What does User Research mean to me.
It is rather unfortunate that I was introduced to the field of User Research from a point of view of Design, But glad that I was introduced to it. The only lively part of a software system design was meeting the people whom we termed “end users”. I met technicians, educators, kids, farmers, mechanics, engineers, craftsmen, patients so on and so forth just because I was in the field of design and I was designing something for them. All of them were people of dreams and needs, well read to illiterates, highly skilled to casual users, lively to pale, creative to orthodox.
Sometimes I wondered if designers go to users, as they are unsure of their designs! But soon realized that it’s quite useful to just be around your Users, instead of breaking my head on some flow of which I cant, see the higher purpose.We learnt to sit close to users and take notes of their behavior towards a System. It was very painful to understand the convincing logic or scientific truth about such an activity like documenting tediously the way users use the system. I did Contextual Inquiry with great discomfort and skepticism. I looked like some enthusiastic lad poking his nose in someone’s work! . Observing people was not a dignifying experience though I was quite empathetic. The results were usually mundane i.e. users were unable to perform their tasks successfully or the content was not absorbed and so on. The reports concluded by saying that users find computers interesting but were unable to perform basic tasks. I was always convinced that this was because of bad design and not because of people’s knowledge but still the situation was absurd and not clear as to what user research means.
From the prominent theory of Charles Owens (Illinois Institute of Technology) and supporting theoretical efforts, Prof U A Athavankar propagated the Ideation strategy by user observation at IDC (Industrial Design center - IITB).
Here an interesting activity of quick ideation in the spirit of Brainstorming aids the efforts of user observation in his/her context. The trick was to stress an objective observation of a quality of a fact and ideate against the observation as much as possible. This is a very creative activity. What we did is that we had a number of design ideas as against a single objective observation. This is a credible activity and has value many times very useful for an organization. It gives you a million ideas and gates open up for many problems.
Coming back to our traditional interviewing and activity observations, ideation technique was a breakthrough to increase the credence of research. We not only observed use problems (which was because of bad design of flow and interaction, mental models, cognitive loads, problem of hypertext, semantic dis-associations, depth of need, language, inhibition to systems and so forth) but also started making genuine factual observations of significance and calling them insights. The last important bit was a brainstorm of ideas to meet the insights. We collected many ideas in our pocket and 60% of them often had the potential of becoming successful "Concepts". However only few would ultimately turn into a finished product and design going through the test of Product development, Marketing and other interests. In a sense we gave a rain of free ideas most of them convincing enough to impress the marketing team.
We did get into research methods like "affinity" since the information had became huge to handle. By fragmenting the insights and ideas into hierarchical orders we seemed to filter the information by conducting the affinity. As a result we got higher insights and lower ones. Process of elimination always shows a spirit of bringing quality to quantity. When the insights are later grouped and interpreted we get fascinating stories of Qualitative research. The glitch however is that the interpretation is personal though it is supported with insights. It seems to go by experience that's what the practitioners of this technique tell me. Though this is an adventurous effort we have certainly lost a holistic component of user/people in a context. The results are personal interpretations and it is not scientific. This is extremely useful for ideation and brainstorming. The true results of this method are the ideas or designs in the form of sketches. Though we go so near to the user we run back very quickly away from them by submitting our results of research in the form of design ideas. I have to mention that solving use problems will make the product a little more meaningful.
This leaves me in the same situation as I was, in the beginning. So trips to users were to find opportunities in design. My dissatisfaction still continues, however empathetic I am, I build a relationship with user as humanely as possible. I have the freedom to see the user as a person and a user of the system. A social scientist observes people more distinctly than an ethnographer, cognitive psychologist, a doctor or designer.
All of us want to understand people and find ways, theories, techniques, methods, and discipline to know people. These purposes and intentions many times vary but they are the strongest clue to the end. The purpose defines the study and it would be rather interesting to understand community or people not from a view of design but also from other views like social concerns, needs, sensitivity, cultural lifestyle, living conditions, community unity, symbolic associations, economic constraints etc, which cannot be observed only from doing task or activity tests which most of the organizations stick to.
