What we do | Research

In detail

"Usability is a waitress"
Gary Bunker

Imagine walking into a five star restaurant, and having the chef decide on your behalf what you want to eat. Sure, the food will be of a high quality - but is it the food you wanted? Probably not.

The same is true in design - no matter how good your designers are, they can't get it right unless they know what's needed. In this sense, we are 'the waitress'. If you know your customer (or user, or employee, or business partner) you can design for a perfect fit.

In many cases requirements build up for a project over time. Often these requirements are not well defined (make it 'fast'!), are not well understood (it has to be 'clean') or are contradictory (it has to be simple - but make sure it's got every feature they might ever need). We help you to research what the true business need is, and to attach this to source and to design implementation.

We also help to define the audience need, whether that is end users, customers, partners, internal employees or a combination of all the above.

 

Specifically, our research services include:

• Card sorting
  Research that pulls user terminology and grouping from their thought processes and analyses it, so that your product/website can be structured in the same way. If your interface matches the way they group/label things in their heads, they find things (and use/buy them) far faster.
• User profiling / persona creation
  Research into how the audience are and what their context of use might be. This helps when you are 'designing for everyone'. It brings user advocates into your design team.
• Contextual research
  Research into the context of use for any interface, allowing you to understand what is happening when it is being used. Context is king when it comes to designing the right interface.
• Ethnographic study
  Research into how and where the interface will be used. This helps to set the context of use, and to understand what other products/interfaces/factors need to be considered. For example with a recent airline client this highlighted the need for higher contrast in the design, due to environmental lighting factors.
• Diary study
  Research that allows users to self-report on context and use, building a depth picture of what happens in the real world. This can be more cost-effective and/or far reaching than ethnographic studies.
• Expert evaluation
  Research into how well a design is currently working, and how it compares. This can include comparative analysis with previous/future versions, with competitors, and/or with best practice design examples. We help you to quickly see what works, what doesn't and what opportunities exist to improve.
• Requirements gathering/analysis/definition
  Research into the needs for an interface, both from the business and end user perspective.