Zengenti and Clearleft recently partnered on a redesign, which began with user research that defined the trajectory of the whole project. In this talk you’ll learn about why user research should never be treated as a ’nice to have’, how the team did it, and how to get research to stick in peoples' minds.

1. DON’T SOLVE THE
WRONG PROBLEM:
USER RESEARCH FTW!
@bensauer
ROCKETCONF 05/16
@beauvais

2. WHY IS SOLVING
THE RIGHT PROBLEM
SO HARD?

3. THE ORG USERS
THEWEBSITE

4. EINSTEIN
If I had only one hour to save the world,
I would spend fifty-five minutes defining
the problem, and only five minutes
finding the solution.

5. If you’re prepared to spend hundreds of
thousands on your website, why can’t you
spend a much smaller amount making sure
it’s the right website?

6. What mindset should you adopt?

9. “In the best teams we studied, every single
team member spends an average of two
hours every six weeks watching people use
the product (or a competitor’s product).”
Jared Spool

10. WHAT KIND OF
RESEARCH SHOULD
YOU DO?

11. What?
Behaviour, outcomes
Analytics, KPIs, conversion rate
Sentiment
Voice of Customer
Mini-surveys, feedback
Why?
Experience
Interviews, usability testing
large scale
small
scale

12. USER INTERVIEWS

14. Conducting user interviews
is a core UX skill.
If your team isn’t doing
them, start now.

15. START WITH RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
We want to know how students go about
researching their choice of university.
PRIMARY
SECONDARY
What problems do they encounter using our
website and our competitors websites?

16. TYPICAL INTERVIEW STRUCTURE
•Intro: why, brief, waiver, payment (5 mins)
•Interview: about them (20-25 mins)
•Usability testing (20-25 mins)
•Summary (5 mins)

17. DISCUSSION GUIDE TIPS
•Condense the guide to an A4 sheet.
•Start broad, e.g.: “So… tell me about your work.”
•Group your questions into themes.
•Order themes in a way that narrows over time.
•Put your really important theme near the end.
•Uncover details to test later.

18. FIND YOUR INNER ZEN INTERVIEWER

19. The hardest thing is to avoid
asking leading questions. Practise.

20. QUESTIONS + TIPS
• “You applied to Birmingham…?” (parrot talk)
• “Tell me more about…”
• What, why, where, when, how
• “What are you currently thinking?”
• “Describe the steps you’re going through here”
• “Before you click, what do you think will happen next?”
• “That was.... ?”
• “Tell me what’s happening.”
• “You clicked on that because....?”

21. BAD QUESTIONS
• “Do you like this?”
• “Did you feel…x?”
• “Were you thinking y?”
• “Let me show you how this works…”

22. INTERVIEW TIPS
• Remind them that you’re testing the system, not them
• Encourage them to think aloud
• Don’t keep people waiting around
• Set them at ease: make it seem informal
• Explain what you’ll be doing and how the test will work
• Remunerate them in advance so they understand it’s not
contingent on their performance

23. EXTERNALISE THE ANALYSIS

24. Uncertain Certain
Ryan
The Undecided
Delali
The Visionary

25. If you buy *three* things,
make it Silverback,
and these books ...

26. COMMUNICATING
RESEARCH

28. Ryan
The Undecided
“I sort of know *roughly* what I want
to do. Roughly.”
Summary
18 year old Ryan lives in Brighton. He’s a little unsure about what to study; he’s looked
at a lot of sport-related courses but he hasn't got any closer to choosing. He hasn’t
been to any open days; his family haven’t been involved much as they didn’t go to
Uni. His initial choices of Uni are based on what his friends have told him, but he’s
leaving the whole process to the last minute.
Goals
RATIONAL: Find a good course and university.
EMOTIONAL: Get a bit of distance and independence from his family.
Challenges
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29. Choose subject Shortlist Refine Prioritise
The course selection funnel
Evaluate
Eliminate
A
P
P
L
Y
Behaviours
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Opportunities
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What should I study? Where could I go? Which ones do I like? What’s my best option?
Low Med High
Digital Opportunity
Undecided
Visionary
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Elimination criteria
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Evaluation criteria
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30. HOW WAS IT USED?

31. GUIDING PRINCIPLES

32. PARTING THOUGHTS…
• User research is a team sport.
• Don’t ask permission.
• Watch what they do, not what they say.
• Uncover mental models.
• Favour guerrilla over science, action over academia.
• Resolve differences with testing.
• Make raw findings visible and tangible.
• Never conflate value testing with usability testing.

33. Learn
Build
Measure
Title TextYOU ARE NEVER DONE

34. Days since we met users
3

35. STEVE JOBS
“You’ve got to start with the
customer experience and work
back toward the technology -
not the other way around.”

36. Thanks
We are @bensauer and @beauvais