User Research Process Research Articles

Addressing the gender gap in cycling: Lisbon's journey for a more inclusive cycling ecosystem

Despite significant investment towards the promotion of cycling in Lisbon, data collected reveal a substantial gender gap both in private bicycle use and in the public bike-sharing system, GIRA (around 70% are male users). To tackle this issue, the work (herein presented) consisted of an investigation to key factors underpinning the observed gender gap, knowledge that informed an action plan that aims to promote a more equal access to GIRA. Our journey included a thorough qualitative and quantitative user research process aiming at gathering gender-disaggregated data to better understand access barriers and unmet needs. We resorted to various methods such as an online survey, in-depth interviews and an immersive experience with GIRA. The exploratory phase was then followed by a set of co-creation sessions with bicycle users and non-bicycle users which was the basis of EMEL's action plan.

People-centred design methods in a local decision-making process: masterplan for Lisbon's multimodal mobility hubs

Lisbon's City Council and EMEL (the city's mobility and parking management company) have been working on a concept for Mobility Hubs in Lisbon through a comprehensive participatory process that brings together a broad spectrum of stakeholders. We have adopted a design thinking approach rooted in a thorough user research process aiming at better understanding unmet needs, preferences, and expectations of city users, whilst co-creating alternative value propositions for future mobility hubs. Stakeholder outreach has been pivotal to ensuring active participation of all communities: passengers, former passengers, transport operators, local and regional administration bodies, civil society, among others have been voicing their views and concerns to help transform five bus terminals of Lisbon into inviting places of connectivity. Our goal is to better inform future investment choices.

Conducting User Research for Designing Better Software Products

A user’s experience with a software product is crucial for the success of that product. For a long period of time, it was not considered to get an insight of what the users demanded from a product. User research is the best way to discover what the users need. With the increased use of mobile devices, the demand of software products has increased. Building an application is not as simple as hiring someone to code and deploy the application. A process has to be followed and user’s requirements must be understood before we start the design process. The research will help to take additional benefits from the results of user research. It would help to investigate and validate product ideas clearly. As more facts can help to reach a better conclusion, the results from multiple sources like interviews, surveys, user testing etc. Surveys has been conducted for different application i.e. E-commerce application and Facebook application. Proposed user experience (UX) model has been implemented on results and understands that how user experience (UX) research model helps to extract useful information. The recommended model is helpful in patching all the problems that come along during the user research process. The results produced by experiments can be processed through Atomic user experience (UX) model and a useful, shareable and easy to understand outcome can be drawn out of the research.

Experiences with a Flexible User Research Process to Build Data Change Tools

Scientific software development processes are understood to be distinct from commercial software development practices due to uncertain and evolving states of scientific knowledge. Sustaining these software products is a recognized challenge, but under-examined is the usability and usefulness of such tools to their scientific end users. User research is a well-established set of techniques (e.g., interviews, mockups, usability tests) applied in commercial software projects to develop foundational, generative, and evaluative insights about products and the people who use them. Currently these approaches are not commonly applied and discussed in scientific software development work. The use of user research techniques in scientific environments can be challenging due to the nascent, fluid problem spaces of scientific work, varying scope of projects and their user communities, and funding/economic constraints on projects. In this paper, we reflect on our experiences undertaking a multi-method user research process in the Deduce project. The Deduce project is investigating data change to develop metrics, methods, and tools that will help scientists make decisions around data change. There is a lack of common terminology since the concept of systematically measuring and managing data change is under explored in scientific environments. To bridge this gap we conducted user research that focuses on user practices, needs, and motivations to help us design and develop metrics and tools for data change. This paper contributes reflections and the lessons we have learned from our experiences. We offer key takeaways for scientific software project teams to effectively and flexibly incorporate similar processes into their projects.

Pattern Analysis of IDEO's Human-Centered Design Methods in Developing Regions

While there is increasing interest in designing for the developing world, identifying appropriate design research methods for understanding user needs and preferences in these unfamiliar contexts is a major challenge. This paper demonstrates how to apply a variety of statistical techniques to an online design case study repository, Human-Centered Design (HCD) Connect, to discover what types of methods designers use for identifying user needs and preferences for developing-world problems. Specifically, it uncovers how the following factors correlate to method usage: application area (e.g., farming versus healthcare), affiliation of the person using the method (IDEO designer versus not), and stages of the user research process. It finds that designers systematically use certain types of methods for certain types of problems, and that certain methods complement each other in practice. When compared with non-IDEO users, professional designers at IDEO use fewer methods per case and focus on earlier stages of the process that involve data gathering. The results demonstrate the power of combining data-driven statistical techniques with design case studies to identify user research methods for different developing-world problems, as well as locating which research methods complement each other. It also highlights that professionals designing for developing-world contexts commit more time to earlier stage user research efforts, rather than in concept generation or delivery, to better understand differences in needs and design contexts.