Planning for User Research Success
By: Daniel Szuc and Gerry Gaffney
Published - August 2005
|
Planning is crucial if you want your user research efforts to be effective. You need to think about what information you need to gather, and why, before embarking on any research. Good planning, well communicated to the client or project, and followed by careful implementation will ensure your research is effective. |
When conducting user research activities such as Usability Testing, Interviews and Site Visits, it's important to think about the information you want to gather and why. Sometimes we see organizations undertaking research activities – with the best of intentions – that yield data that is insufficiently detailed, mis-focused, or not timely. For example, they may rush into conducting usability testing of an interface with readily identifiable flaws (such as inconsistent navigation or terminology) that could have been addressed prior to testing.
A useful way to begin planning is to answer a set of questions. Not only do they help you choose the appropriate research activities, but they also help you to actually produce a Research Plan that can then be agreed and signed off with your client or project.
Questions for the Client
Your client or project team may not have thought about the following questions previously, but they need be able to answer the majority of them if user research is to be effectively planned.
- What does the client want to know, and why?
- Who are the competitors, or what other product or organizations are addressing similar design issues? What are those products or organizations doing well, and what are they doing badly?
- What sources of user data exist? Has market research been conducted, either in-house, or by third parties?
- What are the business goals for the product?
- What concerns does the business have about the product?
- Does this product replace or upgrade a current product? If so, what are the issues with the current product? What are its successes and failures?
- What are the time constraints? You need to tailor your research so that your findings are available when on time.
- Who are the users or intended users? This will help define a user profile for recruitment of interviewees or test participants. Frequently there is information on market segmentation, and this is a good starting point.
- What particular parts of the product are most important? You may need to focus your efforts on a small set of screens or functions.
There are also some questions that the client may have a position or opinion about. For example:
- How many users should be involved?
- What form of research should be conducted?
Questions about the Product
- What version of the product (if any) will be available for research? For example, it may be a fully-functional prototype, or a set of screen shots, or just a concept for a new product.
- How mature is the product? For a mature product entering a minor redesign phase, it may be more appropriate to identify usability 'bugs' than gaps in user requirements. For a total redesign, usability issues with the current product may be less relevant than exploring user tasks, requirements and aspirations.
Questions for the Users
When undertaking user research, you are effectively asking questions of users. The types of questions you want to ask define or limit the appropriate type of research. Questions for users include:
- How well is the existing product supporting them? What do they like and dislike?
- Do they have a wish-list for what the product should do?
- Do they understand the meaning of a specific function, page, menu or screen?
- Can they complete the tasks they want?
- What is their emotional reaction to a design concept or product?
- Do they value a product (whether existing or proposed)?
- What alternative or additional methods, channels or tools are they using?
- Are they using any workarounds?
- What are their concerns about a product?
- Do they understand the navigation, terminology and behavior of the product?
Planning for your research helps ensure that the research itself is timely, cost-effective, and meets the perceived and actual needs of the client or project.
It's unlikely that you will be able to get all your answers from a single research activity, so being efficient in application of research is vital. Good planning, well communicated to the client or project, and followed by careful implementation will ensure your research is effective.
Next article: The constant design balance
Back to Top