Part IV: User Research 👀

Why User Research

What are the steps to research and how much time do I need?

Design and Planning (2 hours)

• Bring the team together and define a) assumptions, b) desired outcomes, and c) both a design challenge and research objective.
• Walk away with a week-by-week calendar of what you plan to accomplish.

Recruiting  (2 weeks)

• Define target demographics, cast a wide net through different recruiting channels and run potential candidates through a screener. This process always takes longer than you anticipate. Dive in headfirst!
• Reference

  from recent recruiting efforts

Field Guide (1 week)

• Using your assumptions, information from expert interviews, insights from the recruiting process and other context, compile everything you need to be organized in the field. The core document is a script that eases your candidate into a conversation. It also includes defining compensation, compiling release forms, camera and recording devices (if needed), and a variety of other tools to help facilitate conversations.
• Reference

  from recent research.

Interviews (1-2 weeks)

• Long-form ethnographic interviews are a powerful tool for testing assumptions. The best interviews are not representative, but test extremes. They should be 90-120 minutes of uninterrupted time in a quiet place. 
• Your note taker(s) should be prepared to capture as much as they can verbatim. As soon as possible after each interview “download” the key quotes and observations.
• Shotlist

Synthesis (1-2 weeks)

• The output of synthesis is a set of insights. These sentence-long observations are the hardest you’ve worked on a single sentence. They should be short, specific, and evoke questions.
• Reference

  from recent research.

What other research tools can I draw on?

Diary Study

• Prompt a small group of participants to respond to a set of questions once or twice a day. These questions should aim to capture rich media -- video, photos and audio -- which help fill in gaps you wouldn’t capture in a single interview.

Behavior Displacement

• Often following a diary study or a ‘treatment’ group in contrast with a diary study, a behavior displacement asks participants to exclusively use a product. You should feel comfortable making your participants uncomfortable and compensating them fairly for the trouble.

Immersion

• Spend time with your potential users! Work alongside them, eat with them or if relevant and appropriate arrange a homestay. Take detailed notes as you work to see the world through their eyes.

Surveys

• Surveys are a powerful tool for gathering information quickly from a large group of people. They are particularly useful if you have a very specific or quantifiable question that needs to be answered. However, surveys have drawbacks. It is difficult to achieve the level of depth in a survey compared to a 1:1 conversation. In addition, it is important to be very careful with designing surveys and wording questions, as surveys are often susceptible to bias, particularly if there are cultural barriers.

1. It helps to get an overall understanding of the demographics of your pilot participants. This will tell you if your group is representative of the population you hope to serve.
2. Also, understanding the individuals in your study might help you identify interesting folks that you may want to pay special attention to. For instance, we always like to ask about prior cryptocurrency experience among pilot participants so that we can make sure to interview folks who have already dabbled in crypto.

• Here

  is an example onboarding survey we used in a pilot in Kenya
• Here is a template

  we used to track participants. We create a unique tracker for each pilot we conduct

Exit Survey

• Argentina Interview Guide
• Tanzania Interview Guide
• Kenya Microwork

Resources From Recent Research Projects

• Argentina Field Research Overview
• Field Guide Reference

External Links