UX research plays a pivotal role in gathering evidence throughout the end-to-end design process. Crafting effective insights hinges on a robust research plan comprising essential components such as background information, research goals, hypotheses, assumptions, and timeline. Incorporating diverse activities tailored to both quantitative and qualitative research methods, along with meticulous participant selection criteria to ensure the collection of comprehensive data. A well-structured research plan minimises the time required for the synthesis process, enabling faster and more efficient delivery of insights.
Experienced with the following research activities:
- Knowledge reviews
- Discovery interviews
- Shadow interviews
- Field studies
- Guerilla testing
- Moderated, Self-moderated or group discussions
- Usability/Prototype testing
- Workshop facilitation
- Tree-jack testing/IA testing
- Card sorting
- Comparison tests/A-B testing
- Benchmark studies
- Online surveys
Tools I use for research activities:
- Optimal Workshop
- UX Tweak
- Survey Monkey
- Miro (workshop facilitation)
Discovery interviews
Discovery interviews serve as an invaluable tool, particularly for new products/services or products seeking a new direction. These interviews are instrumental in uncovering user behaviours, information needs, motivations and attributes, desired features, and market gaps.
Framed around open-ended questions exploring the 'how,' 'where,' and 'why,' discovery interviews may involve activities such as card sorting, chart reading, or drawing timelines.
Additionally, shadow interviews, another form of discovery interview, involve minimal questioning as the primary focus is on observing participants how they carry out specific tasks and observing their experience.
Below, you'll find images depicting various discovery interviews and associated activities.
Discovery interview with a SOP
Prompt for a discovery interview
Interview with emergency organisation
Discovery interview in the participants home
Discovery interview with paper prototypes
Discovery interview with paper prototypes
Card sort activity during discovery interview
Usability/prototype test
Usability tests are best conducted with a clickable prototype but static images can also yield some good results it always depends on the questions asked and the engagement of the participant.
It depends on the phase of the project what type of prototype is best suited for testing. I have tested with low-fi paper prototypes in discovery interviews, low-fi b/w wireframes to start a conversation or medium to high fidelity combinations of images or interactive prototypes. I used different programs such as InVision, Axure orAdobe XD to create a prototype depending on the project needs to test out features.
Usability tests hep to get a better understanding of the user flow, labels of buttons and links, placement and functionality of specific items or features, uncovering bugs, interactive patterns and behaviours.
I often record usability test sessions with Microsoft Teams or Lookback (great for mobile testing). This is a useful practice as it allows project stakeholders to look back at the research or to collect snippets for playbacks. Silent SME observers are also invited to listen in to the sessions. I've conducted over 150 usability sessions over the last 5 years.
VicTraffic in discovery exploration phase - round 1 testing
VicTraffic in discovery exploration phase - round 2 testing
Testing different options for a multi-modal journey planner
Axure prototype to test with forecasters
The Murray Darling Basin Water Portal from discovery to usability tests
A prototype to test a new wind hazard product for registered users
Survey design
Surveys are a great tool for running quantitative research and they can run in parallel to qualitative research. They help to reach a bigger pool of people but are often limited to questions with pre-determined answers and limited free text options. The more free text options the longer it takes to analyse the data that being said the most valuable insights do come from free text fields.
For a survey to be successful and deliver the desired outcome, it depends very much on how the questions are asked, how long the survey is and how hard or easy the mental load on the participant is. If a survey is too long don't put enough effort in to answering questions with as much attention as desired and the data becomes watered down.
Below are sample slides of outcomes of surveys that I ran for various different projects.
