How to Design Research Material
I always had a doubt on how or what software to work on research documents when I was learning and analyzing data based on the user data such as interviews or surveys. I found out that there are many ways to accomplish such tasks and many softwares to simplify the process. There have been a lot of softwares that have been released recently that have been great accomplishments in the Design & Research field. Some of the softwares were created for specific tasks while others were created to implement tasks in a simplified manner.
I’m here to talk about the common softwares that we use to compile our research documents. One of my favourites are the Axure RP software tool that helps users design user flows, feature maps, prototyping and many other documents pertaining to User Experience Design.
I found that Axure is losing its competitive edge against other newer software that provide more sustainable design and easier functionality. If you are a beginner at designing, I would suggest that you use Balsamiq to make your primitive workflows before using advanced software like Protoshare.
I used to work on Axure all the time when I realized that there are other softwares with more potential to create better Research documents with lesser effort than required. An example of this software is Indigo Studio by INFRAGISTICS. When you realize that the software does not matter, you will realize that the research documents are used to show the data that is analysed from the user and the data is converted into a visual form that a designer can understand. So whether you use:
Analysis of data is an expertise in itself. Many researcher provide documents in the form of Spreadsheets or Word documents to the Designers. Here is the link on how Axure trumps all other Protoytping tools: https://www.quora.com/How-does-Adobe-Experience-Design-CC-compare-to-Axure
Whether you are a designer creating a research document or you are a professional researcher creating a research document, the software remain the same. From my experiences, these are the softwares that provide simplicity while also help accomplish the research task at hand:
These are some of the softwares that have been launched in the past few years and have had a great amount of success amongst the UX community. Please tune into my Medium posts for more information on the latest software out in the market for UX professionals.
