The document outlines a comprehensive guide on user research methodologies, emphasizing the importance of understanding user experience. It covers various research methods such as qualitative and quantitative techniques, usability testing, ethnography, and surveys, detailing their applications and best practices. Additionally, it highlights the significance of effective communication with participants and the need to gather actionable insights to inform design and product development.

1. Presented(to:(
Presented(by:(
Date:(
Researching User’ Experience!
Wu Jiajin, Objective Experience

2. What are we doing today?
• Why research?
• How to be a good researcher
• Research methodology
• Using eye tracking in research
• Run your own research!
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3. Introductions
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4. Get to know each other
Find 5 things that all of you have in common, nothing to do with work. Nothing to do with
body parts (we all have arms or eyes) or clothing (we all wear shoes, etc)
Assign 1 person to take notes so you can share with the room when done
You have 5 mins
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5. Share your experience
• Have you conducted a research before?
• Have you setup recruitment criteria?
• Have you written your own interview script?
• Have you written a research report?
• Have you translated research findings to designs?
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6. Why Research?
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7. Define your opportunity
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8. Gain clarity on the direction forward
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9. Catch major issues early and fix these !
before product release
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10. Maintain long lasting survival
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11. How to be a good researcher?
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12. 12(

13. Make the participant feel comfortable
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14. Don’t lead, be neutral!
and open
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15. Types of questions to ask
Open vs closed questions
• Ask open ended questions that will elicit a response from the user. Asking questions that can be
easily answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ provides no insight, and may be susceptible to confirmation
biases.
• Use : Who, what, where, when, why and how
– Who relies on this information? What happens next? Where do you keep that information?
When do you use the information? Why do you need the shipping date? How do you go about
changing that setting?
• Don’t use : Do you? Would you?
• Do you like your job? Would you use this feature?
Broad (neutral) vs Narrow (leading)
• Narrow questions can lead to a ‘framed response’. Framing a question can generate a biased
response by distorting and influencing the answer.
– Broad – Tell me what happened?
– Narrow – Tell me what happened when the website failed.
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16. Be aware, observe and feel
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17. Why, Why, Why, Why, Why
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18. Why, Why, Why, Why, Why
• Why does it take so long to serve a customer?
– Because we are so busy! There’s always a queue of people waiting to be served at lunchtime
• Why is there always a queue of people at lunchtime?
– It is the busiest time of the day and we don’t have enough staff to serve everyone.
• Why don’t we have enough staff to cope with busy periods?
– We don’t have enough room to accommodate more staff, ther would just get in the way.
• Why is there not enough room for more staff?
– The service area is too cluttered, as the equipment we use is very large and bulky.
• Why is there so much equipment around?
– We purchases our equipment in bulk to save money. This usually results in cheap but bulky
stuff, that we need to navigate around
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19. Be uncomfortable with uncertainty
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20. 20(

21. Record your sessions
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• Wri;en/digital(notes(
• Video(Recording((
• Photos(

22. Digest the information
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23. Saturate and group
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24. Rules to running a good study
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Plan(ahead(and(
PracCce(
Sleep(well(
before(your(
study(
Talk(to(
strangers(
Communicate((

25. user research methodologies
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26. Quantitative vs Qualitative research
Quantitative - Analysis of NUMERICAL data
• Numbers (quantifiable, percentages)
• Ask enough questions from enough
people to statically estimate the general
viewpoints of a large population
• Closed / forced choice (i.e. yes/no
response)
• Response bias (i.e. tendency for
participants to respond in a way they
think researcher will favour)
• E.g: Online surveys, eye tracking
statistics
Qualitative – Analysis of WORDS
• Words gathered from an interview
• Gathering reactions and opinions
• More in-depth understanding
• Requires less participants
• Open-ended (i.e. tell me more about…)
• Findings cannot be generalised (i.e. they
are not a representative of the general
public)
• E.g: design ethnography, focus groups
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27. When to do research and what type of research to do?
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Idea(
• Ethnography((
• Diary(studies(
• Survey(
Concept/
Sketches(
• focus(groups(
• 1:1(interviews(
• Card(Sort(
Prototypes( • Usability(TesCng((
Established(
Product(
• AnalyCcs(
• CompeCCve(Review(
• Expert(Review(

28. design ethnography
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29. 29(
Ethnography (from Greek ἔθνος ethnos "folk, people, nation" and
γράφω grapho "I write") is the systematic study of people and
cultures. It is designed to explore cultural phenomena where the
researcher observes society from the point of view of the subject of
the study.
What is design ethnography?