A collective knowledge is required to tackle design at the people's level than traditional usability tests. This concern defines the user experience.
Sometimes I wondered if designers go to users, as they are unsure of their designs! But soon realized that it’s quite useful to just be around your Users, instead of breaking my head on some flow of which I cant, see the higher purpose.We learnt to sit close to users and take notes of their behavior towards a System. It was very painful to understand the convincing logic or scientific truth about such an activity like documenting tediously the way users use the system. I did Contextual Inquiry with great discomfort and skepticism. I looked like some enthusiastic lad poking his nose in someone’s work! . Observing people was not a dignifying experience though I was quite empathetic. The results were usually mundane i.e. users were unable to perform their tasks successfully or the content was not absorbed and so on. The reports concluded by saying that users find computers interesting but were unable to perform basic tasks. I was always convinced that this was because of bad design and not because of people’s knowledge but still the situation was absurd and not clear as to what user research means.
From the prominent theory of Charles Owens (Illinois Institute of Technology) and supporting theoretical efforts, Prof U A Athavankar propagated the Ideation strategy by user observation at IDC (Industrial Design center - IITB).
Here an interesting activity of quick ideation in the spirit of Brainstorming aids the efforts of user observation in his/her context. The trick was to stress an objective observation of a quality of a fact and ideate against the observation as much as possible. This is a very creative activity. What we did is that we had a number of design ideas as against a single objective observation. This is a credible activity and has value many times very useful for an organization. It gives you a million ideas and gates open up for many problems.
Coming back to our traditional interviewing and activity observations, ideation technique was a breakthrough to increase the credence of research. We not only observed use problems (which was because of bad design of flow and interaction, mental models, cognitive loads, problem of hypertext, semantic dis-associations, depth of need, language, inhibition to systems and so forth) but also started making genuine factual observations of significance and calling them insights. The last important bit was a brainstorm of ideas to meet the insights. We collected many ideas in our pocket and 60% of them often had the potential of becoming successful "Concepts". However only few would ultimately turn into a finished product and design going through the test of Product development, Marketing and other interests. In a sense we gave a rain of free ideas most of them convincing enough to impress the marketing team.
We did get into research methods like "affinity" since the information had became huge to handle. By fragmenting the insights and ideas into hierarchical orders we seemed to filter the information by conducting the affinity. As a result we got higher insights and lower ones. Process of elimination always shows a spirit of bringing quality to quantity. When the insights are later grouped and interpreted we get fascinating stories of Qualitative research. The glitch however is that the interpretation is personal though it is supported with insights. It seems to go by experience that's what the practitioners of this technique tell me. Though this is an adventurous effort we have certainly lost a holistic component of user/people in a context. The results are personal interpretations and it is not scientific. This is extremely useful for ideation and brainstorming. The true results of this method are the ideas or designs in the form of sketches. Though we go so near to the user we run back very quickly away from them by submitting our results of research in the form of design ideas. I have to mention that solving use problems will make the product a little more meaningful.
This leaves me in the same situation as I was, in the beginning. So trips to users were to find opportunities in design. My dissatisfaction still continues, however empathetic I am, I build a relationship with user as humanely as possible. I have the freedom to see the user as a person and a user of the system. A social scientist observes people more distinctly than an ethnographer, cognitive psychologist, a doctor or designer.
All of us want to understand people and find ways, theories, techniques, methods, and discipline to know people. These purposes and intentions many times vary but they are the strongest clue to the end. The purpose defines the study and it would be rather interesting to understand community or people not from a view of design but also from other views like social concerns, needs, sensitivity, cultural lifestyle, living conditions, community unity, symbolic associations, economic constraints etc, which cannot be observed only from doing task or activity tests which most of the organizations stick to.
A collective knowledge is required to tackle design at the people's level than traditional usability tests. This concern defines the user experience.
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