UX Research Playbook | Chapter 6, Designing Research Methods — Beyond the Book, Various Methodologies

UX Research Playbook | Review Table of Contents

Chapter 6 Designing research methods 
1) Selection method
2) Types of research
? 3) Beyond the book — various methodologies

As I've mentioned earlier, personally I felt this part of the book ( Chapter 6 Designing research methods) was the thinnest, and it left me wanting more. Because, in my view, this is the part that's most needed in actual practice. Information about individual techniques is easy to find here and there. Schools probably cover individual methods in great depth and even test on them, but when it actually comes to which technique to apply at which time and how — that part is highly subjective to the individual or the organization, with much room for interpretation. For people like me, for whom research isn't a major specialty, it was hard to even establish a baseline. On top of that, even within a team, members had often learned from different textbooks or professors, so the techniques each of us preferred and selected were different. And even if all those small? deliberations were resolved, repeatedly applying just a few not-very-deep methodologies still feels like a lot of pressure. So I went and looked outside the book for additional methods and organized them. 

McKinsey & Company

Beyond the book, the first technique I came across as I started researching was a McKinsey & Company? matrix. While googling, I found a post written by OpenSurvey… The y-axis, like Nielsen Norman Group's, is composed by data collection method — behavior (observation) vs. attitude (questions) — and the x-axis is composed of project stages. Since not much additional explanation was provided beyond the image, I went looking through the source — McKinsey's official site, here and there… but I couldn't find it in the end. "If anyone happens to know, please share with me…"

The most easily organized UX research types and selection criteria by situation 

Metrics Research

This is a research framework used by a public agency in Canada. As you'd expect from a public agency, the focus is on what the data means and on whether — and within what range — that data can be used reliably in actual fieldwork.

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/services-for-government/service-experience-digital-delivery/service-content-design

The Product & Service Design Cycle

This methodology is proposed by Susan Farrell Susan Farrell, a researcher at the Nielsen Norman Group. The difference from the previous content is that, instead of taking the perspective of the producer who prepares and offers a product, this provides a research roadmap for each stage based on the user journey — the order in which the user discovers, explores, tests, and evaluates the product. If you're designing a product where the goal is not just development but also requires a customer-centric approach, this is good to consult alongside.

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ux-research-cheat-sheet/ 

UX Research Engine

Next is 'Svenja' from a German software company called 'sovanta'. By including a section in the middle of the research strategy process where you can iterate — like the technique introduced in the user research book from a previous post (the red-arrow part) — this approach struck me as something that would be very useful for projects run in a Lean manner. 

https://sovanta.com/en/ux-research-the-engine-for-your-project

The Research Cheat Sheet

I also found a great article on 'Medium'. The author, 'Elisa Elisa Baliani's, approach felt a bit fresher than the others. She personally felt that because UX research is a field where experts from many different backgrounds collaborate, although the intent is good, each part has different domains and prefers different ways of expressing things, with different criteria — and that creates difficulties. (Yes — really, isn't that exactly true! It resonated with me…) So, in order to improve this, she said she created a single matrix that integrates many different methods, as shown below. 

For reference, as shown in the small image at the bottom right, she explains that you can selectively adopt only the areas needed for each situation and share that selection with stakeholders. 

https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/how-to-pick-the-right-ux-research-method-d8b08a881c0

NCredible Framework

Next, the very famous NCredible Framework. It's a methodology proposed by an old, traditional? company called Twig + Fish — going way back, ha — and given that the most recent posts and workshops on it are still being published, it really lives up to its reputation. The reason, I think, is probably that it goes beyond a framework that simply selects 'research techniques', and instead provides a 'research roadmap' for the entire 'product development' process.

https://story.pxd.co.kr/1580

http://www.twigandfish.com/ncredible-framework

Best time to ask questions

Tomer Sharon's technique was very impressive too. As the author of the book Lean User Research, through this methodology he extracts the key questions for each development stage in a really clean, easy-to-grasp "pinpoint" form. On top of that, by using circle size to express how important each stage's question is — i.e., its weight — he provides a way that should help with intuitive explanation and understanding when used for communication with team members. 

https://medium.com/mytake/validating-product-ideas-lean-user-research-by-tomer-sharon-e3c805601035

UX Research Canvas

Unlike the originators of the other techniques, 'Tomer Sharon' didn't stop with what was introduced above — he was researching new techniques right up to the most recent times! One of these is a method called UX Research Canvas, which not only covers 'research technique' selection and the design of the research 'roadmap', but also includes content for obtaining 'buy-in' from internal stakeholders regarding the techniques applied at each stage. Through this method, Tomer Sharon emphasizes that simply running a UX research project requires 'specific' + 'goals' as a must, but in order to achieve a successful product outcome after the research, what's important is 'collaboration' with each stakeholder — which I personally found very impressive.

https://www.thefountaininstitute.com/blog/ux-research-canvas

More to come... that's all for now.