UX Research

Prof Anindita Paul

Information Systems
IIM Kozhikode
To be submitted at the end of Ecommerce
Online Presence sessions
Stage 1
1. Study the objective of the business (including
brand message)
2. What questions the business should be asking to
check the effectivity of its website?
3. What Web analytics features/metrics can help
the business answer the questions?
Learning Outcomes
• Framework to develop the right interface -
Double/Triple Diamond of Design
• User Personas
• Problem Discovery
• Setting Research Goals and Specific Questions
The Double Diamond of Design
The Triple Diamond Design Process
The Triple Diamond Design Process

Understand Experiment Prototype

Benefits of Triple Diamond Design
• Enhancing Creativity and Innovation – Provides a structured process
that encourages exploration and ideation.

• Improving Problem-Solving Skills - Emphasizes on research, analysis,

and iteration; helps develop strong problem-solving skills. By diving deep
into the problem space and continuously refining their ideas, practical and
effective solutions can be devised.

• Boosting Efficiency and Productivity – Manageable phases helps in

efficiency and productivity. Clear goals and well-defined milestones ensure
that progress is made incrementally, reducing the likelihood of rework and
delays.
Your Term Paper Progress-By now you
should have the following
• What’s the idea? The vision includes:
– Mission statement
– Target audience
– Intended market space
– Strategic analysis
 apply porters forces, SWOT
 thorough research on competitors
Developing Personas
• How does it help?
 Helps focus on representative users
 Composed of actual data. Provides insights into real behaviours of real users
 Can help understand patterns, resolve conflicts and make progress
 Could be a single or multiple as per need (keep them close to the target audiences)

• How to create personas?

 Collect Data (High quality user research)
 Create different personas, select few (one or two) for one product/service
 Construct/describe the personas
 Be in constant touch with the personas (hang them at workspaces, group areas or
even at your home- helps in empathizing, creative thinking)
Developing Personas
• How does it help?
 Helps focus on representative users
 Composed of actual data. Provides insights into real behaviours of real users
 Can help understand patterns, resolve conflicts and make progress
 Could be a single or multiple as per need (keep them close to the target audiences)

• How to create personas?

 Identify your audience
 Accumulate data to support personas
 Put “pencil to paper” and start bringing them to life
 Be in constant touch with the personas (hang them at workspaces, group areas or
even at your home- helps in empathizing, creative thinking)
Persona – Six Key Elements
• Photo (not posed but in a natural setting)
• Name, Age, Location (Everybody will refer the persona with this name during
discussions; try to keep distinct names for different personas; try to match the
name with the photo, keeping it contextual)
• Profile (education, lifestyle, interests, values, goals, needs, limitations,
desire/attitude etc.)
• Occupation (helps understand the patterns of the personas daily lives)
• Biography (data derived from research weaved into a realistic story about the
persona that the audience can relate to, should be believable; can be fictional but
realistic)
• Other details (triggers/motivations to usage of the product/service, technical
comfort level, social comfort level, user goals)
 MOTIVATIONS /
INFLUENCERS Age
• All old and new Bengali movies and 62 Years
Bengali serials are available in the
same place.
Location
• Can watch movies on my desktop or Kolkata, India
mobile
Occupation
None

GOALS FRUSTRATI Biography

ONS I am a retired person. I used
• Firestick give an option • Multiple remotes has to be to work at Simplex
to watch all Bengali used to manage TV, dish Infrastructures Ltd.
channels and also tv vendor and Firestick. Currently, I stay at home
serials in a single and my favourite pastime is
platform. • Categorization of Bengali watching movies. I spend a
• There is no need of movies based on director considerable amount of time
Amar Roy searching for old
Bengali movies and no
and year wise release is
missing as a result it
in a day watching Bengali
movies. Meditation, reading
need of going to theatres becomes tedious at times to books and cooking are my
Watching movies to watch movies search other pastime.
helps me pass time!
George
Persona -Google Merchandise Store
• What are some of the details of the Persona of the store

• Gender

• Age

• Profile

• Personality/Likes/Habits

• Frustrations

• Other Situation (Why does he use the service etc.)

• Other relevant aspects

The Double Diamond of Design

Source: Adapted from The Design Process: What is the Double Diamond?
To be submitted at the end of
Ecommerce Online Presence sessions
• Stage 2 - User Persona for your Business
 What would a persona for your chosen business look
like?
 Make a persona for your user
 Demography
 Biography
 Needs
 Pain Points
 Any other important relevant detail (tech interest, experience, lifestyle,
family role or responsibilities)
To be submitted at the end of
Ecommerce Online Presence sessions
• Stage 2 - User Persona for your Business
 What would a persona for your chosen business look
like?
 Make a persona for your user
 Demography
 Biography
 Needs
 Pain Points
 Any other important relevant detail (tech interest, experience, lifestyle,
family role or responsibilities)
 The Triple Diamond Design Process
Problem - Solution - Develop -

Problem
It provides a Definition
clear
understanding
Understand
of the project’s
objectives,
facilitating
alignment
among team
members, and
guiding the
design process
to successful
outcomes.