30. What do you do in design ethnography?
• You talk to the participant in their own
environment.
• You shadow and observe the participants as they
interact with the product/service you are interested
in.
• You uncover their behaviors, motivations, needs,
dreams, concern and the ecosystem surrounding
the product/service you are designing for.
• You uncover insights to helps answer questions
like what is necessary to innovate with success;
what are the key social actors and roles to take
into account; and which are the limiting factors?
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31. Design ethnography deliverables
• Sessions typically last at least 90minutes.
• Qualitative research to be conducted with 10 to 20 participants.
• Deliverables :
– Rich insights into the user’s ecosystem
– Unmet needs and opportunity space for innovation, new products
– Experience Framework
• Personas and use case scenarios
• Design principles
• Customer workflow
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32. Diary studies
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33. What are Diary studies
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• Participants are asked to provide information about
themselves over a period of time, as they interact
with the product/services you are interested to
study. They provide information by writing regular
journal entries into a diary
• Useful when activities you want to research
happens irregularly and may differ in each
instances.
• Self reporting research method, allows you to
capture insights into the participant’s private lives
which is typically not accessible in other research
methods.
• Can be structured, requiring participants to provide
data at fixed timing or open ended.
• Always end the study with an in depth interview,
using
• Collects longitudinal data, running for 1-3 weeks
• Qualitative data, typical size of study would be 10 to
20.

34. Diary Study Toolkit
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From www.JohnnyHolland.org

35. What are love letter/breakup letters?
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36. What are Love letter / break up letter?
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• A tool to understand the
emotional relationships people
have with products/service.
• Great activity during focus
groups to get people to start
connecting and discussing.
• Participants are asked to write
a love letter or breakup letter to
the product being research as if
the product was their partner.

37. Activity : write your love/break-up letter to
your transportation system (public or private)
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38. Time for a tea break
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39. surveys
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40. What is a survey?
• Uncover user problems, needs, goals and ideas for
improvement
• Usually delivered through an online tool to extend to
larger numbers across wider geographic locations
• Approximately 2 – 3 week turnaround
• Participants required can vary from 50 – 200 ppl
depending on budget and analysis requirements
• Deliverable – Report summarising the data and
synthesising the results. Insights are gathered from
the data to provide detailed recommendations for
the research objectives.
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41. Question types
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42. focus groups
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43. What is a focus group?
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• Group session with a trained moderator that can provide a
rich source of insight
• Interactive sessions filled with activities and discussion
• Can cover things such as:
• Identification and prioritisation of key features and
functionalities
• Exploration of possible design concepts
• Co-creation, where participants contribute ideas to
create products/services
• Approximately 2 hours per group (the amount of sessions to
be held vary depending on user types, business
requirements and budget
• Participants required – 6 – 8 people per group, carefully
selected to represent your target/key audience groups
• Deliverable – Report summarising the data and synthesising
the results. Detailed insights about the behaviour of your key
users are gathered from the representative participants

44. Dyad/Triad Focus group
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45. cardsorting
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46. What is cardsorting?
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• IA or Information Architecture refers to the structure
of the content presented
• Great design needs to be complemented by
findable and logical information structures
• Detailed mapping of how content should fit and
naming of labels and buttons are considered to
ensure it makes sense to the user
• IA testing can be done online of face-to-face using
a card sorting activity
• Card sorts usually take approx 10 mins to complete
online, or can be incorporated into a focus group
session.
• Participants required (also can be done with
stakeholders)
• Deliverable – IA findings are incorporated in the
detailed wireframes as part of justification of the
design.

47. What is cardsorting?
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TradiConal( Online(
Open vs Closed

48. usability testing
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49. What is usability testing?
• Usability testing is about observing
people use your site, device or product to
– Make it easier & more intuitive for people
to use
– Prove it is easy to use
• Usability testing uncovers problems that
once fixed improve the overall user
experience.

50. Balancing scales of emotions
• Fredrickson (2009) discovered
that we need three positive
emotions to lift us up and
overcome one negative
emotion.
• Is the rest of your system
good enough to overcome the
user experience issues it has?
+( +(
+(
V(

51. How many people to test with?
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100%(
75%(
50%(
25%(
0((((((((((((((((((((3((((((((((((((((((((((6(((((((((((((((((((((9(((((((((((((((((((12((((((((((((((((((15(((((((((((((((((((
Number(of(users(
Number(of(issues(found(
From(Nielson(Norman(Group(

52. Where to test?
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• In lab
• Guerilla testing
• Remote testing

53. When to use what approach?
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$(is(not(an(issue(
Lots(of(Cme(
Formal(
Remote((
Guerilla(
No(Time(
Lack(of(funds(

54. Test iteratively
Paper designs –
wireframes or
(clickable) JPEGS
Prototype –
HTML limited
functionality
First usable site –
HTML limited
functionality
Completed site -
most functionality
Existing site – all
functionality
Test(
labelling,(
visual(design,(
some(tasks(
Test(some(tasks(
Test(labelling,(visual(
design,(first(click(
Test(all(tasks(
Test(all(tasks(

55. Agile testing
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Prep
Test
Report
Prep
Test
Report
Day(1( Day(2( Day(3(
Redesign,(
update(
prototype(
Redesign,(
update(
prototype(
Day(1( Day(2( Day(3(

56. Outcomes of usability testing
Usability testing provides a deep understanding of usability issues, and
their root causes.
Outcomes are reported as:
• Prioritised usability issues incl. number of users experiencing the
problem.
• Actionable recommendations for correcting the issues.
• Issues illustrated with screenshots, videos clips and user
quotations.
• What users did on the website, where they went, paths they took
(may include eye-tracking)
• Success rates of tasks completed.
• Users’ emotional feedback on their experience when using the
site, completing tasks.
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Severity!
Good(
CriCcal(
Major(
Minor(
Area(of(
improvement!

