Knowing Product Research in 60 minutes
Figma Africa had an AMA Session on “Knowing Product Design in 60 minutes” with FengYi Yu, a UX Researcher at Google.
Fengyi Yu
The Ama Session is more detailed and engaging as it is not just a blog post but an interactive session, more like a press release.
In attendance, following a poll made we have 52 designers, 11 researchers and 6 others.
FengYi Yu
Let me start by talking a bit about myself.
I studied Psychology for BA and MA in Taiwan. I started my user research journey from the hardware industry, making laptops, smartphones, tablets etc. That experience does help me think about users not just from their online experience, but also the environment they’re in, the tools they are using, the people around them, and the alternatives they may have in space etc.
A few years ago, I got an opportunity in a ride-hailing company called Grab in Singapore. I moved to Singapore in 2016. In 2018 I got a chance to join Google Shanghai. China is always a mysterious place to me. Hence I moved to China in 2018. I encountered a few org-changes. And ended relocated back to join a Singapore team. Now I’m working on Google Pay in Singapore.
I believe user research is one of the ways to help the product team to be closer to the users. Generally helping the team solve the right problem, in the right ways, with business considerations in mind.
I’ve worked with teams on a different scale, at a different pace. For many things, I don’t have a perfect answer. In some cases no one has. What we can do is to gather the most information and evidence, and make the best assumption we can base on what we know. But I’m happy to share my thoughts with any of you who care about users in the product development process. I’m also curious about how I can help in another region. Super excited to hear more from all of you as well!
Disclaimer, everything I share here is only my opinion. Please feel free to drop your questions here.
I’m ready to share my thoughts with you
Let’s get started…
But I want to encourage all of you if in your life you got a chance to ask someone about user research, what do you want to know?
QUESTION:
How do you define the correct scope for the task? When to stop most, and not overdesign?
FengYi Yu
I think the first thing I will ask will be
“what do we want to know?”
“Why is this important?”
“By when do we need the answer”
Research can be flexible but we want to do the most we can. However, we don’t want to be a blocker to the project/product dev process. Knowing the context helps.
QUESTION:
Is user research different from product research?
FengYi Yu
In my experience, there might be different types of user researcher. Some are more into “getting to know more about the users”. Which may not be directly helpful to the product at the moment, but might be helpful for the future.
I see myself as a product researcher. To be a product researcher, just knowing the user is not enough. You need to explain to your product partners “why this matters”
How to transfer user insight into product impact?
Which might be relevant to market research, business metrics, tech limitations, design principle etc.
QUESTION:
What are your go-to tools for carrying out effective user research?
FengYi Yu
I think depending on the product stage, the answer might be different. In some cases lab, interviews or in-person interviews may help the most. And they are relatively efficient. But they can’t answer all the questions. In some cases, you need to bring the team to the real field to observe the users and the environment. In some cases only a remote test or online survey is accessible.
My principle is to go with the one most possible and can bring the most back to the team.
QUESTION:
Prior to research
How do you spend time to research for new product
Probably already existing
But you want to make it in a different way
FengYi Yu
The question goes back to “what is the problem you (or your team) are trying to solve?”
If there are ways in the market for the users to solve the problem your team is working on, what makes your solution different from the existing solution?
Is it cheaper? more efficient? Better? Nicer? How to prove that to the team?
QUESTION:
Just curious, what product are you currently working on at Google?
What’s your UX research process like?
FengYi Yu
My Product dev process you can see page 28 of the deck.
https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/mSvTU5lIyVHLb2
I’m working on Google Pay at the moment.
QUESTION:
Most difficult part or experience from a past job?
FengYi Yu
I think in the product team, at the beginning the product partners may not understand what value you can bring to the team.
PM and Engineers are usually trained to make a decision based on numbers or testing results. Which is either black or white, with bugs or without bugs. They might not be comfortable with the ambiguous status. Which is usually the case after the research is done. How to show to them that “I’m here to help you build a better product instead of saying your product is bad” is quite challenging in some cases
QUESTION:
What are the main goals of your User Research process?
FengYi Yu
Build something works well to the potential users meanwhile created a sustainable business model
QUESTION:
Your favourite Growth-Driven design example?
FengYi Yu
But I think I won’t be excited because of the growth of the product. I might be more excited when I see the research impact reflect on the product which makes the product more meaningful to the users or more beneficial to the business.
QUESTION:
And what is your advice for designers seeking employment outside their country of residence? (This is my most important question).
FengYi Yu
Show people why should they hire you
What makes you different and stand out from other candidates
QUESTION:
How do you handle user research when the client isn’t willing to share users’ data?
FengYi Yu
I think I’ll need to know more details to answer this. But a few questions I can think of:
1. What do you want to know from the research
2. How it’s relevant to the data you’re seeking for
3. Why your client doesn’t want to share that with you
4. Besides of that data, are there other indexes you can look for the same or similar purpose
QUESTION:
What procedures do you follow when conducting user research in scattered user communities which are often so important?
FengYi Yu
I think we need to define who are the first tier users, which is the most important group you should focus on at the very beginning. You can’t expect to answer all the questions at once. You need to make all the research the most valuable at the moment.
QUESTION:
How do I know what ideas customers have to improve on my product?
FengYi Yu
I think if you have an existing product, one is to find how to optimize the product. For that running, usability testing might be helpful.
