Trying to get out of the building but don't know where to go, how to get there, or what to do once you are (and when you get back)? This course is for you.
We'll cover the who, what, when, where, why, and how of field research:
Why field research instead of (or in addition to) other methods
Some of the common techniques and how to perform them
Tips and tricks for your fieldwork
How to analyze all that great data when you get back to the office
The best ways to report your findings to best effect change
This course will include a couple of hours of actual field research!
This presentation is about accelerating the design process of a product and how to quickly validate ideas. Long story short: fast ways to create better products. Long story: how to plan the roadmap of your products easier, how to validate your idea and how to iterate faster in a matter of weeks. A case study about a music festival mobile app, and how it can improve the festival experience.
Magazine mensuel Where Paris n°256, english edition, daté mai 2015 / May 2015, leader sur les touristes premium visitant Paris, The most read monthly magazine by affluent tourists in Paris, Jean-louis Roux-Fouillet
This presentation is about accelerating the design process of a product and how to quickly validate ideas. Long story short: fast ways to create better products. Long story: how to plan the roadmap of your products easier, how to validate your idea and how to iterate faster in a matter of weeks. A case study about a music festival mobile app, and how it can improve the festival experience.
Magazine mensuel Where Paris n°256, english edition, daté mai 2015 / May 2015, leader sur les touristes premium visitant Paris, The most read monthly magazine by affluent tourists in Paris, Jean-louis Roux-Fouillet
En esta presentación se describe brevemente algunas alteraciones inmunológicas y no inmunológicas asociadas a la ingesta de alimentos que contienen gluten.
Buenas prácticas de servicios de orientación y asistencia legal prestados po...EUROsociAL II
Buenas prácticas de servicios de orientación y asistencia legal prestados por el Estado en colaboración con la sociedad civil en Europa y América Latina / Bénédicte Lucas
Valery Belloso, Oficial de Desarrollo de Negocios para ACCION San Diego, explica los diferentes préstamos de negocio con requisitos flexibles que están disponibles con ACCION para ayudar a los empresarios que quieren establecer, formalizar o ampliar su negocio.
It's time to research our designs better. Here's how. UIUX Conference 2018 - ...Sophie Freiermuth
Slides of the talk I delivered at http://2018.uiuxconf.com on 3rd September 2018 in Shanghai China.
The audience was a mix of Mandarin and English speakers, and was supported by live translation.
En esta presentación se describe brevemente algunas alteraciones inmunológicas y no inmunológicas asociadas a la ingesta de alimentos que contienen gluten.
Buenas prácticas de servicios de orientación y asistencia legal prestados po...EUROsociAL II
Buenas prácticas de servicios de orientación y asistencia legal prestados por el Estado en colaboración con la sociedad civil en Europa y América Latina / Bénédicte Lucas
Valery Belloso, Oficial de Desarrollo de Negocios para ACCION San Diego, explica los diferentes préstamos de negocio con requisitos flexibles que están disponibles con ACCION para ayudar a los empresarios que quieren establecer, formalizar o ampliar su negocio.
It's time to research our designs better. Here's how. UIUX Conference 2018 - ...Sophie Freiermuth
Slides of the talk I delivered at http://2018.uiuxconf.com on 3rd September 2018 in Shanghai China.
The audience was a mix of Mandarin and English speakers, and was supported by live translation.
Developing mobile friendly content for adult educationNell Eckersley
This presentation covers the basics of why mobile content is so useful and necessary for adult education as well as reviewing several tools to create mobile content
My slides from GOTO Berlin. The talk was about my experiences of designing the right product, some of my influences and how I've used a Lean UX approach. The talk was about reducing the feedback loop and aiming to make sure that the product you are designing is what your customers want or need.
Smart Chicago presentation on the Civic User Testing Group (CUTGroup) for Terry Mazany's Social Enterprise Class at Northwestern University.
February 25, 2015
Deliver:agile2018 - basic user research skills for non-designersSophie Freiermuth
Slides from my workshop at Deliver:Agile 2018, held 29 April - 2 May in Austin TX.
