----------------------- Chapter 4: Understanding users - Qualitative research ----------------- ------ Any design results must finally determine whether it is successful to meet the needs of users and organizations that have been developed. Regardless of how proficient in designers, if she is a customer's constraint for the customer, she will have no hope for the constraints of the problem, and not clearly and meticulous cognition for the design expectation. Qualitative research can answer these questions, not by quantitative metrics (? Metrics) or population surveys (although they also have their own use). In this chapter we will see, there are many quantitative research methods. Each is an important role in the foreground picture of the filled product.
Qualitative research VS quantitative survey investigations, people tend to contact scientific and objectiveness. This kind of connection is not wrong, but it misleads many people have such views, only part of the investigation will produce the ultimate objectivity: data. The idea of numbers will not be lying in the business and engineering communities. Despite this, we are also rationally realized that numbers, especially the number of human activities, will never be poor than text in manipulation or reinterpretation. The data collected in hard sciences in physics and the data collected on human behavior are obvious: electronics do not have time to change, and like physicists control only on isolation of observable behaviors. Test is almost impossible in social sciences. Any attempt to simplify human behavior is likely to miss an important difference, some differences may not have an impact on the business plan, but it will result in a huge difference in product design. Quantitative surveys can only answer how much on a few simplified shafts. Qualitative surveys can tell you what is in a rich and multilateral detail, how is it? Social scientists have recognized that human behavior is too complex and subject to too many variables, so that they cannot rely on data to understand. Availability practitioners borrow humanology and other social sciences, have developed a lot of qualitative methods to collect usability data for user behavior to achieve more pragmatic purposes: Help create better products for better service users. The remainder of this chapter focuses on qualitative research technology, providing support for the methods described in the subsequent chapter. At the end of this chapter, we will make a short discussion to quantitative research technology or cannot be used to support this effort.
The value qualitative survey of qualitative surveys provides more powerful help for our understanding of the product, context and constraints, context, and constraints for our understanding of the product. At the same time, it is more easier than quantitative methods to help us identify the behavior of users and potential users. Special, qualitative research helps us understand: ■ Existing products, the cases they have used ■ Potential users of new products or existing products, how to deal with new products in order to solve the problem, how do they do now? ■ Technical contexts designed, commercial contexts, and environmental contexts, namely fields. ■ Words and other social aspects of the problem can also help design projects in the following ways: ■ Make the design team more credibility and authority, because design resolutions can be traced back to the results of the survey ■ Use the domain issues and users Co-understanding of concern to unite team ■ Enable management to make more information references to product design issues, rather than guessing or personal preferences in practice, qualitative analysis, in addition to the above benefits, compared Its quantitative analysis of the brothers, can get some important questions faster and more flexible to get an audible design ■ People now have those who wish to do through the product. ■ Products should How to entrunly people's life context, how should I enter? ■ What is the basic goal of people using the product, people have achieved it through those basic tasks?
Types of social sciences and availability studies in qualitative research are methods and techniques for qualitative research, and readers can study these documents. In this chapter, the author's focus focuses on our actual proven technology in the past decade, sometimes focusing on similar technologies in the usual field of availability. We don't stay in theory, but tries to provide these technologies with more pragmatic and less theoretical perspectives. Our qualitative research technology includes: Interchanting Although any product design is completed by understanding users, the investigation should begin with the business and technical environment that is developed by the understanding of the product. The survey should not only provide a reasonable and feasible result, but also need common language and understanding for design teams, management and engineer groups. Stakeholders refers to any key member of the organization of the commissioned design, representing the backbone of management and engineering, sales, product market, market public relations, customer support, and availability. It is also possible to include the delegated organization's business partners or similar people in management organizations. Interview with the people should start before all users are investigated. It is best to talk to each of the crosses, not in a large cross-sector group. One-on-one arrangement allows people to express their views, rather than losing independence in the crowd. There should be no more than an hour, and if a member can provide very valuable information, you can request a follow-up interview.
It is possible to have the following categories from the important information collected from the crowd: ■ What is the view of each of the preliminary vision of the product? Just like a blind figure, you will find that each business department has some different and less complete views of the designed system. Part of the design work is to coordinate various views of users and customers. ■ What is the budget and progress? The answer to this question is often a real inspection for the scope of design activities, and provides management decision points to determine how far the scope of user investigation needs. ■ What is commercial drive? Design groups understand what the result is very important. It also produced a decision point, the conflict between business needs and user needs reflected by users. Design should be made as much as possible between users, customers, and suppliers. ■ What is the understanding of users? Those who are associated with customers (such as user support representatives) will have important insights for users to help you plan the user research program. You may also find some people's understanding of our customers and a lot of gaps you found in the survey. This information will become an important management decision point in the later process. Understand these questions and their impact on design programs can help you serve your customers and products as designers. The built-in consistency can help you clearly describe those that have not been identified in the overall business, providing a key basis for decisions in the subsequent design process, and establishing credibility for your design team.
