User Research Primer - Presented to Drupal Gov Con 2015 at the National Institute of Health

2. DE
PARTMENT OF DRUP
AL
W
ASHINGTON, D.C.
BY THE PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE
THEUX’PER
TS
GOVCON 2015
LIM
IN
A.CO

4. Hello Hi

5. Boulder,CO
(40.014986, -105.270546)
Washington, DC
(38.904560, -77.038558)

6. We're
Boulder,CO
(40.014986, -105.270546)
Washington, DC
(38.904560, -77.038558)

7. GET IT RIGHT FROM THE START
User Experience Oriented Requirements Gathering

8. GET IT RIGHT FROM THE START
User Experience Oriented Requirements Gathering

9. USER RESEARCH PERSONASUSER TYPOLOGY

10. USER RESEARCH PERSONASUSER TYPOLOGY
UX LEAD
USER RESEARCHER
INTERACTION DESIGNER

11. USER RESEARCH PERSONASUSER TYPOLOGY
UX LEAD
USER RESEARCHER
INTERACTION DESIGNER
User Research Types: A/B Testing
Card Sorting
CONTEXTUAL INQUERY
Ethnographic Study
Expert UI Evaluation
Focus Groups
Surveys
Usability testing

12. WHAT IS CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY?

13. WHAT IS CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY?
A research technique that involves observing and
documenting users behavior in their natural environment.
A - E - I - O - U
`

15. IT IS NOT A
FOCUS GROUP

16. WHY IS “CONTEXT” SO IMPORTANT?

17. WHY IS “CONTEXT” SO IMPORTANT?
Users will describe a task one way

18. WHY IS “CONTEXT” SO IMPORTANT?
Users will describe a task one way and perform it quite differently

19. WHY IS “CONTEXT” SO IMPORTANT?
Gets the researchers into the “mental mindset of the users”

20. WHY IS “CONTEXT” SO IMPORTANT?
Gives visibility into how external influencing factors impact users
when performing tasks in a given system

21. WHY IS “CONTEXT” SO IMPORTANT?
Gives visibility into how external influencing factors impact users
when performing tasks in a given system

22. CONTEXT: In The Field
Police/security officers actively
monitoring and reporting in the field
Engineer managing a power plant
moving between control tower and out
to the plant

23. CONTEXT: In The Office
OFFICE CAN MEAN VERY
DIFFERENT THINGS

24. CONTEXT: Meta Point 1
There is no such thing
as a “generic office
worker”

25. CONTEXT: Meta Point 2

26. CONTEXT: Meta Point 2
Context is VISIBLE: What we can readily see.

27. CONTEXT: Meta Point 2
Context is INVISIBLE: What must be observed to understand.

29. “Every group does the same process
differently.”
STANDARDIZATION
“People use different words to mean the same
things”
TAXONOMY & FOLKSONOMY
“The main difficulty is the bureaucracy of
other offices, we have jump through hoops to
get things done. Computer systems don’t
give grief, just the policies”
SILOED INFORMATION
“Management culture is change adverse…
the issue wasn’t training – and what they
were doing wasn’t hard….It was more that
they were being asked to do something
different. Now that they have been doing it
for a couple of years, if you took it away
they would get upset.
ADVERSE TO CHANGE
“The more people you know, the more
information you have. I’m connected mainly
through chat or email.”
ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE CAPITAL
“80 or 90% of the documents I get are not the
latest or high quality… I am not sure if I can rely
on that artifact... I have to call…”
VERSIONING

30. WHAT IS THE FORMAT?

31. WHAT IS THE FORMAT?
QUALITATIVE

32. WHAT IS THE FORMAT?
QUALITATIVE

33. WHAT IS THE FORMAT?
QUALITATIVE TACIT

34. WHAT IS THE FORMAT?
QUALITATIVE TACIT

35. WHAT IS THE FORMAT?
QUALITATIVE TACIT OPEN ENDED
HOW
DO YOU
“X”?
TYPICAL
DAY?
COMMON
ACTIVITIES
?

36. WHO PARTICIPATES?
STANDARD METHODOLOGY

37. WHO PARTICIPATES?
User Researcher 2x
STANDARD METHODOLOGY

38. WHO PARTICIPATES?
OUR APPROACH
User Researcher + Interaction Designer and/or Visual DesignerUser Researcher 2x
STANDARD METHODOLOGY

39. WHAT ARE THE OUTPUTS FROM
CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY?

40. WHAT ARE THE OUTPUTS FROM
CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY?
Research ReportUSER RESEARCH PERSONASUSER TYPOLOGYPersonasUSER RESEARCH PERSONASUSER TYPOLOGY USER RESEARCH PERSONASUSER TYPOLOGYUser Typology

41. PERSONAS

42. PERSONAS
ARCHETYPES

43. PERSONAS
REPRESENATIONS

44. PERSONAS
NOT ROLE…

45. PERSONAS
CHARACTERISTICS

46. PERSONAS
DATA

47. PERSONAS
CONTEXT

48. PERSONAS
GOALS

49. PERSONAS
PAINPOINTS

50. PERSONAS
QUESTIONS

51. PERSONAS
ETC…

52. ENABLER

53. “I am part of a couple of work groups
and each one collaborates differently.
One of my biggest frustrations is that we
email documents and it is hard to track
the latest versions.”
Organizational Role
• Creates and collaborates on policy,
guidance and other content for credit
unions and [Agency] staff.
• Various other tasks depending on the office
to which they are aligned
Anchors
• Silo mentality of several divisions causes
information to be difficult to access
• Can't access content from other divisions/
regions
• No content governance
Sails
• Lots of smart people
Key Requirements
• Crosslinking
• Searching and browsing
• Related content and documents
• Contribution drop box
• Content tagging
• Commenting
• Collaboration
• Skills database
• Workflow management
• Document and content management
• News aggregation
• Automated response notification
Demographics:
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Yrs. in Position: 10
Tech Profile:
Devices: Laptop,
Mobile Phone
Work History:
Spent several years as an
examiner, eventually transitioned
into a position higher within
[Agency], or came from other
federal agencies/private sector
where performed similar work.
Interaction w/ other personas:
Creates content for personas.
Some Other Job Titles Within
Person:
Analyst, Communication
Specialist, Accountant,
Ombudsmen
ENABLER

54. USER TYPOLOGY

55. USER TYPOLOGY
Visually describes the different ways your users interact
with and consume information

56. USER TYPOLOGY
Focuses on identifying and grouping users based on
behavior

57. USER TYPOLOGY
Defines their interaction style ranging from passive to
interactive
Why do we need them?

58. USER TYPOLOGY
Defines their interaction style ranging from passive to
interactive
Why do we need them?
Track behavior,
Discover patterns

59. USER TYPOLOGY
Defines their interaction style ranging from passive to
interactive
Why do we need them?
Track behavior,
Discover patterns
Discover ways to
accommodate behavior
types

70. To design to support a user's mental model, you
need to:
A)See & understand it
B)Maintain focus on it throughout
the des/dev process
KEY TAKEAWAY

71. @liminaux @jkooda
Q&A
Let’s keep in touch!

72. @liminaux @jkooda
Q&A
Let’s keep in touch!