Below is one possible outcome for the blood glucose task flow. This activity sounds straightforward, but when you remind students that the target audience has never driven a car, the importance of accounting for each step becomes apparent. Compose a short list of research results and present them to the class. Host a research kick off meeting Goal: Define the problem you want to test. In the first case (participants play the role of the system), role play is used as a review mechanism to assess gaps within a designed system. Understanding what the data is telling you impacts your information architecture, personas, user flows, interface design, and a variety of other aspects of the user experience. It is the key component of Jeff Kelley’s Wizard of Oz technique and Edward de Bono’s Thinking Hats. More goals means more trips through the decision-making tree in UX Research Methods Selection Framework. on When: Postups are highly flexible and, thus, can be used at any point in a workshop. Use forced ranking after almost any activity or exercise, in order to decide which of its outputs will be the focus of your next activity. ; Learn about our graduates, see their portfolio projects, and find out where they’re at now. “This is very inconvenient!” exclaimed one user. Slap a few labels and text fields on a page, done. If you took the categories obtained from affinity diagramming and determined the relationships they have to each other, you would be doing landscape mapping. Why: Storyboards put context around ideas or users; they tell stories about our users. Refer to UX Workshop Activity #6 and explain that Pam has entered blood glucose levels that do not make sense. Here’s a basic outline to help you map out your strategy and choose methods to uncover the insights you seek. They also enjoy discussion about how realistic a particular scenario seems. Yet, the car does not move because he forgot to release the parking brake. ; Become a qualified UX designer in 5-10 months—complete with a job guarantee. Patients must write it down or record it on their phone. Define your goals When: Forced ranking is extremely flexible and can be applied in a multitude of ways and at a variety of times. Explicitly choose anonymity or accountability. Prepare a handful of research activities using the optimal research methods to work well in a short time frame and can be taken advantage of at any point throughout the project. The format of landscape maps is highly variable: matrices, tables (the common swimlane structure of customer-journey maps and service blueprints), and Venn diagrams are the most common. When: Playbacks can and should occur across the entirety of a workshop. ... Plan instruction and learning activities so that students can demonstrate that evidence. Data – both quantitative and qualitative – informs decision-making for design direction. Forced ranking serves to identify the most important things to focus on. The content generated in a postup can be anything: words, ideas, features, sketches, questions, concerns, assumptions, users, hopes, fears, research insights, or next steps. The Diverge-and-Converge Technique for UX Workshops, Parking Lots in UX Meetings and Workshops, Dot Voting: A Simple Decision-Making and Prioritizing Technique in UX, Generating Big Ideas with Design Thinking, DesignOps: Scaling UX Design and User Research, Journey Mapping to Understand Customer Needs, Effective Ideation Techniques for UX Design, Intranet Portals: UX Design Experience from Real-Life Projects. When you conduct user research through methods like survey or interview, it is a process of user-centered design aiming to improve the experience of users for products and services. Research—Often referred to as the Discovery phase, the Research phase is probably the most variable between projects. Before she can take this reading, she must configure the device. Second, when done collaboratively, it promotes a shared language. Creating a task flow is the prefect hands-on activity because it requires students to literally put pen to paper. Meetings: What's the Difference? Definition: Landscape mapping is arranging groups of similar content (usually) sticky notes into a preassigned structure (such as a customer-journey map) so that we can understand relationships, interplay, and patterns across items, groups, and time. UX workshop activities focused on research are important and should include identifying the best research method for a particular project, conducting stakeholder interviews, and planning and then conducting the research. By understanding these, you can create almost any other exercise you need. Scenarios set the stage by describing the high-level task a user needs to complete or a problem she needs to solve. The attribute “primary” and “secondary” refers to the research being first-hand or second-hand: Forming a UX research strategy. Give them 30 to 45 minutes to assess the site for adherence to best practices for: For a list of specific heuristics for each category (content, navigation, etc.) Potential UX research methods and activities that can be done as projects move through stages of design (Graphic by Sarah Gibbons /Nielsen Norman Group). Potential UX research methods and activities that can be done as projects move through stages of design What are some primary reasons for conducting a UX research. © 2020 UX UI Training Discuss and decide how to handling possibly contradictory findings such as the observation that the display is too small while the overall device is too large. Definition: Affinity diagramming is the clustering of information, often sticky notes, into relational groups based on similarities or themes. 