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BBuckley - 1
CSc 238
Human Computer Interface Design
Chapter 2Understanding The Problem:
Design Research
ABOUT FACE
The Essentials of Interaction Design
Cooper, Reimann, Cronin, and Noessel
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DilbertScott Adams
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DilbertScott Adams
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DilbertScott Adams
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DilbertScott Adams
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DilbertScott Adams
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DilbertScott Adams
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DilbertScott Adams
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DilbertScott Adams
The Goal Directed Design Process
Six Phases
Chapter 2
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Research Modelling Requirements Framework Refinement Supportusers and of users and definition of user, definition of of behaviors, development
the domain use context business, and design structure form, and needs
technical needs and flow content
Ch.2 Ch.3 Ch.4 Ch.5 Ch.5
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Why research?
Good quote:
“If she (the designer) does not have clear and
detailed knowledge of the users she is
designing for, the constraints of the problem
and the business or organizational goals that are
driving the design activities, she will have little
chance of success.”
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Qualitative Research
• Qualitative versus Quantitative Research
• What do you get?
Understanding!
Behaviors, attitudes & aptitudes
Technical, business & environmental contexts
Vocabulary & other social aspects of the domain
How existing products are used
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Qualitative Research – there is more…
Helps the progress of design:
• Provides credibility & authority to the design team –
with design decisions can be traced to results
• Team has common understanding of domain issues &
user concerns
• Management makes more informed decisions –
instead of relying on anecdote, guesses, biases, etc.
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Qualitative Research
Why wouldn’t you want to know:
• How the product fits into the broader context of
people’s lives
• The goals that motivate people to use the product &
the basic tasks help people accomplish these goals
• The experiences that people find compelling & how
these relate to the product being designed
• The problems people encounter with the current ways
of doing things
Spending the time to deeply understand the user population can
provide valuable business insights that are not revealed
through traditional market research.
Strengths & Limitations of Quantitative methods
Strengths:
Determine what motivates people to buy
Segmenting market to get at types of buyers
by age, gender, education, zip code
Data that executives need to convince executives
Remembering that a successful product must be
“desirable, buildable… and also viable”
“Understanding whether somebody wants to buy
something is not the same thing as understanding what
he or she might want to do with it after buying it.”
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Quantitative research is needed!
Forecasting market acceptance
“… if you know X people might buy a product or
service for Y dollars, it helps in evaluating ROI.”
Usage analytics…
“If users are lingering in an area of your website or
are not visiting any other areas, that is critical
information to have before a redesign.”
Note: … the problem with User Centered Design!
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Fig 2-1 The relationship between quantitative and
qualitative, Goal –Directed Research
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Market Research Analytics
(Quantitative) (Qualitative)
Can inform
Goal Directed
Design Research
(Qualitative)
Drives
Behavioral Models
(Personas)
Market Sizing Studies
(Quantitative)
Can be used
to generate
Qualitative research
Tool of choice for
characterizing user
behaviors and needs
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What is
Goal-Directed Research
Qualitative research activities:
1. Kickoff meeting
2. Literature review
3. Product / prototype & competitive audits
4. Stakeholder interviews
5. Subject Matter Expert (SME) interviews
6. User and customer interviews/Observation
Fig 2-2 An overview of the
Goal-Directed design
research process
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Kickoff Meeting
Literature Review
Product / Prototype
and Competitive Audits
Stakeholder Interviews
SME Interviews
User and Customer
Interviews / Observation
Consumer
Products
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
1. Kickoff MeetingFirst, Identify the key stakeholders
Typically:
Executive
Managers
and
Representative
contributors from:
• Development
• Sales
• Product
management
• Marketing
• Customer support
• Design & Usability
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“A stakeholder is anyone with authority and/or
responsibility for the product being deigned.”
Kickoff Meeting
Questions for key stakeholders:
• What is the product?
• Who will/does use it?
• What do your users need most?
• Which customers and users are the most important to
the business?
• What challenges do the design team and the business
face moving forward?
• Who do you see as your biggest competitors? Why?
• What internal and external literature should we look at
to familiarize ourselves with the product and/or business
and technical domain?
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2. “Homework” – Literature Review
Review any references to the proposed product or its
domain of use.
References such as:
• Internal documents
• Industry reports
• Web searches
Use the information in developing questions to ask
stakeholders and SME in order to acquire domain
knowledge, and vocabulary.
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3. Product/Prototypes and Competitive Audits
• Provides a sense of the “state of the art”
• Familiarizes the team with the strengths and
limitations of what is currently available
• Provides general idea of the product’s current
functional scope
• Note interaction design… good and bad
• Strengths and weaknesses in current products
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4. Stakeholder interviews
• Who?
Anyone with authority/responsibility for the product being
designed.
• What information is needed from them?
