Research is all about answering the key questions that will help your product succeed, but is also a valuable step in helping you desing and develop the product.
Why do research?
Research is about answering key questions to help your product succeed, but it’s also a valuable tool to use in designing and developing the product. Research can help to:
- Generate or evaluate ideas.
- Clarify your product’s potential.
- Understand strengths and weaknesses of competing products.
- Understand your users’ behaviours and motivations.
- Define, clarify, and prioritise the product use cases and context of user.
Types of research
Design research uses a variety of methods drawn from disparate fields such as graphic design, architecture, anthropology, and ethnography. Different types of research are useful to gain different types of insights.
Quantitative research is about studying and analysing data around specific features, users, or behaviours. For example, you
can use it to measure how often users take pictures with their phones, how often they send SMS messages, or what times of
day they use their music players. In later stages of the project, you can also use quantitative research to assess the usability
of a prototype and determine how to make it easier to use. The output of quantitative research is primarily numerical data,
which can then be visualised using statistical modelling methods.
Qualitative research seeks to cast a wider net and to better understand the circumstances around user behaviours and motivations.
This type of research enables your team to peer into people’s lives and will help you develop insights into why and how people
might use your product, what existing behaviours it may relate to, and what user needs it will target. The output of qualitative
research ranges from simple notes and sketches to photographs and video — all of which require interpretation and discussion.
Research is not a one-time activity. Your product can benefit from research at many stages. Consider the following example, featuring a hypothetical music-player application.
| Project stage | Qualitative research | Quantitative research |
|---|---|---|
|
Beginning |
Discover existing user behaviours associated with certain tasks (e.g., listening to music while exercising). |
Assess the potential market reach (e.g., the number of teenagers who take their music players to school). Quantify behaviours related to your proposed product (e.g., how many times each day teenagers listen to music). |
|
Middle |
Discover the ways people use a prototype of the product, to inform ongoing design and development. |
Quantify how users behave when using a prototype of the product (e.g., how often they used the prototype or what features they used most often). Assess the prototype’s usability (e.g., how quickly users completed a particular task). |
|
End |
Discover interesting or unexpected ways the beta product is being used, to inform ongoing improvements (e.g., people may be using the colourful music visualiser as mood lighting at parties). |
Assess the product’s usability (e.g., by comparing the frequency of search by keyword and search by album to inform ongoing product improvements). |
Qualitative-research techniques
Research comes in many flavours and doesn’t necessarily require a big budget. Here are some examples of simple qualitative research that you can perform with limited funds.
Observation is the simplest and often least expensive method of research. It can be as simple as sitting at a park, shopping
centre, or tourist destination and watching people’s behaviour. More-structured types of observation include shadowing or
undercover studies. Shadowing involves following people in their day-to-day activities. In an undercover study, you pretend
to be a participant in a given situation, such as a bank customer who wants to learn more about mobile banking.
Interviews are a great way to obtain information, though it’s important to remember that what people say and what they do
are often two different things. Interviews can incorporate techniques such as direct storytelling or contextual ‘desk tours’.
The first technique involves asking your subjects to recall what they did in specific situations, and the second involves
your examining parts of their lives, much as you might examine the contents of an office desk, a knapsack, or a child’s
room.
Photographic studies are also useful. These studies can consist of walking around and taking photos of people, places, and
things or simply collecting existing photos. Group the photos into relevant collections to share with your team.
Blending methods: A photographic study might be used in combination with observation, for example, to explore how people hold their mobile phones while conversing on calls or sending text messages.
Role-playing can also be a helpful tool for gaining insights to inform product design. Role-playing involves acting the part
of your target users in scenarios related to your product or the needs it seeks to fill.
You are the user: Let’s say you’re developing an application that will help groups of friends plan and coordinate social activities. Role-play by pretending you’re planning a night out with your friends. How does the planning start? How many conversations does it take to decide where to go? How do these conversations occur (such as by SMS, e-mail, or instant messaging)? How could your product help?
Self-reporting can be a more complex activity but is ideal for use in the later stages of a project or if the project focuses
on improving an existing product. In this type of research, subjects are asked to keep a journal of their activities and to
submit periodic reports. These reports don’t have to be time-consuming. They can be as simple as sending daily SMS messages,
updating a blog, or uploading photos to a photo-sharing site.
Research tips and strategies
- To start, read as much as you can.
- Perusing books or white papers cannot, however, replace doing research that involves actual users. Wherever possible, observe and talk to people.
- Document all your findings and thoughts about your research. Sketch, draw, and take photos. Video also can be helpful but takes a long time to transcribe, so it may not be as useful as well-recorded observation combined with photography.
- Plan some time to review the research with the whole team.
- If possible, involve project stakeholders in the research. Participating in research activities will have much more impact on stakeholders than simply reading the results.
What about other people’s research?
There are hundreds of white papers, presentations, videos, and conference proceedings on the web that describe completed research
on mobile device usage, consumer habits, and trials using prototypes or alpha products. Much of this information is freely
available, can be a great resource, and can provide insight into the lives of consumers across the globe. Be careful, however,
to carefully examine how the research was gathered to ensure that it is truly relevant to your project.
Sharing your research
Whatever research you undertake, be sure to share at least portions of it with the rest of your team. Sharing may involve
a formal presentation of your findings, but even the simple act of posting photographs, notes, and diagrams around the office
can generate interest in the process and create a sense of team ownership of the results.
Developing personas
Creating personas not only helps you share the results of your research, it also provides you with a valuable tool with which to continue the design process.
Resources
Where’s the Phone? A Study of Mobile Phone Location in Public Spaces is a fascinating study from Nokia that explores how and where people carry
their mobile phones.
What Can We Learn by Inviting People to Be Designers? In this video, Nokia designer Younghee Jung discusses a recent initiative, inviting residents of shantytowns in three emerging
economies to present designs for their ideal phone. A slide presentation containing photos of the creations is also available.
Shared Phone Practices is a slide presentation outlining the sharing of mobile devices among family members or within communities in emerging economies.
This research was gathered via observation and compiled as a photographic study.
Consumers from around the world use their mobile devices in various ways. These articles from Nokia provide insights into
device use in India, China, United States and Europe.
