[Talk presented at UX Burlington in June, 2015] You're under the gun. You have deadlines, developers are waiting on you, and even though you know you should probably talk to your intended users at some point, it just doesn't feel possible to fit into your workflow. And hey, if Henry Ford had asked his customers what they wanted, they would have said 'a faster horse,' right? Ouch! There are a lot of misunderstandings about what user research actually is, how to do it, its cost, and the value it brings to the product design process. In this talk, Katie covers these basics and presents some specific, interface-level examples of how up-front user research and mid-project usability testing have helped improve designs and create products that people love. You'll walk away with tips for advocating for and incorporating user research into your next project in a cost-effective way, and you’ll understand the powerful difference between building empathy with your customers, and ‘doing what they say.’

1. Designing with Empathy
Katie McCurdy • @katiemccurdy
How user research can help you make better products

2. UX designer + researcher hailing from the mitten

3. Open mHealth: making better use of digital health data

4. Notabli: organize, curate, & privately share childhood

5. I’m a ‘stalky tiger research’ person

6. I pounce when the time is right
Yo, let’s do our research.
Let’s validate.

9. Do we really understand
the people we’re designing for?

10. Are we sure we’re solving
the right problem?

12. “If I had asked people what they wanted, they
would have said faster horses.”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/theequinest/4395127963/

13. “If I had asked people what they wanted, they
would have said faster horses.”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/theequinest/4395127963/
‘If I’d asked people
what they wanted, they
would have said a
faster horse.”

14. “If I had asked people what they wanted, they
would have said faster horses.”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/theequinest/4395127963/
- Henry Ford never said this.
‘If I’d asked people
what they wanted, they
would have said a
faster horse.”

15. “If I had asked people what they wanted, they
would have said faster horses.”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/theequinest/4395127963/
‘If I’d asked people
what they wanted, they
would have said a
faster horse.”
- But other people will. You gotta be ready.

16. “If I had asked people what they wanted, they
would have said faster horses.”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/theequinest/4395127963/
How do you respond?

17. We don’t ask people what they want.
We work to understand their fears, needs,
contexts, problems, and emotions.
That helps us solve the right problem in the
most compelling way possible.

18. Intuitive
Logical
Easy
I understand it
I know how to use it
USABILITY TESTING
HEURISTIC ANALYSIS

19. Compelling
Fun
It understands me
Pleasing
I must have it
INTERVIEWS & OBSERVATION
PARTICIPATORY DESIGN

20. Intuitive Compelling
Logical
Easy Fun
It understands me
Pleasing
I understand it
I know how to use it I must have it
USABILITY TESTING
HEURISTIC ANALYSIS
INTERVIEWS & OBSERVATION
PARTICIPATORY DESIGN

21. Intuitive Compelling
Logical
Easy Fun
It understands me
Pleasing
I understand it
I know how to use it I must have it
USABILITY TESTING
HEURISTIC ANALYSIS
INTERVIEWS & OBSERVATION
PARTICIPATORY DESIGN
It understands me
I must have it

22. Intuitive Compelling
Logical
Easy Fun
It understands me
Pleasing
I understand it
I know how to use it I must have it
USABILITY TESTING
HEURISTIC ANALYSIS
INTERVIEWS & OBSERVATION
PARTICIPATORY DESIGN
It understands me
I must have it
We get here through empathy

23. Empathy helps you optimize:
Form factor
Feature prioritization
Tone & voice
Color palette & visual style
Marketing messaging
…and so much more

24. Research saves you time and money
An estimated 50% of engineering
time is spent on doing rework
that could have been avoided.
http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/01/06/invest-in-ux/

25. Research saves you time and money
Fixing an ‘error’ after
development is up to 100 times
as expensive as it would have
been before.
http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/01/06/invest-in-ux/

26. Research saves you time and money
A little up-front UX research can
save you hundreds of
engineering hours and
thousands of dollars.
http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/01/06/invest-in-ux/

27. Understanding users is like brushing your teeth

28. If you don’t do it, you feel gross

29. How do we build empathy?

30. Interviews & observation

31. Interviews & Observation > How it works
What:
Set up time to talk with representative users, ideally in their
environment. Or, simply observe them.
Purpose:
Understand their context, problems, mental models, values,
motivations; find differences in what people say and how
they act.
Learn more: Observing the User Experience by Mike Kuniavsky

32. Insight: finding out the parts of patients’ stories

33. Action: account for those parts in patient storytelling app

34. Participatory design

35. Participatory design > How it works
What:
Early in the design process: bring your end users into the
design process, usually in a workshop format.
Purpose:
Uncover mental models, research emotionally charged
subject matter or things that are hard to describe.
Learn more: I pulled some info together at katiemccurdy.com/participatory-design/

