Krzysztof Abramiuk
Many times in our texts about future plans, we have used the terms UX, UX Design and UX Research. As they name our important, if not the most important initial actions, we would like to take a closer look at them. What do they mean, what are the connections between them, and why is the skillful execution of the activities behind them critically important to the digital product that the portal will eventually be? – We will answer these and other questions, starting with UX Research.
Every digital product should, as a rule, be addressed to a specific group or groups of recipients. It doesn’t matter whether this is a broad group, such as all students in Poland, or a narrow one, such as psychologists who treat people remotely. The important thing is that we know to whom we direct our offer and solutions, the use of which makes it is possible due to, for example, the portal on which we are working. Since we already know to whom we address a tool, it is necessary to know how to get down to its design and creation. It is necessary to know what needs representatives of the target group have and how to construct functionalities, so that people actually use our solution.
In the conditions of commercial activity, where due to costs and competition one has to weigh expenses extremely carefully, it allows to avoid wrong business decisions. One of the consequences of such wrong decisions may be putting in motion a very expensive production process for something, that later simply will not be used and, thus, will not be sold. In any other field, such as social activity and a portal like the one we are working on, a solid examination of the expectations (including unconscious and unspoken ones) of potential users, who they are, what they would like to use the portal for, how they would see it and their role in it, is both practical and honest. Practical, as thanks to this we have a chance to achieve the statutory goals of the Foundation. Honest, because we want to offer something that will not be a waste of time for the portal users.
When user needs need to be examined? From what has been written so far, we already know that certainly at the very beginning of a project. Zealous defenders of research as an important, if not the most important part of the whole “life cycle” of a solution, would probably say “constantly”, or “always when it is possible”. This is a legitimate view, all the more so because the more volatile the market you operate in, the more often your users’ preferences and operating conditions change. Whether these are really their tastes or they just think they are theirs is another pair of shoes. The fact is that without constant updating of knowledge about the target user and competition, you can live in a blissful sense of stability for a long time, until it turns out that it is too late for radical changes and you have to wind your business up.
Usability research is divided into quantitative and qualitative research. Which one we use depends on the goals we want to achieve in the project. The former is aimed at answering the question what is the scale of the phenomenon. It provides data that tells us about the tendencies prevailing in social groups, about the moods among them and how significant or marginal a certain phenomenon is. The focus of this research is not on the experience of the individual, and thus it does not answer the question of how an individual person experiences a phenomenon, what it means to him or her, and how it affects his or her behavior. This is the perspective that is most important when designing dedicated solutions to address specific needs.
Qualitative research has a large number of tools at its disposal. Most of them have something in common with ethnographic methods such as interviewing, which focuses strongly on learning about the conditions of people’s lives, their beliefs and deep motivations. Thus, there are diary studies, observations (participatory or not), but the most important are undoubtedly the so-called IDIs (In-Depth Interviews). They usually take place in a very intimate atmosphere, i.e. respondent + researcher/researcher + observer. During the interview the researcher tries to ask the respondent comprehensively about his/her attitude towards the given research issue, from the very obvious immediate perspectives, to the most distant ones. It is supposed to help to collect various points of view on a given issue and to learn about problems, needs and potential solutions that are not obvious, sometimes unaware for respondent himself. In order to achieve this, a skilful analysis of in-depth interviews is necessary, which is conducted, among other things, by looking for regularities in the statements and using special templates.
Usability tests are also another important part of the research process. Basically it means checking how (whether it will be easy or difficult) the user will cope with specific tasks he will have to perform in a digital product via the interface. Such tests are usually recorded and observed, and from the way the user approaches the tasks, where he gets lost and where there are no problems, conclusions are drawn as to what should be improved in the given solution. This is a very clear way to improve product usability, because often user behavior directly indicates what should be changed immediately.
To sum up, needs and usability research, both qualitative and quantitative, determine the success of a project in the long run. The key element here is the reliability of data obtained from them and continuous improvement of one’s knowledge about the changing needs of users and trends on the market.