– Preliminary Product Vision – perspective on what is being
designed
– Budget / schedule
– Technical constraints & opportunities for new approaches
– Business drivers – what is to be accomplished
– Stakeholders’ perceptions of the user
“… important in developing “buy-in” and a common
language and understanding about the design,
management, and engineering teams.”
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5. Subject Matter Expert (SME) interviews
• Expert on the domain in which the product will operate.
• May or may NOT be expert users
If they are, beware of “invested” in existing designs!
• They are not designers
• Suggestions:
SMEs are necessary/mandatory for complex/specialized domains
SMEs should be consulted throughout the design process
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6a. Customer interviews
• Customers will make the purchase decision, so
• What you need to learn from these interviews:
Their Goals for purchasing product
Their Current frustrations
Their decision process
Their role in installation, maintenance & managing
of the product
Other domain related issues & vocabulary
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6b. User Interviews
Main focus of the Design work!
What you might learn… “the effect that experience with
the current version of a product… on how the user
behaves and thinks about its use.”
What you need to know:
– When, why & how the product will be used
– Domain knowledge – user’s perspective
– Current tasks and activities
– Goals & motivations for using the product
– “Mental Model:” how they think about their job… and
expectation about the product
– Problems & frustrations with current products
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User observation
Users omit much when merely describing their
behaviors … to avoid seeming to be dumb,
incompetent, or impolite.
“You can talk to users about how they think they
behave, or you can observe their behavior first-hand.
The latter … provides superior results.”
But, do both if you can.
Interviewing & Observing Users
Contextual inquiry
Context, Partnership, Interpretation, Focus
Improving on contextual inquiry
Shorten the interview process, Use smaller design teams,
Identify goals first, Look beyond business contexts
Preparing for ethnographic interviews
Identifying candidates, putting together a plan
Conducting ethnographic interviews
Interview teams & timing, Phases of ethnographic interviews,
Basic methods, After the interviews
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Contextual Inquiry
Asking questions of the user… as if they are the “master
craftsman” and you are the new apprentice.
Context: Observe the user in their normal work environment
Partnership: as a collaborative exploration… alternating
between observing work and discussion of its structure and
details
Interpretation: Analyze results to uncover design implications
Focus: Let the interview wander with subtle direction to capture
data relevant to design issues.
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Improving this “Contextual Inquiry”
• Shorten the interview process
Shoot for one hour, max, for each interview
About 6 well-selected users for each hypothesized role or
type
• Use smaller design teams
The same 2 to 3 designers in each interview
• Identify goals first
Do this before determining the tasks that relate to the goals
• Look beyond business contexts
Typically assumes a business product and a corporate
environment, although
Ethnographic interviews are possible in consumer domains
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Ethnographic Interviews - Summary
What do you do?
• Intense observation
• Directed interviews
What technique?
• Contextual inquiry
4 Principles:
1. Context
2. Collaborative tone
3. Interpretation of users’ behaviors, environs & what they say
4. Interview is focused –knowing what is needed
Suggestions:
• Short interview process
• Use smaller teams
• Identify goals first
• Look beyond business concepts
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Preparing for ethnographic interviews
The Goal
To understand the behaviors and rituals of people interacting with
individual products
Determine the sorts of users & potential user to interview
Create a an initial hypothesis to ID who to interview
Persona Hypothesis
Roles in business & consumer domains
Behavioral & demographic variables
Domain expertise versus technical expertise
Degree of understanding/knowledge may vary
Environmental considerations
Putting together a plan
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Preparing for ethnographic interviews
Identifying Candidates
Persona Hypothesis
First, try defining the different kinds of users/customers
Hypothetical Persona (see handout)
Addresses the following questions:
1. What different sorts of people might use this product?
2. How might their needs & behaviors vary?
3. What ranges of behavior & types of environments need to be
explored?
Identifying candidates - Roles
Roles in business and consumer domains
For business products:
Roles are common sets of tasks & information needs related
to the different classes of users
Roles often map to job descriptions
For consumer products:
Look for patterns from users’ attitudes & aptitudes, lifestyle
choices, stage of life… whatever can influence their
behaviors
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Behavioral and Demographic Variables
• To differentiate different types of users
Example: behaviors of shoppers using an online store:
• Frequency of shopping
• Desire to shop (from loves to shop to hates to shop)
• Motivation to shop (from bargain hunting to searching for just
the right item)
• Demographic variables – from user market research
ages, locations, gender, income of target markets for the product
Domain expertise versus technical expertise
Subject area knowledge pertaining to a product versus digital technology
• Naïve users will use only a small subset of a product’s
functions… “care must be taken to support domain-naïve
behaviors!
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Environmental considerations
… in the case of business products
• Small companies: workers have broader set of
responsibilities & more interpersonal contact
• Large companies have layers of bureaucracy, workers
tend to be specialized
• Examples of environmental variables
– Company size (small to multinational)
– Company location (Asia, North America, Europe, etc.)
– Industry sector (electronics manufacturing, consumer
packaged goods, etc.)