1. Can students identify visual cues that will draw Marcella’s intention to the field(s) where the error occurred. This time, however, assign the same task to all groups. ; Talk to a program advisor to discuss career change and find out if UX is right for you. The facilitator should assign a workshop participant (per group if the workshop is over 6 people) to play the role of the computer or system as it interacts with a user (either recruited into the workshop or played by another participant). Timeframes will vary, depending on the chosen design methods, but it usually takes 2-4 weeks to go through the main activities. UX (user experience) research is the systematic study of target users and their requirements, to add realistic contexts and insights to design processes. Third-party review analysis. Why: The benefits of affinity diagramming are twofold. For capturing and consolidating insights, keep your landscape maps low-fidelity. In these cases, be sure to give time (anywhere from a day or week) for participants to do their due diligence and rank from an informed perspective. When based on real data, they can take the focus off our internal bias, help us understand what drives user behavior, and frame the experiences we create in a holistic way. The main goal of design research is to inform the design process from the perspective of the end user. Expert UX researchers also understand how to align user research strategy with product roadmaps. Foundational UX Workshop Activities Summary: There are 7 activities that act as a foundation for every UX exercise during a workshop or collaborative team meeting. Evaluating an existing form is an effective way to learn more about this “conversation” and micro-interactions such as data input. Having multiple dimensions of data allows companies to innovate, and having a multidimensional strate… When: Storyboards can be useful in a variety of workshop types: Forced ranking is the foundation of any prioritization exercise, including dot voting, prioritization matrixing, the $100 test, and the NUF (new, useful, feasible) test. The 7 UX workshop activities described in this post can be used by UX instructors or in-house UX teams to re-visit the basics and identify areas for improvement. UX Research and Strategy is a registered 501c3 organization, and was founded by three former co-workers who saw a gap in the local UX market. In a recent project here at Blink, we used three research activities regularly (below in Tip #2), conducting the one that best fits the needs of that particular sprint. If you use the map to communicate and share conclusions, aim for a high-fidelity output. Divide students into groups of three or four and give them 45 minutes to: Devote 15 to 20 minutes to discussion to help students identify what about the exercise was challenging and whether they think the quality of the glucose meter would benefit from additional user research. For example, it can be done by cutting up a list of other items such as customer-support calls or site queries and organizing the content from there. Below is one possible outcome for a persona. Users can’t tell when they are out of test strips. Contributions are then discussed, captured, shared, or used as input for a future exercise. Role play is a technique used in workshops to challenge biases and assumptions. What You Should Do Now. Possible barriers to accomplishing a goal. Explain that they work for a medical device manufacturer whose product lines include blood glucose meters. They serve to identify relationships, then create alignment and insight across the different ideas or themes. facilitating workshops,workshops,collaboration,design thinking,Design Process,Customer Journeys,service design, 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design, When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods, Empathy Mapping: The First Step in Design Thinking, Between-Subjects vs. Within-Subjects Study Design, UX Mapping Methods Compared: A Cheat Sheet, User Control and Freedom (Usability Heuristic #3), Imagery Helps International Shoppers Navigate Ecommerce Sites, Flexibility and Efficiency of Use: The 7th Usability Heuristic Explained, 3 Steps for Getting Started with DesignOps, Error Handling on Mobile Devices: Showing Alerts, limit sketch space and use thick sharpies so sketches, 5 UX Workshops and When to Use Them: A Cheat Sheet. 