How to conduct User Research (11 March 2013)

How to conduct User Research

https://www.uie.com/articles/starting_user_research/
http://www.webcredible.co.uk/services/user-research.shtml
http://www.uxmatters.com/topics/user-research/
http://boxesandarrows.com/extreme-user-research/
http://www.gurtle.com/ppov/2009/12/06/a-summary-of-user-research-methods

Direct User Contact - where researcher interacts with users/audience
Also known as IDI - Individual depth interview - conducted in users context.
Structured or Semi-structured.
Proxy Interview/Key informant/Intermediary interview

Focus Group
Small group discussion
Storytelling sessions - Anecdote circles

Workshops

Card sorting - IA design technique, research audience mental models.
http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/cardsorting/blog/card_sort_analysis_spreadsheet/

Product Reaction Cards
Contextual inquiry - unstructured inquiry
Visual Anthropology - photograph environment and behaviour of audience
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o
Example of an Ethnographic film

Shadowing
Researcher follows his participants around as they undertake tasks

A word on Ethnography

Ethnography is the practice of immersing oneself in the world or culture that one is studying. This means you go into the field to observe their rituals and behaviour in their “natural setting”, but also that you take your subjects’ perspective when analysing and reporting. Thus, these methods very much belong in the direct user contact category. (Note: the term “ethnography” is also used to refer to the resulting written account of the research)

While there is much academic debate about what is or isn’t Ethnography, my take is that any of the methods on this page that involve collecting data straight from the audience an appropriate environment—that is not a usability lab—can be considered ethnographic methods. For a more in-depth explanation of ethnography, watch this video

Indirect User Contact

Content inventory - content audit
Heuristic evaluation - user assesses system based on set of usability guidelines
Competitor review - comparison through heuristic review
Questionnaires and surveys
Panels
Analytics - good to add onto prototype. / Eyetracking / Heatmaps.
Workplace observation
Photo ethnography - self-reporting from the user
Cultural probes - creating a kit for participants to record their lives.
good when there isnt much contact with the participant.
Virtual ethnography - monitoring blogs, discussion forums, and social networking applications.

Evaluative Methods

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