Global User Research

Research is an iterative process. It’s about constantly seeking new insights about your users, stakeholders, systems and environments. We continually involve stakeholders throughout the process using three types of research in order to help create great solutions:

Discovery research

Discovery frames the entire development process; it helps you understand your customers’ needs and desires and the environments in which your products are used. Detailed analysis of discovery data helps to break down organizational myths that are often based on anecdotal information, and develops a detailed framework of how to develop meaningful products.

Directional and preference testing

Directional research allows users to evaluate product concepts. Their feedback helps the development team combine attributes and features that will create positive connections between the user and the design. Using controlled stimuli like storyboards and models enables users to better articulate detailed information and feedback.

Usability testing

Usability testing helps to ensure that the final solution is appropriate for its users, their tasks and the environment in which it is used. This testing is most often conducted within the context of use, focusing on understanding if the solution being tested meets usability expectations and user experience goals.

Exceptional research involves the use of a variety of techniques. We never start by choosing the method; instead we start by determining what we need to know and only then do we define the research plan. Our toolkit consists of methods from a wide variety of domains including sociology, marketing, psychology, anthropology and experimental design. Using in-depth statistical analysis, data aggregation and synthesis techniques, our analysis yields actionable requirements, opportunities for innovation and a thorough understanding of customers' behaviors, motivations and needs.

Qualitative Methods: Contextual Inquiry | Open/structured Interviews | Ethnography Narrative Tours | Storytelling, Journal and Diary Studies | Concept Evaluation | Observational Studies | Discussion Groups | Social Network Studies | Field Trials

Quantitative Methods: In-person Surveys | Internet Surveys | Telephone surveys | Concept Evaluations | Emotive Quantification | Conjoint Studies | Feature-Cost Tradeoffs | User-Based Performance Testing

Analysis and Synthesis Outputs: Affinity Diagramming | Inter-Relationship Diagramming | Taskflow Mapping | Verbatim Content Analysis | Parametricstatistical Analyses | Non-Parametric Statistical Analyses | Frameworks for Communicating Research Learnings | Interaction Patterns Documentation | Product Adoption Roadmaps | Persona Scenarios | Habits and Ideal Scenarios | Hierarchies of Requirements | Strategic Opportunity Identification

Human Factors/Ergonomics: HF/E Competitive Benchmarking | Usability Testing (GUI, device, system) | Heuristic Analysis | Human Error and Risk Analysis | Task Analysis and Workflow Mapping | Cognitive and Physical Workload Assessments | Anthropometric and Ergonomic Analyses | HF/E Standards Compliance

The best research is useless unless it is in a format that is understandable, actionable, and appropriate to your business. All of the deliverables from our research efforts are designed to educate, identify and direct our clients and our development team.

Task Maps/Workflows

Detailed mapping of a workflow allows our team to identify opportunities for improvement that users may not be able to recognize because they simply accept their current situation. Workflow maps highlight specific points of frustration or user error within a process, outline dependencies between tasks and identify decision points throughout the process.

User Requirements and the HF Plan

User requirements and a human factors plan are important outputs for helping to ensure that human performance considerations, safety and needs are integrated in a product development process. Among the several things that must be documented are detailed identification of user tasks, potential risk and safety concerns, along with a plan for understanding and considering these factors throughout the development project.

Strategic Frameworks

Strategic frameworks provide new, often visual ways of looking at problems and opportunities. These outputs serve as a means for sharing complex information with a wide audience, evaluating platforms and frameworks and crafting a strategic approach to development.

One of the frameworks that we utilize classifies user needs into three categories. Different techniques are required to elicit and discover these three types of needs, all of which are important to the success of a program.

Expected needs are the obvious ones that are very meaningful to your customers. These are needs that users often don't even think to mention because to them they are so obvious. Direct observations inside the user's environment is one effective way to document these types of needs

Expressed user needs are the ones that are simple for users to articulate. This may be something such as "needing" and requesting a non-slip handle. Think alouds and other narrative techniques are best at getting to expressed needs.

Exciting needs ("delighters") are things that your customers do not think about as possibilities because they do not know what is technically possible or they do not believe that it could happen. Reaction to emotive stimuli, scenarios and storytelling are ways we elicit emotionally based needs.