Discovery, Research, and Testing Archives - Page 2 of 16

Collaborative Journey Maps

In many organizations, the design team does some research then retreats to their tower to conjure deep magics that turn note filled notebooks into a customer journey map. At least that’s what it looks like to their peers. Journey diagrams capture tons of detailed info about users, processes, and systems. The best teams share the same understanding of the user’s journey. Instead of having your team wonder where you got this information or how you came to these conclusions, have

April 27, 2020 Case Studies / Discovery, Research, and Testing / Process and Methods

Taking Research out of the Lab

Posted by Gerry Duffy

To date, usability testing has been largely confined to usability labs. This ensures a controlled environment where users can interact with products or designs and researchers can field questions. The downside of this is not being able to get the context of use of what you are testing. But a recent project for a life science organization cemented the idea that taking user research out of the usability lab yields the best results.

April 20, 2020 Design Principles / Discovery, Research, and Testing / Process and Methods

Focus on Usage Maturity: Part II

Posted by Alesha Arp

Meet Users Where They Are, Draw Them Deeper In If we want users to remain our users, we ought to entice them deeper into our design ecosystem. Attempts to extend or expand users’ usage, frequently results in designs complicated by added features, and functions. My user experience research has informed digital and physical designs often with an emphasis on correcting the usability of such complexities. Users interact with the things we design at varying levels of usage maturity. Usage maturity

July 16, 2019 Case Studies / Discovery, Research, and Testing

Don’t Send Personal Messages Through LinkedIn (Unless You Want People to Hate You)

Posted by Marcin Lella

Looking through my parents’ storage boxes, I found letters that my mother and father sent one another prior to my existence. This unfathomable world was decades away from mobile phones, public internet connectivity, and social networking. Along with explanations of humorous or ordinary everyday episodes and proclamations of love, the letters included doodles, crossed out words, and long postscriptums. I don’t know if my mother or father ever dabbed some perfume on their letters hoping to evoke butterflies in the

May 21, 2019 Discovery, Research, and Testing

The Lessons Learned Running User Research Interviews

Posted by Luke Frake

In the world of user research, no idea is a bad idea. If you have an idea for a great piece of research, act on it. In fact, your first epiphany is the seed from which all great things will grow. Your idea will eventually shape your hypothesis—your very best idea. This is your proposed explanation based on your current and limited evidence, paving the way from your starting point. The investigation to follow is where your user research comes