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8:01 with May Kim

Understanding the user is one of the most important aspects of product design. Empathetic research is a process informed by deep qualitative data rather than statistical data. It focuses on people rather than technology, and it requires understanding and empathizing with them.

Design Project: Synthesize insights from researching Craigslist customers and create insight statements.

Access the project files in the downloads tab

Research Methods:

Tools:

Realtime Board

[MUSIC] 0:00
Every good design begins with good research. 0:04
Whether you're a designer, a product manager, or 0:08
an engineer, the first step in creating a product is to understand the user and 0:10
define the problem you're trying to solve. 0:15
A good and successful product solves a problem for people. 0:17
Once you've done the research around your users and 0:21
defined the problem, then you can explore all the possible solutions to the problem. 0:23
The first stage of designing a product is called discovery. 0:28
Understanding the user is one of the first and 0:32
most important things you'll need to do as a designer. 0:34
You may have heard the term empathic research, 0:38
which is all about understanding and empathizing with users. 0:40
As designers, we need to better understand who it is that we're designing for 0:44
by observing people, how they behave, and how they think or feel, so 0:48
that we can help solve a problem or a need. 0:53
There is a wide range of research methods out there, 0:56
especially at the early stages of a product. 0:59
There are research methods such as field studies, focus groups, interviewing, or 1:01
surveys that will help you better understand the opportunity or 1:06
the problem you're trying to solve by talking to users. 1:09
Creating personas is also a great way to build empathy. 1:13
Personas help you and your team to keep your users in mind with every decision. 1:16
Whether you're a designer, a product manager, or a developer, 1:22
it's important that every person on the team is thinking about the user, and 1:25
that everyone works together to keep the user 1:29
at the forefront at every stage of the product development process. 1:31
For our project, I want you to go and 1:36
talk to at least ten people who have used Craigslist at least once recently. 1:38
You can choose to interview them in person, or 1:43
you can also send out a quick survey email to your friends, family, or colleagues. 1:45
During this exercise, ask them about their experience with using the product and 1:51
gather any insights. 1:55
Here's a list of questions to help you get started. 1:57
When was the last time you used Craigslist? 2:00
What was it for? 2:03
What types of things do you do on Craigslist? 2:04
And what do you like most about Craigslist? 2:07
What do you like least about Craigslist? 2:09
Tell me about the last time you tried to sell something on Craigslist. 2:12
And tell me about the last time you bought something on Craigslist. 2:16
How often do you use Craigslist? 2:20
What would make you want to use Craigslist more? 2:22
For more tips on how to conduct interviews or 2:25
create interview scripts, refer to the teacher's notes. 2:27
After you've done your research, 2:31
you may be wondering what to do with all that data. 2:33
First, take all the data from your interviews or survey and 2:36
organize them into one place like a spreadsheet. 2:39
You can use the sample spreadsheet provided in the project files as 2:42
a template, or you can create your own. 2:46
Notice that the interview questions are color coded because this will help 2:48
you later on when we begin to organize and analyze the data. 2:52
Once you've finished adding all the data, begin making some initial observations. 2:56
What do users like about using Craigslist? 3:00
What are some common pain points that users are experiencing? 3:03
For example, if the majority of your users are saying that they're worried about 3:06
safety and whether they can trust Craigslist or 3:10
not, that's an opportunity or a problem to solve. 3:12
As you start to look through your data, you can make notes for 3:16
yourself by highlighting or bolding the data that seems important. 3:18
Now it´s time to analyze your data. 3:24
Tracking all the data and finding patterns can be difficult, 3:27
especially when you've got a long spreadsheet full of text. 3:30
Affinity mapping, or affinity diagram, is a tool that gathers large amounts of data 3:34
and organizes them into groups based on their natural relationships. 3:39
It provides a complete picture of the research, showing trends, themes, issues, 3:43
and areas of opportunity for improvement. 3:47
Using sticky notes is a great way to create an affinity map. 3:50
This could be done with real sticky notes, or 3:54
you can do this digitally by using a free product called RealtimeBoard. 3:56
Let's go ahead and open a new browser window, and go to realtimeboard.com. 4:00
RealtimeBoard is an online whiteboard that's useful for 4:05
visual team collaboration. 4:08
You can add sticky notes, images, mockups, drawings, 4:10
videos, etc., onto an endless canvas and share it with your teammates. 4:13
It saves a lot of time and makes collaboration much easier, 4:18
especially if your teammates are working in remote locations. 4:22
The link to the RealtimeBoard website is also in the teacher's notes. 4:25
After you sign up, log in to get started. 4:29
If you're using a Mac computer, you can activate the split screen mode 4:33
by clicking and holding down the full screen icon of your browser. 4:37
You can drop the RealtimeBoard browser into one side of your screen, and 4:40
then drop the Google spreadsheet into the other side. 4:44
You can also resize your split screen window to what works best for you. 4:47
A split screen will help save you a lot of time from switching back and 4:51
forth to different browsers or programs as you work. 4:55
Create a new board in RealtimeBoard and click on the frame tool, 4:58
and choose a custom frame to begin. 5:02
Click on the paint bucket icon to add a color to the background of your frame. 5:11
Then click on the sticky note tool and choose Bulk mode. 5:16
I'm going to assign the color green for 5:19
all of these notes as it corresponds to the color in the spreadsheet. 5:21
Let's start by entering the data for 5:25
the question, what do you like most about Craigslist? 5:27
Once you're done entering your insights for this portion, click Done. 5:53
You can resize the sticky notes so that they can fit into your frame. 5:57
Then continue adding the rest of your data using different color sticky notes that 6:02
match with the color you've assigned in your spreadsheet. 6:06
Once you've gathered your research, 6:17
select the frame and choose the More icon, 6:22
then Duplicate to create a copy of this frame. 6:28
On this new frame, begin to organize and 6:39
group the sticky notes based on similar insights or topics 6:41
Start making observations like, which topics or 6:59
insights were repeated the most, and jot down any notes. 7:02
This will help you create insight statements. 7:05
Here is an example of what your board might look like after you finish grouping. 7:12
Now create a new frame, and then click on the sticky note icon and 7:22
choose a color that you haven't used yet. 7:25
Look at your insights and notes you've taken and 7:29
write insight statements that summarize the main points. 7:31
For example, the summary of these two columns is that 7:35
scammers cause users to feel nervous and worried. 7:38
You can write an insight statement like, users are worried, nervous, and 7:42
furious because of scammers and scam posts. 7:45
Here are the insight statements I came up with from my research. 7:55

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