User Research
I'm passionate about creating technology that enhances peoples' lives and careers. As much as I enjoy tinkering with new tech, how might it be helpful to someone? Diving into user research has helped me connect the dots. I've worked on hundreds of research projects over the years. Here are methods I've used and ways I applied them.
Persona characters I created
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Research Methods
Christian Rohrer
I enjoy learning new research methods. There are many types of research in our toolbox, depending on the development phase, the questions you want answered, the timeframe, and the resources.
My research experience falls into these two buckets.
Qualitative research is observational, spoken interviews, open-ended, and interpretations.
Quantitative research is the metrics, numbers, measurements, and scientific research.
Here is a great article from Nielsen Norman Group on many types of research methods.
Qualitative research is observational, spoken interviews, open-ended, and interpretations.
Quantitative research is the metrics, numbers, measurements, and scientific research.
Here is a great article from Nielsen Norman Group on many types of research methods.
User Research Panels
- To find users - I've reached out to existing customers, gone to coffee shops for intercepts, cold-called organizations and talked to Sales and Client Services.
- I co-created the "Navigators" group at Cvent, which grew to hundreds of users. It was our go-to for most planner-facing research needs. I would send out a quick email linked to a sign-up screener and would have slots filled within a day or two. Our customers were quite eager to help us! (Cvent - Navigators group)
- We talked to users before embarking on a large redesign before we created flows or wireframes. It helped us understand what problems to solve and what their current workflows and mental models were. (Cvent - CrowdCompass, web)
- It's preferable to do interviewing and observation in the field, where the user would typically be using your technology.
- One enlightening experience came from the Wellington Zoo, where I observed how a zoo construction worker built enclosures. We saw how our laser measurement device could be helpful to him. He liked he could take measurements without being in the animal's cage. (ikeGPS - Spike, iOS/Android)
Usability Testing
- At LEGO, we watched young kids make their way through login, character creation and build experiences. We iterated from frustrated to happy. (LEGO/Netdevil, LEGO Universe MMO)
- For Cvent, I coordinated going on-site to observe people using our app and doing quick usability tests for upcoming features. (Cvent - CONNECT conference)
- I've utilized the SUS (System Usability Scale) or shorter UMUX-Lite, and 0-3 issue scoring for ranking the solution and issues found.
Persona Template I created
Personas
- For developing personas for a new product offering - I started with our best guess of personas (assumption). From there, we reached out to people in those groups and conducted interviews. We also conducted mapping workshops with internal employees who fit our personas. The output let us correct assumptions, add or combine personas, and create deeper empathy. (Cvent - unannounced)
- On a large Enterprise UX team, we didn't want dozens of personas across the platform. The User Research team created a family of personas we could all use. They were broad yet detailed with both qual and quant research informing them. For individual projects, I would take these personas and create a version for our specific project. What were the pieces we needed, where were there holes? It made the persona more focused and easier to understand. (Cvent)
- Onboarding for free-to-play games is critical and I measured each step in the process. We looked at the funnel, identified opportunities and iterated on designs. (PikPok - Dreamworks Dash n Drop, iOS/Android)
- When redesigning a page in our app, we conducted card sorting exercises with users to understand how they organize the information and what was most important to them. We did this exercise in person, but later utilized Optimal Workshop to do these tests remotely and unmoderated. (Cvent - CrowdCompass, iOS/Android)
- I experimented with umoderated Tree Testing for our internal wiki. We had hundreds of pages for our product and many types of users consuming the information. Doing a Card Sort then a Tree Test to validate our new IA helped many people participant in organizing the wiki. (Cvent - internal team)
- I use surveys to gain fast insights from a balance of closed and open ended questions. The biggest challenge is keeping them short.
- I often constructed surveys for screening participants for user testing and interviews - to make sure we got the right users. We also sent surveys to our customers asking if they wanted to join our user panel and collected basic usage, satisfaction and demographic information from them. (Cvent - Navigators).
Remote Usability Testing
Remote Moderated
- Many of our customers were spread across the US and other countries. For Cvent, we conducted most of our usability tests using Zoom or other screen sharing software. It was easy to give them mouse control to click through a prototype, and easy to record the session. (Cvent - CrowdCompass, web)
- We tried out usertesting.com to test a new feature and navigation changes on our planner-facing editor. The testers had to have experience in event planning, so we sent the test to our user research panel. Instead of getting insights on our prototype - we ended up being technical support for people not understanding usertesting.com's interface. They had issues with installation, login, and how to save progress and come back to a test later. (Cvent - Event Center, web)
- I came away feeling it's best to remote unmoderated testing if you want a broader audience who has already setup the usertesting.com account. But I'm also aware, it takes a tech-savvy person to do so.
