Humanizing DataAlex Wrightalex@agwright.com | www.alexwright.org

About me

1991 1995 1999 2007 2013

“It isn’t the consumers’ job to know what they want.”

“When the point of contact between the product and the people becomes a point of friction, then the designer has failed. !On the other hand if people are made safer, more comfortable, more eager to purchase, more efficient – or just plain happier – by contact with the product, then the designer has succeeded.” !

Henry Dreyfuss, Designing for People,1955

Why do user research?

To build empathy with others

To identify “trouble spots” in a design

To find the “negative space” where new ideas can emerge

to

Etsy’s mission is to re-imagine commerce in ways that build a more fulfilling and lasting world.

“Production by the masses, not mass production.” - Gandhi

Etsy is a certified B Corporation — a new kind of company that uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.

the NSA surveillance scandals).

Credit: Mike Brittain

Credit: Mike Brittain

Credit: Dan McKinley

Experimentation

But data is … people!

UX Research Market ResearchWhat people do Behavior and context

What people say Attitudes and emotions

Interaction Storytelling

Methods

Usability testing

Ethnography

Focus groups

Segmentation Personas Scenario design

Eye-tracking

Surveys

Customer panels Contextual inquiry

Card sorting Sentiment analysis

UX Research

Market Research

Heuristic analysis Market trends

Sold  Orders

Analyzing insights

Quantitative vs. qualitative

http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/LR-slide-2-resized.jpg

Qualitative

Inductive

Subjective

Emergent

Deductive

Objective

Conclusive

Quantitative

15© January 12, 2010

Attitudinal

BehavioralQ

ualit

ativ

eQ

uantitative

Formative usability testing

Ethnographic research

Participatory design Card sorting

Focus groups

Eye tracking

Surveys

Individual interviews

A/B Testing

Analytics

Diary studies

Customer panels

Summative usability testing

Identify “trouble spots” in a design Ensure an early focus on user goals Increase likelihood of adoption

Why usability testing?

Nielsen

Usability heuristics

Nielsen’s heuristicsBased on a factor analysis of 249 usability problems

Widely accepted as the baseline principles of usability engineering

Molich, R., and Nielsen, J. (1990). Improving a human-computer dialogue, Communications of the ACM 33, 3 (March), 338-348.

Visibility of system statusThe system should keep users informed of what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.

Match between system and the real worldThe system should speak the users’ language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than syste-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order

User control and freedomUsers often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked “emergency exit” to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.

Consistency and standardsUsers should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.

Error preventionEven better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place.

Recognition rather than recallMinimize the user’s memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another.

Flexibility and efficiency of useAccelerators - unseen by the novice user - may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.

Aesthetic and minimalist design

Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.

Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors

Error messages should be express in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.

Help and documentationEven though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user’s task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.

Interviewing

“Tell me more”!

“Help me understand”!

“Why do you say that?”!

“Talk about ...”!

“Walk me through this...”

Probing

Avoid leading questions

Ask questions grounded in personal experience

Avoid complex, lengthy questions

Don’t defend; don’t offend

Controlling for bias

Three kinds of interviews

Structured

Semi-structured

Unstructured

Structured interviews

Exacting wording and sequence of question is predetermined

Good for quantitative research (e.g. opinion polls)

Produces highly valid, comparable results

Semi-structuredTopics selected in advance

Sequence and wording determined over course of the interview

Some questions may go unasked

Script may evolve over the course of the project

Unstructured

Questions emerge in context

Good for early stage, exploratory research

Most likely to produce unexpected results

Assessing validityCredibility Is the participant believable?

Transferability Can the findings be applied to others?

Confirmability Can the findings be replicated?

Exercise

KJ Analysis

Created by Jiro Kawakita (1960s) !

Powerful method for fostering group consensus !

Very well-suited to analyzing research results !

KJ Analysis

Put one idea/observation on a post-it note !

Place the notes on the wall !

As a group, cluster them into categories !

Then, label the categories !

No talking! !

Ground rules