CXL Scholarship — Conversion Optimization MiniDegree — Week 5 of 12
This article is the fifth in a series of 12 articles over 12 weeks that, I’ll be writing an article discussing my learnings in the CXL — Conversion Optimization Minidegree. I recently applied to the scholarship application program and was accepted. Part of that process is to write a weekly article discussing what I have learned in the previous week. I am a lifelong learner and every opportunity that I have to expand my knowledge in an area of passion is one I grab wholeheartedly.
Total time approximation to complete MiniDegree: 82hr 09 min (it was 78h 59min but they added another course).
You can find more information here: https://cxl.com/institute/programs/conversion-optimization/
So this is week five and I’m nearing the end of the Conversion Research side of the course. I had very little bandwidth for any courses this week and only managed to squeeze in one.
User Research
Instructor: Megan Kierstead
How to build the right product by talking to your customers.
“If you’re not doing user research, you are failing your users”
— Megan Kierstead
What is user research — sometimes called ux research, product research, design research?
Why design matters.
Prevalence of colour blindness — need to consider impact and test for
User research is about empathy
At its core, it is about understanding people’s goals, needs and beliefs.
I found it interesting to hear that companies that do user research tend to do better. They are better places to work, they tend to have more success financially as well. It allows earlier circumvention of bad decisions. It saves time and money and creates good will of the customer.
However, it’s important to recognize it’s not always 100% accurate. It’s a way to explore and test ideas. It won’t necessarily solve all your problems.
It’s about asking meaningful questions and thinking critically about the answers.
Our biases and assumptions impact how we interact with products. User research allows us to document this to reduce the impact.
User research isn’t:
- Isn’t just usability testing
- Isn’t always right
- Isn’t only relevant to designers
The line is blurry between marketing and user personas
Marketers want to know the buyer
The buyer and user are often very different
User research is focused on the end-user
Start with goals: define the question
Questions — method
Different methods are used at different times in a product lifecycle.
Open-ended vs closed research questions
The less you know about your user — the more open-ended questions are needed..
Closed questions are more appropriate for testing later in the process.
We need to be very clear about what we assume and believe.
Qualitative research gives you answers to the why, how to address things.
Quantitative research tells you how many and how much.
Listening to what people say:
Attitudinal research — interviews and surveys give you many of the tools to answer your questions about users.
She frequently talks about how people won’t always tell you what they really think. It made me think of the tv show House and how Gregory House always said patients will lie ;)
Interviews are the most important tool for user research.
Interviews: a conversation with a user. Important to establish rapport and trust.
3 step plan for conducting useful interview
- Define goals for interview
- Create data collection template based on these goals
- Conduct the interview. Let the conversatoin flow. Ask why a lot.
Pro tip: bring a buddy if possible
Ask permission to record the interview.
The questions used have to be strategic or you could skew the answers.
Tell me about your experience to do x.
Humans are not good at predicting their future behaviour.
Surveys:
Feedback
Feedback, any input on your product website or experience.
Feedbaack can come from:
Support tickets
Customer support, success and sales teams
Website feedback forms
Social media
Surveys
Forums and communit8es
Interviews
Slack
Etc.
Must feedback in return isn’t actionable or useful.
Good feedback is actionable and useful.
Watching what people do:
Behavioural — testing
Build a test plan and write your tasks.
Open-ended tasks — exploratory, help you explore friction, moments of delight.
Directed tasks — good for determining specifics, ie. how long does a specific task take.
Remote vs in person
Remote- zoom, microphone, etc.
In person — more challenging
Quantitative vs qualitative — recommend qualitative. Biggest bang for your buck.
Moderated vs unmoderated — can setup video recording for unmoderated. Moderated, sometimes users will use moderator as a crutch. Can contaminate results.
Keep tests to less than 30 minutes.
Avoid selling people on your features, keep things neutral.
How to conduct research with the right people
Research with users who match your goals
Do you want new users or existing users? Both have good feedback from different perspectives.
Sometimes in B2B companies, you might not have access to your end users. You might only have access to the initial buyers. End users don’t always even want to use the product as it’s being pushed on them from above.
Recruiting responders — are paid. Be cautious as they may try to game the system. Don’t make it obvious who you are working for.
Exclude people whose experience will bias them.
Don’t use only open-ended questions.
Design questions where it isn’t easy to “guess” the right answer.
Recommend software service Respondent
Tell them why their input matters.
Ideally compensate participants for their time. You don’t want them to feel indebted to you.
Professionals compensated more.
Determine your % of no shows.
Make your participants feel loved and cared for.
Ideas, teeshirts, handwritten thank you note.
How many people should I be researching with?
Controversial topic
Quantitative — need to have enough approx 30 users
Qualitative — dependent on your population, research, look for data saturation. Patterns apply to different segments. Typically 5–6 people per segment.
Note: if the scope ie really large from end to end, you will likely need more than 5 users.
Your own experience as a researcher will impact the number of users you will need. 5 is a great place to start.
How to Synthesize your research:
- Learn how to organize your data.
- Techniques to make sense of large amounts of comple info
- Synthesize data to support risky decisions
Insight driven decision making vs data driven decision making
- Affinity diagramming
- Quantitatve coding
- 2x2
- Wordclouds — transcripts and verbatim results
Creating Memorable , useful research deliverables
Again, focus on goals.
Personas need to be recognized as something useful. A person is not a persona.
Personas:
Create a shared understanding and language
They force us to prioritize
They distill large amounts of info into digestable and short info
They allow people to focus on a much smaller number of user needs.
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This was an insane week for me work wise with 12 hour days and working all 7 days.it’s like this during our big product launches. I’m off on vacation though camping in the woods soon and so will be hopefully able to take a much needed break from work and study for a week or so. When I’m back, I’ll be wrapping up the research section and on to the testing section.