36. Example: ask patients to draw their symptoms on a body

37. Insight: patients used shape to indicate sensation quality

38. Action: incorporate shapes into symptom tracking app

39. Synthesizing & visualizing findings

40. Synthesize: uncover themes through affinity diagramming

41. Model & visualize findings

42. Visualize & empathize: personas
Rick Browning, Passive Patient
It's hard to navigate the system. I try to do what they tell me, but
everything feels so disorganized. I don't feel like I have a voice."
26 year-old designer in Dayton, OH
Single
Hospitalized for 3 months after emergency surgery
Crohn's Disease
Diagnosis
10 years
⁃ Help me gain a voice, be more confident
⁃ Help the doctors believe & trust me
⁃ Feel like I'm being guided to help improve
my treatment
⁃ Organize info for myself and my support
network
⁃ Make it easier to tell my story
⁃ Communicate my symptoms better
Needs
⁃ Guide me so it feels easy
⁃ A virtual 'medical bracelet' that would help
communicate the high level warnings and
facts
⁃ New ways of showing how I feel
⁃ Share with patients and see stories like
mine
⁃ Make my story mobile and portable
⁃ Help me keep track of all this information
Opportunities
Empowered
In controlArticulate
Coached
Creative
Guided
Accomplished
In my years I have had Crohn's, I've had a few life-or-death situations. The symptoms get
stronger and stronger, and suddenly you're in the hospital for days or weeks. I've had a
number of surgeries. I have depended on my healthcare team and my mom to help me
recover; when I'm sick, I don't always have the energy to stay organized. I have to trust that
the experts know what is best for me. There are also times when I just don't want to deal
with having Crohn's; I just want to get my old life back.
There have been a bunch of times when I felt like the staff wasn't communicating, and I don't
know if there is anything I can do about that. One time I was in the hospital for another
surgery and they wanted to put in a main line. I told the nurses that I couldn't have one,
because I have gotten bad infections in the past from that; when I got out of surgery, what
do you know, I had a main line IV. It got infected, just like before. I almost died, just because
either they didn't listen to me or the message got lost in the system.
Approach
⁃ I try to explain how I'm different from other
crohn's patients when I see a new doctor,
but they don't always listen
⁃ I don't feel like I have enough information to
be helpful.
⁃ Being in the hospital for so long, I get very
lonely and bored
⁃ I don't feel my treatment takes into account
my whole person, but I don't know what to
do about it.
⁃ Medical staff don't believe me if they can't
see it
Pain pointsBehaviors & mindset
⁃ Let others handle it
⁃ Trust that the doctors know what's best
⁃ Keep up with my medication & treatments
⁃ In denial a little bit - just want to be normal
Passive Proactive
Disorganized Organized
Help me feel:
Ownership
Collaboration
Understanding

43. Usability testing

44. Usability testing > How it works
What:
Anytime in design process, test prototype or product with
representative users. Can be cheap & fast!
Purpose:
Find out if your product is usable, if it resonates, if it makes
sense, is enjoyable, and more.
Learn more: Observing the User Experience, usertesting.com

45. Insight: realizing our ‘red’ had to go
Red is a ‘guilt’ color for
diabetics

46. Insight: “But how much does it cost??!!”
This line helped!

47. Case Studies!

48. Linq at Open mHealth

49. Challenge
Create a way for clinicians to “prescribe” health data
tracking and for clinicians and patients to view and
understand the resulting data.
Research activities:
• Interviews with doctors + patients
• Distillation + modeling findings
• Personas
• Usability testing

50. Using the ‘Double Diamond’ model to plan

51. User interviews (knowledge gap: cardiovascular patients)

52. Findings brief

53. Personas

54. Design principles

55. Insight: Doctor-patient relationship was extremely important

56. Design idea: ‘connect’ doctor and patient in the interface

57. Insight: Patients love having access to their doctor

58. Product decision: Include asynchronous messaging

59. Insight: Patients put their meds out where they can see them

60. Design idea: reminder cards to help people keep tracking

61. Testing patient app prototypes (Flinto)
Get a better image of this.

62. Testing web app prototypes (UXpin)

63. Helped us get to a better ‘summary’ overview

64. Be a champion

65. Tell stories (ones with concrete ROI are especially good)
Our conversion rate increased by 45%
when we updated our copy so that it
addressed our users’ #1 anxiety point

66. Be a watchful tiger

67. Stay hygienic

68. Thanks for your time!
Katie McCurdy • @katiemccurdy