Experience Mapping
An Experience Map maps out a chronological order of actions and highlights specific pain points along the way. This is a great way to turn your site observations into a visual story; it can also be used to set goals and gather information for personas. This should be a team activity involving all members of the design team who have conducted site visits. This is a time for each team[...]
Feature Ideation
This is a method of reframing known user needs, using them as inspiration for creative new features. The rapidly generated, tangible ideas generated from this can be evolved and integrated into a product feature set. MATERIALS Design materials (e.g, large paper, Sharpies, note cards, post its) Smallest space where the participants can cluster around a wall or board where post it notes can be placed and rearranged Detailed steps 1.[...]
Exploratory Interviews
Allows you to understand the problem you are trying to solve from the perspective of the user. Exploratory Interviews test assumptions about the behaviors, beliefs and needs of your target audience. They also help you gather information to understand the problem better, create new ideas and prioritize features. How to use it? 1. DEFINEDefine your topic for investigation (questions or assumptions). 2. RECRUITRecruiting takes time for interviews. Depending on the[...]
Storyboarding
Storyboarding builds a sequential narrative of the user’s interaction with your product. It is useful in several stages of the product development process: Early phases – Making early ideas concrete and helps with the feature articulation. Later phases – Provides a reality check of the interactions, coherence, and flow. Throughout – it also can act as an alignment tool and also surfaces important parts of the experience that lie outside[...]
How Might We __?
How might we __? (HMW) is a technique for brainstorming new opportunities. It is often used for looking at insights gathered from research and framing them into opportunities or alternatives. When teams are feeling stuck, HMW can be used to reframe the current problem and move the team forward. Detailed steps Define the area you want to explore, whether it is a current problem statement, a insight you’ve gathered from research or[...]
5 “Whys”
Repeatedly asking “why?” in order to get to the root cause of the problem with the goal of thinking differently. Detailed steps The concept is basic in its setup and easy to implement. When you face an problem, don’t accept the first statement of the problem that comes to mind but challenge it by asking “why” 5 times. This is also called abstraction laddering. 1. DEFINEIdentify an initial problem statement for review. 2. MAKECreate[...]
Paper Prototyping
Paper prototypes communicate and shape an idea early on by making it real and testing it early with your users. Detailed steps 1. DEFINESettle on an idea to develop that you have already storyboarded and know how should work. 2. PLANFrom your storyboard start to flesh out what the product experience would look like to deliver on your experience. Ask questions. What interactions would the user need to have, where does your[...]
Expert Review
Expert review is another general method of usability testing. As the name suggests, this method relies on bringing in experts with experience in the field (possibly from companies that specialize in usability testing) to evaluate the usability of a product. A heuristic evaluation or usability audit is an evaluation of an interface by one or more human factors experts. Evaluators measure the usability, efficiency, and effectiveness of the interface based[...]
Remote Usability Testing
In a scenario where usability evaluators, developers and prospective users are located in different countries and time zones, conducting a traditional lab usability evaluation creates challenges both from the cost and logistical perspectives. These concerns led to research on remote usability evaluation, with the user and the evaluators separated over space and time. Remote testing, which facilitates evaluations being done in the context of the user’s other tasks and technology,[...]
Guerilla Research
Guerrilla usability (aka “hallway testing”) is a quick and cheap method of usability testing in which people – e.g., those passing by in the hallway, are asked to try using the product or service. This can help designers identify “brick walls”, problems so serious that users simply cannot advance, in the early stages of a new design. Anyone but project designers and engineers can be used (they tend to act[...]