CSC 360

User Research Overview

Goals

User research means learning about people's goals and what can be done to help them achieve their goals. More specifically, user research methods help identify the following:

1. Functional requirements: what does the product need to do?
2. Context of use: when and where will people be using it?
3. Descriptions of users relevant to product's design

Mathis (p. 8) suggests finding out this information:

• What people are currently doing
• What people have to do but really dislike doing
• What people would like to be doing

Methods

• Interviews and contextual inquiries
• Questionnaires
• Focus groups
• Field observation and user shadowing
• Studying documentation

Describing users

The following characteristics are probably the most important for describing users (adapted from Usability Engineering by Jacob Nielsen, p. 44):

• Experience with previous or similar products
• General computer experience
• Knowledge of domain

Describing tasks

• Artifact analysis
• Task decomposition (with hierarchies)
• Listing pros and cons of performing each task

Combining users and tasks

• Personas and Scenarios
• User/task matrices

Discussion questions

• Assume that you are interested in developing a Web site to support people in finding an apartment. What activities could you plan for learning about potential users and their problems and needs?
• What are the challenges of eliciting useful information in an interview? What methods address those challenges?
• What are some considerations for choosing the right elicitation methods?