User Research
I enjoy doing user research because it makes me more aware of my work and the world around me, and has made me a more thoughtful and well-rounded person. User research has also helped me stay humble and appreciate the diverse experiences and perspectives within our society.
At Verizon Media, product designers wield significant influence over the direction of their products. To create compelling designs, we partner closely with our research team. We use user research to inspire design, evaluate solutions, and measure impact. While we are mostly responsible for our own research, I have accumulated years of experience planning and conducting user research. Personally, I enjoy the process because it makes me more empathetic, attuned, and humble both inside and outside of my work.
Here is a framework I constantly refer to. It is suggested by Christian Rohrer, is on two axes: Attitudinal vs. Behavioural studies, and Qualitative vs. Quantitative studies.
Internal usability testing
We've conducted numerous usability tests, which fall into the upper-left quadrant: behavioral and qualitative. When designers get stuck during design reviews, I often suggest running a quick guerrilla test in the office. Watching how others "use" our designs helps us step back from the work and see things from a more holistic perspective. This is what I mean when I say that user research makes us more empathetic and humbling.
Yahoo Shopping brand identity research 2017
For this product value proposition research, we wanted to identify which tagline and visual style resonated best with our existing users. The research fell into the lower-right quadrant of the attitudinal and quantitative dimensions. To conduct the research, we created a survey and placed it in the product to reach out to existing users. The results showed that the three proposed options were evenly preferred, with a slightly higher preference toward option C.
After analyzing the like/dislike reasons, we made several rounds of iteration before launching the redesign.
Example ads on Walmart
Before beginning the design process, we conducted user research to understand how users react to click-in versus click-out ads. This project involved attitudinal and qualitative research, and we video-chatted with 7 users who played examples of these ads found on other sites. We had assumed that click-out ads were universally disliked, but we found that many users didn't care whether the ads were click-in or click-out, as long as they were relevant to their intent. We included this quote in our presentation and received buy-in from stakeholders.