In this workshop, I'll share user testing practices, techniques, and skills that will help you, a non-designer or researcher, contribute to, or even run testing with users. I'll particularly focus on all that can be done on agile-only projects, where outcomes and insights need to processed promptly and efficiently. I've identified two key areas of value: note taking and facilitating. Note taking is often asked of the team when viewing a session, however, there are a few subtleties to taking notes that make them either easy to analyze, or useless, and I'll share on that. The other key knowledge is the actual facilitation of tests, and I'll invite you to consider all it encompasses, in order to nourish your personal reflection on skills and practices.
Created specifically for non-designers, this workshop aims to upskill participants in taking valuable notes when observing sessions, and understand how testing needs to be facilitated in order to obtain robust insights. These skills can then be shared, in order to enable the team to be more efficient a conducting research, and become a balanced team where research isn't bottlenecked by the capacity of a trained researcher or designer.
Comprising contextual theory, and a lot of hands-on practice as well as tools to reflect on performance and progress, this workshop will leave you better informed on testing with users, a better collaborator to research that may be ongoing with your product or service, and a more understanding colleague to designers and researchers.
This session welcomes further questions on research and will allow ample time for discussions.
Defining new product or service requirements is often treated as a tedious task to slog through so that the “real work” — design and development — may begin. But the largest market opportunities usually come from identifying an unmet need that others have overlooked, rather than simply improving interface design or tweaking features. How can we identify these unmet needs? By taking a step back and conducting a more meaningful process. This workshop will address the four high level areas necessary to build a solid base of requirements: business drivers, user needs, technology frameworks and environmental/social impact. We will work through how to ensure user needs are at the heart of your planning, how to craft requirements that can be flexibly adapted to an Agile process, and how to negotiate effectively with your other stakeholders. This is a hands-on, fast-paced workshop that will leave you with tangible tools that you can take back to your organization and share for maximum impact.
Usability Testing for Survey Research:How to and Best Practicesegeisen
This presentation describes how usability testing of surveys can be used to improve data quality and reduce respondent burden. We describe what kind of surveys can be tested and when. We also provide practice advice for planning, conducting, and analyzing usability tests of surveys.
This presentation was provided by Bill Trippe of Publishing Technology Partners, during the NISO event "Project Management for the Information Community: Managing and Communicating the Process, Session Six," held on Friday, March 29, 2019.
How to Optimize Video Content Marketing with Google HangoutsCollegis Education
As the growth of video marketing continues, institutions that optimize for the world’s second largest search engine (YouTube) and create video content that is designed to build brand awareness, engage and educate their target audiences will be poised for growth and future success. In this presentation, attendees will learn to use Hangouts On Air to successfully optimize video content to reach larger audiences online and create high-quality, interactive and informative video content.
A talk from GOTO Amsterdam, on 20th June 2014.
Abstract:
We've all been there. You release a new feature, product or service, only to find it isn't quite what your customers want or need. But by the time you release, it's too late to make significant changes.
Traditionally user experience design has involved upfront user research and design, to ensure we build products that meet customer needs. But this approach doesn't always work so well within an Agile development environment. Lean UX draws inspiration from the philosophy behind Lean manufacturing, where the emphasis is on reducing waste in the production process and only working on things that create value for your customers.
In this session Michele will demonstrate how taking a Lean UX approach can help you to design the right products for your customers. Michele will share some practical tips, tools and techniques for product teams. You'll learn how to:
Get the team out of the building to find out first-hand what your customers want and need
Use rapid prototyping techniques to validate assumptions with customers, without having to code a fully functioning application.
Work collaboratively with your team to get to the right design quickly
Talk given at the Silicon Valley Lean Product Meetup in May 2015. Summary of talk: We are very excited to host Marieke McCloskey from UserTesting. She will share advice on how to build products that people love by spending time in the product discovery phase understanding who
your users are and how they might use and react to your product. Marieke will share fast and cheap ways to validate design concepts through prototyping and remote unmoderated research.
UXPA 2023: Start Strong - Lessons learned from associate programs to platform...UXPA International
Imagine creating experiences for your rookie designers’ first couple years that are rewarding, enriching, and full of learning — without taking all your time or energy to manage. We’ll share techniques any team leader can put into practice using real-life examples from associate programs, apprenticeships, and internships.
Topics include onboarding, varied work challenges, developing multiple capabilities, buddy systems, group sharing, guest speakers, time with executives, and mentorship. We’ll also share how to operationalize learning, soft skills like communication and collaboration, setting boundaries, time management, achieving deep work, and more skills we all wish we were explicitly taught early on.
