My design folks always ask me if I do user research as a Product Designer, and yes I do! In fact, with the limited resources in a startup context, it’s even more important to have user research boot into a business.
In the Warm Gun 2014 conference, Branden Kowitz has given great points about how startup designers can focus on what really matters :
It is the curiosity of what problems you wanna tackle, the maker spirit of getting your hands dirty, and the iterations that have been validated in front of people as early as possible.
As a product designer, understanding users and learning the most of you could from iterations are the premise to lead your design. But how to make user research effective and valuable for startups? Below are some notes that I’ve learned along the way.
Demographics and goals
Ensure you’re seeking the properly matched participants, tools and means for your study. The 5W1H — Why do you want to do the research? What do you want to know? Who will be involved in the sessions? Where will be the proper place to conduct? When will be a proper deadlines? How do you to conduct the research with the limited resources? How many sessions will reach your confidence… Things can go on and on. By understanding all above, you’re making sense of the plan to reveal the insights with clearly defined goals as a major guide.
Be flexible & creative
With a design background, I’ve been attached to holistic qualitative methodologies and processes for years : understand who they are, contextual inquiry, and observations, which normally would consume a decent amount of resource to achieve.
However, in the fast-moving startup context, designers need to be flexible and creative with the limited time and resources. That’s how you make your research agile. Here are some interesting stories about how we found the way out to conduct researches in “an agile” way.
Startups are not academic organization, designers need to play smartly and be resourceful to conduct design researches. Try seeking out your co-workers, and brainstorming innovative ways to conduct the research that fits your occasion.
Make proper fidelity prototypes
No one wants to throw out a digital prototype that took hours to make. However, investing the right level of prototype unfolds your study without wasting time. After seeing users being lost and confused in some experimental sessions, I highly believe that a proper fidelity prototype is the key to an efficient user research.
In the article — Paper Prototyping: The 10-Minute Practical Guide by UXPin, Jerry Cao highlighted the disadvantages of paper prototyping :
There’s just no way to replicate the experience of using a digital product on paper, no matter how detailed it is. Paper prototypes require a great deal of imagination, and there’s a lot lost when imagining what a product will be like. What the users are thinking may be different than what you are, but the feedback doesn’t reflect this.
It might be even quicker to build digital prototypes with software than to spend time with paper and later move to the software. Online templates, such as UI8 and Sketch App Sources, allows you to integrate photos or contents you need. Prototyping tools, like invision, flinto, or principle, empowers you to make mockups that loos almost like real products. All of which helps to build solid prototypes fast and prevents users being lost in the sessions.
Invite relevant co-workers to the sessions
The great thing I like about user research is, to be zero as a humble human and to understand the things you thought you knew, but you actually didn’t. I especially like to invite developers and product managers. Sometimes, developers see the blind spots that they didn’t have thought of, or product managers gain new ideas for new features. The insight are so ample with the perspectives from different backgrounds. When you start to make your user study a team-wide activity, not only it fosters collaboration, but also boosts other team members focus on the core problems of users. It’s definitely a non zero sum game.
Outcomes made easy and insightful
You’ve carefully planned ahead, made your hand dirty for tons of prototypes, and got all the user research done. As a finial step, focusing on the analysis and sharing the data is the most valuable step of your research. As Erika Hall mentioned in Just Enough Research :
Whatever type of research you’re doing, and wherever it falls in your schedule, follow these six steps : 1. Define the problem; 2. select the approach; 3. plan and prepare for the research; 4. collect the data; 5. analyse the data; 6. report the results. With practice, the first three steps will become muscle memory and you can focus on collecting, analysing, and sharing the data.
A proper documentation suitable for the topic and your organization is the key. Whether presentation, a report, or even as simple as an e-mail would be great. Don’t make a lengthy 50 pages of report if not needed, and remember to avoid beating around the bush. Summing up with infights and direct action items and suggestions is always inspiring and collaboration-boosting.
Getting user research done in a startup is a huge challenge, with the hectic demands and pressures around. However, user research is powerful to reveal the core problems and the right products being developed for the right audience.
Hopefully the short notes help those who’s fresh to startup as a designer, make the best of your expertise boosts a user-centric startup strategy.
