A workshop for University of Arizona IT InterACTIVE 2019, led by Rinku Ashok Kumar, Chike Orjih, and Ann Shivers-McNair

1. Enriching UX research:
Tools and processes for
user research
InterACTIVE 2019

2. Who are these people?
Rinku Ashok Kumar
Ann Shivers-McNair
Chike Orjih

3. Agenda
• Introduction and Context
• Asking Good Questions
• Break
• Addressing Assumptions
• Break
• Creating User Stories
• Discussion and Resources

4. Introduction and Context

5. User-centered Design Process/Design Thinking
d. school at Stanford University

6. REAL
Know Context
Sense Intent
Know People
Frame Insights Explore Concepts
Frame Solutions
Realize Offerings
ANALYSIS SYNTHESIS
RESEARCH
Observations
Plans
Principles
Tests
MAKEUNDERSTAND
REALIZATION
ABSTRACT
User-centered Design Process/ Universally ApplicablUniversally Applicable
Kumar, V. (2013). 101 design methods: A structured approach for driving innovation in your
organization. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

7. User-centered Design Process/ Universally Applicabl
Kumar, V. (2013). 101 design methods: A structured approach for driving innovation in your
organization. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
REAL
Know Context
Sense Intent
Know People
Frame Insights Explore Concepts
Frame Solutions
Realize Offerings
ANALYSIS SYNTHESIS
RESEARCH
Observations
Plans
Principles
Tests
MAKEUNDERSTAND
REALIZATION
ABSTRACT
Iterative

8. REAL
Know Context
Sense Intent
Know People
Frame Insights Explore Concepts
Frame Solutions
Realize Offerings
ANALYSIS SYNTHESIS
RESEARCH
Observations
Plans
Principles
Tests
MAKEUNDERSTAND
REALIZATION
ABSTRACT
User-centered Design Process/ Universally ApplicablNon-linear in nature
Kumar, V. (2013). 101 design methods: A structured approach for driving innovation in your
organization. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

9. User-centered Design Process/ Technology Development
Szymanski, M., & Whalen, J. (2011). Introduction. In M. Szymanski & J. Whalen (Eds.), Making Work Visible: Ethnographically Grounded Case Studies of Work
Practice (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives, pp. 1-18). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511921360.003
Technology Development

10. REAL
Know Context
Sense Intent
Know People
Frame Insights Explore Concepts
Frame Solutions
Realize Offerings
ANALYSIS SYNTHESIS
RESEARCH
Observations
Plans
Principles
Tests
MAKEUNDERSTAND
REALIZATION
ABSTRACT
User-centered Design Process/ Universally ApplicablOur Focus Today
Kumar, V. (2013). 101 design methods: A structured approach for driving innovation in your
organization. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

11. User Experience Mapping
How will the users know
about such a platform?
What happens when
they engage with the
platform?
What do the users take
away?
• List each channel • Describe goals and
activities
• Describe if any tasks
that the users might
have to do or
voluntarily do after
they leave the
platform
Attraction Entry Engagement Exit Extension

12. Scenario
[Objective] To build a platform that allows
[Primary Users] students
[Function] to interact with the financial aid office –
[Use Case 1] providing online documentation,
[Use Case 2] applying for financial aid,
[Use Case 3] reporting on financial aid and
[Use Case 4] managing/paying tuition.

13. Asking Good Questions

14. Scenario
[Objective] To build a platform that allows
[Primary Users] students
[Function] to interact with the financial aid office –
[Use Case 1] providing online documentation,
[Use Case 2] applying for financial aid,
[Use Case 3] reporting on financial aid and
[Use Case 4] managing/paying tuition.

15. Developing Questions
What questions for our student interviewee would
help us identify and solve the problem for the
scenario?
1. In groups of 2, generate and discuss questions. (5 Min)
2. Write your questions on stickies (one question per note)
and put it on the wall.

16. Developing Questions
As a large group, consider the questions
and vote for the top three questions.

17. Asking Questions
1. Ask our student interviewee the questions
(volunteers)
2. Everyone else take notes on the student's
responses (write down the most interesting
responses on post-it)

18. Discussion
1. What did you ask?
2. What did you learn?
3. What didn't you learn?

19. Refining Questions
Good questions involve:
• Listening deeply and actively
• Respecting and empathizing with users
• Approaching the interaction as a collaboration, not
an interrogation
• Welcoming insights and experiences from users
• Eliciting user's stories

20. Refining Questions
DO
 Ask open-ended
questions (try starting
with "how" or "why" or
"what")
 Ask questions that
invite a story ("tell me
about a time when...")
 Ask follow-up questions
DON'T
 Rely on questions that
can be answered with a
simple "yes" or "no"
 Ask leading questions
with an assumption or
value judgment built in
 Just march through a
question protocol

21. Developing Questions Round Two
What questions for our student interviewee would
help us identify and solve the problem for the
scenario?
1. In groups of 2, generate and discuss questions. (5 Min)
2. Write your questions on stickies (one question per note)
and put it on the wall.

