TV Remote User Research & Prototype Evaluation Plan
Research Plan Practice 2, HCID 530 U/UR
Scenario
Your team is developing a universal TV remote that is easy to set up and easy to use and can replace the plethora of common home entertainment remotes. The team is already designing the physical form of the remote as well as defining the key functionality for the remote. They are asking for user research to identify the most common home entertainment remotes (to help determine the “cut line” for what type of remotes will or will not be supported) and they want ongoing testing of prototypes and builds to inform ongoing design and spec decisions.
TV Remote User Research & Prototype Evaluation Plan
by Nina, UX Researcher, xyz@abc.com
Stakeholders: Project Manager, UX Team, Marketing Team, Engineering Team
Last updated: June 9, 2014
Goals
Identify the most common home entertainment remotes;
Test and analyze prototypes, and define fixes, improvements, and features.
Research Plan Schedule
Research Questions
1. Who is the target audience? Who often use TV remote, and what are their attitudes, experience, and needs about TV remote?
2. What are the common home entertainment remotes, and their pros and cons?
3. What current prototypes work well and what do not work well?
Methodology
PHASE 1
Goals: Know more about this project, what user research we have already done, and what resources and research findings we already have and know; Understand business requirements and constraints, and stakeholders’ goals and needs.
Research Activities: Stakeholders Meeting, Secondary Research, Competitive Products Analysis
Stakeholders Meeting
This project is in the generative and evaluative process. It is likely that we have already done a lot of user research, both secondary and primary research in the previous process. First of all, I’d like to have a stakeholder meeting, to know about what we have and know, what we want to know from the next step researches and evaluations, and what are the goals and questions. This stakeholders meeting should include all the teams who are working on this project. Specific questions to ask related teams:
Who is the target audience? What and how is the market?
What are the resources and budget we have?
Do you have any market research resources about the current state of home entertainment remotes? If so, what are the pros and cons?
Do you have any business goals? What are the goals of this product?
How can we tell our TV remote is easy to set up and easy to use and can replace the plethora of common home entertainment remotes? Do you have any research demonstrations?
What kind of prototypes we have, and how many?
What did you aim to prototype for on each prototype? What do you want to answer from each prototype? Do you have any specific assumptions for each prototype?
How well do you think you address the problems in those prototypes, and why?
What are the current design constraints and principles, and why?
Are there questions you want to have answered? If so, what are they?
If you get answers, how will you use them?
Secondary Research
Depends on what we have and know from the stakeholders meeting, we need to do more or less additional secondary research, in order to make a deep understanding of the current home entertainment remotes market, as well as the target audiences. Additionally, know more about existing products and technology, and their pros and cons.
Competitive Products Analysis
Conduct several quick competitive usability testing, in order to answer the following questions:
What are the target audiences of these existing products?
What are the successes and failures (technology, innovations, products) of those home entertainment remotes?
What are the pros and cons of existing home entertainment remotes?
What are the similarities and differences? What work well and what do not work well?
Use good frameworks to analyze and synthesize those findings.
PHASE 2
Goals: Evaluate prototypes, uncovering usability and user experience issues; Define fixes and improvements.
Research Activities: Usability Testing (Behavior Prototype) + Contextual Inquiry
Deliverables: Usability Testing Report
Usability Testing (Behavior Prototype) + Contextual Inquiry
Since we already have physical prototypes and a set of key functionalities, conduct usability testing, in the form of behavior prototype, and together with contextual inquiry would be very helpful and efficient.
Participants: It will be better if existing researches already have some statistics about the home entertainment remotes market, as well as the user groups. 8-10 participants, 2-3 never used any TV remote, 2-4 have been using TV remote at least 1-2 month, 3-4 have been using TV remote at least 3 month.
If we have more than one prototype (better), conduct parallel prototype evaluations — evaluate all prototypes at the same time. Conduct behavior prototype in participants’ own houses ideally, or set up similar home environment in the usability lab as backups.
Test key functionalities via scenario-based tasks, and try to answer the following questions:
· Do we express well about the key functionalities in the prototypes? What are the successes and failures, and why?
· Do we include the most common and essential functionalities in our prototypes? Are there any additional important remotes that we do not know but generated by users?
· What is the priority of all functionalities? Do we have a very good structure and sequence of them?
· What are users’ fulfillments and frustrations during the interactions with this TV remote, and why?
· What do work well and what does not work well? What are the fixes and improvements?
PHASE 3
Goals: Define the most common home entertainment remotes, and prioritize prototype fixes and improvements.
Research Activities: Focus Group, Stakeholders Meeting
Deliverables: Final User Research and Evaluation Report
Focus Group
Conduct two rounds of focus groups, 8-10 per group, participants should include both stakeholders and target users, in order to answer the following questions:
What are the most common home entertainment remotes?
What types of TV remotes of this product will be and will not be supported?
What is the key fixes of these prototypes?
What improvements are appropriate and acceptable?
Stakeholders Meeting
Finalize the final user research and evaluation report.
Have a stakeholders meeting, and present research and evaluation findings, as well as improvements and suggestions.
