How I Conduct Research

HOW I CONDUCT RESEARCH 🔎

Courtesy of @ux.patricia
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I would like to explain one method I really believe in — the Contextual Inquiry.
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〰️ 📃 A Contextual inquiry is a semi-structured interview method to obtain information about the context of use, where users are first asked a set of standard questions and then observed and questioned while they work in their own environments.
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〰️ 🙎‍♂️Because users are interviewed in their own environments, the analysis data is more realistic than laboratory data. Contextual inquiry is based on a set of principles that allow it to be molded to different situations. .
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〰️ This technique is used at the beginning of the design process and really helps getting important information about work the insights you need: Practices, the social, technical, and physical environments, and user tools.
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The 4️⃣ principles of contextual inquiry are:
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1️⃣ CONTEXT — Go to the customer’s workplace/Home and watch them doing their own work or completing a task.
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2️⃣ PARTNERSHIP — Talk to customers about their work and engage them in uncovering unarticulated aspects of work.
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3️⃣ INTERPRETATION — Develop a shared understanding with the customer about the aspects of work that matter
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4️⃣ FOCUS — Plan for the inquiry, based on a clear understanding of your purpose.
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〰️ ▶️ The results of contextual inquiry can be used to define requirements, improve a process, learn what is important to users and customers, and just learn more about a new domain to inform future projects.

Context

Observing and interacting with the user in their normal work environment using the same artifacts they use each day.

Partnership

It is important to take the tone of a collaborative exploration with the user, observation of work and discussion its structure and details.

Interpretation

A huge part of our work is to read between the lines. Analyzing them as a whole helps to uncover the design implications.

Focus

The designer needs to subtly the interview so as to capture data relevant to design isssues.

Asking questions to the user as if she is the master craftsman and the interviewer is the new apprentice.

Bonus — useful designer tools for everyday usage:

FlowKit — allows designers to create frighteningly fast user flows within Sketch and Figma.
FlyWheel — is managed WordPress hosting built for designers and creative agencies.
Crello — a free graphic design editor that helps create images for social media, print, and other web-based graphics.
Leadpages — lets you build beautiful, high-converting websites, unlimited landing pages, pop-up forms you can add to your other websites.

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