how we do user research?lib.haifa.ac.il/extprojects/meli/images/docs/2017/... · usability studies...

© 2017 Ex Libris | Confidential & Proprietary

How We Do User Research?

© 2017 Ex Libris | Confidential & Proprietary 2

Even the best designers produce successful products only if their designs solve the right problems. A wonderful interface to the wrong features will fail. And how can designers find out what customers need?

Through user research.

― Jacob Nielsen

© 2017 Ex Libris | Confidential & Proprietary© 2017 Ex Libris | Confidential & Proprietary

Methods – It Depends….

Usability Studies

• When we want to understand in depth how people work and discover opportunities for improvement

• When we have lot's of Why? questions

• When we designed /updated UI and would like to evaluate the changes or alternative options

In Person Activities

• When we want people to work in groups and collaborate

• When we want our internal team to have a better idea what people do in real world

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Surveys & Forums

• When we want to get user input from wider audience

• When we want to learn about users' behaviors and preferences but don't necessarily need to observe them

• When we want to get a standard set of answers so we can see patterns

Analytics

• When we want to know what people do to influence our next steps

• When we want to know the sequence people do things in

• When we need lot's of data


Usability Study

Plan RecruitRun user sessions

Analyze results and

make decisions

Design and develop

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Iterate


User Study - Plan

Define study goals• Prior to writing a test script the team decides which questions

we want to answer• For example:

• Why and how people use advanced search?• Which menu structure options better fits users' needs?• Is the new result page effective?

Create script• Once we know what we want to answer we create a script with

questions for the users and tasks for them to do• For example:

• How do you usually search for book? What are your end goals? Can you show me?

• Let's say you ordered the Hobbit book and it arrived? What happens next?

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User Study - Logistics

• Recruit• About 5 people if what we test is specific to a certain role• If tasks are across many roles we try to get 3-4 people from each role

• Online meeting• We send invites with a link that people can use to call into an online

meeting• Each sessions is recorded with participant's permission• One participant and one main facilitator, the rest of the team can call

and mostly listen in

• Schedule• We run about one study per month• Potential participants are informed ahead of time of approximate

schedule

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User Study

• Make participants feel comfortable• We make participants feel comfortable by a little personal chat and by explaining

that we are not testing them and that there is nothing wrong that they can say or do

• Talk aloud• We encourage people to talk aloud while they are working with UI and prompt them

if they forget to talk• When people talk it allows us to better understand their motives and UX problems

• Share screen• Participants shares the screen so we can see what is happening• Participants work may work with their live environment, test environment, or

clickable prototypes

• Listen, observe, take notes• We listen, observe, and take notes; participants do most of the talking• The session often ends with reflection where participant talk about their experience

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User Study

• Work through the tasks without influencing behavior

• Avoid influencing people's behavior by asking neutral question

• "What do you think about how new advanced search?“• "Do you like new advanced search?“

• Avoid responding to people's actions in certain way• "Good job", "You didn't do it right...“

• Let participants figure things out on their own without helping them

• We often ask people questions back when they ask us questions.User: "Should I click here?" Facilitator: "What do you think? What do you think would happen if you click here? Did it match your expectation?"

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User Study - Result & Findings

• Once we ran the session we organize the notes analyze the results

• Are there are any behavior trends?• How do people usually do their tasks?• Which information people need when they do the tasks and

which information is missing?• Sometimes we add more participants if need to better

understand a problem• What are the UX problems with existing or new design?• Which design option work better and why?• And more...

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User Study - Share

• We share recordings and findings with internal team• We review findings with the team and prioritize the issues• We share study highlights with customers to provide rationale

into our design decisions• In many cases we have follow up studies when we need to get

better understanding of user's behaviors.• For example: People say that they need to see call numbers

when they view results but we are not sure why they need them and which tasks they are doing that requires them.

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In Person Activity - Workshop Goals

• Validate UX phase I against real day to day tasks• Better understand how librarians work and what they need so

we can create better solutions• Evaluate usability of the updated design using daily tasks so

that people can work efficiently• Catch bugs that may interfere with daily tasks and prevent

people from doing their work successfully• Identify main pain points across the whole systems that are

not addressed in Phase 1 so that there is mutual understanding of what could be/needs to be improved in Phase 2


Working thought the tasksWorking through the tasks


Recording issues


Recording likes


Identifying issues introduced by new UIRecording so bugs/issues don’t get lostTeam is working on fixes


Identifying, discussing, prioritizing very important issues beyond bugs


Intuitive design is how we give the user new superpowers.

Jared Spool

how we do user research?lib.haifa.ac.il/extprojects/meli/images/docs/2017/... · usability studies...

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