The Power of Field Studies
By Daniel Szuc
Published - 23 October 2008
Understanding how users truly interact with software products is difficult unless you visit users in the field like their home or workplace.
There is no substitute for field studies to collect rich data to see how users use products and the issues they face to help drive the workflow of a new product design.
When discovering what functions should be included as part of new product design and what needs to be improved, the Product Team usually examines the following areas:
- Business - what does the business want the new product to do?
- Product - what is the existing product workflow and how does it work?
- Technology - what internal systems are being used to provide data to the current solution?
- Vendor - what potential systems and components are being offered by vendor to include in the new product solution to improve it?
- Domain - what internal product domain expertise is available to better understand the products and the users?
- Sales & Marketing - what order and priority of "products and services" do sales and marketing want to see presented in the new product?
Guesswork
These requirements are useful and necessary inputs to the new product solution but can be greatly distanced from the user's "real requirements" and the issues they face in the field using
the product on a day to day basis.
Focus Groups
Using research methods like focus groups to answer these questions are limited because participants usually rely on recall to describe how they use products. This can mislead the design
direction and may be inherently error prone. When you see consistent user behavior emerge
from a Field Study, there is no longer a requirement to validate user statements as the need or
behavior is established.
User Strategy
This lack of user knowledge and gaps is often completed by "guesswork" on behalf of the
Design Team. This "guesswork" can be reduced by visiting and observing users in the field to
help better understand:
- Product interaction - How users truly interact with the product, how much of the product they use and what other software is used in the process
- Language - How users describe "products and services" to customers and the language they use
- Issues - Issues they face when using the software (in some cases the users may not use the software in favor of faster ways to service the customer)
- Questions & Answers - Questions users ask when they meet with customers and vice versa
- Tools - Other tools used to develop a customer solution. This can include brochures, fact sheets, pen and paper etc.
- Available Time - How much available time the user has to deal with an enquiry or meeting with a customer
- Distractions - Other distractions including phone calls that may interrupt the users workflow when using the current product
Benefits
The major benefits of Field Studies that input directly into the new product design process include:
- Real workflow - Understand the workflow from a user and customer perspective (without the limitations from the technology and what it can and cannot provide)
- Gaps and opportunities - Gaps in a workflow where users have to rely on other tools (out side of the software they may be using) in order to come up with a solution for the customer. This may require users to switch between numbers of different applications
- Sales collateral - Collateral users give customers as part of the sales process to better understand product presentation and solutions
- Language - Language used when speaking with customers
- Short cuts - Short cuts users make when explaining products and services to customers
- Customer data - Better understanding of the customers - their backgrounds, needs and issues
Informed Design
Field studies provide rich data to help the new product design workflow and provide valuable insights into the total user/customer experience as opposed to focusing on the software tool
only on best guesses.