2. Does it appear on a single page? UX Research studies that get results. March 1, 2020. Naturally, one branch will lead to one research type, so if you have several goals then you should split them and go through the tree several times. UX Research Activities. Others made similar comments. Do you need UX research or design workshops tailored to your organization? All Rights Reserved, 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design, 5 UX Methods all Practitioners Should Master. There always some motives behind carrying out user research, such as the following ones. First, however, she must fill out a profile on the vendor’s web site. Usually the first stage of a design sprint, UX Research focusses on asking questions using a variety investigative techniques to deliver actionable insights which the team can then use to design a solution. By understanding these, you can create almost any other exercise you need. If the majority of students have never designed a form, dividing these exercises with a short break in between will give students a chance to absorb these critical design concepts. Show students a few examples of scenarios. Why: Role play in workshops forces participants to change how they think about something. UX Research can provide value throughout the product design and development process. Why: UX practitioners are often caught in a balancing act: user needs versus what is technically and organizationally feasible. It shows non-researchers when and how they should get involved in UX Research. How many users visited your homepage is an example of quantitative research; determining why 500 people abandoned their carts at checkout is an example of qualitative research. There’s a dizzying amount of UX research tools to choose from. Affinity diagramming can be adapted as necessary. Storyboards can and should range in fidelity depending on how you are using them. This structured, objective approach helps achieve consensus while satisfying the varied needs of the user and business. While it should be obvious that messages are content, confusing error, warning, and information messages abound. A heuristic evaluation involves reviewing a site or app to assess its adherence to recognized industry best practices for usability. The first thing you’ll want to do, before you begin the actual research, is identify your key goals you’re hoping your UX research will achieve. “It’s very hard to read,” lamented one user. This activity works as a followup for postup and affinity diagramming. Each participant must then contribute to the activity at hand from the perspective she has been assigned. In 7 Great UX Workshops we described seven workshops for new and seasoned UX practitioners. First, it helps us discover patterns across a wide set of ideas. This same principle should be followed in research studies. Pam is a diabetic and an executive who travels internationally to visit various corporate offices. Over the course of building this understanding, different types of documents and tool can be used to put us on the same page with the user goals and ensure that the suggested solutions are having the user in the heart of the developing process. They can also be done across subgroups, with each subgroup sharing its output to the workshop group. The key principles which formed this methodology are: 1. For example, a new driver might start the ignition, shift the automatic transmission into “Drive” and press the accelerator. News and e-commerce sites tend to work well for these types of UX workshop activities because most people are familiar with such sites. Discovery stage. If the form includes technical terms that Pam does not understand, what is the best way to explain those terms? Based on community feedback, we formed a group that is dedicated to teaching topics in UX research and strategy. Which specific tasks would be associated with the scenario? Would users understand the high-level task at hand? This may reveal several different research activities, after which you can combine different methods or use them one by one. How will it show where the error has occurred? It is especially useful when participants are working primarily in groups (which should often occur in workshops with more than 6 participants). Recently, customers have complained that the meter is hard to use and does not offer all of the features they need. These lively discussions set the stage for the more challenging task flow activity. UX design activities go hand in hand with UX research. Definition: Playback is the activity of sharing progress, process, or insights gained by an individual (or a subgroup) to a broad group, either in an informal or formal way. This exercise is an abbreviated heuristic evaluation and serves to encourage students to think carefully about user needs and basic design principles. For example, what should users do when the following error message appears? As anyone who has designed forms can attest however, form deign is not easy. By deliberately challenging how they naturally approach a problem, attendees can develop new thoughts and ideas. A UI UX Training, we recommend beginning with a short task flow exercise based on something tangible such as the steps required to start a car and pull out of a parking spot on the street. Assign one web site to half the groups and another to the other half. You can combine, mix, and remix these fundamental activities to create almost any exercise needed. These activities might sound familiar to my fellow UX researchers. Agile teams are cross-functional, and aim to create working code in very short cycles called s… Reasons for Doing UX Research. Subscribe to the weekly newsletter to get notified about future articles. Here are three great reasons for doing user research: To create a product that is truly relevant to users. Note: Activities #6 and #7 can be combined. During the UX research process, one of our big aims is to understand the user behavior when visiting a website or using a mobile application. If