User research methods overview

From: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/which-ux-research-methods/

There are important things we can’t easily or accurately measure.

If we could read user’s minds, then we could in theory design the perfect experience for them. Unfortunately, we’re not all Jean Greys, so we make due with what we can measure to try and take educated guesses as to what people care about. In this day and age, what we can measure has its limits, and it’s important to always remember that. Simply looking at what people are doing in your product can’t tell you:

• the degree to which people love, hate, or are indifferent to your product or any of its specific features
• whether a change increases or decreases people’s trust in your product over time
• how simple and easy to use your product is perceived to be
• how people see your product versus other similar products in the market
• what things people most want changed, added, or fixed
• how people will want to use your product as time passes

Julie Zhuo: Metrics Versus Experience

Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) Technique

A JTBD is not a product, service, or a specific solution; it’s the higher purpose for which customers buy products, services, and solutions. (…) It helps the innovator understand that customers don’t buy products and services; they hire various solutions at various times to get a wide array of jobs done.

There are two different types of JTBDs:

1. Main jobs to be done, which describe the task that customers want to achieve.
2. Related jobs to be done, which customers want to accomplish in conjunction with the main jobs to be done.

Then, within each of these two types of JTBDs, there are:

1. Functional job aspects—the practical and objective customer requirements.
2. Emotional job aspects—the subjective customer requirements related to feelings and perception.

Finally, emotional job aspects are further broken down into:

1. Personal dimension—how the customer feels about the solution
2. Social dimension—how the customer believes he or she is perceived by others while using the solution.

(…) The better a solution can fulfill all of these job levels and layers, the better chance it has in the marketplace. Also, the better the solution either achieves or nicely dovetails with related JTBDs, the better chance of success it has. In short, the JTBD concept is a guide for thinking beyond to make your current solutions, and your competitors’ solutions, obsolete.

From The Innovator’s Toolkit

 

The Progress Making Forces Diagram

This diagram can be used (e.g. in interviews) to explore physical, functional, social, and emotional aspects of the forces that pull people towards either tried and tested and innovative solutions.

 

From jobstobedone.org

 

The Customer-Jobs-To-Be-Done Canvas by Helge Tennø

‘How Might We’ (brainstorming) questions

Example: Redesign airport design from the POV of stressed mother.

• Amp up the good: HMW use the kids’ energy to entertain fellow passenger?
• Remove the bad: HMW separate the kids from fellow passengers?
• Explore the opposite: HMW make the wait the most exciting part of the trip?
• Question an assumption: HMW entirely remove the wait time at the airport?
• Go after adjectives: HMW we make the rush refreshing instead of harrying?
• ID unexpected resources: HMW leverage free time of fellow passengers to share the load?
• Create an analogy from need or context: HMW make the airport like a spa? Like a playground?
• Play POV against the challenge: HMW make the airport a place that kids want to go?
• Change a status quo: HMW make playful, loud kids less annoying?
• Break POV into pieces: HMW entertain kids? HMW slow a mom down? HMW mollify delayed passengers?

http://dschool.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/HMW-METHODCARD.pdf

Collect efficient feedback with Edward de Bono’s thinking hats

Workshop participants put on a metaphorical coloured hat that symbolises a certain type of thinking. This allows to collect efficiently different types of feedback and avoid having an idea shot down for purely political reasons:

1. Pitch Design team presents their idea and value proposition and/or  Business Model Canvas
2. White hat (Information and data; neutral, objective;) Participants ask clarifying questions to fully understand the idea
3. Black hat (Difficulties, weaknesses, dangers; spotting the risk): Participants write down why it’s a bad idea; collect one feedback after the other while participants read it out loud
4. Yellow hat (Plus points, positives, opportunities) write down – collect
5. Green hat Ideas, alternative possibilities; solutions to black hat problems. Open discussion, facilitator to write down feedback
6. Evolve Design team evolves idea

Osterwalder 2014, p. 136 – 7

Three types of feedback

1. Opinion (“I believe …”)
   • Good: Logical reasoning can improve ideas
   • Bad: Can lead pursuing pet ideas of people with more power
2. Experience (“In our last project …”)
   • Good: Provide valuable learning that can prevent costly mistakes
   • Bad: Failing to realise that different contexts lead to different results
3. Market facts (“We have data that …”)
   • Good: Provides input that reduces uncertainty and market risk
   • Bad: Measuring wrong or bad data can lead to missing out on a big opportunity