We’ll focus on modern-day associate programs, but even if you can’t create a full-fledged program, you’ll leave this session with ideas to use with your fledgling professionals. The benefits go beyond efficiency; it’s a foundation for culture, camaraderie, autonomy, and mastery.
UXPA 2023: Disrupting Inaccessibility: Applying A11Y-Focused Discovery & Idea...UXPA International
Digital advances are being made at a rapid-fire pace, yet disability inclusivity continues to fall short of the digital revolution. As the number of people living with disabilities rises, the time to take digital accessibility to the next level is now. Let’s disrupt inaccessibility together! Come hear about a multi-part discovery research and ideation project informing foundational UX designs for our customers. You’ll get insights from our unique study, which are widely applicable across industries, and walk away with tips and inspiration to kick off your own accessibility-focused discovery and ideation. Only YOU can prevent inaccessibility – are you in?
User experience can be drastically elevated by combining data science insights with user-based insights from research. Data analytics on its own can make themes and correlations difficult to explain and to provide accurate recommendations. For example, themes identified via large global surveys and usage data can be better understood with UX insights from focused user research, such as user interviews and/or cognitive walkthroughs. This presentation will highlight the complimentary nature of data science and UX and will focus on the benefits of bringing the two disciplines together. This will be buttressed with practical examples of enterprise projects and applications that combined data and skills from the two disciplines, guidance on how the two disciplines can better work together, and the skills needed to improve as a UX professional when working with data science teams.
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.
UXPA 2023: Learn how to get over personas by swiping right on user rolesUXPA International
This session walks through the concept of user roles as an alternative to personas as a means to generate and disseminate user insights for product development teams. We will describe the tools and methods used to create a research database organized by user roles, along with examples and short exercises to help attendees think through user roles within their own context.
By the end of the session, attendees should be aware of tools and approaches for:
Organizing user research information in a database
Disseminating user role information to product and design teams
Managing a user roles database as part of a long term UX Research program
If you’re ready to ditch personas but don’t know how, this session is for you!
We will present a case study that details our approach for replacing user personas with user roles for a multi-national SAAS company. We will take the audience on a journey that starts with an executive request for personas, travels through the tribulations of realizing personas suck, and concludes with convincing others to accept a new and innovative way to understand the people who use the product. Our key message is that personas lack real value for organizations that already understand the importance of empathizing with users. Building user-centered products requires easily accessible and well organized user insights. We will discuss defining users through a process of stakeholder consultation and content review, and structuring data around Jobs to Be Done and product interactions. We will also discuss the dissemination of user roles in our organization using relational databases, interactive dashboards and online wikis. Spoiler alert, our stakeholders loved user roles!
UXPA 2023: Experience Maps - A designer's framework for working in Agile team...UXPA International
Agile Methodology refers to software design and development methodologies centered around the idea of iterative design and development, where requirements and concepts evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams. Thus, Agile enables teams to deliver value faster, with greater quality and predictability, and greater aptitude to respond to change. With evolving product features every design sprint, designers & researchers find it difficult to follow the design process. This sometimes leads to designs delivered in haste or sub-par design artifacts which result in UX debt. UX debt is accumulated when design teams take actions or shortcuts to expedite the delivery of a piece of functionality or a project which later needs to be refactored. It is the result of prioritizing speedy delivery of design to the development team over a perfect experience journey. Experience Maps is a great tool to practice UX in Agile as well as manage UX Debt.
UXPA 2023: UX Enterprise Story: How to apply a UX process to a company withou...UXPA International
How to build a UX Department from scratch, in an environment they think UX people do social media posters and posts! An agile implementation just started, and people are moving from a waterfall and ad-hoc mindset to agility. In this session, I will talk about my Journey to establish a UX Department for a company that is part of a global brand, but this local branch just started the digital transformation movement. Challenges like: spreading awareness and educating people about UX, hiring the right team, defining the right team structure, establishing workflow and day-to-day operations, and applying localization (non-western culture).
