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Simple User Research Methodsthe First Step to Improving Your Website
Ginger Bidwell • Rebecca Blakiston • Rachel Hawes
November 2013
UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
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Center for Creative Photography website
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Special Collections website
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Many other websites
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Google Analytics: a starting point
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• What are my users tapping on?
• Where did they come from?
• What were users looking for?
• What content do they use the most?
• Where do they go on the site?
Free up your time with users in-person for other questions
Google Analytics: learn what and where
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What are my users tapping on?
Google Analytics: learn what and where
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Google Analytics: learn what and where
What are my users tapping on?
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Google Analytics: learn what and where
Where did they come from?
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Google Analytics: learn what and where
Where did they come from?
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Google Analytics: learn what and where
What were users looking for?
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Google Analytics: learn what and where
What content do they use the most?
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Google Analytics: learn what and where
Where do they go on your site?
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• Who they are
• What they gained
• How they felt
• Why they left
Use in-person methods to discover some of these insights
Google Analytics can’t tell you:
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User interviews help you learn why and how
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• Why they use a service
• How they think about things
• Whether they would use a service
• How they describe things
Make sure you’re getting information you can act on!
User interviews can tell you:
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• Formulate questions that can be answered quickly
• Find a place where your users hang out
• Offer incentives for participation
• Ask questions and record user responses
• Interpret those results
Share your results widely – tell your user’s story.
How to do user interviews
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https://vimeo.com/78376929
User interviews help you learn why and how
What is Document Delivery?
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Focus Groups can give you longer stories from users and conversations that can help shape the project
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• Formulate questions that will generate discussion
• Find people from your target audience
• Invite them in, offer incentives for participation
• Ask questions and record user responses
• Interpret those results
You might learn something surprising!
How to do focus groups
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“Show me what you’ve got!”
“What materials are you usually looking for?”
Focus groups help you learn more about who, why, and how
Users having a conversation about your site
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Use card sorting to guide your labels and structure
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Openvs.
Closedvs.
Hybrid
Entire websitevs.
section of website
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Remotevs.
in person
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Recruit actual users.
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Pay attention to the way they describe things.
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Why test your website?
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Usability testing can lead to changes that directly help your end user
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• Who they are
• How they feel about your site
• What obstacles exist
• Where changes need to be made
All information gathered during usability testing can be informative!
Usability testing can tell you
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What and how to test
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What and how to test
Intercept Usability Testingvs.
In-depth Usability Testing
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Intercept Testing
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Intercept Testing: Message to your users
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Task: To learn about renewing a library book
Scenario: You have a library book that is due soon. You would like to extend the due date as it is a book you are using in one of your classes. How many times can you renew the book?
What: Tasks and Scenarios
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User 1: Sophomore, English
• Attempt 1: My Account > Sign-In > Fail
• Attempt 2: Help > How do I? > FAQ > Borrowing
Information > Renewals > Success!
How: Chart paths to see user drop points and success rates.
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• Could renewing be grouped under borrowing privileges?
• I wouldn’t look under services for this because late fees aren’t a service.” Could you call it “fines” instead of “fees”?
• I think it should say “Want something we don’t have?” or “Tell us what you need.”
Capture comments to relay at decision meetings
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Task UsersSuccess
(Users)%
Total
Attempts
Success
(Attempts)%
1Find out circulation
periods6 5/6 ≈83 11 5/11 ≈45
2Find out how to get
something using ILL5 5/5 100 5 5/5 100
3Find information on fines,
late fees, etc.5 4/5 80 5 4/5 80
4To learn about renewing a
library book5 4/5 80 8 4/8 50
5 Request an article 7 5/7 ≈71 10 5/10 50
6 Suggest a purchase 3 0/3 0 10 0/10 0
Show your results
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• Tests more in-depth functions
• Video-tape
• Duration: 30-60 minutes
• Substantial reward
• Test members from each target user group
(undergraduate, faculty, graduate, archivist)
In-depth usability testing
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UndergraduateStudent
Archivist
Graduate Student Faculty Member
In-depth usability testing: Primary User Groups
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https://vimeo.com/78200435
In-depth Usability Testing
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Intercept Testing
• Perform intercept usability test
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Where does user research fit in?
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• Designers and developers can make data-backed
decisions
• Content editors get familiar with how users think
about their content
• Project managers learn key benefits from the
user’s point of view
And, of course, your users benefit because your website improves.
Who benefits from user research?
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• More people care about improving the website
• Your knowledge builds over time and you can make better educated guesses
• You stay connected with users and understand what it’s like inside their heads
• You start to consider the user’s journey through your services
• You’ll have data to fall back on when making decisions later in the process
• A culture of user-centered thinking develops
What happens when you add user research to your process?
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Rebecca• @blakistonr• [email protected]
Rachel• [email protected]
Ginger• @liquid06• [email protected]
Questions?