LightningUX: Perspectives on Research
@leemcivor champions integrity in research.
He advocates rigour, making sure you do something useful with those personas beyond creating them. Your research deliverables are not an end in themselves: they're not a measure of your success; your interpretations are. Also, make sure you attain quality in your findings by using as many participants as you think are needed for testing.
Poppy James from @bunnyfootsays says we should be maximising confidence in the data we gather; making sure it's representative. We rely on freewill and motive for participants so we should mitigate risk for volunteers. We should be transparent about the sample. Recruitment criteria must be based on good customer research e.g. what are the travel needs for a visit to the capital for non-londoners. When we look at systems at A&E - do we covet feedback from tuesday morning pensioners and/or the Saturday night reveller? and are we able to illicit feedback in a given situation? Consider the geographic and demographic in order to gain quality. Overcome as many pitfalls as possible and be transparent about those you can't.
@clivegrinyer talks about designing for experience.
Designing on hunches he quips: "I think it's called creativity". A faceless internet systems company like Cisco facilitate experience e.g. global telepresence connections between schools. People are key to experience, great stories can encourage tech companies to create great and appropriate solutions. We should look at the whole experience e.g. from on online purchase via Amazon - tracked logistics - to it not going through our victorian letterbox - to having to queue for our package at the sorting office. Wholistic visualisation of an entire experience enables us to design for its components. We should design with a view to see our future selves with the product. Strategy and decisions should be affected by deep thinking on people and their experiences.
@richardcaddick, from CX Partners talked about stealth research.
How can we observe chaos to mould our design of systems? Just watch people; listening at the sales desk. Annoyances and pain points arise from the language used. Listening in at call centres: people have very specific pain points when you do this. Things you can't guess at arise: men phoning a travel agent just wanted to know if there were places to watch the football - if they couldn't (find out) they wouldn't book. Forum conversations are also more genuine; notes that Google now has Discussion filter.
Stephena Broadbent considers Attention & Communication.
Giving attention to me the speaker, gives status. We have a wide array of communication channels. Some have less than 3 main contacts such as the telephone and Skype. Social networking, a broadcast medium, has many contacts. Voice requires immediate attention; broadcasting demands low attention. So we have an inverse relation between no. of contacts and channels of communication. We therefore have a suggestion that successful development of ideas should lean towards low attention media.
Jaimes Nel @gnva, from @liveworkstudio suggests that a linear approach to ideas are not entirely satisfactory.
He says that artefacts and ideas are the same thing. Taking a timeline for a concept through the past into today, may lay a path for a future trajectory. His talk reminded me of @blaurel's talk at #ixd11 on mapping emergent technologies.
@maccymacx took us through the methodical and rigorous process of observational data gathering and pattern processing (with software) in order to provide, proven and consistent persona creation based on real evidence.
Mary Cook at @uscreates advocates research via creating/designing better environments for research participants for improved engagement e.g. pop-up 'rant' boxes for teenagers, free coffee vans for migrant workers. Designing environments makes for better communication and ultimately involvement e.g women participating in breast screening interviews are still contributing to the project four months later.