UXPA 2023: High-Fives over Zoom: Creating a Remote-First Creative TeamUXPA International
I started my current job in March of 2020. Many of us remember something clearly about the month that COVID started to shut things down. I remember being surprised to hear that my new on-site-only job would be starting in my living room over zoom. How do you lead a design team when none of the team members live near each other and creativity is highly collaborative? Taking from over a decade of working in HR software, I knew whatever I did needed to put people first. That what employees love about a job is often deeper than the work, it’s the culture, the relationships and people they work with. It’s the feeling that their work has value, and their contribution matters. In this talk I will walk though some of the rituals and best practices I have learned over the last two years building a remote-first creative team.
UXPA 2023: Behind the Bias: Dissecting human shortcuts for better research & ...UXPA International
As humans, we are biased by design. Our intricate and fascinating brains have developed shortcuts through centuries of human evolution. They reduce an unimaginable load of paralyzing decisions, keep us alive, and help us navigate this complex world. Now, these life saving biases affect how we behave with modern technology. Understanding some of the theories and reasons why these biases exist is the key to unlocking their power. In this workshop we will cover some theories around how the brain works. We will review some of our mental shortcuts, take a look at some common biases, and learn how they affect our users, our research, and our designs. Lastly we will review some advantages of biases, and ways to identify and reduce bias. This workshop is targeted for designers who do their own research, and researchers looking to learn more about removing bias from their studies.
UXPA 2023 Poster: Improving the Internal and External User Experience of a Fe...UXPA International
UXPA 2023 Poster: Improving the Internal and External User Experience of a Federal Government Legacy Application Using User Experience and Agile Principles
Are you new to UX management, or thinking of getting into management? Then this talk is for you. After reading countless books, attending countless trainings, mentoring and being menteed, nothing quite prepared me for management like my first year. I’ll share with you what I wish they’d told me. I’ll also share my process for generating team research roadmaps, establishing team values, keeping employees motivated, and not burning out.
UXPA 2023: Redesigning An Automotive Feature from Gasoline to Electric Vehicl...UXPA International
Join us for an interaction design case study from the automotive industry. We created a Human-Machine Interface (HMI) for a vehicle feature that provides household-levels of power in electrical outlets for our customers to use at work and play. This case study will reveal: · Our debate of re-using version 1.0’s HMI vs designing a new user interface for the electric vehicle—when to break with consistency and why? · User research we conducted to guide our early design concept. · Paper prototypes we created to support our usability testing of the concept with vehicle owners. · How we solved internal debate over the interaction design in moving from internal combustion vehicles to electric vehicles. * Advice to help you evangelize user-centered design that is also brand-centered for a new product.
Can AI do good? at 'offtheCanvas' India HCI preludeAlan Dix
Invited talk at 'offtheCanvas' IndiaHCI prelude, 29th June 2024.
https://www.alandix.com/academic/talks/offtheCanvas-IndiaHCI2024/
The world is being changed fundamentally by AI and we are constantly faced with newspaper headlines about its harmful effects. However, there is also the potential to both ameliorate theses harms and use the new abilities of AI to transform society for the good. Can you make the difference?
You could be a professional graphic designer and still make mistakes. There is always the possibility of human error. On the other hand if you’re not a designer, the chances of making some common graphic design mistakes are even higher. Because you don’t know what you don’t know. That’s where this blog comes in. To make your job easier and help you create better designs, we have put together a list of common graphic design mistakes that you need to avoid.
White wonder, Work developed by Eva TschoppMansi Shah
White Wonder by Eva Tschopp
A tale about our culture around the use of fertilizers and pesticides visiting small farms around Ahmedabad in Matar and Shilaj.
Hello everyone! I am thrilled to present my latest portfolio on LinkedIn, marking the culmination of my architectural journey thus far. Over the span of five years, I've been fortunate to acquire a wealth of knowledge under the guidance of esteemed professors and industry mentors. From rigorous academic pursuits to practical engagements, each experience has contributed to my growth and refinement as an architecture student. This portfolio not only showcases my projects but also underscores my attention to detail and to innovative architecture as a profession.
Unleash Your Inner Demon with the "Let's Summon Demons" T-Shirt. Calling all fans of dark humor and edgy fashion! The "Let's Summon Demons" t-shirt is a unique way to express yourself and turn heads.
https://dribbble.com/shots/24253051-Let-s-Summon-Demons-Shirt
7 Alternatives to Bullet Points in PowerPointAlvis Oh
So you tried all the ways to beautify your bullet points on your pitch deck but it just got way uglier. These points are supposed to be memorable and leave a lasting impression on your audience. With these tips, you'll no longer have to spend so much time thinking how you should present your pointers.
