Getting into Your Head: Our Plans for User Research in 2011

Highlights from the Fishbowl retreat continue! If you missed our previous post about our development process, check it out.

One part of our process and general strategy is the focus on making data-driven decisions about web development and design.  By collecting many different types of data, we hope to have a better understanding of user behavior, and as a result, improve the site’s usability and ensure a greater relevance to our users.

Some of the research methods we’ll be employing more regularly this year are:

Focus Groups: a form of qualitative research in which a targeted group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, and attitudes toward a product.
• Beta Testers: a group of representative users who complete tasks relevant to their real-life use of the site, and answer pointed questions about the usefulness of specific features.
• A/B Testing: simultaneously displaying differing live versions of a page to different user segments in order to gather data comparing the control to a variable of layout, copy text, or other design elements.
Usability Testing: watching people use what has been (or will be) created to see if it works as intended and that tasks can be completed efficiently, accurately, and without frustration.
Inherent Value Testing: a usability testing technique that can measure how the site communicates the product’s inherent value to new users.

Other tools we’ll use to gather information:

Google Analytics to measure traffic, pageviews, etc
• Internal Reporting Tool (TBD) to measure content, user behavior
• Get Satisfaction – online forum for user questions, problems, and ideas.
• Salesforce – a CRM that helps us organize and respond to user emails, and prioritize the most common questions and difficulties.
• Pop-up surveys (a survey question integrated during or after a common flow)

If you’re interested in participating in any kind of user research, sign up here!

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