Research Documentation

About the Research Documentation 

I firmly believe that your research outcome depends a lot on how much preparation you have done. I have seen many research projects fail to give real outcomes only because they were poorly planned and documented. Documenting research findings in a report is as important as conducting the research itself. Anyone can gather data but there are very few good researchers who have the ability to analyze these findings to give real valuable insights to bring change. 

Sometimes I can be a real pain in the neck for my researchers when I ask them to work on their documents but I am glad they now understand the importance of it. 

About Moderator Guides 

We all know that structured user research surely needs a lot of planning, preparation, and documentation but it is a misconception that purposeful unstructured research doesn't need any of these things.

I give utmost importance to creating a good Moderator Guide so that any moderator with some experience can conduct research sessions.

No matter which user research method you are using for conducting research, you need a good Moderator guide.

Following are some examples of the Moderator Guide I have designed.

Showcase

Following images show some screenshots from the Moderator guides I have prepared. I will present the documents to you upon request. 

About Research Recommendations Sheet 

It is extremely important to track all the recommendations in one sheet at least for a quarter. Once the research is completed researchers take up the next project and recommendations from the previous research are forgotten. To avoid this we created a sheet to track all the research recommendations, and this helped not only stakeholders but also researchers to understand how useful their research was. 

About Personas 

I think most companies and their leadership don't really understand the hidden power of personas and know how to use them. I have seen many persona documents never referred to after they are created.

The best thing to do is print your personas and paste them on the walls. This definitely generates a lot of discussion and everyone knows who is the target user. 

The Process 

Generally speaking, hypothesis personas are created first based on the current understanding of the product.

After that, user research is conducted to gather data about user goals, aspirations, pain points motivations, etc. I think these user research sessions should be used as an opportunity to understand the 'why' behind all that is mentioned above and try to understand deeper and unconscious aspects of user behavior. Techniques such as 5 why, and active listening need to be used by a skilled researcher. Also, I think conducting interviews or focus groups is one thing and analysis is another. a LOT depends on how good qualitative data analytical skills you have. 

Once user research is completed, hypothesis personas are validated and updated based on the data gathered. I have found User Interviews and Focus group sessions to be very useful for validating hypotheses and then making updates to the personas. 

Showcase  

Following are some of the personas I have created from various products I have worked on. Note that these personas are created after a good research. 

Benefits

Personas have helped our teams to be focused on the users we are designing products for. One of the best things to do is take big printouts and paste them on the walls of the office where everyone can easily see them. 

In one of my companies, I have seen this generating many conversations over tea time and slowly building empathy in the team for our users.

Sometimes I think it is unfortunate that most people ignore personas once they go through the initial research findings and start working on the product. I have seen products taking different directions and slowly losing focus on the target users' goals, motivations and needs.

It helps team members remain focused on users' needs if we keep all our conversations during the brainstorming around the personas created.