Introduction and Reflection of 'Action-based Inquiry' Employed in User Research

Abstract

Background How are data collected if already established methods are inadequate for investigating user experience under particular conditions? The existing methods are difficult to utilize when a newly developed product is in its’ early stages after being released to a few initial users in the market and when the usage is involved in a continuous movement. The electric bicycle is one such case. The recruitment of appropriate users for the test may not be feasible and the employment of existing methods focused on observations and in-context interviews may be useless. This study presents how we can devise and test a new user research method for the electric bicycle. Methods We analyzed particular conditions in the use of electric bicycles and adopted the basic principles of existing user research methods to devise a new method, which we named ‘Actionbased Inquiry.’ Action-based Inquiry is composed of two steps; ‘understanding the product by researchers’ and ‘action-based user experience data collection.' We used the user diary method with research participants in the first step. The results of the diary study were used to design a detailed scenario for the following step. finally, we provided participants with an actual context and collected data related to their experiences. Results Consequently, we collected rich and insightful user experience data on explicit, behavioral and tacit knowledge levels. Conclusion Although this study did not verify the validity of the proposed method and the credibility of the collected data, we can cautiously say that the ‘Action-based Inquiry’ had positive results, and is worth consideration in future research.