What activities did we do at the user research workshop at Google Developers Launchpad Week in Mexico City?

[Event: Google Developers Launchpad Week Mexico City organized by Paco Solsona y Andrés Hernández in December 2015]

1. We started the work day with the talk “Tips to do User Research in a creative way”

• Why did we choose this talk?
• Because Design Sprint puts behind the idea of making an extensive user research at the beginning of each project and, instead, replaces it for a specific and quick user research at the beginning of each sprint.
• Therefore, researchers have to become very big creative people.
• So, if, for example, we are doing a project for a university, we may need to go into the classrooms and create dynamics with the students to understand their needs and pains.
• Or, if we are doing a project for a telecommunications company, we may need to organize a focus group with the contact center operators in order to deeply understand the sprint-related problems that trigger the users (need) to call, after they were unable to solve THEM online.
• And the challenge is to obtain insights in one day, the first day of the sprint.

2. User types definition and mapping

• Then we asked teams to define a draft about the types of users who use their app (including their name, age and a brief description).
• And we asked them to map each user type into a cartesian axis, where “X” represents the online purchase experience and “Y” represents theknowledge about the services the startup offers.
• This segmentation should come from further study, but we regarded positively that the teams initially outline a draft based on their experience so that they can then adjust it with work in the field.
• The objective of this exercise is that the team visualize on the cartesian axis that it needs to consider different human beings, with different previous experiences and different knowledges.
• Then, the team will have to validate their hypotheses about the users types and adjusts their characteristics based on the field research, but it’s a first draft.

3. User Journey milestones definition

• The user journey is a horizontal line that sequentially shows the general steps (or milestones!) that users need to go through to achieve their goal.
• (I think I love the word “milestone”).
• For instance, if we think about a wedding gifts app, the user journey could be:
• (1) Find the couple, (2) See the available gifts, (3) Choose a gift (4) Write a dedication (5) Pay (6) Receive the confirmation.

4. Needs, concerns, and questions mapping during the first user interaction with the app

• The next step was laying out — based on each User Journey milestone — assumptions about the the user needs, concerns, and questions the first time they use the app (on the learning curve).
• The objective of this exercise is that the team visualize the amount of assumptions it will need to delve into and validate in each sprint.
• And, also, that the team observe that needs will change — and the mapping will be bigger — when analyzing the user journey of those same users but who have become frequent users.

5. Preparing an interview

• And to wrap up with the workshop, we asked teams to define — according to the assumptions laid out in the exercise on the user journey — how an interview would look like in order to go deeper with these hypotheses with real users.

In conclusion, how does the User Research role change in the Design Sprint Method?

• When we apply the Design Sprint Method, the challenge is replacing the general and extensive user research done at the beginning of the project, and inserting it in little quotas at the beginning of each sprint.
• Just as a reminder, each sprint is made up of six quick steps (on 5 days):understanding, defining, diverging, converging, prototyping, and validating.
• The vertiginous thing is that users research has to be adapted to the postmodernism maelstrom and be done within the little and quick step called “Understanding”.
• But the very good — and compensatory — thing is that “Understanding” is the very first step.

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