Ethnographic Interviews Getting to Know Your Users
Today Stakeholders and Domain Experts Customers and Users Persona Hypothesis (User Hypothesis) Interviewing Techniques Interviewing Exercise 2
Stakeholders 3
Stakeholders Executives & Partners Developers provide Customer support and Designers provide provide vision, business technical constraints. sales people provide brand consistency. motivation, budget and insight into customers timeline. and/or users. 4
Their Goals Executives & Partners Developers want Customer support and Designers want to want solutions and technical challenges at sales people want to maintain brand and return on investment. their pace, clear avoid unhappy clients and messaging so they can guidance, and to avoid meet their sales quota. show it o ff in their designers. portfolio. 5
Stakeholder Pitfalls 6 Some psychological pitfalls to avoid.
Self-monitoring People tend to closely monitor themselves in order to ensure appropriate or desired public appearances. 7 You may be talking to a person’s representative.
Herd Mentality, Information Cascade People observe the actions of others and then make the same choice that the others have made, independently of their own private information signals. 8 Employee’s may tow the company line.
Solution Interview stakeholders separately when possible. Then resolve and unify the corporate vision to get internal buy-in. 9
Availability heuristic Estimating what is more likely by what is more available in memory, which is biased toward vivid, unusual, or emotionally charged examples. Mere-exposure e ff ect The tendency to express undue liking for things merely because of familiarity with them. 10 Executives tend to copy their competitors.
She says... You ask... “We have to have a mobile “Why is that important?” app and a website.” “It has to have the Bloystein “What will that accomplish?” feature.” Challenge all assumptions. 11
Domain Experts 12
Domain Experts Complex regulations Specialized knowledge & vocabulary Best practices Problems and pains (they are or were users themselves) Insight into user roles 13
Domain experts are not designers. Their focus on details and suggestions for design features are clues to users’ needs and goals. Ask, “How would that feature benefit the user?” 14
Perpetual Intermediates Beginners Experts No one wants to This is where your Your focus is NOT be a beginner. focus usually is. on this group. 15
Global Neighborhood Ambassadors 16
Global Neighborhood Ambassadors People research a destination before they travel. They use online tools such as TripAdvisor, Lonely Planet, Wikitravel They also can connect to social networks to get advice from friends who have traveled there. Hypothesis: People would rather tap a local on the shoulder and ask that person “Where’s a good place to eat?” 17 Design Challenge
Stakeholder Interview Preliminary product vision Perception of users Business goals Technology constraints Target market Domain expertise Specific data you need 18
Customers & Users 19
Customers & Users Consumer Employees IT, Manager, Kids User Customer Parent Pets 20
Customers Their goals in purchasing the product Their frustrations with current solutions Their decision process for purchasing a product of the type you’re designing Their role in installation, maintenance, and management of the product 21
Users Their goals and tasks Problems and frustrations using existing products The domain knowledge they require to do their job(s) / achieve their goals Mental models of the way they work 22
Consumer: User + Customer Goals and tasks? Problems and frustrations using existing solutions? What domain knowledge do they require to achieve their goals? What mental models do they have? 23
User Pitfalls 24 Some psychological pitfalls to avoid.
Self-monitoring People tend to closely monitor themselves in order to ensure appropriate or desired public appearances. 25 You may be talking to a person’s representative.
Dunning–Kruger e ff ect An e ff ect in which incompetent people fail to realize they are incompetent because they lack the skill to distinguish between competence and incompetence. metacognition The ability to know how well one is metamemory performing, when one is likely to be metacomprehension accurate in judgment, and when one is likely to be in error. Seinfeld, Season 8 Elaine is not the dancer she thinks she is. 26 Users have a hard time assessing themselves and their situation.
Overconfidence e ff ect Excessive confidence in one's own answers to questions. For example, for certain types of questions, answers that people rate as "99% certain" turn out to be wrong 40% of the time. Worse-than-average e ff ect A tendency to believe ourselves to be worse than others at tasks which are di ffi cult. 27 You may be talking to a person’s representative.
Regardless of how pervasive the phenomenon is, it is clear from Dunning's and others' work that many Americans , at least sometimes and under some conditions, have a tendency to inflate their worth. It is interesting, therefore, to see the phenomenon's mirror opposite in another culture. In research comparing North American and East Asian self- assessments, Heine of the University of British Columbia finds that East Asians tend to underestimate their abilities , with an aim toward improving the self and getting along with others. Full Article 28
Persona Hypothesis What types of people might use the product? How do their needs and goals di ff er? How do these di ff erences a ff ect their usage and behavior? What ranges of behaviors and environments need to be explored? 29 A little thinking up front goes a long way in the interview process.
Surprise Me! Planner Live it up. Interacts Stays with with Locals Group Go cheap. Sample diagrams for mapping users. 30
Behavioral Demographic Environmental • Variables… • Variables… • Variables… Identifying variables to explore in the interviewing process. 31
System-oriented Goal-oriented Function - What are the most common things Goals - What makes a good day? A bad day? you do with the product? Opportunity - What activities currently waste Frequency - What parts of the product do your time? you use most? Priorities - What is most important to you? Preference - What are your favorite aspects of the product? What drives you crazy? Information - What helps you make decisions? Failure - How do you work around problems? Expertise - What shortcuts do you employ? Workflow-oriented Attitude-oriented Process - What did you do when you first Aspiration - What do you see yourself doing came in today? And after that? five years from now? Occurrence and recurrence - How often do Avoidance - What would you prefer not to you do this? What things do you do weekly do? What do you procrastinate on? or monthly, but not every day? Motivation - What do you enjoy most about Exception - What constitutes a typical day? your job (or lifestyle)? What do you always What would be an unusual event? tackle first? Types of Questions - Cooper 32
Interview Tips 33 Title | Subtitle
Keep it real. Prepare question types, not specific questions. Don’t allow third party observers. Use video and audio taping only if necessary. If possible, conduct interviews in the interviewee’s natural environment. 34 The interview environment should be natural and comfortable.
Goal To be at work. Task To drive to work.
Interview Pitfalls 36 Some psychological pitfalls to avoid.
Stereotyping Expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without having actual information about that individual. Solution Keep an open mind and expect to be surprised. 37 People will surprise you.
Labeling The self-identity and behavior of individuals may be determined or influenced by the terms used to describe or classify them. Solution When creating frameworks, use labels that are respectful and encouraging. 38 Be careful of the nomenclature you use when creating frameworks.
Confirmation bias A tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses. Solution Don’t ask leading questions. Begin with open-ended questions. and only follow up with closed-ended questions to clarify initial responses. 39 Don’t ask questions like, “Would you use feature X?”
Conversational narcissism People tend to steer the conversation away from others and toward themselves. Solution Be an active listener. Show interest without injecting thoughts with your body language, facial expressions, and minimal encouragers. 40 “Listen” and “silent” are comprised of the same letters.
Use active listening skills. Use open body language and minimal encouragers. Ask for clarification. Summarize. Use open-ended questions to extract information. “How do you like to spend your vacations?” Use closed-ended questions to take control. “How many vacations do you take per year?” 41
Develop a Mindset Beginner’s Mind Block stereotypes and preconceptions Apprentice Model Interviewer = learner Interviewee = domain expert 42
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