Putting users at the centre of your projects by talking to them

Presentation for Exeter Web Meetup, 13 February 2014
http://www.meetup.com/Exeter-Web/events/159614072/

Links from the presentation:
http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-usability/user-interviews.shtml
http://whitneyhess.com/blog/2010/07/07/my-best-advice-for-conducting-user-interviews/
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17236175
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17869520

1. Hello Putting users at the centre of your projects by talking to them
3. This space intentionally blank
4. What? • Interviewing users to gather insights into user context, motivations, goals pain points • Asking users about themselves, their context, their actions. • *Not* asking them for their opinions and ideas
5. When? • Pretty much anytime! • Helping to segment our users and/or test our assumptions • Segmentation?
6. Getting users • Depends on budget • Can go big with agency • Or small: DIY • Use incentives • Administration, be organised • At user’s location, central location or go remote: phone / Skype
7. What you’ll ask • Relevant to our thing • User context, experience, motivations, needs, processes, touchpoints... • Create and use a discusssion guide
8. Interview technique • Make user comfortable • *Not* after user’s opinion / design skills, want to talk about *them* • General good talking technique: posture, tone of voice, pace, reflecting
9. Interview technique • Taking notes, audio recordings • Write questions as well as answers down! • It’s not easy and takes practice • Ideally observe and assist someone who’s done it before
10. Using the findings • Type up notes / transcripts (very roughly) • Affinity sorting exercise
11. Using the findings
12. Using the findings • Insights as bullet points - bare minimum • Feed these into personas, user scenarios, user and product journeys • Think end to end
13. Stuff to read http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly- resources/web-usability/user-interviews.shtml
14. Stuff to read http://whitneyhess.com/blog/2010/07/07/my- best-advice-for-conducting-user-interviews/
15. Stuff to read https://www.goodreads.com/ book/show/17236175 https://www.goodreads.com/ book/show/17869520
16. Thank you @bouncingdan @fffunction http://fffunction.co