1. UX Fieldwork
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Photo via Flickr user Matthew Fern
2. Agenda
• Introductions
• Why Field Research?
• An Introduction to Field Research Techniques
• Field Research vs. Other Methods
• Conducting Field Research
• Reporting Field Research Findings
• Some Examples from the Real World
• LUNCH!
• Activity: Poolside Field Research
• Activity: Analyze & Present Field Research Findings
• Review, Wrap-up, and Questions
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3. Danielle Gobert Cooley
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danielle@dgcooley.com
@dgcooley
17 years doing UX work
BE, Biomedical and Electrical Engineering – Vanderbilt University
MS, Human Factors in Information Design – Bentley University
http://linkedin.com/in/dgcooley
Selected Work
33. Photo via Flickr user C.P.Storm
It’s definitely time to get out of the building.
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@dgcooley
34. Fieldwork is great for..
• Really understanding your end users.
– Who are they?
– What are their actual goals?
– What keeps them awake at night?
– What’s the best and worst part of their jobs?
• Really understanding what environment your product needs to thrive
in.
– Is it noisy or quiet?
– Very bright or dim?
– Full of distractions, or with very few?
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Good PERSONAS
are the result of
good fieldwork.
35. Types of Field Research
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Formal
Contextual
Inquiry
Remote
Contextual
Inquiry
On-site
usability
testing
Follow Me
Home
And many
more!
36. Formal Contextual Inquiry
• Part 1 – The conventional interview
• Part 2 – The transition
• Part 3 – The contextual interview proper
• Part 4 – The wrap-up
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1998
2005
38. On-Site Usability Testing
• Conducted at
participant’s
workstation
• Provides some
environmental
context
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Photo credit unknown
39. 22 June 2015 #UXPA2015 @dgcooley
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Photo via Flickr user stevenharris
How does fieldwork measure up?
40. Field Research vs. Focus Groups
• Identify “hot buttons & sales points”
• Gathers opinions and self-reported behaviors
• Not contextual or observational
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http://www.nngroup.com/articles/first-rule-of-usability-dont-listen-to-users/
41. Field Research vs. Surveys
• Great for quick, quantitative feedback
• Very inexpensive
• Only get opinions and self-reported behaviors
• Tough to focus on details; only effective for broad issues
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42. Field Research vs. Formal Lab Testing
• Useful for both quantitative and qualitative results
• Controlled environment
• Easy recording and data collection
• Labs are expensive to build or rent
• Traditionally conducted after-the-fact
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http://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/portal/usability/overview/overview_where.htm
http://www.sea.siemens.com/software/product/uslab.html
43. Field Research vs. Journaling
• Very inexpensive
• Self-reported information, but without time delay
• Considerable after-the-fact data parsing
• Compliance can be difficult
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http://www.sftherapy.com/journaling.html
44. Field Research vs. Other Methods
Qualitative Quantitative Inexpensive
Easy to
Implement
Observational Contextual
Focus
Groups
?
Surveys
Lab Testing
Journaling
?
Field
Studies
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45. Fieldwork can be helpful
at any stage in the
product lifecycle.
Photo via Flickr user Christopher Sessums 45
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Begin to understand
who your users are
and what will make
their lives better.
Go observe more
specific details
about their
workflows and
environments. Do some or all
of your testing
in the field.
(Still not a bad time
to visit your users in
their workspaces.
You can always
learn something.)
(Yep. Still learning!)
47. How-to
1. Plan your study –
What do you
want to learn?
2. Identify
representative
end users.
3. GO TO WHERE
THEY ARE.
4. Learn all the
things.
47
@dgcooley
Prepare,
prepare,
prepare!
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48. 1. Plan Your Study
• What do you
want to learn?
• Are you defining
requirements?
• Do you need to
learn about a
specific
feature?
• Just trying to
understand your
people?
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Photo via Flickr user brand0con
49. 2. Identify representative end users.
• Third-party recruiting firms or market research facilities.
• Customer lists
• Friends & family
• Customer intercepts
• Man-on-the street
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53. 53
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Photo via Etsy seller aaasupply
54. Find out what else you’ll need to do there
• Photo ID?
• License plate number?
• Dress codes?
