Article UX & Me
Introduction
Nothing is ever designed without a certain purpose or objective in mind even if it is just to pass the time or be occupied for a short while, a purpose was still achieved or established. For example building a sand castle at a beach could have kicked off as something just to pass the time, a lesson was learnt making the designer know he needs to improve his skills or such design could have been an inspiration to other ideas of certain crafts in future. So there is always a purpose or an objective behind most designs.
However to designs useful to our daily lives, most objects or services are created to meet the needs of people to satisfy certain purposes and objectives. To get the best of most designs we need to understand to key topics before proceeding to start a design or improve an existing one which are
- User Research
- User Experience Design
The application of this two subject areas is a very helpful guide leading up to the creation of a product or service that meets a purpose. This will be applied to a project I will be working which is the creation of a “website that connects small scale livestock sellers to buyers in Nigeria”.
User Research
To define the term user research, we can start from confirming our understanding of what each word means. A User is someone who needs something which could be an object or a service. Also Research is the systematic enquiry into the understanding of how certain things behave, work or function. Putting it together, user research is basically a research into how users relate to their needs which is either an object or service. The purpose of research is to gather more information as it will be risky for the designer to assume he has all the information and know what the user needs, but it worthy to note the design is not just for one person but multiple people.
Research objectives
It defines what we hope to accomplish by conducting the research depending on the stage the product i.e. is the product at a foundational or early stage or whether it is at the mid stages and it could have been completed which we need tested. This are different research objectives that will definitely require different methodological approach.
Below are the three objectives stated by Steph:
- Open ended we are still at the early exploratory stages we are the context of the product creation
- Semi open-ended is more like in between stages there is an idea but we just need to reaffirm assumptions
- Close ended is more about something built but being tested? Steph Troeth (2021)
The research canvas highlights various steps for a good research process. Upon completion of this process we can now proceed to how we can design a solution or modification to the research we have conducted.
Methodology
Methodology is the system of methods adopted in the conduct of the research which includes:
- Interviews
- Participatory design
- Surveys
- Listening labs
- Focus groups
- Remote testing tools
- Usability testing
As earlier explained it all depends on the stage of the product we are conducting the research on because some are ideal for open ended research or close ended research. Also most of the data we get back for analysis are either Quantitative or Qualitative.
- Quantitative or Qualitative
Quantitative data are easily measured which is something that most times deal with numbers. Getting a result from this does not take time as you easy know the outcome of the poll but Qualitative on the other hand takes a while and the researcher has to deduce from the feedback what is needed for instance in a focus group after the discussion, with a group we can now infer if the group agrees to a particular thought or use or if they are divided and also you can get to know based on questions being asked if they out rightly oppose. In interviews though we might need to incorporate quantitative approach to clarify doubts for instance by asking “on a scale of 1 – 10 how would you rate…” this aids in knowing where feeling is skewed towards.
- Assumption or Hypothesis
Assumption and Hypothesis since similar but there is a difference between both. Assumption is just an opinion with no basis which can seem to be like just a personal opinion not prompted by anything. E.g. most women do not like football. But in hypothesis there is even a reason that backs the statement which is subject to being tested for validation as it is either true or not e.g. most women do not like football because it is too physical with injuries. From both examples can clearly see the difference that in hypothesis there is something to be tested in why women do not like football it might be for a totally different reason like not understanding the rules of the game or the time being too long. But till the hypothesis is tested, we would never know.
Research Methods
Usability testing – the test behind usability checks to see how easy it is to use our design and certain criteria being watched out for include its:
- Efficiency – refers to the swiftness in achieving their purpose of visiting the website
- Learnability – do they grasp easily what to do or is required?
- Memorability – can they recall what to do at their next visit or even talk someone through it easily in the event of an assistance?
- Errors – what extent of errors occur during their visit and how significant are the errors, is it something that leads to being discouraged or frustrating or can be sorted easily.
- Findability – just like the video we watched of a kid being shown a wireframe of a webpage he or she was able to find their way to an activity and knew what to do to change and go back to the home screen.
Overall we need to rate their level of satisfaction with using the site which is like a feedback to know if there is need for modifications or improvements for certain peculiar situations.
Participatory design – this is where you allow the user to express themselves by championing the design process so you can know what the need or the areas of delight, their pain points and you get to see other features they would want incorporated. Feedback from this can be useful when compared with designs from other users which sets do tone for design at a preliminary stage.
Sampling
Sampling is the selection of certain group of people to create your audience. It is from the sample we can streamline people to groups to get our group of personas. The factors we consider in getting our sample include age, gender, income etc.
It is less important to start a research targeting a group of people within an age, income or gender. If you profile early based on age, income or gender. Best approach is to consider people’s behaviors towards something then extract your data from the group e.g. if you check who patronize a particular news app and further check which part of the news they read. You can get your data accurately by knowing age, income or gender. Talk to users using a product as they will be the ones to tell you why they prefer it, what you are doing right, what you could possibly do wrong that might make you lose them. Also speak to people who are likely to use it but not there yet what are the barriers preventing them. Steph Troeth (2021)
User Experience Design
What is user experience design?
User experience design is a collection of methods applied to the process of designing interactive experiences. It encourages the designer to make the quality of the users’ experience the prime concern. A good user experience design can only be considered successful if the design fulfils the need of the user and expectations of the designer. Allanwood and Beare (2014).