Another is what new feature to build next. For that, you need to know more about your user. Identify the pain points or unmet needs. Running user interview, survey, in-field observation etc might be helpful. Depends on what product area you’re in.
QUESTION:
I am currently a certified usability Tester with UserFeel. I’d love to ask in a place like Africa where the majority doesn’t run the usability test what advice do you have for someone like me and any idea on how to encourage start-up to do research or test before launching?
FengYi Yu
I think working in a startup, you need to show your value first. Work with what you have and continuously bring back critical findings to help the team improve the product to the point that you’re so critical and people want more.
QUESTION:
As a founder of a startup, I know very well the importance of user research, it prevents us from spending resources on what people don’t want.
So in the course of doing research, you talk to lots of users. You hear different opinions.
You hear different requests for features.
Now my question is, what steps do you take to filter the music from the noise?
How do you determine which is the music and which is just noise?
Secondly, a startup might not necessarily have the resources that say Google has to conduct full-fledged user research, in that instance, from experience what lean method can you recommend?
FengYi Yu
In my opinion, as long as it’s a Qual research, it’s analysed by human and it’s subjective. So how to filter out the noise? The researcher need to know the product well enough and able to tell some findings are more critical to other findings. wither from a user’s perspective or from a business perspective etc.
As long as you want to build something which is helpful and useful to the user, you need to know your user enough, even if you do not have a user researcher. Someone from the team needs to do the work. You don’t need perfect user researches, you need good enough research
This book was very helpful to me back then.
QUESTION:
When is user research really important?
FengYi Yu
User research is always important.
But the earlier you start doing it the more possible you can build something from a person’s perspective.
QUESTION:
Have you worked on a project and at the end of it you had to hands off to developers?, If YES … What is the best effective way to do a hands-off?
2. Qualitative and quantitative analysis in user research: can you break them down with examples?
FengYi Yu
I’m a user researcher. The way I can create the most value is when the team can see the point I try to bring to the table and do something to what they’re working on. Designers, PM, Engineers are usually my partners. So whenever they can do something to what they’re doing based on user feedback, is the time I can make the most impact
For 2nd Qn, you can refer to
Nielsen Norman Group
When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods
20 user-research methods: where they fit in the design process, whether they are attitudinal or behavioural, qualitative or quantitative, and their context of use. (159 kB)
QUESTION:
I’m only just learning the ropes so this might be a really obvious question. Do the people participating in your usability testing have to match the persona set for the design or can you do it the other way around by carrying out the usability testing on a wide group and then from the result define who the design is targeted to and then create your persona off that?
FengYi Yu
The “user” in user research can be “current user”, “competitor’s user”, “user who left our product” etc.. Depending on who you asked, you’d learn different things from them.
The team may set a persona at the beginning. (how the persona being built is a Qn from me) But if you’re testing with the current user, even though this participant is not fit to the persona, I believe you can still learn things from him/her.
QUESTION:
What factors do you consider when conducting competitor research?
FengYi Yu
Instead of UI or feature, I think from a researcher’s perspective, doing that by “what tasks can the user do with product A / B/C” makes more sense to me.
QUESTION:
Is it really necessary for one to own a degree in psychology before you can be a user researcher because I noticed most researchers own a degree in psychology?
FengYi Yu
Definitely not. As long as you can prove that you can find what people need, how people think, why people behave in a certain way, then you can work to that. It just happened that many UXRs are from Psychological background. Because that’s the subject relevant to people the most.
QUESTION:
What research methods should one use to target customers or users using a product or feature?
FengYi Yu
Don’t understand the question. But if it’s about price, promotion, communication, market size etc, probably it’s more relevant to market research.
QUESTION:
so most times conducting user research in a startup environment is almost impossible as there’s the pressure to ship features and go to market ASAP, are there any cost-effective ways to carry out research when faced with this type of constraint?
FengYi Yu
Work on the most critical feature, and find critical issues (if there are critical issues).
To prove this is important.
Usually, the person building the product is not equal to the user. The bigger the gap between the product team and the user, the less possible the product can serve the user well.
QUESTION:
As regards Usability testing, what are the best practises in your experience?
FengYi Yu
The best to me is whatever works the best to the org and the team. How much time and resources do you have? I don’t go with perfect research but the most impactful way of doing it. I need other partners to work on my findings.
This is helpful to me in many Qns, in case I can’t answer all the questions. Suggest you check it out
UX Tea Break: Are you a Positivist or an Interpretivist user researcher?
QUESTION:
How would you research the viability of a products business model?
FengYi Yu
I usually don’t challenge the business model. I believe user research is under product development, which is under the business and company. So the business model is what all the stakeholders believe. And it’s not smart to challenge that directly. I’ll try to start the work by assuming that is right. But continuously bring back the evidence to show “um…this doesn’t seem right to me” and let the stakeholders make the final call.
Few of the follow up satisfactory messages from the Figma Africa community to Fengyi Yu
Satish Bawage//Barclays: What energy of response & knowledge you have. Thanks for your time & helping the UX community. You deserve huge applause
Paul Chuks: Thanks Fengyi just coming here great insights you shared, really learnt a lot. Thanks again and goodnight.
Ubong Mattew: Thanks Fengyi for the insights.
Busola Bakare: Thank you very much Fengyi
We learned so much from this session and on behalf of the community, we want to say a very big thank you and we hope to have you more often.
AMA Session curated with thanks by Ebibote Doutimi
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