This is a workshop I gave at 500 Startups on incorporating user research early on in your product definition. 500 Startups is a new kind of seed fund and startup accelerator. We believe successful internet startups are born from usable design, customer-focused metrics, and online distribution.

1. Building a Successful Product
from a User Experience Researcher’s point of view
@dianeloviglio
April 2012
#500strong #research

2. Architecture & Anthropology
Startup Founder
UX Researcher

3. Solving problems at...

4. Workshop
- Why do user research
- How to recruit the right people
- write a screener
- promote your screener
- select interview participants
- How to learn about those people
- write an interview script
- conduct an interview
- take notes and collect artifacts

5. What problem is your
startup solving?

6. What do you want to know
about your current or
potential users?

7. Why User Research?
gain empathy
Ethnography Usability
their motivations
their values
their needs
their behaviors

8. “Understanding past and
current behaviors to use
those as a proxy for
future behaviors.”
-me

9. Screener vs Survey
- used to recruit the users - used to make charts/graphs
for your research study and draw conclusions
- no more than 10 questions - gazillion questions
- doesn’t use any branching - can use complicated logic
- a researcher’s tool - a marketer’s tool

13. Tips on Writing Screeners
• Put incentive upfront in the description
• Don’t make any question required
• Start easy and broad eg: type of smartphone
• When enumerating always make other an option
• Add at least one open ended question
• Always ask for first name and email or phone as last questions
• Include the exact times and locations of the interviews
• Don’t use any branching logic
• Keep it to 10 questions

14. Write a screener

15. Promoting Your Screener
• place-specific people - touristy spot, farmer’s market
• current customers
• personal networks
• email
• twitter - #competitor’s company @specific people
• facebook - ads, fan pages - no spamming :)
• linkedin - status updates, group admins
• places where they hang out online - groups, forums
• have people you know post it on your behalf
• craigslist as a last resort

16. Selecting Interview Participants
• variety from each question
• interesting use cases eg: iphone and android tablet
• ones who pique your interest from the open ended q’s
• ones who completed the whole form and didn’t skip q’s

17. Tips on Writing Interview Scripts
• Re-ask 1 or 2 screener questions
• Include time estimates for each section
• Ask open ended questions
Who, What, Where, When, Why, How
• Ask about specific times, NOT how often
• Ask about the past, not the future
• Get them to tell you stories, not just answer your questions
• Give them activities to do, so you have artifacts afterwards

18. Write an interview script

19. Tips on Conducting Interviews
• Let them do 90% of the talking
• Leave awkward moments of silence
• Follow up with “tell me more”
• Bring another person with you to be your notetaker
• Take notes - timestamped in Excel
• Record with Flip cameras, or screenflow, skype, etc if remote
• Call them out on inconsistencies and ask for clarification
• Break up the talking with little activities eg: drawing, timelines etc

20. Timeline
12am
2am
4am
6am
8am
10am
Noon
2pm
4pm
6pm
8pm
10pm

21. Me In the Middle

22. Interview the person sitting
next to you

23. Building a Successful Product
from a User Experience Researcher’s point of view
@dianeloviglio
April 2012
#500strong #research