Practical information Monday 17th: Garda room Tuesday 18th and Thursday 20th: Levico room

UX research methods - An overview María Menéndez Blanco

User Centered Design (UCD) process

Overview Quantitative and qualitative research methods Understand the design space Identify relevant stakeholders/actors Gather users’ needs, goals and behaviour to be transformed into user requirements Allow the articulation of “matters of fact” into “matters of concern” to be transformed into design opportunities

Questionnaires General understanding of the design space Carefully design your questionnaire Ask meaningful questions Open vs. closed ended questions Much feedback in short time General understanding

Individual interviews Individual interviews with relevant stakeholders/actors Structured, semi-structured or unstructured Prepare a script based on your understanding of the design space Carefully design your questions Allow silence Record interviews (+ consent form) Time and resource demanding Deep understanding

Focus groups/group interviews Group interviews inviting different actors Enable discussion between different points of view Deep understanding Gather a group of people at the same place and time Expose different points of view and potential breakdowns

In-context immersion Observe the context of the design domain Short interviews to people in the context of the design challenge Spend time in the context -> time demanding

Self-documentation Ask relevant actors to keep diaries Prompt them with “cultural probes” Help understanding the design challenge from the actors’ point of view Cultural probes – Way of getting information about people and their activities

Who are the relevant actors in your domain? How do they relate to the domain? How do they relate among them? Which are the assumptions in your domain? How do you articulate them into “matters of concern”? How can you challenge these assumptions? Which design artefact can challenge these assumptions?

Questions? menendez@disi.unitn.it