– No shoes allowed? Steel-toed boots? Shoe covers provided?
– Eye or ear protection?
– Will people see your underwear?
• Technical requirements or limitations?
– Laptop virus scanning?
– Phones allowed?
– Can you count on WiFi?
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55. Figure out where the place is
• Does Google maps know?
– Do they REALLY know?
• How long will it take to get there?
– Really? Even in traffic?
• Where will you park?
– How far is that from the venue?
– Does that change how you pack all
of your gear?
• Ask for directions anyway.
• Bring a PRINTED backup of your
route, and WRITE DOWN the
participant’s phone number so you
can call if there are issues.
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56. 3. Go to where they are.
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57. The Usual Rules Apply
• Get written consent for anything you do
• Ask open-ended questions
• Minimize bias
• Provide reassurance to
the participant
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61. Homemade Sales Binders
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Several FCs
had homemade
sales binders
like this one.
62. Cheat Sheets
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“cheat sheet” of BETA codes.
The FAs “rarely use” BETA and
need a reference when dealing
with the home office. (B22)
One FC kept an extensive list of
home office personnel he had
spoken to about various matters.
Each folder includes people’s
names, their extension, and
comments about how helpful or
unhelpful they were when the FC
spoke with them. (B8)
63. Strategic Seating of Clients
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The FCs care about projecting an image of absolute excellence. Clients visiting
one office (B25) are seated in a specific location so they can see…
…that, no
matter what,
the market
goes up.
… the FC’s
many
diplomas,
certifications,
and honors.
… an organized set of
files containing the
necessary forms for
various products.
… any hustle and
bustle in the office
to convey that
we’re busily
working on
earning people
money.
64. Workflow Processes
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(HO3)The follow-up process for problem
accounts/issues is very cumbersome and
paper-intensive. There isn't an efficient
systematic process for reconciling issues.
The current process relies on the <company>
resource to "remember" to go through these
folders with some frequency, send follow-up
wires (which may or may not be
acknowledged in a timely manner), and try
to reconcile the issue.
Note the names on the folders:
•Pending OK to Trades (Accts in date read
order, need them by Acct # order)
•*IMPORTANT* Daily Immediate Follow Up
•Need Sign-off from Money Manager (Accts in
date read order, need them by Acct # order)
•Problem Follow up
Two items in the far background:
•MGR Index - This hardcopy of about 50+
pages is held together by a binder clip
and contains information/instructions
from the corporate intranet, along with
personal emails and other artifacts on how to
handle certain situations. The emails and
artifacts are peppered with hand-written
notes.
•Select Advisor Account Checklist
65. Checklists & Instructions
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3 different teams showed us
their homemade instructions
or checklists for setting up
fee-based accounts.
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bit.ly/garconapp
69. Affinity Diagrams
• Not just for
brainstorming
• Useful to organize your
own thoughts or to
aggregate findings from
multiple interviewers
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http://www.adamatorres.com/gallery-project/?page_id=106
Usabilitynet.org/tools/affinity.htm
70. Analyze Field Research Findings
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Analysis
Photo via Flickr user Jacob Bøtter
71. Other Tools
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Microsoft OneNote
mind mapping
72. Reporting Field Research Findings
• The usual rules apply
– Provide a concise executive summary
– Explain what you did
– Share both positive &
negative findings
– Provide visual explanations
whenever possible
– Protect your participants’
anonymity
– Include your artifacts!
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73. Reporting Field Research Findings
• Sample Visual Explanations
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http://www.xplane.com
74. Recap & Additional Resources
• Field research is an important tool that provides advantages over
other user research techniques.
• Logistical challenges exist (but are worth it).
• It’s FUN!
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http://www.portigal.com/series/WarStories/
Editor's Notes
The participant room at Mediabarn in Arlington, VA, USA.
Participant room at Mediabarn in Arlington, VA, USA.
Participant room in the recently decommissioned usability lab at Fidelity Investments in Boston, MA, USA.
Participant room in the usability lab at Webcredible, a UX agency in London, UK.
People’s real workspaces don’t look like usability labs.
Ok. *Some* real workspaces kindof look like usability labs.
My home office today, including an IKEA-hacked standing desk.
Multiple monitor setups in varying arrangements are increasingly prevalent in today’s office workspaces.
This person has multiple monitors and multiple computers.
