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General Discussion

Patrick Cooney
Patrick Cooney
12,216 Points
Posted by Patrick Cooney
Patrick Cooney
12,216 Points

Pre-Design User Research

So I finally got the okay at work to do some research into building our first company app. It came out in a sales meeting that some of them would like an app that contains all of our marketing collateral (videos, brochures, data sheets, etc.). Before I jump head first into design and programming I want to do some user research to make sure it's something more than a few want, as well as find out what they want out of it. I'm putting together a google forms survey. I'd like suggestions on what people think are important questions to ask pre-design. So far I have:

  1. Do you own a tablet?

shows only if yes is answered on #1 <br />

  1. What operating system does it run?
  2. Do you currently use your tablet at sales meetings?

shows only if no is answered on #1

  1. Would you consider using one if you had an app at your disposal with all available marketing collateral?

shows only if yes is answered on #3

  1. If there was an app containing all available marketing collateral would you consider using it in meetings?

shows only if yes is answered on #4 or #5

  1. Are there any additional features you'd like to see in an app of this nature other than access to videos and documents?
  2. Would you be willing to act as a beta tester of the app?

Anything obvious you can think of that I'm missing? Thanks.

1 Answer

John W
John W
21,558 Points
John W
John W
21,558 Points

Overall pretty good except for #6.

Never ever ever... ever ever ever... ask a user interview candidate for feature suggestions. It is common for users to propose something interesting but not necessarily useful. Or missed out on something that are useful because they are thinking about those other things. Instead, ask what tasks they want to accomplish with such an app, ask about their pain points with existing options (and what are their existing options). Let them tell you a story wherein things went horribly wrong or fantastically right. Then you can formulate your features based on those data.

Also, if possible, talk to a selected group one-on-one in person. This will ensure greater interaction and dynamics with what you can get out of the research.

Keep in mind this won't be the last time you would want to perform a user research. You can always come back with a prototype and ask the users again for more specific suggestions.

Good luck!

Patrick Cooney
Patrick Cooney
12,216 Points
Patrick Cooney
Patrick Cooney
12,216 Points

Thanks. Good information, I had not thought of asking people what they'd like to see as a bad thing before. You raise a good point though.

Out of curiosity, I've seen you around a lot with helpful information. Do you have previous experience with researching, designing and building apps or is it all stuff you've learned since joining TTH?

John W
John W
21,558 Points

:-)

I have a pretty decent academic background, so I know a lot of the basics with some areas better than others. But at the same time I also have a lot of gaps in my knowledge especially with cutting-edge web technologies, which is why I joined Treehouse. So far TTH has been tremendously helpful for me to fill in those gaps enjoyably.

About researching and designing, I am currently running my own gig with occasional mentorship from a friend of mine who has been doing this stuff professionally for years. He has been giving me a lot of pointers and persuaded me to conduct a proper pre-design user interview a few months ago. If he hadn't done that, the engineer me would've just jumped into coding without the user interview, and may have wasted months working on something no one wants. Otherwise, most of my other experiences all came from reading blogs and checking out what everyone else in the industry is doing/saying.

John Locke
John Locke
15,479 Points
John Locke
John Locke
15,479 Points

+1 to what John W has said. Instead of asking users what features they want, I would frame your questions as what problems do they need solved? What people say they want and what they actually end up paying for are not always the same thing.