22. Asking Questions Round Two
1. Ask our student interviewee the questions
(volunteers)
2. Ask follow-up questions based on the student's
response (volunteers)
3. Take notes on the student's responses (all)

23. Developing Questions Round Two
As a large group, consider the questions
and vote for the top three questions.

24. Discussion Round Two
1. What did you ask, and what didn't you ask?
2. What did you learn, and what didn't you learn?
3. What did you capture in your notes, and what didn't
you capture?
4. What questions do you have about asking
questions?

25. How did we do?
Did your questions achieve these?
• Listening deeply and actively
• Respecting and empathizing with users
• Approaching the interaction as a collaboration, not
an interrogation
• Welcoming insights and experiences from users
• Eliciting user's stories

26. Refining Questions
DO
 Ask open-ended
questions (try starting
with "how" or "why" or
"what")
 Ask questions that
invite a story ("tell me
about a time when...")
 Ask follow-up questions
DON'T
 Rely on questions that
can be answered with a
simple "yes" or "no"
 Ask leading questions
with an assumption or
value judgment built in
 Just march through a
question protocol

27. Addressing Assumptions

28. Expansive and Inclusive User Research
“The primary assumption of human-centered design is
that humans should be the focus of design and decision
making when creating technology and information
products. However, when certain types of people are
consistently centered, others are intentionally or
unintentionally pushed to the margins or left out
altogether. … [C]entering overlooked, vulnerable, or
marginalized audiences leads to different design
considerations, methods, practices and resulting designs.”
(Rose et al., 2018, p. 1).
Rose, E. J., Edenfield, A., Walton, R., Gonzales, L., Shivers-McNair, A., Zhvotovska, T., Jones, N. N.,
Garcia de Mueller, G. I., & Moore, K. (2018, August). Social Justice in UX: Centering Marginalized
Users. In Proceedings of the 36th ACM International Conference on the Design of Communication (p.
21). ACM.

29. Expansive and Inclusive User Research
When we envision a student user or recruit student participants,
what assumptions are we making about
• Gender
• Race
• Nationality
• Identity
• Language(s)
• Ability
• Age
• Socio-economic status
• Access to technologies
• Comfort and fluency with technologies

30. Expansive and Inclusive User Research
1. In small groups, list marginalized or overlooked
student identities to center in your user research
(one per sticky; different color stickies from last
activity)
2. Post your stickies and review other groups' stickies
3. Rejoin your small group and generate more
questions to ask, now that you've centered
marginalized groups (one question per sticky; yet
another color)
4. In large group, discuss and reflect

31. Discussion
1. What can you do with this?
2. How might you apply these strategies in your daily
work?

32. Creating User Stories

33. User Stories
What is a user story?
A user story captures simplified, high-level
descriptions of a user’s requirements written
from the end user’s perspective.

34. User Stories
Why write user stories?
• They help define the product
• They help achieve clarity
• They encourage participation from non-
technical members

35. User Stories
How do you write one?
As a: <type of user/persona>,
I want: <to be able to do something>,
so that: <I get some form of benefit>

36. User Stories
Example
As a: banking customer
I want: see a list of my recent activity
so that: I can keep track of my spending after a
transaction

37. User Stories
Generate 2 user stories
(5 Minutes)

38. User Stories
Keep in mind
• They should be short
• Write them from the perspective of the user
• Keep them simple
• Describe one piece of functionality
• Make the value/benefit very clear

39. Value exchange: (DescriptivePrescriptive)
Stakehold
er
4
Stakehold
er
1
Stakehold
er
2
Stakehold
er
3
Stakehold
er
5
Stakehold
er
6
?
?
?
?
? ?
? ?
Describe the current state
?
?
?
Who are they?
What types of relationship do they have with each other?
What kinds of values are being exchanged?
?
Kumar, V. (2013). 101 design methods: A structured approach for driving innovation in your
organization. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

40. Scenario
[Objective] To build a platform that allows
[Primary Users] students
[Function] to interact with the financial aid office –
[Use Case 1] providing online documentation,
[Use Case 2] applying for financial aid,
[Use Case 3] reporting on financial aid and
[Use Case 4] managing/paying tuition.

41. Discussion and Resources

42. Discussion and Takeaways
1. What can you do with this?
2. How might you apply these strategies in your daily
work?

43. Select Resources
Stanford D School Toolkit:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57c6b79629687fde090a0fdd/t/5b19b2f2aa4a99e99b26
b6bb/1528410876119/dschool_bootleg_deck_2018_final_sm+%282%29.pdf
Other Online Resources and Readings:
https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/contextual-interviews-and-how-to-
handle-them
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-
interaction-2nd-ed/contextual-design
https://methods.18f.gov/

44. Local Resources
UX@UA
• Slack: uxuagroup.slack.com/signup
• Meetup: meetup.com/UX-UA-meetup