– IT presence (ad to draconian)
– Security level (lax to tight)
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Putting an interview plan together
“… each identified role, behavioral variable,
demographic variable, and environmental variable
identified in the persona hypothesis should be explored
in 4 to 6 interviews…”
“Consumer products typically have much more
variation in behavior, so more interviews typically are
required to really delineate the differences.”
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Conducting ethnographic interviews
Designers work with stakeholders who have access to
users… the best way to make interviews happen!
Interview teams and timing
Authors favor 2 designers per interview – switching roles
Moderator drives the interview and facilitator takes notes
Phases of ethnographic interviews
Early interviews: open-ended questioning, not into the details
Middle interviews: questions more focused
Late interviews: confirm what was learned, tying up loose
ends
Basic methods
After the interviews
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Conducting ethnographic interviews
Basic methods:
– Interview where the interaction happens
– Avoid a fixed set of questions
– Assume the role of an apprentice, not an expert!
– Use open- and closed-ended questions to direct discussion
– Focus on goals first, tasks second
– Avoid making the user a designer
– Avoid discussions of technology
– Encourage storytelling
– Ask for a show and tell
– Avoid leading questions
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What kinds of questions to ask?(avoid a fixed set of questions)
Goal-orientedWhat makes a good day? bad day?
What activities waste your time?
What is most important?
What helps you make decisions?
System-orientedWhat are the most common things
you do with the product?
What parts do you use the most?
What are your favorite parts?
What drives you crazy?
How do you work around problems?
What shortcuts do you use?
Workflow-orientedWhat did you do when you first came
in today? After that?
How often do you do this? What things do you do weekly or monthly, but not every day?
What’s a typical day? What would be an unusual event?
Attitude-orientedWhat do you see yourself dong five
years from now?
What would you prefer not to do? What do you procrastinate on?
What do you enjoy most about your job? What do you always do first?
Important “reminders”
• Assume the role of an apprentice!
• Use open-ended (encouraging detailed responses) and
closed-ended (encouraging brief responses) questions to
direct the discussion
• Focus on goals first and task afterwards
• Note… user are not designers!
• Do not discuss technology (functionality)!
• Encourage story telling (…day in the life)
• Ask for “show and tell”
• Avoid leading questions
Would feature X help you?
You like X, don’t you?
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Do you think you’d use feature X if it
were available
Does X seem like a good idea to you?
After the interview
Immediately “After each interview, teams compare
notes and discuss any particularly interesting trends
observed or specific point brought up…”
Create a binder of notes, review any recordings and
print artifact images.
Access and visibility of the information that has been
gathered is essential.
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Other types of research
“The Goal-Directed approach helps answer questions about
the product at both the big-picture and functional-detail
level with relatively small amount of effort and expense.”
1. Focus groups
2. Usability & user testing (to validate product
design)
3. Card sorting (exploring the user’s mental model)
4. Task analysis
Focus Groups
• Representative users (segments of larger market)
• Asked a structured set of questions with a structured
set of choices
• Useful in gauging reactions to a product’s form
• Good at identifying products users own or are willing
to purchase, but…
• Not so good at identifying what users actually do with
the products.
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Usability & User Testing
What is tested?
Production software, clickable prototypes, or paper prototypes
Why? To validate the design
When? Late in the design cycle.
Focus? Assessing first-time use.
Effective in determining:
• Naming of all the stuff
• Organization
• First-time use and discoverability
• Effectiveness
Lots of good references… and some examples on YouTube.
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Card Sorting
• Objective: To better understand how users organize information
and concepts
• Tool to uncover this aspect of the users’ mental model
• Users sort a deck of cards containing a piece of functionality or
information related to the product
• Tricky analyzing the results…
• Assumes that user’s sorting correlate with the way in which
they want to end up using the product.
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Task Analysis
Details on how users currently perform specific tasks.
… to identify pain points and opportunities for improvement.
Note.
“The way people do things today is often merely the product of the obsolete systems and organizations they are forced to interact with, and typically bear little resemblance to the way they would like to do things or the way they would be most effective.”
Task Analysis Study
The Study should be focus on the following:
• Why the user is performing the task (the underlying goal)
• Frequency & importance of task
• Cues – what initiates or prompts execution of the task
• Dependencies – what must be in place to perform the task, as
well as what is dependent on the completion of the task.
• People who are involved (roles & responsibilities)
• Specific actions that are performed
• Decisions made
• Information that is used to support decisions
• What goes wrong – error and exception cases
• How errors and exceptions are corrected
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JARED M. SPOOL
Founding principal of User Interface EngineeringLeading research, training, and consulting firm specializing in
website and product usability
Journey to the Center of Design Pt. 1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCLGnMdBeW8
Journey to the Center of Design Pt. 2http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpy7PKIhXgU&feature=SeriesPlayList&p
=0ABEEA4DEAFF1E9D