Category: User Experience Research – SMART Goal

Define Your Audience

What is this design method?

In every design project it is important to understand who you’re designing for. If your project may not give you enough time to delve into full user-research then this is a great method to consider the broad spectrum of people who will be touched by your solution. 

How to define your audience?

The key to this method is thinking broadly about all the users and those affected by your solution. This may include service companies, NGO’s, other businesses or competitors. 

Who would use this, when would you use it and how long will it take?

An individual or team would use this methods at the start of a design project in the Inspiration phase in order to start your research and design stages by asking the right questions. This method takes between 30 and 60 minutes depending on how deep the discussion is. This is simple method with post-its, paper and pens the only tools needed.

How to run this design method?

1: With your team, write down the people or groups that are directly involved in or reached by your challenge. Really think about everyone who may directly use your game. What demographic, age, or gender? Are you making a game for children? An app for farmers? Write all the groups down on Post-its and put them on a wall so you can visualise your audience.

2: Now add people or groups who are peripherally relevant, or are associated with your direct audience.

3: Think about the connections these people have with your topic. Who are the fans? Who are the skeptics? Who do you need the most on your side? Add them to the wall.

4: Now arrange these Post-its into a map of the people involved in your challenge. Save it and refer to it as you move through your challenge. Use these Post-its to refer back to in order to validate your design decisions.

Create a Project Plan

What is this design method?

Starting a design project can be daunting and creating a plan will allow you to think through all the logistics of your project in order to plan ahead. Reflect on your timeline, the space you’ll work in, your staff, your budget, what skills you’ll need, trips you’ll take, and what you’ll likely need to produce. Getting a good handle on all of this information can keep you on track. 

Why create a project plan?

Understanding your project, what you need to produce and the tools or skills you will need allows you to better plan how to get to a final product and overcome challenges. Seeing that you will need to learn a certain skill early on will allow you to plan this into your project and overcome challenges easier. 

Who would use this, when would you use it and how long will it take?

An individual or design team would use this method during the inspiration phase. This method takes between 60-90 minutes and is of moderate difficulty due to the deep understanding of how projects work, what challenges you come across and how to overcome these. This prediction is difficult but necessary. A printed calendar, paper, pens and post-its are needed.

How to run this design method?

1: A good place to start is with a calendar. Print out or make a large one and put it up in your workspace. Now mark key dates. They could be deadlines, important meetings, travel dates, or times when your team members are unavailable.

2: Now that you’ve got a sense of your timeline, look at your skills (individual or combined). Do you have everything that you need? If you foresee challenges, how can you get around them? What areas do you need to improve or learn? 

3: You’ll need to become knowledgeable on your topic before you head into the field. Who should you talk to now? What will you need to read to be up to speed?

4: Answer questions like: When should my I or team head into the field? Will my team make one visit or two? Plan for all of this. Will we need to physically make something? How much time, money, and manpower will we need to produce it?

5: Your project plan will change as things evolve, and that’s perfectly OK. You can always amend things as you go but make sure that you’re really thinking through your project before you start.

Source: IDEO Design methods

Frame your Design Challenge

What is this design method?

Properly framing your design challenge is crucial to understanding how to tackle to problem. This will make starting the project easier and will give you a key line to refer back to when evaluating your project. Reflecting back to your design challenge and asking if you are solving the issue helps to push you in the right direction. 

How to frame your challenge?

Ask yourself does my challenge drive towards the ultimate impact, allow for a variety of solutions and take into account the context? These are great questions to ask in order to make sure the challenge is properly framed.

Who would use this, when would you use it and how long will it take?

Anyone in a design team or even working alone can undertake this method due to its simplicity. Undertaken at the start of a design project it is key that you spend time framing your challenge. Spending between 60-90 minutes will allow you enough time to review and refine your challenge. The only things needed for this method are pens, paper and post-its, but bring your ‘thinking cap’ as it is a tough problem to solve.

How to run this design method?

1: Start by trying to right out what you think your design challenge should be? Make this concise and easy to remember. A question makes it easy for you to create ideas and solutions along the way.

2: Properly framed design challenges drive toward ultimate impact, allow for a variety of solutions and take into account constraints and context. Now rewrite the challenge based off these factors.

3: Read your design challenge and make sure it is not too broad or too narrow. Spend time reflecting on the current design challenge and refine it. 

4: Run the challenge through the steps again, making changes as you go. Despite this seeming repetitive it is important to make sure your problem is properly framed. 

5: Test your challenge by attempting to come up with five possible solutions in just a few minutes. If so then you are on the right track. 

Below is an example template of how to record down answers to the questions. Using post-its in the blank space allows for reviewing and refining the design challenge.

The Five Whys

What is this design method?

This research method is used to uncover the deep motivations and assumptions that underpin a person’s behaviour. This is a fantastic method to get to the core of a persons beliefs or motivations. Asking a really broad questions and then following this up with asking why 5 times you will get some essential answers to complicated problems.

How to conduct this method well.

Making sure you give your interviewee time to, space and permission to go really deep, you are likely to wind up with a few key insights. 

Who would use this, when would you use it and how long will it take?

A design team or individual would use this method. This would be used at the start of a project to better understand the users thought process and behaviour when tackling specific problems that are related to your app. The only materials needed are pens and paper and will take 15 minutes.

How to run this design method?

1: Start by asking a pretty broad question about your Interview participants habits or behaviours then ask “why” to their response five times in a row. 

2: Remember that you are going deeper not horizontally. You are aiming for depth and therefore your should ask “why” in response to a problem or sticking point they had.

3: Write down what you hear, paying special attention to moments when it feels like you’ve moved a level deeper into understanding why that person does what they do.

4: Keep in mind that might not get to the core information until the 4th or 5th “why”. Stick at it.