Think Like a UX Researcher
How to Observe Users, Influence Design, and Shape Business Strategy

Think Like a UX Researcher will challenge your preconceptions about user experience (UX) research and encourage you to think beyond the obvious. You?ll discover how to plan and conduct UX research, analyze data, persuade teams to take action on the results and build a career in UX. The book will help you take a more strategic view of product design so you can focus on optimizing the user?s experience. UX Researchers, Designers, Project Managers, Scrum Masters, Business Analysts and Marketing Managers will find tools, inspiration and ideas to rejuvenate their thinking, inspire their team and improve their craft.

Key Features

Contents

Introduction vii

Acknowledgments xi

1 Setting the Stage 1

◻ The Seven Deadly Sins of UX Research 2

◻ Think Like a Detective 10

◻ The Two Questions We Answer with UX Research 18

◻ Anatomy of a Research Question 21

◻ Applying Psychology to UX Research 28

◻ Why Iterative Design Isn’t Enough to Create Innovative Products 33

◻ Does your Company Deliver a Superior Customer Experience? 38

2 Planning User Experience Research 43

◻ Defining Your UX Research Problem 44

◻ How to Approach Desk Research 51

◻ Conducting an Effective Stakeholder Interview 56

◻ Identifying the User Groups for Your UX Research 64

◻ Writing the Perfect Participant Screener 69

◻ Arguments Against a Representative Sample 75

◻ How to Find More Usability Problems with Fewer Participants 81

◻ Deciding on Your First Research Activity with Users 85

3 Conducting User Experience Research 89

◻ Gaining Informed Consent from Your Research Participants 90

◻ What Is Design Ethnography? 96

◻ Structuring the Ethnographic Interview 100

◻ Writing Effective Usability Test Tasks 106

◻ The Five Mistakes You’ll Make as a Usability Test Moderator 110

◻ Avoiding Personal opinions in Usability Expert Reviews 116

◻ Toward a Lean UX 121

◻ Controlling Researcher Effects 128

4 Analyzing User Experience Research 135

◻ Sharpening Your Thinking Tools 136

◻ UX Research and Strength of Evidence 145

◻ Agile Personas 150

◻ How to Prioritize Usability Problems 156

◻ Creating Insights, Hypotheses and Testable Design Ideas 160

◻ How to Manage Design Projects with User Experience Metrics 166

◻ Two Measures that Will Justify Any Design Change 173

◻ Your Web Survey Is a Lot Less Reliable than You Think 177

5 Persuading People to Take Action on the Results of User

Experience Research 183

◻ Evangelizing UX Research 184

◻ How to Create a User Journey Map 195

◻ Generating Solutions to Usability Problems 203

◻ Building UX Research Into the Design Studio Methodology 208

◻ Dealing with Common objections to UX Research 215

◻ The User Experience Debrief Meeting 221

◻ Creating a User Experience Dashboard 228

◻ Achieving Boardroom Influence 234

6 Building a Career in User Experience 241

◻ Hiring a User Experience Leader 242

◻ A Tool for Assessing and Developing the Technical Skills of

User Experience Practitioners 248

◻ Going Beyond Technical Skills: What Makes a Great UX

Researcher? 260

◻ How to Wow People with Your UX Research Portfolio 267

◻ A Week-by-Week Guide to Your First Month in a UX Research

Role 273

◻ The Reflective UX Researcher 278

Endnotes 283

Index 289

David Travis has been carrying out ethnographic field research and running product usability tests since 1989. He has published three books on user　experience and over 30,000 students have taken his face-to-face and online training courses. He has a PhD in Experimental Psychology.　

Philip Hodgson has been a UX researcher for over 25 years. His work has influenced design for the US, European and Asian markets, for everything　from banking software and medical devices to store displays, packaging and even baby care products. He has a PhD in Experimental Psychology.