Opportunity
UX Design Brief
• Documents the project’s:
 Goals
 Scope
 Budget
 Key details

• Aligns with the vision of all stakeholders on the final

deliverables.
Discovery
1. Collecting issues and presenting them as goals
2. Prioritizing the goals
3. Rewriting the goals as questions to be answered
 Problem Discovery
• Setting goals for research/Research Question
 Helps understand, why you are doing the research
(involves determining business priorities and setting research goals
that can meet them)
 Helps set the success metric
(understanding of the development process so that the research can
make the greatest impact on the final product)
 Helps in focussing on the questions to ask, order of asking to get
maximum output
(could be related to improving a current deliverable, or if a new concept
is appealing or not or creating something new)
 Problem Discovery (Contd.)

• Most important (and impactful) Outcome – A list of features that

affect the business goals (can relate to advertising effectiveness,
customer support load, brand recognition etc.) of the company
(interact with all the stakeholders to understand if the goals are
being met or not, what issues etc.)
• Get some first hand information about the users either by getting
hold of easy to reach users (Few of them) and/or getting hold of
existing data (from surveys, past studies, feedback etc.). This will
give an idea of corporate priorities and issues with current
deliverables
Sample
What Next – Rewrite Goals as Research
Questions and Specific Questions

• Start
rewriting the goals as user-specific
questions/information to be gathered
• Broadennarrow questions into general topics to
understand the root cause of the problem
• Keep the questions simple
Goals

Brainstorm questions -> pick

one or two questions for each
goal that when answered will
address the goal
Flesh the larger, more abstract
questions into specific ones that
can be answered by research.
Important points to remember
• Not all questions need to be answered in a single study
• Having a big list enables you to maintain a repository of questions to draw
from
• Involving internal stakeholders helps keep your study relevant and key in
the business’ deadlines
• Questions help define the boundaries for the larger issues, reveals
relationships between issues as well as reveals new questions and
assumptions
• Your questions need to take the user’s perspective (Interview, observe,
read manuals, talk to customer care etc. to know the user’s perspectives)
Never go into user research to prove a point, and never create goals that
seek to justify a position or reinforce a perspective.
Exercise – Frame GMS Research
Goals
• List one issue with GMS (think of an issue from your interpretation
of GMS)
• Prioritize based on importance and severity
• What would be a goal for GMS?
• What would be a Research Question based on the goal?
Some of the issues noted about GMS
Group # GMS issues found through Analytics data
interpretation
10 High Abandonment Rate - Visitors leaving the
GMS website in stage 1 of the journey
2 Promotional Campaigns leading to high
impressions but low sales (Ex-Vitamin Sea)
7 Product price are in different currency, which might
act as hindrance when buying (??)
4 Finding out the site – Complex search process (??)
5 No Autofill option while searching; Filtering
options are limited; Sort option not available (???)
 From Goals RQs  IQs for MMT
Goal To increase better usage of the website for travel planning services

Research Question What changes in users in the last 10 years?

How to increase usage of the website?
How best to use the real estate for better usage of the website?

Specific Questions How do users go about planning their travel (separate questions for solo, family, group and professional)?

What sources do they refer to for selecting a hotel?

What are some of the concerns when planning their travel on the MMT website?
How they go about shortlisting their preferred hotel/flight etc.?
Their impressions (after conducting some tasks on the website) of the MMT website experience?
…
Interview Questions When was the last time you planned a trip with family (or solo or group )?
How did you go about planning the travel for your family?
What were some of the issues you faced while planning the travel?
Do you face similar obstacles during planning a trip everytime?
…
 From Goals RQs  IQs for MMT
Goal To increase profit in the travel planning services

Research Question What changes in users in the last 10 years?

How to increase reach?
How best to use the real estate for maximizing profit?

Specific How do users go about planning their travel (separate questions for solo, family, group and professional)?
Questions/Interview
Questions
What sources do they refer to for selecting a hotel?
How do they document or preserve their travel bookings?
What are some of the concerns when planning their travel on the MMT website?
How they goa bout shortlisting their preferred hotel/flight etc.?
Their impressions (after conducting some tasks on the website) of the MMT website experience?
…
 From Goals RQs  IQs
Goal To provide “wedding tourism” services

Research Question Why do people use “wedding tourism” services? What value do they get out of it?
How do they go about availing wedding tourism services?
What factors determine they choose wedding tourism services when they are visiting India?

Specific How many people availed cultural (or wedding) tourism experience in the last one year? (answered by
Questions secondary data OR if there is an existing online platform then analytics data)

How do tourists research cultural activities before visiting a country?

How do they document or preserve their cultural experiences?
What are some of the concerns when experiencing cultural tours?
…
 From Goals RQs  IQs
Goal To provide “wedding tourism” services

Research Question Why do people use “wedding tourism” services? What value do they get out of it?
How do they go about availing wedding tourism services?
What factors determine they choose wedding tourism services when they are visiting India?

Specific How many people availed cultural (or wedding) tourism experience in the last one year?
Questions/Interview
Questions
What was the last cultural/wedding tour you did? How did you like it?
What motivates you to seek out cultural experiences?
Do you prefer guided tours or exploring cultural tours independently?
How do you research cultural activities before visiting a country?
How do you document or preserve you cultural experiences?
What memorable cultural experiences have you had in the past and what makes them stand out to you?
What are some of the concerns when experiencing cultural tours?
…
To be submitted at the end of
Ecommerce Online Presence sessions
• Stage 3 - Frame your Business’ Research Goals
 List issues on your (TP) business website
 Prioritize those issues (based on importance and severity)
 Convert those issues into goals
 Convert those goals into research questions
 Convert those RQs into Specific Questions
 List some Interview Questions