What Users Don't Say: Uncovering Latent Needs Through Design Research

Watching real people doing real things in the real world helps us understanding them better than bringing them into an artificial usability lab environment. That deeper understanding undoubtedly helps us to design with empathy but more importantly it enables us to identify their latent needs. In doing so, it provides opportunities for us to create breakthrough products and services.

Through a collection of case studies this presentation explored diary studies, shadowing, contextual interviews, some informal contextual research techniques and some crowdsourced research techniques that have helped to inspire my design teams by immersing them in their users' world.

Case studies include mapping the customer experience of buying and using a new kitchen appliance, inventing a machine that means you never order the wrong size shoes online, concepting an app to support cancer patients and designing travel services for backpackers (and there's a few others thrown in too).

This talk was first presented at Cambridge University to their academic library community.

Transcript

1. Uncovering Latent Needs Through Design Research What users don’t say @PaulJervisHeath  paul@modernhuman.co ✉ Uncovering Latent Needs Through Design Research. What Users Don’t Say. Photo credit Flickr user G8lite - http://bit.ly/151fWVN © ModernHuman. MH Presented by Paul-Jervis Heath on Friday 30 August 2013.
2. I’m not an anthropologist, ethnographer or even a user experience researcher Photo credit Flickr user Lewaedd-Q - http://bit.ly/1cTyhdm
3. I’m just a designer who wants to create better products and services Photo credit by Head London - http://headlondon.com ©
4. Indifference Hygiene Factors (Usability) Differentiation (Experience) Understandable Interesting Useful Compelling Indispensable Advocacy
7. Getting inside peoples’ heads is the only way to uncover their latent needs.
8. Early Adopter Early Majority Late Majority Laggards Adapted from: Diffusion of Innovations, Everett M Rogers. (1962). Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore. (1991).
11. Formal Casual
12. image of mental model Diary Studies
13. Meet & Brief Diary Study Diary Analysis 1:1 Interview
14. Shadowing
15. Contextual Interviews
16. image of mental model Analysis Methods
19. Go where your users go
20. Immersion
21. Do what your users do
22. • the context • the physical environment • decor and atmosphere • the other people present • how people are acting • unspoken cues between people • how people react to one another • inherent nomenclature and terminology • other artefacts or objects present • the situation and position of those artefacts • how your presence has affected the situation Recognise what you’re witnessing
23. • your own visceral and instinctive reactions • immediate associations with other things Capture the seeds of ideas
24. The hurdles and challenges
25. • Contextual design research is an important tool for going beyond expressed needs and finding implied needs and latent needs. • Focus groups and usability tests are not design research. • Formal design research can be hugely beneficial. It’s rigorous and leads to insights, behavioural patterns, indications and predictors. • Casual design research shouldn’t be underestimated. Immersion and experience lead to ideas. Wait. What was that again?
26. • These slides are available on Speaker Deck at http://bit.ly/13CAENI • You can also follow the design team @camdesignspark • You can follow me on Twitter @pauljervisheath Thanks.
27. Paul-Jervis Heath paul@modernhuman.co @pauljervisheath ModernHuman. We use human-centred design to help businesses invent their future. We’re a design practice & innovation consultancy. Find out more at http://modernhuman.co Photo credit Flickr user andreaskopp - http://bit.ly/12yywna We love our ideas to spread. That’s why this presentation is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) license. This license allows you and others to remix, tweak, and build upon this work non- commercially. When you do you must acknowledge us, Modern Human and license any new creations under the identical terms. When in doubt, just ask us. We won’t bite.