Crafting a User Research Plan

Every piece of user research is part of an ongoing research program, even if that program is informal. However, making a program formal provides a number of advantages: It gives you a set of goals, a schedule that stretches limited user-research resources, and results when they’re needed most. It also helps you avoid unnecessary, redundant, or hurried research.

Kuniavsky, Mike. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Usability>Methods

Crafting a User Research Plan

Every piece of user research is part of an ongoing research program, even if that program is informal. However, making a program formal provides a number of advantages: It gives you a set of goals, a schedule that stretches limited user-research resources, and results when they're needed most. It also helps you avoid unnecessary, redundant, or hurried research.

Kuniavsky, Mike. Adaptive Path (2003). Articles>Project Management>Usability

Crafting a User Research Plan, Part II

The most difficult part of setting up a schedule for your user research plan is integrating it into the existing development system.

Kuniavsky, Mike. Adaptive Path (2003). Articles>Usability>Research

Face to Face With Your Users: Running a Nondirected Interview

An interview is a funny situation. It's like a friendly conversation between strangers, but unlike the kind you may have on the bus. When chatting on the bus, people try very hard to agree with each other and to quickly communicate interesting information. Each person wants to be liked and adjusts the way they speak and what they say so as not to offend. This type of exchange is perfectly fine for maintaining civil society -- deeper exchanges can always happen as an acquaintance deepens -- but shallow banter isn't appropriate for an interview. You need to find out what someone is experiencing, what they're thinking, or what their real opinions are.

Kuniavsky, Mike. Adaptive Path (2003). Articles>User Centered Design>Interviewing>Usability

Nondirected Interviews: How to Get More Out of Your Research Questions

As user experience designers, a key component to nearly all the techniques we use in our practice is the one-on-one interview. It's the basis of requirements gathering, usability testing, and task analysis. In order to remove our personal biases, expectations and opinions from the questions asked, I practice a kind of questioning technique called the nondirected interview. The questions asked are at the heart of any interview. Following are a loose set of guidelines to help you frame questions in a way that elicits honest and accurate responses.

Kuniavsky, Mike. Adaptive Path (2002). Articles>User Centered Design>Interviewing>Usability

User Expectations in a World of Smart Devices

I'm increasingly convinced that, as networks of smart objects permeate our environment, people's attitudes toward technology will become more animist. In other words, we’ll start to anthropomorphize our stuff.

Kuniavsky, Mike. Adaptive Path (2003). Articles>User Centered Design>Ubiquitous Computing

Nondirected Interviews: How to Get More Out of Your Research Questions

As user experience designers, a key component to nearly all the techniques we use in our practice is the one-on-one interview. It’s the basis of requirements gathering, usability testing, and task analysis. In order to remove our personal biases, expectations and opinions from the questions asked, I practice a kind of questioning technique called the nondirected interview.

Kuniavsky, Mike. Adaptive Path (2002). Articles>Interviewing>User Experience>Research