It is important to involve users in the design process so that there is constructive feedback and improvement. The design is less about the designer but the users who use it frequently or need it to satisfy certain objectives. It is about solving a problem not just aesthetics. There are situations where the problem is not what the designer thinks but something else but if the user is not carried along some solutions proffered could be a waste of time.
User experience design can only be achieved by working in a team, as it will require different areas of expertise in its development, criticism, modifications and testing. It is best to let users do most of the testing as they are the center of the design, and they will detect faster what a designer must have omitted after spending a lot time with the product of the service being created.
How do we start our design?
I would be explaining this using the double diamond principle. When we think of a diamond the shape above comes to mind. We can clearly see that both sides of the diamond are thinned out, which in the context of our study is the birth of an idea on the left which starts small and becomes wide we start knocking off a series of unrealistic suggestions or over the budget propositions till it thins out to an outcome or solution we can work with.
However I mentioned double diamond how does the double diamond principle apply.
Discover – This is the first diamond and the starting point of the project, it asks what the problem is and looks at it from various point of view by seeking diverse opinions of the issue accompanied by research so nothing is being left out at this point we are at the peak. So what do we do with the research or problems gathered?
Define – At this point we have done a lot of discovery and need to narrow it down it one definition or based on resources available it could a case of which is feasible or more important to solve. It is something the team will deliberate upon with the user at the center of our deliberation before we move on to the other diamond.
Develop – We now have a problem to solve after careful consideration and budget, how do we approach a solution. We might need to involve new team members at the stage for a professional insight. Ideation occurs here which could be outrageous but best to lay all on the table as we did in the first diamond where he heard all the problems.
Deliver – This is the final stage, having listen to all ideas we need to also streamline as we are about embark on a stage that we need to get right so we don’t waste people’s time and resources. Since the user is at the center of our design it is best to bring the user back on board and we can deploy some usability testing to know if we still need to modify or include an omission.
Analysis & Synthesis
A good way to represent the research done is by trying to visualize it. An example of that is seen in some of points below:
Personas
From result of the research it is a good idea to create Personas, which is personality representation of the groups of people from the result of the survey. It helps to a metal image of the various personalities the design is meant for.
User Journey map
It shows the journey from start to finish for a user when they come in contact with your product and highlighting where the areas of delights are and pain points there by providing an understanding to areas of challenges especially if it is affecting a general group of people
Empathy map
It is essentially a consortium of everyone you will be designing for showing their
- Tasks to be done
- Pain points
- Feelings
- Overall goal
Creating a “How might we” statement helps to reframe problems before creating solutions. It having one problem statement Chris How (2022)
Idea & Sketching
This topic addresses putting thoughts on paper. If we are building a website it is a good idea to put that thought on a paper from then we can now proceed to mapping our system which incorporates UI flows
UI flows
UI flows is basically to see if from the sketch we have, the user can tell what certain functions are e.g “sign up” request in some cases is expected to be found at the top right or if you are looking for “my account” if already logged in, when you click what is the expectation and what do you do there. This flow should be applicable to the different pages of the website. It is a quick way of testing the process before we start a professional design.
Content Requirements
The content helps to inform our design choices. Content could be in any form like text or images but the underlying objective is if the user would be able to know what to do when trying to use our product.
Answering the questions in the table above can help us in developing our content. The table shows what user needs to do and states what he wants to accomplish and on the business what is required of the user and accomplishment checking to see if both expectations align as well.
My Major Project
User Research
Research Methodology
Will conduct an interview and adopt the double diamond approach. Will narrow down to a point I can determine a general problem with a wide coverage.
Below are answers to some questions on the research canvas
Research Context
Why are we doing this? Provide a digital platform to sell livestock
What impact do we hope to achieve? Make it easy for users to sell of their livestock to buyers easily.
Research Objectives
What do we hope to learn? The first phase will be open ended I will know the expectations of the users how they will want the website to look like especially content and I will start this by conducting an interview and deploy other research methods as required.
Assumptions
What do we think we know?
There is no website that you can easily visit and sell your livestock in Nigeria
Hypothesis
I want to establish the existence of any similar website and know why it is not very popular or the experiences people get from using them.
User Experience
Discover – are there challenges with sale of livestock on a website? Does it take time to sell? Or people are finding it difficult to embrace some technology in certain areas of business. The challenges encountered with existing websites and how can they be improved.
Define – Based on my finding will need to streamline it to one problem. I could check out suggestions provided of existing livestock websites look at the user interface have it tested and see why it has not provided a good user experience
Develop – Will come up with a prototype livestock website. Will need to brush up my wireframe skills so that I can have a befitting prototype and deploy a preliminary usability testing approach I intend working with an existing user and potential client.
Deliver – Skills and budget now is limited, however anything worth doing at all is worth doing well. Will consults expert developers and designers for a pro bono counsel and guide, because after the delivery of the website some monitoring needs to be done as it could have the potential of generating income.
Conclusion
To achieve a good user experience design we must conduct a user research, otherwise it feels like we are imposing on the user getting the user to always adjust to faults and bugs of the designer rather it should be the other way round. The designer needs to design to accommodate diverse population with diverse needs.
References:
Beare, P., Allanwood, G. (2014). Basics Interactive Design: User Experience Design: Creating Designs Users Really Love. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Academic
Steph’s Lecture: 2022
Chris How Lecture: 2022