UX Design and Me

Plan of the article

1. Intro

2. Planning

3. Choosing the appropriate methods for each stage of product development

4. Stage of design research: requirements gathering, building personas and user stories, usability test, analytics review and users survey.

5. Storytelling elements to build credibility and find the appropriate tone of voice to present the information.

Intro

User Experience design is a significant part of the workflow of product development. Design research must be planned and run at various stages of the project creation and is equally important as the design and development of the product itself. Sometimes the viability of the project or product can be tested on the research stage, which allows not to waste time and money on the long and complicated production process. It’s important to remember that we are creators, not the users of the product. That is why running research at right time is so crucial.

As I’m new to the subject, the process of creation, planning and running the research will be the learning process itself. And I may consider this article as an action plan for implementing user experience research in my Major Project development. I need to plan and conduct some research on various steps. Analyzing the results of each step will help me to make corrections accordingly.

2. Planning the research

To RUN research, as I project leader, I need to understand WHY do I need to run it and what do I want to get in the end. In other words, I need to set clear research goals.

The goals can be close-ended, semi-open-ended, open-ended, and exploratory. The choice of the objective may require a specific suitable method to achieve the results. For example, some research can be run on the content creation stage to make it more relevant for the chosen target audience. Some of the testings can be done when a product already exists in a physical form (either a prototype or a testing version of the website). It will allow making the necessary corrections in the next iteration.

As my Major project idea is a content-driven website for a specific group of users (newbies in design), in the beginning, I will focus on the customer needs to produce the content and create my user personas, think about their journey on the website. With that information in mind, I will be able to create a prototype and start the development. At a later stage, I will focus on testing the MVP on real users to get some feedback from them and make the needed changes.

So, I might choose these research objectives:

– Understand the context of the use of the website (close-ended)

– Look for opportunities to give my website a unique edge (semi-open-ended)

– Validate my assumptions on what people who are new to design are struggling with (semi-open-ended)

– Explore and understand how people actually use the website and what problems they are facing (open-ended&exploratory)

– Ease-of-use of the website (close-ended)

One of the useful instruments at this stage will be using the research canvas. Answering the questions Why am I running this research? What impact do I want to achieve? What do I want to learn? will help to set clear goals and choose the right questions to ask in the survey.

3. Choosing the appropriate methodology

There are so many different research methods, that sometimes you get scary which one to choose out of the pool of them. As a newbie in research running a project for newbies in design, it may be even overwhelming. In general, all the methods can be divided into various groups depending on the dimension. Some of the methods can be combined on the same project and implemented at different stages of the design process.

Attitudinal vs. behavioral research methods

I suppose that choosing between behavioral and attitudinal methods in my case is easier as you can’t run the behavioral research without a product. A perfect example of this type of research method would be usability tests and A/B testing. The behavioral methods which show concrete actions of the user are much more effective for the design process than methods that use self-reported information from personal interviews or open questions. They are good at the conceptualizing stage. So, in the early stages of my project, it will be effective to use one of the attitudinal research methods. I may run an online survey with a combination of close-field, multiple-choice and a small number of open-field questions to discover the pain points of a potential user of my website. But all the research will be run to gain insights for creating the content. Later I will analyze the received data and create a mind map. This information will be an important step forward for the content stage as I may confirm or reject my assumptions on the needed content. Technically this research can be done using Google Forms or typeform.com which are both free and easy-to-use tools to run a survey with multiple questions and get the results in a practically useful format.

Qualitative vs. quantitative research methods

From the other point, the research methods can be determined as qualitative and quantitative.

Qualitative data can be gathered while doing interviews or focus groups, these are the methods that provide a researcher with data directly from the user. The survey would not be an option for this as it will demand the usage of numerous open-field questions which is can be very time-consuming both for the participants and the analysis of the results. Quantitative methods are the ones that generate data indirectly, using various technical instruments. These data in many cases can be measured in numbers, but it’s not necessarily. They are good at the stage when we look for answers for how many/how much? types of questions. Some product analytics tools as Google Analytics may be helpful at a later stage to report the technical issues the users face while using the website. It also may provide traffic data and allow to make corrections in the promotion strategy if needed.

