Planning User Research

Establishing Research Objectives

Learn about the needs (goals) of users and other stakeholders

• What must the product do?
• Which user goals are currently problematic?
• What are the relative priorities of the needs?

Learn about users

• User knowledge (technical, domain, experience with related apps)
• Job responsibilities
• Interests

Learn about context of work

• Where and when are tasks performed?
• Is the task interleaved with other activities?
• What other distractions are present?

Scheduling

Some considerations:

• Selecting appropriate methods
• Time and resources needed for each method
• Place in the design process

Items for discussion

• Importance of establishing research questions
• Examples of how answering questions contribute to the design process