The Topic Expert (SME) is talking about some of the topic experts (SMES): they are very familiar with the fields that will be operated by the designed product. Most of the subject experts have used users of products or products, many of them now have training, management or consultants. Generally speaking, they are employed by the public, rather than those who are involved. Similar to people, theme experts can provide a very valuable view of product and users, but designers need to pay attention to some of their distortions. The following questions need to be considered when using the subject experts: ■ Theme expert is an expert user. Their long-term experience in the product or product is meant to adapt to the current interaction. They will tend to be expert control instead of interaction for permanent medium-user design. The subject expert is often not a product user, and they will have more management views. ■ Theme expert knowledge is outstanding, but they are not designers. They may have a lot of ideas about how to improve the product. Some of them may be reasonable and valuable, but the most useful information acquired from these recommendations is those that lead to them to propose these programs. ■ In complex or professional domain theme experts are required, such as medical, scientific research or financial services. If you design for technical or other professional fields, you will need the guidelines of theme expert unless you are. From the theme expert, you can get information about complex rules and industry best practices. In complex areas, the subject expert's knowledge about user roles and features is critical to planning user investigations. ■ You will need access to the subject experts throughout the design process. If your product is required to use the subject expert, you need to introduce them to check the details of the design at all different stages of the design. This requires this in the previous interview. Users and customers are easily confused by users and customers. For consumer products, customers tend to be the same person with the user, but in the company and technical field, users and customers are rarely the same. Although there is no group, it should be interviewed. But they have their own point of view, and they need to be included in the final design in quite different ways. Customers are those who decide to buy products. For consumer products, customers are users who often use products; of course, for children's products, customers are parents or other adult supervisors. For most companies or technical products, customers are people with different users are often IT managers, they have different goals and needs with users. Only understand the customer and their goals can make the product viable. At the same time, it is also necessary to use the product very little to use the product, and even if they use, it is also quite different from the way users. When you are interview, you need to know: ■ Go to purchase products ■ The defects of their current solutions ■ Purchase the decision-making process for designing products ■ In the installation, maintenance and management of their roles ■ Field related topics and vocabulary theme Like experts, customers may have a lot of how to improve product design. As with the same expert's case, the problem from these recommendations to determine the problem behind these ideas is very important, because in the later design process, better, more complete solutions will emerge. Users should be the main focus of design activities. They are those who need to use products to reach certain things, not their managers or support teams. Potential users are those who do not use the product now, but in the future. The scope of the user interview includes both current users (if the product needs to be modified to it) also have potential users (user-friendly systems for competition products or products), our information about users, including: ■ Questions and defects (For potential users are similar products) ■ Products for life or workflow context: What time is the product, how to use it. That is, the user's behavior mode of the product ■ User point knowledge: Users need to understand what is required ■ For the basic understanding of the user's current task: including both the product needs to be made ■ Clear understanding of the user's goals: them Motivation and expectations using products
Using most people don't correctly assess their behavior (Pinker, 1999), especially in their activities. Therefore, it is incomplete and incorrect data that is incomplete and inaccurate in the case where the designer wants to record. Basically, you can talk to users what they think is what their behavior is, or they can directly observe their behavior. The latter way will have a better result. Many usability professionals use some technical means, such as recording video devices to capture what users say. Be sure to pay attention to the use of these technologies too much, otherwise the user will not pay attention to the behavior is different from not recorded. The most effective technique for collecting user qualitative data may be combined with interviews and observations, designers can observe behavior and status, and ask questions that need to be clarified. At the same time, the literature reviews in the context of the crowd, the design team should review any documentation on products and their fields. Including product market planning, market surveys, technical specifications and white paper, business and technical fields, competitors research, related and competitive products news web search, availability research results and metrics, and user support data, Call center statistics table. Design groups should collect these literatures, from the excavation of issues that need to be proposed to the people and theme experts, then use to supplement the domain knowledge and vocabulary, and check with the assembly user data.
Products and Competitors examine the interviews and theme expert interviews, check all existing product versions or prototypes, and the main competitor products are very helpful for design teams. This allows both the development level of the design team to feel the technology, and provides materials for the issues in the interview. Ideally, the design team should participate in an informal heuristic or professional review for the current product and competitors, using interaction and visual design principles (as described in this book). This procedure makes the group familiar with the advantages and limitations of users currently available, and also provides a general concept of the current functional range of the product.
