User research is important. Like, really really important. Why you ask? Because it solves problems and connects your team to the problems at hand. Not only that but each User Researcher possesses their own strengths and methods which will bring your team closer to building something positive. In an ideal world a User Researcher will bring your team together to speaking the same language as your users to ensure that whatever you’re building it actually serves a need.
How does a good User Researcher go about doing this though? Well, everyone has their own techniques but I can share three things which have worked for me as I’ve pinballed into this career.
Touchstones
What has helped me so far in speaking to users, team members and managers are cultural touchstones. Explaining abstract and sometimes confusing concepts using real life examples (no matter how bizarre) helps people understand the landscape and potential options. I remember beginning to understand the Agile approach to software development but my true ability to understand it came from applying the logic of Doctor Who on to it, et voila: Agile Timelord was born. Timelords after all are just iterative people.
The methodology of how I approach user research, by attempting to drill down to a user’s deepest desires and motivations sounded eerily like the Dark Side from Star Wars. You find out what drives people, what their core motivation is and then enable it. A quick Google, interpretation of rules and creativity enabled me to label myself a Research Sith. It makes sense.
Using a pop-culture or practical metaphor as a tool to illustrate concepts is incredibly powerful and can quickly take an abstract subject to an accessible topic.
Human Resources
Our lovingly put together workspace is populated with personas, user need documentation and user quotes. However as opposed to being dull and unengaging documents I’ve utilised pop-culture here too. Our workspace includes references to Thunderbirds, Sonic & Knuckles, WWE, Sesame Street, Pokémon and even must have Christmas toy of 2009: Zhu Zhu Pets. The references range from subtle to questionable, but they remain helpful, engaging internal and external stakeholders. Just try a new font now and again where you can, there’s much more in this world than Roboto and Arial.
The resources are approachable and give an introduction to people, problems and solutions. The hope is to engage people at an initial level and increase their understanding by adding more information over time.
Everybody everybody!
There is no view from nowhere. No resource can ever claim to be truly objective, true some sources are more illustrative and objective than others, but everyone and everything can claim to have an agenda. So how do we push past this to see the actual situation to hand and build around that? Make everyone get their hands dirty. In my most recent role my team has been incredible in throwing themselves into user research, so much so I can’t ever imagine a better way of uniting a team in understanding a problem.
Each team member has a different story, anecdote or piece of insight that may have been missed if the user research was limited solely to the researcher. Yes it is important that the user researcher is there at all points to steer the conversation and soak up all the information, but having a rotating cast of supporting characters keeps the research fresh. By giving a face to the users and hearing them explain their work in their own words strikes a chord, after all the best user interviews are simply conversations. Heavily monitored, critiqued and analysed conversations, but conversations nonetheless.
So those are my three tips, I’m sure I’ll barrage you with more information in the months to come, however for now I just want to sleep and regenerate. (See, pop-culture.)