Humanizing Design with User Experience Research

1. Define Project Goals

Clearly defined project goals and research questions give purpose to a research project. Chris ensures that those goals and questions are established upfront and that collecting data along each will move a team forward towards their desired outcome.

Critical questions considered in defining project goals:

• What needs to be better understood?

  • The target users?

  • The context of a problem?

  • A design’s effectiveness?

  • All of the above?

2. Recruit Respondents

Credible and relevant data is critical to any research. Obtaining that data is primarily determined by recruiting appropriate respondents. Chris ensures that the right participants are targeted and screened, resulting in high-quality data.

Critical questions considered in managing recruitment:

• Do research participants possess the qualities of the target audience?

• Do they include variations in your target audience?

• Where can potential participants be found? and how can they be contacted?

3. Select Best Method(s)

There are a variety of research methods and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Chris determines optimal methods according to project goals and other variables of a project.

Critical questions considered in selecting method(s):

• Is initial data being gathered?

• Do users need to be better understood?

• Is a design being evaluated?

4. Field Research

With preparations made in prior steps, rich data is ready to be collected. Chris facilitates a friendly research experience while ensuring participants deliver high-quality data.

Critical questions considered in fielding research:

• How can smooth and natural conversation be facilitated?

• How can research participants be encouraged to verbalize their thoughts and feelings?

• How can forces driving user responses and behaviors be identified?

5. Distill & Organize Captured Data

Freshly captured data is often vast, unwieldly, and needs organization before being shared with a broader team. Chris ensures that research findings are boiled down to key takeaways, implications, and recommendations.

Critical questions considered in distilling and organizing data:

• How can data be best organized to…

  • answer key project questions?

  • show interesting trends?

  • for easy reference in the future?

6. Align Stakeholders / Team Members

One of the most critical parts of research is ensuring that a team/stakeholders are aligned across valuable data. Alignment is not automatic, as stakeholders / team members can have different perspectives on new data and subsequent project direction. Through findings presentations and further team discussion, Chris creates the opportunities for stakeholders / team members to learn, voice their thoughts, and hear others’ opinions.

With this effort, stakeholders / team members are able to have thoughtful conversations about the problem space, thoroughly explore the forward looking strategies, truly move forward as a team, and simultaneously avoid future conflicts that arise from disparate opinions in these areas.

Critical questions considered in aligning stakeholders:

• How can consensus be achieved across stakeholders / a team?

• How can varying stakeholders / team member perspectives be cross-pollinated across the team?

• How can differing stakeholder / team member opinions be reconciled?