Integrity in research
- 3. Rigour
- 4. “5 users are enough”
- 7. Thank you Lee McIvor @leemcivor
Editor's Notes
- #2: Just want to talk about a few potential barriers to great research and insight in the UX field.\n\n
- #3: Research is critical, but we need to learn methods properly, not just by rote.\n\nThere are lots of books out there, these are just a few more familiar ones.\n\nWe need to go beyond these old standards, and push ourselves to gain a deeper understanding.\n
- #4: Because we always have to think about how rigorous our work is.\n\nBudget constraints matter, but we still need to communicate effect of savings.\n\nDiscount: Heuristic eval / cognitive walkthrough: No users. Impacts reliability. Tradeoff.\n\nInformal usability testing: Environment - busy coffee shop? Participants - reflect real users?\n\n2 other areas to consider:\n\nQuantitative vs qualitative - businesses love quantitative, even when it doesn’t help. What, not why.\n\nEvaluative vs generative. When, how, why? Methods above are evaluative, not good for innovation.\n\nAlso means we can avoid hanging onto comfort blankets.\n
- #5: We often hear “5 users are enough” for usability testing. Really? Why? Because Neilsen said so on his website 20 years ago? Jared Spool questioned this assumption in 2001, as has Faulkner (2003) and my old teachers Woolrych & Cockton (2001).\n\nIt’s nice to talk in absolutes, but we need to conduct our own research and examine others because in many cases results vary.\n\nAnother barrier to effective research is hiding behind deliverables.\n
- #6: We need to stop talking in deliverables. We’re not being paid for deliverables, but better solutions.\n\nPersonas are a prime example. Plethora of persona “checklists”, even Forrester are at it.\n\nWithout the research, personas are meaningless.\n
- #7: If we don’t know our stuff and actually deliver better products and services.\n\nUltimately we’ll be seen as cowboys.\n\nDon’t want this to be seen as negative.\n\nBut these are real challenges that I think we need to consider for our industry to remain relevant in the future. \n\nIf we don’t demonstrably have the skills, then we won’t be useful.\n\n
- #8: \n