the group is prone to groupthink or the HIPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) effect, then consider having individuals rank on their own and submit their rankings anonymously. Participants can identify and align on what a specific theme or pattern is comprised of, especially if the theme names are generated collaboratively in the workshop. Diabetics use these meters to take regular blood sugar readings. UX research newbies, keep reading. In the second case (participants play the role of another perspective — such as user or project-budget manager ), role play is primarily used to encourage new perspectives and reassess priorities. Before we look at the reasons for doing user research, let’s talk briefly about what we mean by ‘user research’, or ‘design research’ as it’s sometimes called. One third of users travel frequently for work. For this reason, at UI UX Training we offer workshops devoted exclusively to research. Note that, even though the input for affinity diagramming is often a set of sticky notes generated in postup, it doesn’t have to be. In the UX research phase, you and your team talk to project stakeholders, observe users in their environments, analyze observational data, and generate insights and opportunities from data gathered. Landscape mapping is how many UX maps, including empathy maps, customer journey maps, and service blueprints, are built. Forms guru Caroline Jarrett has referred to a form as a conversation with the user. For a one- or two-day course covering evaluation, research, and design, it’s wise to focus on analysis to leave sufficient time for the other UX workshop activities described in this post. The FAST User Experience Research framework. For example, use forced ranking to prioritize which of the ideas generated during an ideation session should be prototyped. Is it possible that we are all, in effect, tinkerers? Some of the common UX research activities that involve listening are: Social media monitoring. UX research techniques follow one of … As a facilitator, these core activities are should be familiar tools in your back pocket. Why: Landscape mapping helps us understand how items or categories relate to each other. Ask students to imagine that they have conducted interviews and contextual inquiry and recorded the following findings: Users’ ages range from 20 to 80 but the median age is 40. Ask students to consider the following as they create an error message: Give students 20 minutes to complete this exercise and devote ten minutes to discussion. The diagram lists potential UX research methods and activities that can be done as projects move through stages of design. As explained in 5 UX Methods all Practitioners Should Master a scenario describes the reasons the target user group is likely to use a device or mobile app. Working together reduces the time it takes for UX Research. The display is too small. Divide the class into groups of three or four. They can be messy and low-fidelity or structured and high-fidelity, depending on goals and context. The meter is hard to read in bright sunlight. Summary: A detailed UX research plan helps you keep your overarching research goals in mind as you work through the logistics of a research project. A robust UX research strategy ensures proper planning for budgets and timelines for pre-launch activities and post-launch activities and future releases. Secondary Research — UX Knowledge Base Sketch #98. UX Activities and Research Methods to apply in Discovery to understand the users, investigate opportunities, and facilitate a shared vision amongst stakeholders. Keep them in the same groups and give them 45 minutes to create a scenario based on the persona they created in activity #3. Agile practices vary from company to company and even team to team, but there is a shared set of valuesand principlesthat prioritises rapid, contiguous release of live code, collaboration across cross-functional teams and users, and a commitment to responding to changes. In our experience at UI UX Training, students quickly grasp the value of scenarios. It enables a shared understanding and language amongst the group members. The longer the workshop and the higher the number of participants, the more important it is to include playbacks. Depending on the context, some rankings may have significant consequences (for example, they may impact future resources or release priorities). UX Workshops vs. When conducting our UX research, we do exhibit these tinkering skills: problem framing —We make sure our stakeholders understand the problems our users encounter through problem framing. The chart below describes UX methods and activities available in various project stages. How will Pam now how to correct the erroneous data entry? This confusion is especially troubling in error messages because users must normally address the error before proceeding with the current task. When: Affinity diagramming should be used anytime you are converging after a postup. The act of sharing in a workshop is an activity in and of itself and core to all workshops. Conversely, in some instances it may be helpful to surface participant’s rankings, whether to foster conversation or discuss expertise-related perspectives. Thousands of workshop exercises exist. Playbacks help converge insights across teams so that everyone within a workshop has an understanding of the outputs and the work of other teams. Contextual inquiry, personas, scenarios, & journey mapping are key activities to train yourself on for user research and UI UX design projects. The concept of User Experience (UX) has been around earlier than the abbreviation UX itself. User-centered design focuses on satisfying the end needs of users. 