1. User needs assessment and user profiling
A review of the DIGICOM inventory
John Lewis

2. Who took part
29 countries took part in the DIGICOM survey to produce the inventory
20 countries provided information that related to user needs assessment and user profiling:
DK, LT, SK, UK, NL, EE, LV, HU, FI, EL, HR, AT, PL, IT, ES, SE, CZ, NO, LU, BE & PT

3. Differing methods
Practices and experience varied across the respondents
Varying descriptions of the techniques used by different NSIs
Identified 19 different methods used by NSIs to assess and understand user needs

4. Techniques Focus groups Meetings Advisory boards
Feedback at conferences and events
Consultations
User forums
Surveys
Questionnaires
Web forms
Analysis of web search terms
Analysis of web metrics/traffic
Personas
User profiling
Contact centres
Phone calls
/mail/fax feedback
Monitoring social media
Usability lab
User research

5. Techniques
Direct feedback – not too resource intensive (depending on how conducted), can provide both general and specific/tailored insights
Surveys – relatively quick and cheap to set-up, allows you to reach a large number of people, but inflexible, subject to misinterpretation (of questions and answers) and not suited for capturing details
Web feedback – often detailed and specific feedback, but due to this it can be time consuming and resource intensive to review the feedback

6. Techniques
Personas – time and resource to develop, but once completed offer ongoing benefits for user-driven design and understanding user needs
Monitoring Comms & Monitoring Social Media – similar to web feedback, requires time and resource for analysis
User research/testing – can offer quality, detailed insights and evidence with a targeted approach, although specific resource is required

7. Grouping into themes
The techniques used by NSIs can be grouped into common themes
The themes are based on the similarity in approach, setting and potential findings

8. Themes Group Description Technique Direct feedback
Usually face-to-face feedback from users at a pre-arranged event
Focus groups
Meetings
Advisory boards
Feedback at conferences
Consultations
User forums

9. Themes Group Description Technique Surveys
Asking users questions and analysing responses
Questionnaires
Web Feedback
Analysing how users use the website (also includes web based feedback via forms/buttons)
Web forms
Analysis of search terms
Analysis of web metrics/traffic

10. Themes Group Description Technique Personas
Creating customer profiles based on what different users groups need and how they use resources
User profiling
Monitoring comms
Recording and analysing requests and contact from users
Contact centres
Phone calls
/mail/fax feedback

11. Themes Group Description Technique Monitoring Social Media
Recording and analysing comments and contact from users via social media
Monitoring social media
User research/testing
Testing, piloting, trialling products with users and analysing feedback/findings
Usability lab
User research

12. Most popular The most popular techniques are: Direct feedback
Biggest theme – composed of 6 individual methods
Face to face/real time
Good quality tailored feedback
Allows you to target specific user groups, topics, etc
Monitoring communications
Feedback through existing channels
Lack of context and inability to tailor feedback
Generally negative
Direct feedback – Meetings, focus groups, advisory boards, consultations, user forums & feedback at conferences

13. Other countries – Australia’s personas
Tourist – irregular, just wants the popular/topical stuff
Harvester – more regular and understands the data, knowledgeable of their topic area
Miner – regular data user, wants to look at it at the deepest level, experts
Very similar to Denmark’s personas: Tourist, Farmer & Miner
How did they both develop such similar personas?

14. Findings No single method can provide all of the answers
Need to use a variety of methods to get a clear picture of user needs
Best practice techniques:
Direct feedback
Usability testing
Monitoring communications and social media
Personas
The key is to build a relationship with users, so there can be two way conversation to manage and understand expectations

15. Conclusion
The key is to effective user needs assessment and user profiling:
Understand who your users are
Build a relationship with your users through communication/conversation
Understand and manage user expectations

16. Further questions
Further investigation into the persona development of Australia and Denmark (and other countries – what are the similarities)
Understand how NSIs each undertake the best practice techniques – are they operating in the same way, do they offer the same results?

17. Questions
Any questions? Thank you,