UX Research at Jacobs

UX Research

• I always ask questions to understand what is the most important information they are currently looking for.
  
• What’s the priority information they would like to see?
  
• What are the most repetitive tasks they perform? By gaining insight into the most repetitive tasks, I can determine which features or areas of our products may benefit from improvements.
  
• I ask them questions to understand which screens they visit the most and what they do there / where they pay attention.
  
• I always ask questions to understand how they currently navigate product and where they focus their attention on each screen.
  
• I want to understand what annoys them when they use the current product.
  
• What works well? What features do they use and why they are useful?
  
• Almost all of my questions would start with "how," "why," "show me," or "what." I always use open-ended questions when I write UX scripts.
  
• This allows users to explain how they use the product, what kind of problems they have and what kind of needs they have.
  
• By using this approach, I can gain a deeper understanding of our users' behaviors, preferences, and pain points, and identify areas where we may need to focus our efforts to improve the user experience.
  
• I avoid asking questions that are overly leading or easy for users to agree with, such as those that begin with "would you?" For example: Would you like to see this feature on this screen?

• I ask users a series of questions to perform a specific tasks for me and observe how easyli they can do it.
• If the users are unable to complete the task successfully, I would show them how to do it.
• Then I request them to try again to determine if they remember the steps to locate specific information or navigate certain areas to accomplish the task.
• I follow up with a series of questions to inquire about the reasons behind the difficulty or ease of completing the task.

While at Jacobs I had the opportunity to work on these research activities:

1. Discovery interviews and moderated usability testing: Discovery interviews are a type of user research activity where you ask users about their needs, pain points, and behaviors related to a product or service. Moderated usability testing involves observing users as they try to use a product or service and asking them questions about their experience. Both of these activities can provide valuable insights into how users interact with a product and where they may encounter problems or frustrations.
2. Affinity diagrams: Affinity diagrams are a way to organize large amounts of data or ideas into categories based on common themes or patterns. In the context of user research, affinity diagrams can be used to group together user feedback and observations that relate to similar topics or issues.
3. User flows: A user flow is a visual representation of the steps a user takes to complete a specific task or goal within a product or service. User flows can help identify areas of friction or confusion in a user's journey and can be used to improve the overall user experience.
4. User journeys: User journeys are similar to user flows but typically provide a more holistic view of the user's experience over time. They may include information about the user's motivations, goals, and emotions at different stages of their interaction with a product or service.
5. Personas: Personas are fictional characters that represent different types of users or customers. They are often based on research and can help designers and product teams understand the needs, goals, and behaviors of different user groups. Personas can be used to guide design decisions and ensure that the product or service is tailored to the needs of the target audience.

Example of the script written for discovery interviews with users

Dashboard Discovery 

Intro 

• Currently, we're in the process of designing a customisable, personalised dashboard to replace the current homepage so it provides relevant information dependent on the requirements of each user.
  
  
• The objective of this call is to understand what we need to include, whether what we have on the homepage at the moment is useful and whether we can build on what we currently have. 
  
  
• It is important to remember that I am not testing you and that there are no right or wrong answers - we are testing the product.
  
  
• Is it ok for me to record this session please so I can use your suggestions later when the team will be working on the dashboard design? We don’t show that to anyone outside of (product name) and this recording will be deleted within a month.
  

Can you share your screen with the (product name) project that you are working on, please?

• What’s your role? And what (product name) do you use? 

At the beginning, I will ask you a few general questions about the homepage. 

• What annoys you the most about the homepage and why?

• Show me how to expand and collapse a quick launch.

• Show me how you use favourites. 
• Users say they don’t use it -> Why don’t you use it? 
• Users say they use it -> Can you show me how you add a page to favourites and how you delete it?
• How would you make the task of adding and deleting favourites simpler?
• What would you change in this process?

• My reports -> Show me how you use my reports.
• Teams reports -> Show me how you use team reports.

• How often do you use these links? If the user says they don’t use it ask them to elaborate why.

• My actions -> Show me how you use my actions. User says that they don’t use it. -> Ask why. 
• Can you show me how you can assign someone an action?

• Team actions -> Show me how you use team actions. The user says that they don’t use it. -> Ask why.
• Can you show me how to add a team report?

• Show me how you use contact us, please.
• What information is useful?
• What information is not useful?

• Show me how you use to contact us, please.
• What information is useful?
• What information is not useful?

• How do you use this section on the page?  
• Have you ever read the content in this section? Why?
• What kind of product/project information about (product name) would you like to see?
  

Now, I will ask you general questions about how you use (product name).

1. When you start your work day, what is the first screen you look at? And what are the secondary screens? Can you show me where you go and what you do?
   
2. Why do you look at these screens? What kind of tasks are you trying to perform / find out?
   
3. When you perform your job what information is crucial for you to perform your job quickly?
   
4. What are the most common / repetitive tasks you perform while working using (product name)? On which screens do you perform these tasks?
   
5. Imagine that you are landing on the dashboard page. What kind of information would you like to gain right away from looking at the dashboard page?
   
6. About what would you like to get notifications? When you use (product name).
   
7. In your opinion, what are the 2/3 most important tasks you perform on the (product name)?
   
8. Are there any situations when you share some information between team members when you use (product name)? Can you give me examples of these situations, please?
   
9. How important is it for you to have the ability to see on the dashboard recently viewed items?
   
10. How important is it for you to have the ability to view the dashboard list of recently added reports / actions?  
    
11. Do you use Power BI when performing your job?
    
12. What kind of analytics data would be useful to view on the dashboard? 
    
13. How often do you deal with overdue reports / actions when you use (product name)? If you could add them on the dashboard, where would you add them on the screen?
    
14. Currently, overdue reports are sorted in date order. What would be the other ways to prioritise reports apart from date? 
    
15. When you perform your job do you often write notes about tasks for the day? 
    
16. Imagine that you could pin something to the dashboard similar to the option that you have in Outlook now. What would you pin to have the ability to always view this on the dashboard? 
    
17. When you search for an entity, report or action how long does it take to find what you are looking for?    
    
18. Would you search for the same entity, report or action several times a day?

Wrap-up

Ending 

Example user flow created for the application. It demonstrates a specific part of the application.

User Flows 

Example of the part of an affinity diagram created for a specific application. 

Affinity diagram