4 Steps to Getting Started with DesignOps, UX Practitioners Adjusting to Post-Pandemic World. Both secondary and primary research activities have their place during a digital product development process or a design process. When students complete the exercise, devote 30 minutes to discussion. Playbacks can be as quick as 1-minute high-level shares or as formal as prepared presentations (skits or slideshows). It is the base of almost all workshop exercises and has the broadest application. ; It saves time & money — Helps us to avoid designing or building things that do not resonate with our users. Summary: There are 7 activities that act as a foundation for every UX exercise during a workshop or collaborative team meeting. However, few realize at the core of each of these exercises are the same 7 foundational activities. You don’t need to have a dedicated UX research team to conduct UX research. Recall the scenario above about Pam the diabetic who needs to take a glucose reading on a long flight. 40% They are helpful tactics for navigating dominating participants, unproductive conversation, and encouraging full participation. Q&As at events and demos. Common activities in this phase include, but are not limited to, the following: 1. Think of these 7 fundamental workshop activities as ingredients for every workshop recipe. By first working independently on a problem, then converging to share insights, teams can leverage progress made by others. Towards the end of a workshop, you may use a postup to generate next steps and action items. Forced ranking can be as rigorous (tying specific scale or dollar amount to each item ranked) or as lightweight (basic dot voting) as needed. Get a hands-on introduction to UX with a free, 6-day short course. When: A the highest level, role play can be applied in two ways: participants can play the role of the system or the role of another person (someone with a different perspective or a user). Quantitative research is measurable, while qualitative is not. Contextual enquiry. The role of a UX researcher. There’s no one way to do UX research. Why: Divergence and convergence is a key characteristic of workshops. Complex projects will comprise significant user and competitor research activities, while small startup websites may skip all research activities … You’ll find a list of the top UX research conferences to attend in 2019 here, and can search for local UX research groups on meetup.com. Divide students into groups of three or four and assign the same task to all groups. Think of affinity diagramming is often the next step of a postup. Here is one possible outcome for this scenario exercise: Devote 15 to 20 minutes to discussion. This is the stage where a stakeholder just has the vision of a new business concept or a product. The participant playing the system can only respond from a script of what the computer or system knows (even if she otherwise knows the appropriate information or response outside of character). UX Research is one of the key activities of the UXDT Division of National Informatics Centre. Explain that a persona is a researched-based representative of a single user group. After completing this UX workshop activity, students will have a better understanding of the complexity involved in designing even a single error message. With the starting-car-exercise exercise firmly embedded in their memory, students will think more carefully about a second, more complex task flow. UX workshop activities focused on research are important and should include identifying the best research method for a particular project, conducting stakeholder interviews, and planning and then conducting the research. Search log analysis. UX researchers adopt various methods to uncover problems and design opportunities. Discuss this exercise for 20 minutes and ask students to identify specific challenges such as how easy or difficult it was to divide the flow into distinct yet connected steps. Think of this as a menu of recommended options. She needs a sturdy, accurate blood glucose meter with an intuitive user interface that allows her to store the reading on the device. It encompasses a variety of investigative methods used to add context and insight to the design process. Please keep in mind that the activities that we discuss below relate only to UX research, as the entire design workflow includes much more. For example, at the beginning of a workshop, you may use a postup to generate workshop goals. Similar to a postup, anonymity can be an advantage or disadvantage. Give time before ranking. Stakeholder Interviews Definition: Role play is the acting out another  perspective (e.g., user) or system (a set of known information or data) as a technique for exploration and discovery. Your process will vary and may include only a few things on this list during each cycle. Email us at info@uiuxtraining.com. If you miss the user research stage at the beginning of the project… variety of investigative methods used to add context and insight to the design process The meter does not store the reading. Definition: A storyboard communicates a story through images displayed in a sequence of panels that chronologically maps the story’s main events. This understanding ensures alignment and shared language across the whole workshop, not just within workshop teams. Or, should the form be divided over two or more Web pages? Why: Postups are used to generate a wide set of ideas that represent diverse perspectives in a time-efficient, democratic manner. Copyright © 1998-2020 Nielsen Norman Group, All Rights Reserved. 