Improvised monitor stands emerged as a theme.
LOTS of improvised monitor stands. (Note 4 screens and 3 machines, here.)
How many of you have feather boas in your labs?
Moreover – what’s *not* in this photo? That’s right. The computer. When I asked people for photos of their “workspace,” this person (an elementary school administrator) didn’t even think to include their computer in the photo – a reflection of just how much their work *isn’t* about its digital components.
The computer is almost entirely out of frame, on the right.
People’s real workspaces don’t look like usability labs.
Humane Society field agent’s workspace.
A Nashville, TN police cruiser.
A New Jersey sportswriter covering the Beijing Olympics.
The same New Jersey sportswriter, his colleagues, and the crew after the 2012 Super Bowl in Indianapolis.
An OR nurse in Florida.
A mountain rescuer. “This is me and Verena, one of our nurses, with a bonked out diabetic hiker waiting for a litter to arrive.”
“Me, shortly after witnessing the guy at my feet pitch 40’ off a cliff sustaining multiple injuries in a remote wilderness climbing area, trying to coordinate what would eventually become a massive rescue effort culminating in a helicopter hoist.”
“Me, shortly after witnessing the guy at my feet pitch 40’ off a cliff sustaining multiple injuries in a remote wilderness climbing area, trying to coordinate what would eventually become a massive rescue effort culminating in a helicopter hoist.”
And now let’s look at some REAL workspaces.
Part 1 – The conventional Interview
* Friendly Q&A, introducing yourself and getting to know the participant
* Explain your role; put participant at ease
* Get signatures on paperwork for recordings/photos
* Get an overview of the problem at hand and the work to be done during the session
* 15 minutes, max
Part 2 – The transition
* Brief, but important
* Basically, explaining that friendly Q&A time is over, and it's time to get to work
* Explain that you'll be observing while the participant works, and that you will be interrupting to ask questions
Part 3 – The contextual interview proper
* Participant works; you observe
* Basically, be a big PITA – interrupt with questions, follow the participant around, ask about any phone calls made or taken, emails sent, printouts, references to job aids, etc.
* Participant may take a break at any time (of course)
* Take copious notes
Part 4 – The wrap-up
* Describe to the participant your understanding of what you saw/learned to ensure you have a proper understanding.
* Customer corrects any misunderstandings you may have/clarifies your findings
* Allow approximately 15 minutes
Advantages:
- See exactly what end users see (screen size, window size, version, customizations, personalizations, actual method of interaction)
- Accurate recording of entire session
- Less expensive and faster than in-person field study
Disadvantages
- Lose environmental context (light, noise, distractions, interruptions, physical layout of workspace)
- May be technical challenges (firewalls, software compatibility)
Like lab-based testing:
Has predefined tasks
Can be recorded (via camtasia or similar) with some extra work
Can be performed at any stage in the design cycle
Unlike lab-based testing:
Is conducted at the participant's workstation
Provides insight into the user's work environment (lighting, sounds, desk space, distractions)
On-site testing does have some logistical challenges. Differences in computing systems may present compatibility issues with your prototype. Site security and intellectual property issues are the same as with any field research technique.
On the other hand, if you don't have a usability lab, this method can provide considerable cost savings over traditional lab testing while gathering contextual information and maintaining the integrity of a qualitative test. (This method is not well-suited for quantitative usability testing.)
The key here is that what people do and what they say they do are two very different things.
While surveys have their place, there's still that (very serious) issue of self-reported behavior. Some, like ForeSee, can provide some accurate reporting of behavior, but the capacity for doing so is highly dependent on the type of site or application for which information is being aggregated.
There's always the option of a freeform response for some survey questions, but that sort of negates the benefits (fast, cheap, quantitative) of a survey.
Traditionally done after-the-fact on completed software, although I'd wager that's not the most typical use anymore.
Has the advantage of a controlled environment – especially useful for before/after testing and when gathering quantitative data like click counts and time on task.
This method can be expensive, particularly if you are renting lab space.
Best used when combined with field methods to ensure the correct features and tasks are being tested.
While journaling also provides self-reported information, that information is (supposedly) recorded in real-time, so the participant's understanding of the situation is clearer, and s/he is not relying on memory.
If the journals will be kept with pen & paper, reading the participants' handwriting can be a real issue.
