Part 1 — Tips for Doing Agile UX Research Field Study

Hello I work as a UX researcher for a product company with my Research Head (mentor). This article tells you about the things to keep in mind when you want to conduct your field research in a single day & without any prior preparation.

What is field study (in short :)

The purpose of the field study is to observe the ground reality, so in short duration of time the task is to cover shadowing of all the user cases on the ground (this will also include shadowing of competitor service on the field).This majorly consists of observation on following params:

Place : Study the current setup & environment, click pictures of the visual clues (if any) if they help you to gather information related to the subject(problem area).

People : This included one on one interviews with the users & the most important people stakeholders of the current setup (Senior management & workers on field)

Context : The context in which your product is used, this is drafted well using Consumer Journey map, to understand the touch points of the user journey.

Team formation : Ideal team size for conducting a field study is 3. However its best to divide the the responsibilities like below:

1st researcher — interview the management on the ground

2nd researcher — interviews the users

3rd research manager — who coordinates well & knows the management people on the ground. (This person is more like a research manager who gets you resources aka users or anyone from the management to get the overall understanding of the system)

Lets see how do you proceed in covering all the aspects mentioned above:

Place : Try to collect video snippets or photos of the current setup to communicate the problem areas well to the designers & PM through your report.

People : Objective here is to understand how the current system works by taking interviews from

MANAGEMENT - Things you need to ask on the ground are:

(Always remember these broader themes to be covered on the field)

1. What does your day look like on the field?
2. What are your roles & responsibilities?
3. What are your major concerns?

4. What problems do you face on daily basis?(understand the business & ask from both consumer & provider perspective)

5. What are the other options apart from our service? How many people opt for other services & why?

6. What do we need to solve for that your life becomes easier?

Ask him to show you all the setup around. DO NOT FORGET TO TAKE PICTURES OF THE SETUP.

Tips for making questions to be asked to the users:

Making a user journey map in your mind. Identify the areas where you think there is a problem & frame questions around it to validate user understanding of the solution offered by the product.

For a case where users undergo a task flow using your app & has to go to a spot to avail the services your product provides. Few questions that would help are :

1. What do you do next?

2. How do you know where to go?

3. How do you go there? What makes you recognise the place?

4. How much time do you wait ?

All these help you to validate user’s understanding of the system & also identify the potential opportunities to be communicated to your team.

Points to keep in mind while taking user interview:

1.Introduce yourself, quickly tell them the agenda as to what are you here for & then tell them about the incentives you have got for them. Also tell them the time you would take in advance so that they do not hurry during the process.

2.Divide the tasks before hand so that you can collect as much as data possible.

3. People will talk about their general complaints/concerns listen to them at the end, you should know how to shape up your discussion.

Stay tuned until we cook up our next article on how to do quick documentation on field trips….