We all work hard to understand what our campus users want from the technology and information services we provide. But how do you unearth problems that users don't recognize or can't fully describe? How do you zero in on the underlying cause of complaints like "this is hard to use" or "it's too confusing" or "I can't find what I need"?
An Information Services Forum
Presenters: Paula Lackie, Heather Tompkins, and Matt Ryan
We take a cue from the world of anthropology and watch our users at work in their natural habitat. You may be surprised how much you can learn from observation that you wouldn't have discovered any other way!
Introduction
Theory/Methodology
More Resources
So, you've got a website, application, device, tool, service, or process. Typically, most of the input into its design came from insiders -- the technologists who created it and the people who commissioned its purchase or development. However, none of these folks represent the typical user for the tool. They have a whole bunch of assumptions about how things should work and how information should be organized that they may not even be aware of. The technology might have made it easier to develop the tool in one way rather than another. The upshot, often, is that the tool reflects more the needs of the people who created or selected it than the needs of the people who will be using it.
This creates a potential problem -- the tool might be fantastically easy to use for the people who commissioned and created it, but have aspects that make it difficult to use or understand by the people for whom it is intended. How, as someone who is inside the process, can you find out what stumbling blocks and other issues real users have with a tool?
"Good systems cannot be built by design experts who proceed with only limited input from users. Even when designers and prospective users have unlimited time for conversation, there are many aspects of a work process--such as how a particular tool is held, or what it is for something to "look right"--that reside in the complex, often tacit, domain of context."
Profile 14. Participatory Design, Profile Authors: Sara Kuhn and Terry Winograd in Bringing Design to Software (c) Addison-Wesley, 1996
The answer is user research.
There are a variety of concepts/design principles that apply, but two common terms used to describe this sort of work are:
The goal of this work is to understand your users as much as possible, the key principle is to respect and believe your users, and the key requirement to do this sort of research is empathy.
Types of user research include: