ux research for_startups

UX Research for Startups

Olga Smyslova

Me, Myself, and I

Moscow State University, Psych Department: all about hackers  Usability, User (Experience) Research, Quantitative Research, Interaction Design

UX Researcher @ Kaiser Permanente 

Great UX, crowdsoursing, anything internal motivation Data: qual and quant when tied together

This Presentation:

Why UX?What UX - methods, tips and tricksCheat-cheats and crowdsourcing Game mechanics - flow Tracking user satisfaction in games (and not only games)

What UX? Why UX?

Because this is what users want.Because otherwise they close the window or app. Don't make users think 

Who on Earth wants to think "what was your thinking when developing this?"

Most Usable Products?

The simpler, the better...

Example of a bad UX – a recent story

Imagine that you owe an HP EliteBook laptop and at some point you cannot get Internet connection.... Where is wireless switch?

Why Test?

Because you cannot ship your brains and eyes to all of your users.

User Centered Design Process

UX Method Goal Qual/Quant

Contextual inquiries/field studies

Users wants and needs, workflow, tasks

Qualitative, observation, several people

Surveys Users wants and needs, competitors perception

Quantitative, many users

Focus groups Users wants and needs Qualitative

Card sorts Organize information on the website/in the app

Qualitative

Usability study Find usability bloopers, test for user acceptance

Qualitative

A/B testing Find usability bloopers, choose between designs

Quantitative, 1-10% of your users

Contextual inquiries

When task flows and users’ needs are not clear

Interviews or observation Non-intrusive Gather all artifacts Results: use case

scenarios and task flows

Surveys

Quickly get feedback from many users

Cheap and effective Useful to set up

priorities for further development

Answer to a question “What is wrong? What is important?”

Focus groups

Good when you have no clue what your users want

You will need 10-15 people

And good moderating skills

But can get a gracious solutions in an hour

Card sorts

When you need to organize content on the site

Your own card sort can help…

But it can be invalid too So better get more

people

Usability studies

Use prototypes: web, paper; wireframes

Test early Test all changes Test over Skype Test in a coffee

shop

A/B Testing

All major websites are doing it

You can do it too Use Google

Analytics

How to test?

Create a list of tasks first (relevant, easy to understand for the users)

Don't push, don't critisize

Don't prime with your own questions

Crowdsoursing

is a way for a startuper to create something, using nothing... or almost nothing...

There are many people out there

… who have nothing to do, but review our wireframes, workflows, and websites…

They may not be our target audience…

But they still can give us valuable feedback

Photo by Samasource.org

… and there are many services that are helping us meet these people or help us with tools for a meeting

Pricing

Free in exchange for testing First test is free/first N responses are free Paid services

You test for me, I’ll test for you

Usabilla.com

Lets you run 1 free test at a time

No options to customize your test

Service offers to show one page to the users and ask them a set of pre-defined questions.

There are ways to customize questions, but they are for paid users only

Heatmaps: CrazyEgg

ClickDensity: a free 30-day trial (1 page, 5000 clicks)

Card-sorting tools: X-Sort and WebSort

Free Don’t offer you study participants Offer analysis and outcome of card sort

X-sort – Mac only

X-sort

X-sort

X-sort: reports

Amazon Mechanical Turk

A meeting place for “employers” and “employees”

“Artificial” Artificial Intelligence: turkers work on easy, simple tasks that cannot be done by a computer, but can be done by people

HIT examples:

Filtering images Sorting items for online stores Answering surveys Filling in forms Usability studies Making pictures

Advantages

HITS are priced from 1 cent to a couple of dollars

Number of users + shared work = saved time Ability to “prescreen” turkers before giving

them HITs

Disadvantages

You will have to clean the data from bots and dishonest turkers

Not-user friendly interface

TheSheepMarket.com

Too many services to compare

http://www.idea.org/blog/2011/10/24/usability-and-user-experience-testing-options/

Inspiration/Cheating tools

www.scrnshots.comwww.palletelovers.com www.iconfinder.comGoogleGoogle Google

Game Mechanics and Flow Experience

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi  "Between Boredom and Anxiety"

«Опыт потока – особое состояние поглощенности деятельностью, при котором действие следует за действием согласно своей внутренней логике, а результат отходит в сознании на второй план»

Flow Experience:

Match between challenges and skillsClear goals Clear and immediate feedback  

Dimensions/Components of Flow:

• Clear goals • Concentration • Merging of action and awareness • Distorted sense of time• Sense of Control• A lack of awareness • Absorption 

Flow Deprivation Experiment

Study participants had to stop each time when they felt they experience flow. It doesn't feel good at all.

Experience Sampling Method

- using pagers (now it can be cell-phones or Internet)- interrupting participants' activities - asking for an immediate feedback - as non-retrospective as possible

Bolt|Peters: Spore Game Study

Similar methodology, but: Not ESM, because participants hated to be interruptedSimple "Emoticon's Feedback"Recreated "home environment" "Remote study" - talking to players through the networkhttp://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/researching-video

Games and Usability - isn't it irrelevant?

Try to find a way in this maze: How much time do you need?

Create the right challenges

Keep in mind users abilities

How to track users' satisfaction? Net Promoter Score

How likely are you to recommend company/brand/product Xto a friend/colleague/relative?

Net Promoter Score: what to do with it