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How to run your own user research project

Carolyn Gearig

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What is this?

  • A system we made to allow for teams at WBU to conduct their own user research
  • Workflows, documentation and more

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An important disclaimer!

  • This is an intro to the documentation and how everything works
  • We’ll start testing this together as you all decide on what kinds of research you want to do on your teams
  • I am the point person for this work, and I’m here to help you get this all done successfully, so I know it’s overwhelming to see all this at once, but you won't be expected to do it alone

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Documentation around using WhereByUX

Documentation around running your own user research project

Where you’ll store all of your notes / transcripts / survey results / etc for your user research project

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Two guiding documents

  • User research workflow
    • Lives in “User documentation” folder
    • Overview of how to run a project: meetings, writing a research plan, conducting research, sensemaking, retro, etc with relevant documents linked throughout
  • Research plan outline
    • Lives in “Project folders” folder; make a copy for each project
    • This is where you’ll initially scope out your project, and then refine it in scoping meeting

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5 parts of running a research project

  • Roughly divided into 5 sprints of work, could be condensed

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5 parts of running a research project

  • Initial research planning (Sprint 1)
    • Make a folder under “project folders” for your project, and copy over the retro, sensemaking and research plan documents
    • Fill out the first part of the research plan, and grab 15 minutes with Carolyn if you need some guidance with your initial thinking
    • Fill out second part in meeting with product, and finalize plan

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5 parts of running a research project

  • Scheduling and conducting research (Sprints 2-4)

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5 parts of running a research project

  • Compiling results (Sprint 4)
    • Take 15 minutes after an interview to write down takeaways, or an hour after you’ve gotten your survey results to articulate basic takeaways
    • Get an interview transcripts using our documentation
    • Drop recordings/transcriptions or survey results in project folder
    • Lots of documents:

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5 parts of running a research project

  • Sensemaking (Sprint 5)
    • 1 hour meeting with product, fill out sensemaking template
    • Articulate observations, insights and next steps

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5 parts of running a research project

  • Catalog + retro meeting (Sprint 5)
    • Catalog sensemaking results, data collection projects and research participants in WBUX
    • 1 hour retro + cataloguing meeting; first half cataloguing, second half retro
    • Documents:

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Some helpful documentation

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Questions?