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#30dayUXchallenge [Day 10]

So we have our research plan, but how do we decide which method is best to get the insights we need? How do we decide between surveys, interviews or focus groups? How do we know when it’s ok to do guerrilla testing or need to budget for a formal usability test? Today I wanted to share with you an overview of some tips and tricks to help you decide and to introduce you to five research methods. Yes there are so many more, but let’s start with this. I would love to have a discussion about the others later. 🙂

Qualitative vs. Quantitative

The first thing that we need to understand is that what people say and what people do can be very different. That’s why it’s very important to make sure you choose a couple of research methods that will gather both perspectives and allow us to make educated decisions going forward in the project.

Qualitative data
This type of research insights will helps the team to understand why users do certain things within a product with specific interactions and can give us ideas of aspects of the design are problematic and which work well. It provides insights into the full context of the problem we are trying to solve for and allows us to find new opportunities.

Quantitive data
This research provides insights that are measurable, its the graphs and numbers, explaining what is really happening in your product and demonstrates what users do while they are using the product. It will depend on your research goal but generally research should be carried out with the intention to extract both qualitative insights and quantitive insights. For more information I would suggest checking out Nielsen Norman group here.

Research methods (A select few)

Usability-Lab Studies

This is one of the most formal forms of research you can carry out. Participants (minimum of 5) are invited into a lab setting and asked by a researcher to carry out a set of predefined tasks allowing us to observe how they complete them. The tasks can cover both qualitative and quantitative feedback, eg. How long does it take to complete the task vs. observing their reactions to the tasks and their comments. Usability testing can be done at any stage of the product. From testing the current scenario (identifing what you need to focus on and why) to testing new concepts (is this of benefit to the user, do they understand it). Formal usability testing can be time consuming and expensive, it takes a lot of time to set up correctly (creating the script with the tasks, recruiting the right participants, recording the sessions, extracting the highlights and often involves incentives for the participants) but it provides some of the most detailed and useful insights and can be shared with everyone in the company. For example at Marktplaats, Ebay, we invest a lot of resources into usability testing. On a monthly basis we test our current product to ensure we are working on the right things. From this we create a ‘highlights’ video which we share with the entire company from business to development that allows us to uncover new areas for attention, to validate the work we are currently doing and to prioritise work accordingly.

Focus Groups

A focus group is used to gather a number (3–12 usually) of users together to discuss and give insights on particular topics. It is a way of gathering qualitative insights. Its very interesting to listen to the users share their own experiences with each other, engage in discussions and provide insights on your chosen topics. If you find that 1:1 interviews are not providing real or honest feedback or you feel a discussion is necessary, then focus groups are a fantastic way to go. For example at Marktplaats we were conducting research to understand professional car dealers and their experience on Marktplaats. But as there are different types of dealers who have their own ways of conducting business it was useful to invite 9 of them to the Marktplaats office for a day of design thinking and round tables. We introduced design thinking activities into the focus groups to effectively extract insights from our users.

Contextual enquiries

This is a semi structured 1:1 interview carried out in the user’s own environment. This differs from the usability lab as it allows the user to be more comfortable and feel less like a ‘fake’ test, they are just doing what they usually do. Often a contextual enquiry will begin with a short interview where the researcher can ask both qualitative and quantitive questions around their research goal, then can follow with an observation study where the user is asked to either complete a certain task or to continue working as normal. (depending on the product and research goal) This is one of the most authentic studies you can carry out. Often the semi structured interview will uncover new unknown areas of interest so a top tip for this one is to review your script after each participant to make sure these are woven back into the plan to follow up with other participants and not forgotten in user Y’s home office over a cup of tea. 🙂

Surveys

Surveys are one of the fastest ways of gathering both qualitative and quantitive insights. Survey’s should always be supported with another form of research where we can also observe the user in real life, card sorting, interview, user testing etc. I feel surveys are thought of as ‘old school’ and not ‘modern’ but there are so many interesting ways for us to leverage surveys to get the insights we need. Surveys are versatile and can be used at any stage of the product life cycle to provide insights to any research goal, be it on a granular or high-level topic. We can also take advantage of how we both recruit our users (using data we have) and how we reach our users (p.s there’s other ways than just email). Tools such as Userzoom and Qualaroo allow us to move past sending email surveys to actually reach our users in the context when they are performing a task on our product. Surveys have the power to reach hundreds of users and give a broad overview we can really trust. Usability testing and contextual enquiries even though provide the most in depth study do rely on the quality of the participants that are recruited.

Guerrilla research

This is one of the most fun research methods in my opinion. This can be ad hoc, last minute and if your in a budget or time crunch the perfect option. This is where you can visit a local cafe, train station or public space to recruit users on the spot to answer questions based on your research goal. Users can be asked a set of questions like and interview or you can even test a prototype. (if your quick) The key to recruiting users and extracting useful insights is to keep the research concise and effective, it’s important to really know what you want insights on and how best to phrase your questions. For example at Marktplaats we are very lucky as everyone in the Netherlands has used or at least knows of our product. I have used guerrilla research to quickly validate a new concept in 1 hour at the local train station, before investing time and resources into iterating it out further and creating a full usability test for a concept we don’t even know if our users want.

Guerrilla testing is my favourite method of user research. Why? Because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter the time or the budget you have, user research is the heart of our discipline and you can always find a way to validate your assumptions and find the insights you need. Just get outside, find your users, maybe a cup of coffee at the local cafe is all the incentive they need for 15 minutes of their time to answer your questions. Do what you need to do.

But there’s more

Yes! There are so many different types of research methods out there from card sorting to diary studies and listing them all here today would be overwhelming for me and for you. But this is where I would like to hand it over to you, what’s your favourite research method? How do you decide which method(s) to use? And what’s your top tip for research? Let me know!

<a href="https://medium.com/media/8d5e2c740a04faf463af9accfa7e3c31/href">https://medium.com/media/8d5e2c740a04faf463af9accfa7e3c31/href</a>Rochelle Carr | UX Designer, Placing customer journey team, Marktplaats, Ebay. Soft spot for red wine & tries to learn Dutch in her spare time.

This post is part of the #30dayUXchallenge: you can read more about why we started it here, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Instagram!

Methods and Tips — executing your research (part 2) was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Methods and Tips — executing your research (part 2)

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