Research methods classification depending on the context of use

From the context point of view can be described as natural when the user is put in the situation as close to the real as possible. Scripted methods can be used to find some particular usability issues and can produce a lot of quantitative data and metrics. Studies, where the products are not used, can be more helpful when the main issue is not just usability, but brand-related research, brand satisfaction and awareness etc. Hybrid methods are a combination of different context methods. For example, it may give the participants to feel like a part of a creative team – give proposals and explain why they think this may help to improve the product.

Apart from this classification, methods can be also described as moderated (as focus groups) or unmoderated (user tests, online surveys). They can be run in-person or remotely and can be 1-1 led or group sessions. The choice of which methods to choose and how to combine them wisely must be led by the research objectives.

4. UX methods on various stages of my design process

After figuring out what kind of methods exist, it’s time to choose which of them will be more appropriate and at what stage of the product life circle. It’s not a one-fits-all situation as at various stages of development I may need different data. In four steps these stages can be described as Discover – Explore – Test – Listen.

Design research on different stages for my MP, source

As I’m planning to start with the content creation, the first step will be a survey which will provide me with some feedback about user needs. This will allow me to start working on the content and will be helpful on the second step – Explore. At this point, I will define the personas for my website and create user journeys and user stories. It will be good to fill the empathy map first, and then reframe the data from them into user personas.

Jumping from UX research to UX design, at this stage I should also think about UI flows of my user before I start building the prototype of the website. Creating quick solution low-fidelity sketches on paper with key screens will be appropriate at this stage.

The testing part of the development is the right time to run the first usability research. At this point, I’m planning to have a rough version of the website to test the main technical issues. Analysing the results will help with the next iteration. Getting closer to the final stage of the project, I hope by that time to have some data analytics from the first users. Thus, I can run a small survey and gather this information on the usage of the product to make some corrections if they are needed.

5. Storytelling as a part of the user experience design process

The last but not the least part of the UXD planning in my case will be the storytelling.

It can’t be named a part of the user research process but is an important element of UX. I think in my case finding the right tone of communication with the user will be a crucial part of their experience of my website. As Sara Soueidan mentioned in a discussion after Steph Troeth talk on storytelling “UX design is not just about drawing pretty rectangles”. It’s more than just researching or drawing but is about truly understanding your users and their needs. At the content stage, I must think about the appropriate voice and tone because it is as important a part of the user experience as the content itself. And my MP website is going to be a content-driven educational website.

But why is storytelling so important?

After describing the auditory and building personas, it’s equally important to answer the question How does the audience fit into the story of my website?

Will my user open a search engine link on the theme, find the answer to the question and quit or will he/she/they stay and want to explore more content? If I aim to make the user stay, how can I use storytelling, and not only the pretty colours and perfect technical execution to return to my website time after time?

The creative process can be divided into two main stages which are research as problem space and design as solution space. Finding the right tone of content lies in the solution space. When we design a product, we are aiming to help people make better decisions. While when we conduct research, we are seeking how people arrive at decisions. I suppose that for a content-based website that educates adult people it is crucial to think about what I want to tell and how at the very beginning and to find the voice of a friendly and trustworthy narrative. And I speak not only about the content itself but also about service messages, navigation elements, search form questions, the format of questions if I would like to add a quiz after each of the modules.

All I know for now is that I want to avoid boring texts and long descriptions full of terms that may seem too difficult from first sight. My aim is not to show that as a professional on the subject I am smarter than the user, not to frighten my user, but to be helpful with their problem. I aim to make the content that, to be honest, already exist on the web in various forms, interactive and relevant for my target audience. Running the research will help me to better define who my users are. And this discovery will allow me to create the content suitable for this auditory and their needs.

With the rise of AI, big data and machine learning telling stories are what keep us human. And as my future website is an interpretation of information from human to human, I need to tell stories via my content.

How I’m planning to implement this?

Data from research will give me the user pain points. This will be the starting point for content creation. For example, I have an assumption that one of my target users is a marketing or SMM manager who wants to avoid using proposed program templates and create visually strong slides and social media posts. Now he/she/they feel a lack of knowledge and confidence in composition, fonts and colours. This leads me to the insight that as an author I need to explain the themes and show suitable examples which will be relevant to problems and tasks they may face. Via tone of communication, I plan to build credibility and show my user that as an author I value their time and needs, that I care about them. And this is how I think the storytelling will fit in the user experience design process.