57. System Usability Scale (SUS)
SUS is a reliable questionnaire to measure perceived ease of use. It can be administered at
the end of every usability test so that you can consistently measure usability across tests
and applications.
The SUS consists of 10 item questionnaire and can be measure on a scale of 1 (Strongly
disagree) - 5 (Strongly Agree)
• I think that I would like to use this system frequently.
• I found the system unnecessarily complex.
• I thought the system was easy to use.
• I think that I would need the support of a technical person to be able to use this system.
• I found the various functions in this system were well integrated.
• I thought there was too much inconsistency in this system.
• I would imagine that most people would learn to use this system very quickly.
• I found the system very cumbersome to use.
• I felt very confident using the system.
• I needed to learn a lot of things before I could get going with this system.
The SUS needs to be converted to value (0-100) where a score of 68 and above is typically
considered average
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58. competitor review
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59. What is a competitor review
• Learn from the designs of your strongest
competitors.
• Evaluate competitors designs against a common
benchmark (usually tasks, scenarios, usability
heuristics).
– Design
– Function
– Features
– Content and structure
• Approximately 2 – 3 day turnaround
• No participants required
• Deliverable – Report identifying all the strengths and
weaknesses of the competitors designs, with
recommendations for opportunities to improve and
strengthen your digital platforms.
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60. expert review
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61. What is an expert review?
• A website is reviewed based on standard usability heuristics through the lens of the
user.
• Evaluate a user interface’s experience against research, design best practices and
lessons learned in the field.
– Navigation
– Trust
– Persuasion
– Design
– Calls to action
– Forms
• Approximately 2 – 3 day turnaround
• No participants required
• Deliverable – Report identifying all the issues with an indication of their severity and a
corresponding recommendation that is actionable in the short or long term
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62. Usability principles in practice
• Heuristic
– A set of usability principles
– Rules of thumb
– Guide correct behaviour
• These heuristics have been widely adopted and adapted by the software industry:
1. Visibility of system status
2. Match between system and the real world
3. User control and freedom
4. Consistency and standards
5. Error prevention
6. Recognition rather than recall
7. Flexibility and efficiency of use
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
10. Help and documentation
References:
Nielsen, J., and Molich, R. (1990). Heuristic evaluation of user interfaces, Proc. ACM CHI'90 Conf. (Seattle, WA, 1-5 April), 249-256
Nielsen, J http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html

63. 4 types of users
• Browser !
Someone who has just arrived at the website
and needs help to better understand what he
should be looking for.
• Evaluator!
Someone who wants help to make a choice.
• Transactor!
Someone who wants to transact and needs
help and guidance to lead him through the
website.
• Customer!
Someone who has completed a transaction and
is looking for a reason to return to the website
to transact again.
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64. Using eye tracking in research
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65. What is Eye Tracking?
Eye Tracking is a neuromarketing tool which provides valuable insights
into how people view and interpret visual stimuli.

68. Follow my gaze
James(Breeze,(ObjecCve(Experience(

69. Game!tes(ng!

70. Offline!and!
TVC!
Digital(
Business(
systems(
Real(world(
POS/Packaging(
Print(
TV(and(video(
Call(centres(
CRM(
ERP(Shopping(
Driving(
Retail(banking(
Web(
Kiosk(
Mobile/Tablet(
Eye Tracking the
Customer Journey

71. Retrospective Think Aloud
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Think Aloud Protocol
Mental Processes
What am I doing
How do I explain it?
Retrospective Think Aloud
What did I do just now?
Retrospective Think Aloud
with Eye Tracking
I see that I was looking at
this during the task, that
is because…

72. eye tracking analysis
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73. • Gaze plots show fixation sequence i.e. the path the eye takes.
• A line shows the path between fixations.
• Longer fixations create larger dots.
Gaze plots

74. Heat maps
• Determine what gets attention and what ‘does not’ get attention
• Show where the gaze lingered
• Compare multiple designs

75. Area specific analysis
• Statistical analysis of areas of interest to analyse data such as:
– Time to first fixation
– Time spent in each section
– Percentage of respondents who engaged
– Order of engagement.

76. demo
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77. 77(

78. Connect!
www.linkedin.com/in/wujiajin!
@cyansherbet!
jjwu@objectiveexperience.com
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