time-intensive
It’s resource-intensive
Lead investigators need training
Need familiarity with analyzing large
amounts of data
You need incentives for long interviews
You need space for affinity diagramming
95. What were the advantages of
doing contextual inquiry?
96. It produced an incredible amount of in-depth,
rich qualitative data that can be used by
multiple departments within the library.
We better understand our users and their
research process.
We developed robust personas that can be
used for spaces and services throughout the
library, not just the website.
97. We have a final report to share with
colleagues at UH and other libraries about our
methodology and findings.
We have a better understanding of where
breakdowns exist.
We will be able to create a website that is
more responsive to our users’ needs.
99. Beyer, H., & Holtzblatt, K. (1997). Contextual design: defining customer-centered systems. Elsevier.
Dempsey, L. (2014, November). Thinking about Technology . . . Differently. Speech presented at LITA Forum 2014,
Albuquerque, NM.
Holtzblatt, K., & Jones, S. (1993). Contextual inquiry: a participatory technique for system design. Participatory
design: principles and practice. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Holtzblatt, K., Wendell, J. B., & Wood, S. (2004). Rapid contextual design: a how-to guide to key techniques for
user-centered design..
Kolko, J. (2015, February). How to Use Empathy to Create Products People Love. Speech presented at the
Designing for Digital Conference, Austin, TX.
Makri, S., Blandford, A., & Cox, A. L. (2006). Studying Law students’ information seeking behaviour to inform the
design of digital law libraries. Presented at: 10th European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for
Digital Libraries 2006 (ECDL2006), Alicante, Spain.
Notess, M. (2004). Three looks at users: a comparison of methods for studying digital library use. Information
Research, 9(3), 9-3.
Portigal, Steve. (2013) Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights.
Raven, M. E., & Flanders, A. (1996). Using contextual inquiry to learn about your audiences. ACM SIGDOC Asterisk
Journal of Computer Documentation, 20(1), 1-13.
Rosenfeld, Lou. “Seeing the Elephant: Defragmenting User Research.” http://alistapart.com/article/seeing-the-
elephant-defragmenting-user-research
100. Thank you!
Rachel Vacek
Head of Web Services
University of Houston Libraries
rachelvacek.com
vacekrae@gmail.com
@vacekrae
All our user research is publically available at:
sites.lib.uh.edu/wp/website-redesign/
This presentation is available on:
slideshare..net/vacekrae
Editor's Notes
This presentation, although about a contextual inquiry conducted by a web department, can be applied to ANY type of service – physical spaces and services as well as online systems and services.
The three circles of information architecture
The infamous three circle diagram to be a great tool for explaining how and why we must strike a unique balance on each project between goals and context, user needs and behavior, and content.
The UX Honeycomb
The honeycomb hits the sweet spot by serving several purposes at once. First, it’s a great tool for advancing the conversation beyond usability and for helping people understand the need to define priorities. Is it more important for your web site to be desirable or accessible? How about usable or credible? The truth is, it depends on your unique balance of context, content and users, and the required tradeoffs are better made explicitly than unconsciously.
Ethnography is the study of people in their own environment through the use of methods such as participant observation and face-to-face interviewing.
Human computer interaction engineers at the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) as a way to understand digital products from the perspective of their users. It’s evolved, but the protocols in this book have remained to be the best practices for contextual inquiry across both private and public domains.
Contextual inquiry was first referenced as a “phenomenological research method” in a paper by Whiteside, Bennet, and Holtzblatt in 1988, which lays out much of the justification for using qualitative research methods in design. It was first fully described as a method in its own right by Wixon, Holtzblatt, and Knox in 1990, where comparisons with other research methods are offered. It is most fully described by Holtzblatt and Beyer in 1995.
Contextual Inquiry was extended to the full Contextual Design methodology by Beyer and Holtzblatt between 1988 and 1992. Contextual Design was briefly described by them for Communications of the ACM in 1995, and was fully described in Contextual Design in 1997.
Work models as a way of capturing representations of user work during interpretation sessions were first briefly described by Beyer and Holtzblatt in 1993 and then more fully in 1995.
In 2010, the NCSU Libraries worked with a design firm (Hesketh.com and More Better Labs) to conduct a contextual inquiry for their website redesign
Tacit knowledge is knowledge about their own work process that users themselves are not consciously aware of.
Contextual inquiry has the following limitations:
1) As a qualitative research technique, the results from a contextual inquiry may be inadequate for conducting statistical inference. If 50% of users studied raised a specific issue, it cannot be concluded that 50% of the population experiences that issue. Follow-up surveys can provide quantitative sizing information where needed.
2) Contextual inquiry is resource-intensive. It requires travel to the informant's site, a few hours with each user, and then a few more hours to interpret the results of the interview.
Contextual inquiry is really just the first step in contextual design. This means thinking and planning out how things relate to one another, and how they are useful, usable, accessible, findable, desirable, credible, valuable.
Only going to cover this first part of the contextual design process. Getting the data and making sense of it, and figuring out where you need to go.
Jon Kolko, Austin Center for Design, Contextual Design Work Modeling presentation
Rapid Contextual Design,
An Insight is a major work observation or lesson about the users’ work practice and application experience that has significant implications for the design of the system. Insights are captured at the end of each interpretation session.
Rapid Contextual Design,
“A step-by-step recording of the tasks observed or retrospective accounts recorded during the Contextual Interview.”
Kolko, Contextual Design Work Modeling pres, ac4d
“Most importantly, models give us a visual representation of the user data.”
The hierarchy is typically represented on sticky notes with colors that correspond as follows:
Contextual inquiry is really just the first step in contextual design. This means thinking and planning out how things relate to one another, and how they are useful, usable, accessible, findable, desirable, credible, valuable.