Visiting your customers at their place of work helps you really understand the needs, motivations and goals of your users.Create a focus question
The focus question helps you concentrate on the observations that matter. Develop it by working with the project team and use a sticky note activity.
- Give the project team 5 minutes to brainstorm all of the questions they would like to ask their users.
- Tell them to write each question on a sticky note, one question per sticky note.
- Place all the sticky notes on the wall and first arrange the questions into groups.
- Vote for the most important group. The group of questions then becomes the articulation of the focus question.
- 給專案組員五分鐘的時間，腦力激盪他們想問使用者的問題。
- 請他們將問題寫在立貼上，每張紙一個問題。
- 將立貼貼在牆上，並將所有問題歸類成組（約五分鐘）。
- 選出最重要的一類。其中的問題即是需聚焦的問題。
Start the interview
"I am going to research [activity] so that I can [design a system]."
- Audio record the sessions
Recordings can catch comments, phrases and some of the technical language, as well as Intonation. Video record is feasible in large, relatively anonymous spaces. Audio recording on the other hand is usually possible in most environments.
- "I'll be taking notes during our interview, but if it's OK with you I'd also like to record the sessions as I can't take notes quickly enough. The recording is just for my purposes and anything you tell me will be kept confidential."
- Pause the recording if sensitive data gets discussed. Change the participant's name when getting the transcriptions.
- Reviewing the transcript in depth is the most important analysis step you'll make.
- Take photographs of the environment
To recall key elements of the environment.It's easier to ask permission if you wait until the end of the session and give the partipant a gift before asking (such as some chocolates).
Take three kinds of photograph:
- Pictures that show the overall context.
- Pictures that show the participant alongside other people and objects in the environment.
- Close-up photographs of the participant interacting with specific objects in his or her environment.
- 整體環境，包括辦公室內部與建築外部空間。
- 受訪者和其他人與物在環境中的相對位置。
- 受訪者與特定物件互動的近照。
- Take great notes.
Make sure that your note taking doesn't disrupt your relationship with the participant and miss observations.
- Take around 4 pages of A5 notes for each 30-minute observation.
- Reserve the first page of notes for any abbreviations and jargon that you hear: this quickly builds into a useful glossary.
- In addition to a few quotes that really strikes you, you should jot down ideas, key themes as they start to form, and also questions that you want to ask later in the discussion.
- 'AEIOU' method: Activities, Environments, Interactions, Objects and Users.
- 30分鐘的訪談中，記錄約4頁A5的筆記
- 第一頁預留給聽到的縮寫和專業用語（之後可以拿來做成詞彙索引）。
- 記錄一些最有印象的話，受訪者的點子、談話中形成的主題、以及之後要問受訪者的問題。
- 如果不知道要記錄什麼，可以記錄從事的活動、環境、互動狀況、物件和使用者本身。
- Write up a short summary of their observation immediately.
Schedule around 15 minutes after each participant to summarise what they have learnt. Use Contextual Interview form.
'AEIOU' method
Activities are goal directed sets of actions — things that people want to accomplish.
What primary activities do users need to perform to meet their goals? What do users mention first?
Which action words (verbs) do they use?
Environments include the entire arena where activities take place. Take photographs or make a sketch of the environment where the action happens.
Interactions are the exchanges between a person and someone or something else, and are the building blocks of activities.
What are the intermediate steps or tasks in the process?
What steps does the user enjoy most?
What are the user’s pet peeves?
Who reviews or authorises the work?
Objects are the artifacts that people interact with, as well as the building blocks of the environment.
What physical items does the participant interact with?
What software does the participant use?
Users are the people providing the behaviours, preferences and needs.
What are the participant’s goals, attitudes and motivations?
What are the participant’s capabilities with the product domain and with technology?
What education and training do participants have?
(Source: The 5 habits of highly effective field researchers by David Travis)