2020-03-01 Subscribe to our Alertbox E-Mail Newsletter: The latest articles about interface usability, website design, and UX research from the Nielsen Norman Group. Help desk query analysis. UX Design Activities In this phase, the team generates design concepts and prototypes based on research findings, and hopefully validates concepts and prototypes with users. By keeping the ultimate goal in mind throughout the process, the aim is to create alignment between the learning activities and the ultimate assessment. As explained in 5 UX Methods all Practitioners Should Master a task flow refers to the specific steps a user takes to finish a task or solve a problem. Sarah Gibbons is Nielsen Norman Group's Chief Designer. While customer complaints are a good place to start, truly understanding users’ needs requires research. Definition: Forced ranking is any collaborative prioritization activity that directly weighs items against each other in order to create a strict order. Fig. In this scenario, each team member is given a new role to play. User research This article outlines these 7 fundamental workshop activities, discussing how to adapt them, tips for running them, and when they are helpful: This is the most common and fundamental workshop activity amongst the 7. Clustering can be done as a group (this works best if the number of items being clustered is under 20 and the themes are to be discovered through the diagramming) or, if the themes are predetermined, individually and then reviewed as a group (this works best for more than 20 items). A seasoned UX research teams know which UX research method to use for specific results. An iterative approach to concepts and prototyping while testing with users provides a vision of the UI moving forward, and begins analysis to set the team up for development. UI UX Training: Learn 4 UX activities for design thinking the user experience. Make a list of characteristics for use in the following person activity. Storyboards (or vignettes) expand a specific idea and add context to it so that it’s better understood, communicated, and agreed upon. Next, divide students into groups of three or four and give them 20 to 30 minutes to draw the task flow focused on taking a blood glucose reading on a long flight. ; It helps to align teams — Aligns team members’ understanding of the problem that we hope to solve. Divide students into groups of three or four. The discovery phase of UX research. In essence, stakeholders take ownership of each of the UX research stages by carrying out the four activities, each corresponding to its research stage. When: Landscape maps are best used after a generation-based activity (like a postup) to drive further insight and alignment. 1. It provides focus & clarity — Clarifies who the users are and the problem that we hope to solve. refer to an established source such as Nielsen’s well-known 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. Playbacks can be done within a small group, with each participant sharing her ideas. Tell students that Pam has successfully filled out her contact information and must now complete a form with a brief health history including the glucose levels for her past three blood sugar readings. This is especially helpful when dealing with finicky audiences, as you can assign roles (such as “optimist”, “pessimist”, or “feasibility driver”) to combat natural tendencies of participants. For this reason, at UI UX Training we offer workshops devoted exclusively to research. Definition: A postup is an activity in which participants individually generate content on sticky notes, then post them up on a wall. Before we get too much further, let’s first be clear about what we mean when we talk about “Agile.” Agile is an approach to developing software. While it may sound academic, UX research as Ben Ralph says is "less of being a scientist and more of being a detective". Forms are notoriously difficult to design because, at first glance, they seem straightforward. She works at the intersection of design research, strategy, and user experience design. By understanding these and how they can be combined with different constraints, you can create almost any UX workshop exercise you need. 2. Many UX experts will have their own process for conducting research, but this is a basic skeleton of one that will work for you. Show some examples of personas and explain that they should include demographics, but that the key to a useful persona is a focus on three elements: Keep students in the same groups and ask them to create a persona based on the analysis in activity #2 described above. 1) To form a product that is genuinely relevant to users. Give students 30 to 40 minutes to complete this exercise, and devote 20 minutes to discussion.