Cost-effective, quick research techniques don’t always inspire confidence in your data. Perform many small incremental studies to build reliability over time.
Author: QM
Don’t be shy – run studies of your competitors’ products to learn how well their software supports users’ tasks.
You kicked off the project with a Design Thinking session. Now that you’ve started development, run fast and cheap tests to stay user-focused.
Your team decides they need to “run a study.” They don’t know what that means, and they are relying on you to set it up. That’s a good problem to have. Use this cheat sheet to help you out.
Stepping through your UI and asking two deceptively simple questions at each stage can give you great insights into the problems your users will face.
Check your product is following simple rules of interface design. It’s fast and finds potential UI issues before your users do.
Spend just one week to get the information you need to build your product right first time. Use these techniques to plan your sprints or even to work out what product to bring to market.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. He’s working frantically to find the next sketch to show to the study participant. He might even be drawing it as we wait.
The cheapest, fastest way to mock up your interfaces is with pen and paper. The creation process involves the whole team, and the unfinished feel means you’re less attached to any one idea.
It’s hard to create a good survey. Even if you can write non-biased questions, it is the ones that you don’t think of that will get you into trouble. Make survey results actionable by focusing on behavior, not speculation.