This is a very inexpensive method of data collection, although it does require a lot of time after the fact to read the journals and organize the information they contain.
Clearly, Field Research isn't appropriate for every situation.
But it's equally clear that it can't be replaced with a simple survey or even by a focus group or formal usability test.
When can or should you do fieldwork? There’s rarely a bad time to do it. As with many User research activities, though, the greatest benefit is realized when performed early in the product lifecycle.
You may have heard there’s no crying in baseball. It’s true.
You may not have heard, though, that there are no copy machines in the field!
Get your paperwork together ahead of time. ALL of it.
There will be no chances to make extra copies! I highly recommend a single manila envelope per participant, plus extra copies of all necessary paperwork.
Get written consent for anything you do, especially for taking any photos or videos where your participant's face is visible.
Ask open-ended questions
-Limiting interaction -
You: Do you like that the button is in the upper right hand corner?
Participant: No.
-Better-
You: Talk to me about that button.
Participant: Well, when I fill out the form, I end up at the bottom of the page, where the “Cancel” button is. A lot of times, I end up accidentally hitting “Cancel,” which means I have to redo the whole form.
Minimize bias
Don't let the participant know what you think about the workflow or the application or tool you're evaluating. You're there to find out what THEY do and think.
Provide reassurance to the participant
Do your best, explicitly and with your body language and tone, to remind them that there are no wrong answers and that you're really interested in what they're doing and their opinions about their work.
Don't be afraid to collect a lot of artifacts. (Always with permission, of course.)
Take photos – of the person's workspace, of important environmental factors, of the distance from the desk to the fax machine or printer, etc.
When feasible, record short videos.
Make copies of job aids people have created to help themselves with their work.
Don't be afraid to ask for screen shots or to take actual physical measurements if necessary.
Scheduling issues
When people come to you, they've set aside time to spend with you, focused on your shared goals. When you go to them, you sometimes need to work around a lot of other people's schedules as well, particularly if you're spending a whole day working with a series of people.
Productivity and morale concerns from management
If you're observing in a call center, they don't stop gathering statistics for that day. In that and other situations, management might be overly concerned that your presence will have a negative effect on their metrics for the day.
Since politics are everywhere, there may be some issues with who does/doesn't get to participate, particularly if participant compensation is involved.
Site security issues
Always find out ahead of time what you need to do to enter the site/parking lot, where to park, what to tell any security personnel when you enter the building, and what documentation (driver's license, plate number, etc.) to have ready. If you need to be preregistered, make sure your on-site contact does so.
Follow ALL applicable site safety rules (e.g., hard hats, eye/ear protection, etc.) - sometimes this can make data collection challenging.
Rules about photos & videos
Not surprisingly, companies are careful about protecting their intellectual property from competitors. You may not be allowed to collect the artifacts you'd like to.
Pre-planning
Organization is critical. Have all questionnaires and any other paperwork/artifacts grouped, packaged, and labeled ahead of time.
For our field research today, we’ll be using a very rough, incomplete prototype of an app called Garcon. It’s intended for use by people enjoying themselves poolside at resorts like this one.
http://usabilitynet.org/tools/affinity.htm
Affinity diagramming is used to sort large amounts of data into logical groups. Existing items and/or new items identified by individuals are written on sticky notes which are sorted into categories as a workshop activity. Affinity diagramming can be used to:
* analyze findings from field studies
* identify and group user functions as part of design
* analyses findings from a usability evaluation
======================
Make a separate note for each item captured during your interpretation of your notes.
Put notes up on the wall one at a time. After each note goes up, add notes that go with it.
When there are too many groups to keep track of, start labeling them, ideally with a different colored note than the one you're using for individual items.
As groups accumulate individual notes, break them down so there are no more than 4 notes in a group.
Add additional notes (again, ideally with different colors) to collect groups.
- Modified from Beyer & Holtzblatt, 1998.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/default.aspx
Office OneNote 2007 is a digital notebook that provides people one place to gather their notes and information, powerful search to find what they are looking for quickly, and easy-to-use shared notebooks so that they can manage information overload and work together more effectively. It delivers the flexibility to gather and organize text, pictures, digital handwriting, audio and video recordings, and more — all in one digital notebook on your computer.
Mind mapping resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mind_mapping_software
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Visual descriptions can be extremely polished or as simple as a basic flow chart.