User Research
The Screen Options allow you to choose which dashboard metab...User researchUser research focuses on understanding user behaviors, needs... focuses on understanding user behaviors, needs, and motivations through observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies. When you create a website, it is almost always for someone else—a person with different life experiences, at a different age, with different backgrounds, and a set of criteria that is important to them for completing a task that might be totally different from what you’re imagining.
Sometimes, we come to a problem feeling like we know our users and audience because we work with them every day. Although working with your audience daily will give you more insight than never interacting with them at all, it’s important to remember that the insight you have is limited and filtered by the information your audience chooses to bring to you using questions, forms, and other methods of communication. When you rely on intuition, filtered information, or research that isn’t asking the right questions to achieve your goals, you only see the possibilities for solving a problem and discover areas of improvement that you and your audience already know. Well-planned user research helps your team discover new (and sometimes more efficient) ways of solving problems, and it uncovers areas to explore that you or your audience may not have consciously thought about yet.
User research covers a broad range of topics across all stages of a project. Here are just a few sample questions a user researcherUser research focuses on understanding user behaviors, needs... can help you navigate:
- Is my current navigationNavigation is the term used to describe text on a page that,... effective and easy to navigate?
- Where are my users expecting to find (X)?
- How can we make the application process smoother for our prospective students?
- Where does my audience click first on our website to find (X)?
- Is my website following best practices for usability?
- Are there any improvements we could make to (X) feature?
- What are the most critical points I need to address to ensure a prospective graduate student commits to our program once they’ve been accepted?
- How can I most effectively address the needs of my prospective students, transfer students, and international students?
- I want to build (X). Will this idea provide a good return on my website investment?
- What features of (X) should I prioritize to make the best use of my time and budget?
User research and data analysisA data analyst is professionally trained in organizing, unde... go hand in hand to explore questions from different angles. Data analysis looks at a history of existing tools and behaviors and shows you their actual usage over time, completely outside the lens of wants, needs, or beliefs. User research explores problems from both a qualitative as well as quantitative standpoint, and it examines what a user wants and believes to be the solution to a problem, as well as how a user might reactReact (also known as React.js or ReactJS) is a JavaScript li... to or use a proposed solution. Both types of research have overlap and can provide important context to each other to reveal a better understanding of a problem as a whole.
User Research Offerings
We can answer a wide variety of questions using research in Interactive DesignInteractive design is part of Boston University’s award-wi.... The presentation below will introduce you to the possibilities available and when each might be a good fit for a particular situation.
If you have a problem you want to solve using user research, contact your Interactive Design account executiveAccount management manages relationships and projects with c....