In some ways, this talk is a simple one, designed to provide a single solution to a core problem facing all us UXers: Too many project managers, product managers, project sponsors, and so on balk at the idea of performing ANY user research.
Two key objections arise when user research is proposed:
“Our users don’t have time to go to a focus group or a conference room and spend hours listening to someone or doing inane exercises.”
“We can’t spend tons of project time for six months just fiddling around with talking to users…who need to be doing their jobs, by the way.”
To cut through this barrier, I came up with the method I call “”5:15.”” Put simply, it involves asking a person to commit to answering five questions in only 15 minutes.
Almost no one can spend two hours out of their workday talking to a user experience researcher; almost everyone has 15 minutes. Even asking someone for an hour of their time seems excessive, especially in enterprise settings. However, that request for 15 minutes seems innocuous.
We’ll look at how these questions work well, how you can gain insights easily, and why you should never take NO to research plans as an answer.
3. @RegJoeConsults
RegularJoeConsulting.com
What’s Enterprise UX?
• Stuff that people actually do
• Contexts often within an office or at least a business
setting
• Timesheets, expense reports, product ordering (think of
massive corporate purchasing, not new shoes for you)
• Stuff that employees do
• In other words….
3
9. @RegJoeConsults
RegularJoeConsulting.com
“[W]e’d invite our business
partners or stakeholders to the
lab, but it was difficult to get
them to take time out of their
day to travel to the lab, and it
was a big production.”
–Remote Research
Nate Bolt and Tony Tulathimutte
12. @RegJoeConsults
RegularJoeConsulting.com
It’s a time and cost suck
It creates an insular view of the product
Research can promote “navel gazing”
Researche pour le research
It creates a disconnect with teams
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16. @RegJoeConsults
RegularJoeConsulting.com
What are the questions
• Prerequisites/introductions (doesn’t count)
1. What do you do? What’s your role/responsibilities?
2. What’s a typical day-in-the-life for you?
3. Who do you work with?
4. What’s one thing you couldn’t do you job without? Why?
5. What’s one thing you would change and why?
• BONUS: What do you wish I’d asked? (doesn’t count)
• Thanks and see ya (doesn’t count) 15