How Design Research Impacts Our World

Interaction design has a fascinating relationship with qualitative research. Some of the most successful interfaces of all time are mythologized as having no formal design research / UX research - Craigslist, a certain fruit company, early video games. But everyone from the government to startups to tech giants now have teams of UX researchers/design researchers attempting to understand the communities and people that use their interfaces. In this talk we'll look at examples of current UX/design research and discuss the impact on interfaces we use and the world around us. Examples will include a recent government project to improve the application for food stamps; a Facebook UX research team project, and a few others that might surprise you.

Transcript

1. How Design Research Impacts Our World F R O M F O O D S T A M P S T O F A C E B O O K
2. thx
4. 46 Million Americans That’s 22 Million Households 15% of the country
6. Now what percentage of those 46 million were employed within a year of receiving food assistance?
7. > 80%
8. So these are working people. People with families. Teachers, etc. How do they apply?
9. 90 Minutes / 53 Days
11. What is Design Research? but first
12. Observing people use technology in order to design better technology
13. 60 YEARS AGO
14. LET’S RECORD PEOPLE USING STUFF 30 YEARS AGO
15. Vs. 10 YEARS AGO
16. 1% 
 Humans listening to humans 99% 
 Data
17. • UX Research (Facebook, Google) • Experience Research (AirBnB) • Insights (Netflix) • User Research (Walmart) • Design Research (Been around forever) Terms That are Kinda The Same
19. What do you think about this interface? “ think ”
20. Analytics Data Science Quantitative Research Design Research UX Research Usability User Research 1:1 Observation Lean Research
21. Dropbox AirBnB Pinterest Uber Google Facebook Organization 80 100 50 90 1,000 300 Designers Unofficial Wild Guesses
22. Dropbox AirBnB Pinterest Uber Google Facebook Organization 9 13 12 7 250 100 Design Researchers / Unofficial Wild Guesses UX Researchers / Whatever They Are Called
23. Dropbox AirBnB Pinterest Uber Google Facebook Organization 500 900 300 800 12,000 5,000 Engineers Unofficial Wild Guesses
24. Dropbox AirBnB Pinterest Uber Google Facebook Organization 11:1 9:1 4:1 10:1 4:1 3:1 Ratio of Designers to Researchers Unofficial Wild Guesses
25. Btw I’m Nate Bolt
26. Graduated UCSD in 1999
27. “ Social Impact of Digital Technology ”
34. Design Internship At Clear Ink
35. Design Internship At Clear Ink Oops, Bankrupt
37. PLEASE BUY THIS
38. ethn.io
40. tinef
41. Mad Men Season 5 Episode 12 Hiding Spoilers Chris Eberly Drink every time Roger does acid. 6min ago or 48m into the show Rick Ross They just fired Don but who cares I’m the boss everyone knows that. You follow Chris on Twitter Rick Ross is a suggested user 0 min 5 min 10 min 15 min 20 min 8min ago or 50m into the show 6 people you know talking about this 8min 13sec of 44min total running time 25 min 30 min 35 min 8m 13s 40 min
43. SF to Paris in Two Minutes
44. Back to those Food Stamps
45. Jacob Soloman Policy analyst and project manager
66. Just Stop
71. 30 phone interviews
72. And 15 Follow-Up Interviews
73. Quant & Qual
78. 11 Minutes / 53 Days (?)
79. • Social Good • Life & Death • Cultural Shifts • Incrementally Better Technology Experiences Duh • Rampant Runaway Capitalism • Absolutely No Impact Nada Zilch • Ironically impossible to research • By Playing a Cruel Joke The Cheat Sheet How Design Research Impacts Our World
81. Dead Tomato Society
82. Functional Behavioral Observation
83. Plain, Spicy, Extra Chunky
84. "It used to be that the way to find out what people wanted to eat was to ask them."
85. • Social Good • Life & Death • Cultural Shifts • Incrementally Better Technology Experiences Duh • Rampant Runaway Capitalism • Absolutely No Impact Nada Zilch • Ironically impossible to research • By Playing a Cruel Joke The Cheat Sheet How Design Research Impacts Our World
87. Aegis Radar
90. • Social Good • Life & Death • Cultural Shifts • Incrementally Better Technology Experiences Duh • Rampant Runaway Capitalism • Absolutely No Impact Nada Zilch • Ironically impossible to research • By Playing a Cruel Joke The Cheat Sheet How Design Research Impacts Our World
91. #
95. • Social Good • Life & Death • Cultural Shifts • Incrementally Better Technology Experiences Duh • Rampant Runaway Capitalism • Absolutely No Impact Nada Zilch • Ironically impossible to research • By Playing a Cruel Joke The Cheat Sheet How Design Research Impacts Our World
97. Quantitative research lets us test our assumptions, and qualitative research lets us find out what we don't know. “ ”
98. We can never have too much understanding about our products.” “
101. 1) Data with a heart
 2) Surprisingly Qualitative
 3) Fast AF ux research
102. • Social Good • Life & Death • Cultural Shifts • Incrementally Better Technology Experiences Duh • Rampant Runaway Capitalism • Absolutely No Impact Nada Zilch • Ironically impossible to research • By Playing a Cruel Joke The Cheat Sheet How Design Research Impacts Our World
105. Research Interface Fiction
106. Research Interface
107. • Social Good • Life & Death • Cultural Shifts • Incrementally Better Technology Experiences Duh • Rampant Runaway Capitalism • Absolutely No Impact Nada Zilch • Ironically impossible to research • By Playing a Cruel Joke The Cheat Sheet How Design Research Impacts Our World
108. Paper
110. • Social Good • Life & Death • Cultural Shifts • Incrementally Better Technology Experiences Duh • Rampant Runaway Capitalism • Absolutely No Impact Nada Zilch • Ironically impossible to research • By Playing a Cruel Joke The Cheat Sheet How Design Research Impacts Our World
114. • Social Good • Life & Death • Cultural Shifts • Incrementally Better Technology Experiences Duh • Rampant Runaway Capitalism • Absolutely No Impact Nada Zilch • Ironically impossible to research • By Playing a Cruel Joke The Cheat Sheet How Design Research Impacts Our World
115. The Myth: Geniuses have genius ideas that turn into genius products.
116. The Truth:
     Great Ideas come from Other Great Ideas
117. More Truth:
     Imaginative research facilitates invention
118. Fin.
119. Grad School for HCI Stalk IxDA Events & Forums Keep an eye on UXPA Internships Build something epic How to get into Design Research
120. • Mental Models by Indi Young • Just Enough Research by Erika Hall • Cognition in The Wild by Ed Hutchins • Complete Beginner's Guide to Design Research • Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research • codeforamerica.org/apps/clean • codeforamerica.org/apps/promptly A Deeper Design Research Dive
121. nate@ethn.io @boltron Nate Bolt