Osterwalder 2014 et.al., p. 134

8 Rules for interviews

1. Adopt a beginner’s mind Listen with a “fresh pair of ears” and avoid interpretation. Explore unexpected jobs, pains, and gains in particular.
2. Listen more than you talk Your goal is to listen and learn, not to inform, impress, or convince your customer of anything. Avoid wasting time talking about your own beliefs, because it’s at the expense of learning about your customer.
3. Get facts, not opinions Don’t ask, “Would you…?” Ask, “When is the last time you have…?”
4. Ask “why” to get real motivations Ask, “Why do you need to do…?” Ask, “Why is___important to you?” Ask, “Why is___such a pain?”
5. The goal of customer insight interviews is not selling (even if a sale is involved); it’s about learning Don’t ask, “Would you buy our solution?” Ask “what are your decision criteria when you make a purchase of…?”
6. Don’t mention solutions (i.e., your prototype value proposition) too early Don’t explain, “Our solution does…” Ask, “What are the most important things you are struggling with?”
7. Follow up Get permission to keep your interviewee’s contact information to come back for more questions and answers or testing prototypes.
8. Always open doors at the end Ask, “Who else should I talk to?”

Osterwalder 2014 p.112-3

Six techniques to gain customer insight

1. The data detective – des research with secondary data eg customer data; analytics; industry reports
   1. Google Trends
   2. Google Keyword Planner
   3. Google Analytics
   4. Government Census Data, World Bank, IMF etc
   5. Third party research reports
   6. Social Media Analytics
   7. CRM system
2. The journalist – Conversations/Interviews with customers 1:1 or even in focus groups;
3. The anthropologist – Observational studies; diary studies
   1. (B2C) Stay/live with the family, participate in dailt routines, learn about what drives people
   2. (B2B) Work alongside, observe, what keeps these people awake at night?
   3. (B2C) Observe shopping behaviour
   4. (B2C) Shadow customer for one day
   5. (any) Find new ways of immersing yourself
4. The impersonator – Step in the shoes of your customer; cognitive walkthrough
5. The cocreator – Workshops
6. The scientist – Experiments, A/B testing, user testing etc.

Osterwalder et.al. 2014, p. 106-115

Human Needs

Marshall Rosenberg‘s universal needs:

• Physical Well-being Needs—air, food, water, shelter, rest, movement, touch, sexual expression
• Autonomy Needs—choice of dreams / goals / values, choice in plans for fulfilling them
• Integrity Needs—authenticity, meaning, purpose, self worth, way to contribute to life
• Celebration Needs—honoring small successes and big successes, mourning losses of loved ones and dreams
• Interdependence / Connection Needs—acceptance, appreciation, consideration, community, emotional safety, honesty, love, respect, reassurance, support, trust, understanding
• Recreation / Play Needs—creativity, fun, laughter, relaxing activities
• Spiritual Needs—beauty, harmony, inspiration, order, peace

Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs:

• Physical Needs—air, food, water
• Safety Needs—shelter, safety from environment and other humans
• Belonging Needs—affiliation, connection with others—particular ones and community
• Esteem Needs—achievement, competence, self-esteem, recognition by others
• Cognitive Needs—understanding of a subject, exploration of an unknown
• Aesthetic Needs—symmetry, order, beauty
• Self-Actualization Needs—realization of one’s potential, comfortable acceptance of oneself and the world, identification of that which one most deeply hungers to do and action to be doing it
• Self-Transcendent Needs—connection to something beyond oneself, helping others find self-fulfillment or realization of their potential

OTHER STUDIES OF HUMAN NEEDS

Manfred Max-Neef, a Chilean economist who studied the problems in the Third World, devised a way to measure real poverty and wealth, in terms of how well a culture meets its citizens’ fundamental needs.  He proposes a slightly different list of needs and discusses the qualities, things, actions, and settings that would accompany each.  Max-Neef reflects that needs are basic across cultures, but strategies for meeting them vary.  homepages.mtn.org/iasa/tgmaxneef.html

Here are three more models of how well a country is meeting the needs of its citizens. The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) has been around for 20 years.  The Gross National Happiness (GNH) scale and the Happy Planet Index (HPI) are more recent efforts.  Google these for more info.

Another group, The Search Institute, has focused on how well a community meets the needs of its youth.  They list experiences (Forty Developmental Assets) that are helpful for children and have produced many studies to show that children who get more of these needs met have many fewer social and health problems.  http://www.search-institute.org/

The Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument, with parallel to Myers-Briggs Interest Inventory, suggests there are four major clusters of needs and that our brains are hardwired to be focused on one or more clusters.  Testing and training is offered for the business world.  http://www.hbdi.com/

http://www.connectionselfcare.com/NEEDS.html

Big Data, qualitative research and the need for behavioural insight

To begin with, Big Data delivers thin data. (…) Big Data focuses solely on correlation, paying no attention to causality. What good is thin “information” when there is no insight into what your consumers actually think and feel?
Big Data Gets the Algorithms Right but the People Wrong

“Qualitative research is uniquely positioned to uncover the true drivers of consumer behaviour, but can only do so if it starts to look beyond our articulated wants and needs.”
Research excellence – The value of context, or what qualitative research can learn from behavioural economics (PDF)