User Research

Yesterday was April Fool’s Day. And what I thought was a totally crazy joke, turned out to have a lot of interest.

For the gag I forwarded an old message to the building list serve to my staff but changed the subject and content of the message.

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Last week a client asked me that very question, “What are the best labels to use on this website?” ADGi had been engaged to complete an assessment of the company’s current website's information architecture.

In 2008 I led a large intranet implementation project where the senior sponsors demanded that there be a governance plan developed. But when asked what governance meant, they were mostly interested in making sure that content was updated and that there be some form of oversight to ensure that business units were using the same platform for sharing information.

One of the main attributes of the design work we at ADGi do (and when I say design I mean interaction design and information architecture, not so much visual design) is that all of it is evidence-based. That is, all of it, and I really mean all of it, every interaction, every node in the site map, is driven out of user research and expert analysis.

A usability study, is that like a focus group?

Clients sometimes ask this question when we start talking about doing usability testing on their website or product. The answer is “well sort of, but not really.”

Until recently I hadn't found a particularly compelling reason to use Twitter. Some of my colleagues raved about it but it just didn't interest me. Recently, however, I found a good use for Twitter - recruiting for a user research study.

I’ve always hated card sorts, they’re the sucker punch of user research. The goal of user research is to find out about user behaviors,  preferences, current experience, expectations and so on. We are seeking to understand user needs or requirements.